This ballad has had a life in a number of traditions, including Medieval English all the way to American Appalachian. The tune even crops up in Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War.” It’s a great tune with a set of contradicting lyrics that seem to obfuscate a deeper meaning, whether that is true or not. The video is the legendary Bert Jansch‘s gritty version of the song.
From Wikipedia:
The song is fairly popular in the English Midlands, particularly in Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Southern Yorkshire and Northamptonshire, which lends credence to the theory that the Nottamun in the song is a corruption of Nottingham.
Theories abound as to the meaning of the song, but two are generally accepted as probable:
1. That it derives from the Feast of Fools or Mummers’ Plays and their absurd topsy-turvy worlds.
2. That it refers to the English Civil War. In this war, Charles I of England raised his first army around Nottingham, and it may be a corruption of that city’s name that gives the song its title. A popular theme at the time with diarists and pamphleteers was ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ and there are many famous woodcuts dating from this period with illustrations of cats chasing dogs, men wearing boots on their hands and the like.
Nottamun Town
In Nottamun Town, not a soul would look up,
Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down
Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down
To show me the way to fair Nottamun Town
I bought me a horse twas called a grey mare
Grey mane and grey tail and green stripe on her back
Grey mane and grey tail and green stripe on her back
Weren’t a hair upon her that was not coal black
