...and it doesn't stop there Doctor. 'Sportsmen Arouse' is an example where for aeons (well a long time anyway) we've sung 'relope, relope, retiring hare...etc', it wasn't until we'd looked into it and realised that the lyric must be 'elope'...which definition is given as 'to run away'. Of course we'll sing 'relope' until we die. But it's nice to know - sometimes. We can forgive Brasser completely (actually there's nothing to forgive) as he was essentially unletterd and being born before the 1870 Education Act was put to work at 8 years, therefore receiving no formal education. At the age of eighteen or thereabouts he attended a sort of dame school in the evening with his bother Tom where they both learned the rudiments of the three 'R's - rendering, reading and reckoning. It stood them both in good stead and as a result Brasser became the bailiff on the farm and his brother a successful publican. His spelling may be 'free style' but it's absolutely charming and the hours of toil and labour of love that produced his songbook is a hugely cherished document in the family.