@Matthew,

The reference is in Dorothy Scarborough's book "ON THE TRAIL OF NEGRO FOLK-SONGS":

P.61/2

" Professor Kittredge says: "Skewball is Irish. I enclose a text. The piece is com­mon in English broadsides. Readings vary in details. You will note that the Squire is the owner, not the judge. It's obviously absurd for the Squire to talk to the rider (as in stanza 5). Probably, if we had a correct text, it would be Skewball who addresses the rider — just as he spoke to his master in an earlier stanza. That would be a good touch. And, in fact, in one version (in a broadside) I find — in addition to the stanza in which the Squire speaks to the rider — the following:

'When that they came to the middle of the course,
Skewball and his rider began a discourse,
Come, my brave rider, come tell unto me,
How far is Miss Grizzle this moment from me.'

This is a Manchester (England) broadside (Bebbington, No. 206). In this version the mare with whom Skewball races is called 'Miss Grizzle."'



It's the "Miss Grizzle" reference I'm interested in, as I haven't come across it in any other English broadsides - only in Irish versions.

Seán.