Phil Tanner's version (1937?,1948?) of YOUNG ROGER ESQUIRE is almost exactly word-for word as the version Joe posted from Kennedy, The Folksongs of Britain and Ireland (1975).

However, Tanner consistently omits lines 3 and 4 of each verse (except in verse 4, which is exactly as in Kennedy). Did he really sing it like that, or did the record company deliberately "edit" it to make it fit on a 78 record, making Kennedy's text an accurate record of Tanner's actual performance?

YOUNG ROGER ESQUIRE
as sung by Phil Tanner, Folktrax 057 Phil Tanner of the Gower

Young Roger, Esquire, came a-courting of late,
To a rich farmer's daughter called beautiful Kate;
And she for her fortune had five thousand pounds
With rich rings and jewels
With rich rings and jewels and a piece of fine ground.

The day being appointed and the money laid down,
Was not that a fine fortune of five thousand pound,
Young Roger he swore by his curly long hair
I'll not wed your daughter
I'll not wed your daughter without the grey mare."

Then spoke up her father and thus say-ed he,
"I thought that you love-d my daughter indeed.
But as I have got her thus far in my care
You shall not have my daughter
You shall not have my daughter nor yet the grey mare."

Twelve months being over and a little above
Young Roger, Esquire, met Katie, his love.
Saying:" Katie, loving Katie, O don't you know me?"
"Such a man of your likeness I chance for to see
Such a man of your likeness with curly long hair
That once came a-courting
That once came a-courting
My father's grey mare"

Says Roger to Katie, "Them words I'll deny
And the truth of the story I will on you try.
I thought that your father would have made no dispute
But to give me his daughter
But to give me his daughter
And the grey mare to boot"