The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #110653 Message #2323437
Posted By: GUEST, Sminky
23-Apr-08 - 06:29 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Edward Jorgen - Micklesmoor Road?
Subject: Origins: Edward Jorgen - Micklesmoor Road?
In BUSHES AND BRIARS Folk Songs collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams (ed Roy Palmer) appears a song entitled 'Edward Jorgen'. Here is the first verse:
O Edward Jorgen is my name, and lately I to England came; To Manchester my friends to see, which then did cause my destiny. On Micklesmoor Road I was taken near by policemen, as you shall hear. I tried my pistol, my dagger drew, thinking to run their bodies through.
In the second verse our 'hero' is captured, taken to 'New Buildings Prison' and shipped off to Liverpool for committal.
I know that placenames were often changed to suit the locality in which the song was sung, but I'm intrigued by the street name and wondered if it might yield a clue to the song's true origin (if not Lancashire).
Micklesmoor sounds more Yorkshire than Lancashire to me and, just to add to the confusion, the song was collected by RVW in Norfolk!
SOOOO -
Is/was there a Micklesmoor Road near you? Or was it a corruption of something else? Or was it a complete fabrication?