The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #5830 Message #2548717
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
25-Jan-09 - 10:19 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Roger the Miller and the Grey Mare
Subject: RE: Roger the Miller (The Grey Mare)
Discussions like this one are never going to be fully comprehensive. Here we began with an enquiry about an arrangement recorded by a popular revival performer; although we learned that she had the song from Frank Harte, that line went no further; now, though, Jim has provided a traditional source for that version.
There followed a flurry of texts (none with tunes) from Scottish and American collections, and Joe copied-and-pasted the entry from the Traditional Ballad Index, which is now out of date. Here is a link to the current entry there, which has the advantage that it will still lead to future updated entries:
http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/LP08.html
The song is number 680 in the Roud Folk Song Index, which provides the most extensive references to traditional versions in print and MS collections -and audio recordings where such exist- that you will find anywhere. There is no need to list them all here.
We then wandered off into discussion of Phil Tanner's set (referred to as 'Snuffy's version' in 'Fidjit's' post), and that was an end of it for the time.
Although an English song dating from the early C19 (just possibly the final years of the C18) it has been found far more often in the USA and Canada than in England. You'll notice that 'Roger' has become 'Jimmy' or 'Jemmy' in some of the American texts posted earlier; this change perhaps derives from a broadside edition printed by Nathaniel Coverly of Boston, where he is 'Young Johnny the miller'.
The set in Marrow Bones, like most oral versions, derives from the later English broadside form, rather shortened by comparison with early examples. Mr Oliver's text wasn't precisely as printed in the book; Frank Purslow amended it in places, and added most of the third verse, from another text (without tune) noted from a [Mr] Whittear somewhere in Hampshire in November 1906.
Marrow Bones was reprinted by EFDSS in 2007, fully revised and corrected, with extensive new notes on the songs and other background material. It is available from specialist outlets including http://folkshop.efdss.org/.