"Could sound like "Oxborough" to the uninitiated.
It could, of course, and what you say might be a clue to the song's origins; none of this is in any way definitive, but it certainly makes better sense to me than proclaiming that 90+% of our songs originated on the 'English' broadside presses - who knows; Steve might have discovered the first version to have come from Australia.
While I have a minute - another (this time) genre of song

BROKEN TOKEN SONGS
I have always had difficulty with the motif of breaking a (particularly gold) ring in half; it always conjured up the picture of a young man rambling around the countryside armed with a hacksaw, just in case.
While Pat and I were working on the notes for 'Lady' in Her Father's Garden on 'From Puck to Appleby' she linked the motif with a custom popular up to the 17th century of 'gimmal rings'.
While the custom seemed to have died out, it was still to be found in odd places in rural England; if my memory serves me right Sergeant Troy gives one to his lover Fanny in 'Far From The Madding Crowd'.
Would such an outdated custom be part of the hacks armoury or would it be part of the experience of the few places that retained it - would it have any relevance to any potential customer; if not, why base a whole genre of songs on it?
This is the the note we did for Wexford Traveller Mary Cash's version of the song - again, nothing definitive, just an attempt to make sense of something we didn't really understand.

This is probably one of the most popular of all the 'broken token' songs, in which parting lovers are said to break a ring in two, each half being kept by the man and woman. At their reunion, the man produces his half as a proof of his identity.
Robert Chambers, in his Book of Days, 1862-1864, describes a betrothal custom using a 'gimmal' or linked ring:

" Made with a double and sometimes with a triple link, which turned upon a pivot, it could shut up into one solid ring... It was customary to break these rings asunder at the betrothal which was ratified in a solemn manner over the Holy Bible, and sometimes in the presence of a witness, when the man and woman broke away the upper and lower rings from the central one, which the witness retained. When the marriage contract was fulfilled at the altar, the three portions of the ring were again united, and the ring used in the ceremony".
These 'broken token' songs often end with the woman flinging herself into the returned lover's arms and welcoming him back, but the above version has it differently and, Mary Delaney, who also sang it for us, had the suitor even more firmly rejected:

"For it's seven years brings an alteration,
And seven more brings a big change to me,
Oh, go home young man, choose another sweetheart,
Your serving maid I'm not here to be."

Ref: The Book of Days, Robert Chambers, W & R Chambers, 18133-64.
Jim Carroll