The English travellers' versions of many songs are full of misheard words and if I learn them, I never correct them but sing them just as I heard them being sung. Uncle and nephew Tom & Chris Willett sung a lovely version of Down By The Tanyard Side in unison which was collected about five miles from our house which is one of the reasons why Tina and I try to sing it in the same manner. This means that when we get to verse four we sing....

Now, adieu to all requaintances....

I have been asked several times why we don't sing "acquaintances" and I really don't know why we don't except to say that this way the way he heard it sung.
Jasper and Levi Smith - Caroline Hughes - all three were great singers and often sung totally garbled versions of ballads. In Caroline's (and other west country travellers') versions of The Blacksmith the standard version lines:-

And if I was with my love
I would live forever.

is replaced by:-

He made the sparkles fly
All around my middle.

Not quite so poetic but much more evocative and much sexier to my mind.
I sing her version of The Famous Flower of Serving Men which strays away from the printed Child versions but I would not change a word.
I remember Martin Carthy introducing Jasper & Levi's version of Geordie and saying "It's as if he had written out each line on a seperate piece of paper, thrown them all in the air and then sang them in the order that he picked them up." but then, apart from repeating the first verse, he sings the words that Mike Yates recorded.

On the, sadly occasional, times that we are in a singing session with Rod & Danny Stradling, I notice that their attitudes towards not changing the traveller versions are the same as ours.