The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #169318   Message #4165661
Posted By: Steve Gardham
20-Feb-23 - 05:14 PM
Thread Name: Lyr ADD: Roger's Courtship
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Roger's Courtship
All you need is the Roud Index for 575 for the different versions.
Yes it's p171 in FSUT, also in Baring Gould's Songs of the West, and the
Greig-Duncan Collection, Sam Henry's Songs of the People. Veteran Tapes has several recordings. It was given in Notes and Queries at various times in the 19thc. Sharp collected at least 3 versions. As well as the version in Marrow bones we gave another in Southern Harvest.

Although we have the Universal Songster version from 1826 I don't appear to have a broadside copy yet. This earliest text is titled 'Poor Bob' and indeed in one of the Notes & Queries versions it's titled 'Robin in Search of a Wife'. Southern versions call him Jan but later versions are nearly all Roger.

Baring Gould claims an earlier song in the Roxburgh Ballads is related but that is not the case. The 2 versions of the song given there are just parental advice to a son and have no text or plot in common.