gay They talked all the while, not a word they did say I bought me a quart to drive gladness away And to stifle the dust, for it rained the whole day Sat down on a hard, hot cold frozen stone Ten thousand stood round me yet I was alone Took my hat in my hand, for to keep my head warm Ten thousand got drowned that never was born Although Ritchie believed the song had only been preserved in her family, very similar versions were known locally only a few years earlier. The Kentucky song collector Josiah Combs found a text printed in 1910 in a chapbook Wehman Bros' Good Old-Time Songs, No. 1 as "Fair Nottingham Town", and collected a nearly identical oral version in 1910 from State Senator Hilliard Smith, including additional stanzas, under the title "Fair Nottamon Town": As I went down to Nottamon fair I rode a stone horse they called the gray mare; She had a green list down her back: And there wasn't a hair but what was coal black. She stood still, but she threw me in the mud She daubed my hide and bruised my shirt, From saddle to stirrup I mounted her again, And on my ten toes rode over the plain. I met the king and the queen and a company more A-riding behind and walking before, And a stark naked drummer a-beating his drum, With his heels in his ass a-marching along. I asked them the way to fair Nottamon town, They were so mad not a soul look-ed down- They were so mad not a soul look-ed down To tell me the way to fair Nottamon town. When I got there, no one could I see, They all stood around a-looking at me; I called for a quart to drive gladness away, To stifle the dust - it had rained the whole day. I sat on a cold hot frozen stone, Ten thousand standing 'round me, yet I was alone; Ten thousand got drownded before they were born, I took my hat in my hand to keep my head warm. Then I'll take my black horse and a-fishing I'll go, A-fishing I'll go, whether or no; My fish they turned over, my wagon did spill - I'll sell my gray mare - I'll be damned if I will! The first girl I have, it shall be a