[1][2] The British musicologist Cecil Sharp collected the best-known version of the song in 1917 in the area of the Eastern Kentucky Coalfield.
[2] Josiah Combs had previously collected it in the same area, and other versions were found later in the century by Creighton in Nova Scotia, by Randolph in Missouri, and even in New Jersey.
[7][5] A second is that it might refer to the English Civil War, in which Charles I of England raised his first army around Nottingham: a popular theme at the time with diarists and pamphleteers was 'The World Turned Upside Down'.
[9] "Teague's Ramble" and various imitations were printed in several English or Scottish broadsides of c.1740, as well as in Boston, Massachusetts as early as 1748;[10] its tune was used to set a number of other songs and was performed "with variations" on the Dublin stage in 1750.
By the early 19th century a popular broadside version called "Paddy's Ramble to London" was circulating in America, and may have formed the source for "Nottamun Town".
Shirley Collins and Davy Graham’s 1964 recording, an important addition to the second British folk revival, likewise bears a close similarity to Ritchie’s.