The song was collected in the village of Hook, Pembrokeshire by Andrew Nisbet and passed to Martin Carthy in 1966, who first recorded it on his album with Dave Swarbrick before joining Steeleye Span.

Andrew was a member of The Derby Rams (the resident folk group at Swansea University) who also performed the song.

"The False Knight on the Road" is one of the Child Ballads (#3), and concerns a boy's contest with the devil in a game of riddles.

Tim Hart and Maddy Prior had already recorded a version of the song on their album Summer Solstice.

The band uses the earliest printed version of the song, from Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy by Thomas d'Urfey.

Music journalist Colin Irwin describes it in his book In Search of Albion as one of his favourite folk-rock albums.

Remaining copies were bought up by a couple of the 'cut-out' distributors and by that time, the band had signed with Chrysalis and the cut-out original sold very well.

Musically, this was their most electric, dense recording, with loud guitars and strong looping bass lines and no drums.

In 2006, Castle Music re-issued the album as a double CD with numerous additional tracks, taken from radio and TV appearances.