The Derby Ram

The song was extremely popular in Britain by the eighteenth century, and naturally travelled to North America with settlers where it was thought to have been sung by George Washington.

[2] The tradition could have originated as the Anglo Saxon pagan midwinter ram-ritual (most prevalent in the North Midlands and South Yorkshire), which involved a singing and dancing procession of men accompanying a figure dressed as a sacred animal (often a goat or a ram) which represented a life-giving, seed-proliferating god.

Lloyd stated that the song was sung by village youths who travelled house-to-house at midwinter (as with many other traditions such as wassailing and souling), one of whom was "dressed in sheepskin to represent the old Tup".

[2] In the Middle Ages, mummers performed plays which involved far-fetched tales and men dressed as animals, which probably included the Derby ram.

[7] Dozens of other traditional English singers from all over England have been recorded singing variants of the song, including William Rew of Devon (1954),[8] Ben Baxter of Norfolk (1955),[9] Kathleen Gentle of Westmorland (1968),[10] Adge Blackburn of Lincolnshire (1970),[11] Les Hartley of Yorkshire (1975),[12] Bob Mills of Hampshire (1981),[13] and naturally many traditional singers in Derbyshire.

The traditional singer Jeannie Robertson sang a version learnt from her mother to Hamish Henderson in 1960,[19] which can be heard on the Tobar an Dualchais website.

[22] James Madison Carpenter recorded several versions in the 1920s and 1930s, around northeastern England and Scotland, all of which can be heard on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website.

Notable American performers of the song include the famous Appalachian singer Jean Ritchie, who sang her family version to Alan Lomax in 1949,[29] which can be heard online.

[30] Fellow Appalachians Bascam Lamar Lunsford (1928, 1937 and 1956),[31][32][33] Fiddlin' John Carson (1930),[34] Doug Wallin (1983)[35] also recorded versions learnt within their communities.

British folk rock band Erland and the Carnival released a version of the song on their 2010 self-titled album, changing the lyrics to refer to a suicide which occurred in Derby in 2008.

[51] The song features as a sea shanty sung by pirates in the video game Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.