From Robert Shelton's No Direction Home (p. 155):
The eerie melody of this old modal song, believed to be an old magic song from an English mummers' play, has been handed down via Jean Ritchie's singing of "Nottamun town". Ritchie affixed the copyright of her Geordie Music Publishing Company on "Nottamun" in 1964. Geordie made claims against Dylan for use of the melody but he successfully maintained that his variant and his original words made a new song.
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