Note Note — No 80 CONSTANT JOHNNY

80. Constant Johnny. Words and melody taken down from Roger Luxton. It was a dialogue, and so Mr. Sheppard had arranged it. Such lover dialogues are and were very commonly sung in farmhouses. Ravenscroft gives one in broad Devonshire in his "Brief Discourse," 1614, entitled, "Hodge Trellindle and his Zweethart Malkyn." Our ballad seems to be based on "Doubtful Robin and Constant Nanny," circ. 1680, in the "Roxburgh Ballads."