"Nottamun Town", also known under other titles such as "Nottingham Fair" and "Fair Nottamon Town" is an English and American folk song. The song is thought to be of medieval origin brought to North America during the early colonial era and preserved in oral tradition, it is more likely derived from popular 18th and 19th century printed broadsides, with the most likely immediate precursor being the 19th century "Paddy's Ramble to London". Cecil Sharp collected the best-known version of the song in 1917 in the area of the Eastern Kentucky coalfield from Jean Ritchie's older sister Una. 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 a version in New Jersey. The Kentucky song collector Josiah Combs found a text printed in 1910 in a chapbook Wehman Bros' Good Old-Time Songs, No. 1 as "Fair Nottingham Town" and collected a nearly identical oral version in 1910 from State Senator Hilliard Smith, including additional stanzas, under the title "Fair Nottamon Town". One theory is that the song is of medieval origin and derives from a song associated with an English Mummers' play, which often featured absurd topsy-turvy imagery. A second theory is that it might refer to the English Civil War, in which Charles I raised his first army around Nottingham: a popular theme at the time with diarists and pamphleteers was 'The World Turned Upside Down'. The melody was used by Bob Dylan for his 1963 song "Masters of War" on the album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. It was also recorded by Jean Ritchie on Kentucky Mountain Songs (1954) and on A Time for Singing (1965), Roger McGuinn and Jean Ritchie on Treasures from the Folk Den (2001), Fairport Convention on What We Did on Our Holidays (1969) and Bert Jansch on Jack Orion (1966). It is included in the Roud Folk Song Index as #1044. It was printed in Ritchie's Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians (1965) and Una Ritchie's version is printed in Sharp's English Folk-Songs from the Southern Appalachians (1932).