The Derby Ram (song)

The Derby Ram or As I was Going to Derby is a traditional tall tale English folk song (Roud 126) that tells the story of a ram of gargantuan proportions and the difficulties involved in butchering, tanning, and otherwise processing its carcass.

Llewellyn Jewitt wrote about the song in his The Ballads and Songs of Derbyshire of 1867, asserting that song had been alluded to for at least a century before that. By some accounts, US President George Washington once sang "The Derby Ram" to the twin sons of Oliver Ellsworth, William Wolcott Ellsworth and Henry Leavitt Ellsworth (b. 1791), while staying at the Ellsworth home in 1796 during one of his visits to Hartford, Connecticut.

The song and the association of a ram with the town of Derby and used by a number of groups based there. In 1855, the First Regiment of Derbyshire Militia adopted a ram as their mascot and the ballad as their regimental song, a tradition that has continued into the 95th Derbyshire Regiment. Similarly, the football team, Derby County F.C. (nicknamed "The Rams"), have adopted it as their anthem, also taking the ram as their club mascot. There are a number of References to a ram throughout the architecture of Derby – perhaps the most notable is a large street sculpture on the junction of East Street and Albion Street by Michael Pegler.

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