Four Loom Weaver

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Four Loom Weaver (Roud 1460), also known as "Joan O'Grinfield" or "The Poor Cotton Weaver" is a rarely performed 19th-century English lament on starvation. According to Axon website (Axon) it was written by Joseph Lees of Glodwick, near Oldham in the 1790s. After the Napoleonic wars it was revived or re-written, due to economic hard times, when weavers were reduced to eating nettles. It is found on Broadsides in Manchester up to the 1880s, but since hand-weaving became defunct, it did not survive into the twentieth century. The version by Ewan MacColl probably influenced the version by Silly Sisters and by Unto Ashes. Jez Lowe performed it under the name "Nearer to Nettles". The title "Four Loom Weaver" is possibly a mis-hearing of "Poor Loom Weaver" since most hand-weavers had one, or at most two machines in their cottages.

[edit] External links

• Lyrics and score