For "The Mermaid" (Child Ballad #42), see Clerk Colvill.
The Mermaid from The Book of British Ballads (1842)
"The Mermaid" (Roud 124, Child 289) is a traditional folk ballad.[1] Originating around the mid-18th century, this song is known by a number of names, including "Waves on the Sea",[2]"The Stormy Winds",[3]"Our Gallant Ship", and "The Wrecked Ship".[2][4]
The song belongs in the category of sea ballads, being a song sailors sung during their time off and not while they worked, but is more commonly thought of as a sea shanty.[5] It is well known in American folk tradition as well as European traditions, and the text has appeared in many forms in both print and oral mediums.[6][7] The ballad remains part of American culture as a song sung at camps operated by the Boy Scouts of America as well as in public school music education classes.[8]
Synopsis
The ballad describes a ship that left port, its misadventure and eventual sinking. The moral of the song is that mermaids are a sign of an impending shipwreck.[2] It is sung from the point of view of a member of the ship's crew, although the ship sinks without any survivors. In most versions the ship is unnamed but in a version sung by Almeda Riddle, the mermaid disappears and the ship is identified as the Merrymac.[9] Often the ship is said to be departing on a Friday morning, but there are other versions of the lyrics including one that has it leaving on a Saturday night.[7][10] On the way out to sea, the captain sees a mermaid with a "comb and a glass in her hand".[10]
Three parallel stanzas most often follow describing how three of the crew members, contemplating impending disaster, would rather be somewhere else than on the ocean floor; for example, the cook would rather be with his pots and pans.[7] In English versions crew members often identify their home port and the people (parents, wives, children) who will mourn for them.[11]
The home of the crew members varies from version to version, but it has been assigned to almost every port town in Britain and the East Coast of the United States. At the end of the ballad the ship turns around three times and sinks with all hands; there are no survivors.[12]
Between each of the verses there oftentimes is a chorus describing the conditions sailors face in a storm and the state of the sea that was caused by the mermaid.
Legacy
Robert Louis Stevenson cited this as "the dolorous old naval ballad" in his youthful work "Crabbed Age and Youth":
We sail in leaky bottoms and on great and perilous waters; and to take a cue from the dolorous old naval ballad, we have heard the mermaidens singing, and know that we shall never see dry land any more. Old and young, we are all on our last cruise.
Þa ofer wídne gársecg wéow unwidre ceald, Sum hagusteald on lagu féoll on nicera geweald. He legde lást swa fýres gnást, he snúde on sunde fléah, Oþþæt he métte meremenn déopan grunde néah.
When the cold blast was blowing across the broad ocean, a young man fell into the sea, into the power of nixies. As fast as fire he made his way, he swam along so quickly – until he met the mermen near the deep sea-bottom.
Oh 'twas in the broad Atlantic, mid the equinoctial gales That a young fellow fell overboard among the sharks and whales And down he went as a streak of light, so quickly down went he Until he came to a mermaid at the bottom of the deep blue sea.
"The Daemon Lover" – also known as "James Harris", "A Warning for Married Women", "The Distressed Ship Carpenter", "James Herries", "The Carpenter’s Wife", "The Banks of Italy", or "The House-Carpenter" – is a popular ballad dating from the mid-seventeenth century, when the earliest known broadside version of the ballad was entered in the Stationers' Register on 21 February 1657.
"Sir Patrick Spens" is one of the most popular of the Child Ballads, and is of Scottish origin. It is a maritime ballad about a disaster at sea.
"Frog Went a-Courtin'" is an English-language folk song. Its first known appearance is in Wedderburn's Complaynt of Scotland (1549) under the name "The Frog cam to the Myl dur", though this is in Scots rather than English. There is a reference in the London Company of Stationers' Register of 1580 to "A Moste Strange Weddinge of the Frogge and the Mouse." There are many texts of the ballad; however the oldest known musical version is found in Thomas Ravenscroft's Melismata in 1611.
"Silver Dagger", with variants such as "Katy Dear", "Molly Dear", "The Green Fields and Meadows", "Awake, Awake, Ye Drowsy Sleepers" and others, is an American folk ballad, whose origins lie possibly in Britain. These songs of different titles are closely related, and two strands in particular became popular in commercial country music and folk music recordings of the twentieth century: the "Silver Dagger" version popularised by Joan Baez, and the "Katy Dear" versions popularised by close harmony brother duets such as The Callahan Brothers, The Blue Sky Boys and The Louvin Brothers.
"Drunken Sailor", also known as "What Shall We Do with a/the Drunken Sailor?" or "Up She Rises", is a traditional sea shanty, listed as No. 322 in the Roud Folk Song Index. It was sung aboard sailing ships at least as early as the 1830s.
"Oh Shenandoah" is a traditional folk song, sung in the Americas, of uncertain origin, dating to the early 19th century.
"The Two Sisters" is a traditional murder ballad, dating at least as far back as the mid 17th century. The song recounts the tale of a girl drowned by her jealous sister. At least 21 English variants exist under several names, including "Minnorie" or "Binnorie", "The Cruel Sister", "The Wind and Rain", "Dreadful Wind and Rain", "The Bonny Swans" and the "Bonnie Bows of London". The ballad was collected by renowned folklorist Francis J. Child as Child Ballad 10 and is also listed in the Roud Folk Song Index. Whilst the song is thought to originate somewhere around England or Scotland, extremely similar songs have been found throughout Europe, particularly in Scandinavia.
"The Cruel Mother" is a murder ballad originating in England that has since become popular throughout the wider English-speaking world.
"Fair Margaret and Sweet William" is a traditional English ballad which tells of two lovers, one or both of whom die from heartbreak. Thomas Percy included it in his 1765 Reliques and said that it was quoted as early as 1611 in the Knight of the Burning Pestle. In the United States, variations of Fair Margaret were regarded as folk song as early as 1823.
"Lady Franklin's Lament" is a traditional folk ballad indexed by George Malcolm Laws and Steve Roud. The song recounts the story of a sailor who dreams about Lady Franklin speaking of the loss of her husband, Sir John Franklin, who disappeared in Baffin Bay during his 1845 expedition through the Arctic Ocean in search of the Northwest Passage sea route to the Pacific Ocean. The song first appeared as a Broadside ballad around 1850 and has since been recorded with the melody of the Irish traditional air "Cailín Óg a Stór" by numerous artists. It has been found in Ireland, in Scotland, and in some regions of Canada.
"The Sweet Trinity", also known as "The Golden Vanity" or "The Golden Willow Tree", is an English folk song or sea shanty. The first surviving version, about 1635, was "Sir Walter Raleigh Sailing In The Lowlands ".
"Jim Jones at Botany Bay" is a traditional Australian folk ballad dating from the early 19th-century. The narrator, Jim Jones, is found guilty of poaching and sentenced to transportation to the penal colony of New South Wales. En route, his ship is attacked by pirates, but the crew holds them off. When the narrator remarks that he would rather have joined the pirates or indeed drowned at sea than gone to Botany Bay, Jones is reminded by his captors that any mischief will be met with the whip. In the final verse, Jones describes the daily drudgery and degradation of life as a convict in Australia, and dreams of joining the bushrangers and taking revenge on his floggers.
"Bonnie Annie" is a folk ballad recorded from the Scottish and English traditions. Scottish texts are often called Bonnie Annie or The Green Banks of Yarrow, English texts are most often called The Banks of Green Willow. Other titles include The Undutiful Daughter, The High Banks O Yarrow, The Watery Grave, Green Willow, There Was a Rich Merchant that Lived in Strathdinah and The Merchant's Daughter.
"Lanigan's Ball" is a popular Irish folk song which has been played throughout the world since at least the 1860s and possibly much longer. Typically performed in a minor key, it generally is played in an upbeat style reminiscent of the party atmosphere in which the story that the lyrics portray unfolds.
"Jack Monroe", also known as "Jack Munro", "Jack-A-Roe", "Jackaro", "Jacky Robinson", "Jackie Frazier" and "Jack the Sailor", is a traditional ballad which describes the journey of a woman who disguises herself as the eponymous character to board a sailing ship and save her lover, a soldier.
Rosemary Lane"is an English folksong: a ballad that tells a story about the seduction of a domestic servant by a sailor. According to Roud and Bishop
"An extremely widespread song, in Britain and America. Its potential for bawdry means that it was popular in male-centred contexts such as rugby clubs, army barracks and particularly in the navy, where it can still be heard, but traditional versions were often collected from women as well as men."
"Eggs and Marrowbone", also known as "There Was An Old Woman", is a traditional folk song of a wife's attempted murder of her husband. Of unknown origins, there are multiple variations.
The "Coast of High Barbary" is a traditional song which was popular among British and American sailors. It is most frequently sung as a ballad but can also be a sea shanty. It tells of a sailing ship that came across a pirate ship off the Barbary Coast and defeated the pirates, who were left to drown.
"The Kerry Recruit" is a humorous Irish song about an Irish soldier from Kerry who enlisted into the Crimean War, with references made to various locations and battles of the Crimean War, such as Balaclava, the Alma, and Inkerman. The song originally derives from previously published broadside ballads, many of which were printed before the Crimean war and were instead about other battles or wars, such as the Battle of Trafalgar or the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
"Ten Thousand Miles Away" is a sea shanty and bush ballad whose writing and composition are attributed to Joseph B. Geoghegan.
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