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The lyrics as given in The Scottish Students' Song Book of 1897 are as follows: [2] Sing Ho! for a brave and a valiant bark, And a brisk and lively breeze, A jovial crew and a Captain too, to carry me over the seas, To carry me over the seas, my boys, To my true love so gay, She has taken a trip on a gallant ship Ten thousand miles away. Refrain
fire sun of the houses sól húsanna: ON: Snorri Sturluson, Skáldskaparmál 36 gold seeds of the Fyris Wolds: Fýrisvalla fræ: Hrólf Kraki spread gold on the Fyris Wolds to distract the men of the Swedish king. N: Eyvindr Skáldaspillir, Lausavísa 8 gold serpent's lair Serpents (and dragons) were reputed to lie upon gold in their nests. N ...
James Bartley (1870–1909) is the central figure in a late nineteenth-century story according to which he was swallowed whole by a sperm whale. He was found still living days later in the stomach of the whale, which was dead from harpooning. The story originated of an anonymous form, began to appear in American newspapers.
However, the whale strikes the boat with its tail, capsizing it, and several men are killed. The captain grieves over losing his men, but especially for having lost his prey. He then orders the ship to sail for home, calling Greenland a "dreadful place". Like most traditional songs, "Greenland Whale Fisheries" exists in different versions. [4]
The name of the title track is a reference to a Nantucket sleighride, the dragging of a whaleboat by a harpooned whale. Owen Coffin, to whom the song is dedicated, was a young seaman on the Nantucket whaler Essex, which was rammed and sunk by a sperm whale in 1820. In the aftermath of the wreck, Coffin was shot and eaten by his shipmates.
The song's lyrics describe a whaling ship called the Billy o' Tea and its hunt for a right whale. The song describes how the ship's crew hope for a "wellerman" to arrive and bring them supplies of luxuries.
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]
It is a comical retelling of the Jonah tale, with a Newfoundland whaler as protagonist, but in this instance the whale gets his comeuppance. [ 1 ] It may have been adapted from a New York City music-hall song "Every Inch a Sailor", which itself was a burlesque of " HMS Pinafore ".