The Salt, Salt Sea- Sullivan (IN) 1935 Brewster D
[From Brewster: Ballads and Songs of Indiana; 1940. His notes follow,
R. Matteson 2013]
21. JAMES HARRIS (Child, No. 243)
Nine variants and two melodies of this ballad have been recovered, all nine of the variants being closely related to Child B, though with occasional touches of other versions. As usual, the lover has lost all traces of his demoniac character, and, too, many details of the original version have disappeared. The story as told in the Indiana texts is briefly this: A sailor returns to find his old sweetheart happily married to a house carpenter, and the mother of a child (or two) by him. By specious promises the former lover persuades the wife to desert husband and baby and go with him. She soon discovers her mistake, however, and begins to weep for the child left behind. The ship springs a leak and sinks to the bottom of the sea, bearing her with it. Some variants contain a stanza in which she voices a curse upon deceiving sailormen, or a warning to other wives. The "hills of heaven and hell" stanzas do not appear in Indiana versions.
For American texts, see Barry, No. 11; Barry, Eckstorm, and Smyth, p. 304; Belden, No. 11 (fragment); Brown, p. 9; Campbell and Sharp, No. 29; Cox, p. 139; Davis, p. 439; Hudson, No. 19; Hudson, Folksongs, p. 119; Journal, XIX, 295; XX, 257; XXV, 274; XXX, 325; XXXV, 346; XXXVI, 360; XLII, 275; XLIX, 209; Pound, Ballads, p. 34; Sandburg, p. 66; Scarborough, Song Catcher, p. 151; Shearin, p. 3; Shearin and Combs, p. 8; Smith, p. 151; Thomas, p. 172; Wyman and Brockway, Songs, p. 54; PTFLS, X, 159; Smith and Rufty, American Anthology, p. 46; Henry, Songs Sung in the Southern Appalachians, p. 59; Henry, Folk-Songs from the Southern Highlands, p. 113; Cox, Traditional Ballads, pp. 38, 41, 43, 45; BFSSNE, VII, 11; Randolph, Ozark Mountain Folks, p. 201.
D. "The Salt, Salt Sea." Contributed by Mrs. Eichard Sullivan, of Oakland City, Indiana. Gibson County. September 25, 1935.
1. "I've just returned from the salt, salt sea,
My own true-love for to see;
And she was married to a house carpenter,
And a pretty little lad was he.
2. "If you'll forsake your house carpenter
And go along with me,
I'll take you to the place where the grass grows green
In the shade of the green willow tree."
3. "Well, I'll forsake my house carpenter
And go along with thee
If you'll take me to the place where the grass grows green
In the shade of the green willow tree."
4. They had not sailed two weeks,
I'm sure it was not three,
Till in her husband's hall she was sitting (!),
A-weeping most bitterly.
5. "Do you weep for gold?" he said;
"Or do you weep for fear?[1]
Or are you weeping for your house carpenter
That you left when you came with me?"
6. "I don't weep for gold," she said;
"I do not weep for fear, [1]
But I do weep for my two pretty babes
That I left when I came with you."
7. They had not sailed three weeks,
I'm sure they hadn't sailed four,
Till over the deck in the lake she sprung,[2]
And her weeping was heard no more.
Footnotes:
1. Fear should be fee.
2. The lake of this line is evidently a corruption of the leak in the ship.