US & Canada Versions: 289. The Mermaid
"To set sail on Friday was unlucky; to sight the mermaid meant that disaster was unavoidable." A Pioneer Songster
[In the US, Kittredge collected a version (the end resembling Child E, but having the first two measures of the pre1632, "Praise for the Sailors") of the ballad dating back to circa 1808. A version was published as a broadside in the early 1800s (Deming c. 1838). Various songsters (The Forget-Me-Not Songster, Forecastle Songster etc) began printing versions of the ballad circa 1840. A burlesque was printed in several songsters by deWitt (The "We Won't Go Home till Morning " Songster- New York. R. M. DeWitt, pp. 8-9; The Beauty of the Blondes Songster (deWitt) and The "Slap-Bang" Songster). Unfortunately I don't have access to these. I'm including unique songster/broadside/song sheet versions which are important as they may be in fact traditional (based on a traditional version).
One of the misconceptions about this ballad that has been perpetuated is that it is comic (a burlesque). This began with Gummere's contention that Child E is a burlesque (The Popular Ballad; page 125; 1907). Version E from Motherwell doesn't seem like a burlesque: the last line refers back to the previous three stanzas and is not a flippant comment about having three wives! Calling the cook a "rusty old dog" certainly doesn't make the whole ballad comic. Child doesn't call it a burlesque. Scarborough in her 1937 book, A Song Catcher (see full quote there) quoted Gummere and later Davis, Bronson and others accept this, possibly without examining the full quote and the original contention. Because of the popular college song form (Child B, C, and D) and the key the gravity of this tragic ballad is diminished, much as in versions of Lord Lovell.
The inclusion of "The Mermaid" in the 1909 Heart Songs as well as the 1868 Carmina Collegensia (songs for college students) and various college song books shows that print versions were available and people sang them. How many people we don't know--but they promoted the spread of this ballad. For example, Heart Songs boasted that it was, "a collection of favorite songs voted on by 20,000 persons."
The chorus and sometimes the verses often feature an extended last line as found in the Carmina Collegensia and in Child B, C, and D. Versions related to Child A and E are rare in the US and Canada.
The Mermaid was recorded by early country music artists Ernest Stoneman ("The Sailor's Song" 1925; "The Raging Sea, How it Roars" 1928) and the Carter Family ("The Wave on the Sea" 1941). Bascom Lamar Lunsford learned this version in 1897 when he was just fifteen (Listen: "The Mermaid Song").
I'm leaving some information below, including some versions. Most will be attached to this page (on the left-hand column) and can be accessed by clicking on the page. Not sure when I'll put music on- some music has been added- most hasn't.
R. Matteson 2012]
CONTENTS: (to open individual versions- click on pages attached on left hand column)
The Mermaid- Lewis (MA) c.1808 Kittredge JOAFL
Murmaid- Douglass (NY) 1841-1856 Thompson
The Mermaid: Forget-Me-Not Songster (NY) c1842
The Mermaid: Song sheet, H. DeMarsan (NY) c1861
The Saillers- Larkin (IL) pre1867 Musick JOAFL
The Mermaid- Carmina Collegensia (MA) 1868 Waite
The Gallant Ship- Purcell (VA) c1890 Davis BB
The Mermaid Song- Lunsford (NC) 1897 REC
Doom Ship- Smith (VA) c.1901 Davis AA
The Mermaid- J.G.M. (VT) 1904 Barry JOAFL
The Mermaid- Heart Songs (MA) 1909 Chapple
Shipwreck- Shibley (MO) 1911 Belden - Hamilton
Our Gallant Ship- McGill (NB) pre1911 Barry C
The Mermaid- Speck (VA) 1913 Davis F
Three Sailor Boys- Gear (WY) 1914 Pound 1916/1922
The Mermaid- Duval (VA) 1914 Davis A
The Stormy Winds- Deaderick (VA) 1914 Davis B & C
The Stormy Winds- Ewell (VA) 1914 Davis G
The Stormy Winds- Bouldin (VA) 1914 Davis H
Lamp Burns Dimly- Henderson (NC) 1914 Brown A
The Wreck- Hancock (VA) 1915 Davis I; Fauntleroy
The Mermaid- Patterson (VA) 1916 Davis E; Otey
The Mermaid- Jones (WV) 1916 Cox
The Mermaid- (KY) pre1916 McGill
O The Sea How iI Rolls- Melton (KY) 1917 Sharp A
The Mermaid- Pace (KY) 1917 Sharp B
The Mermaid- Boone (NC) 1918 Sharp C
O The Raging Sea- Fulmiller (VA) 1918 Sharp D
Our Gallant Ship- Chatham (PA) pre1918 Shoemaker
The Mermaid- Johnson (VA) 1922 Davis D; Stone
The Mermaid- Owen (VA) 1922 Davis J; Stone
The Mermaid- Fauntleroy (VA) 1922 Davis K; Stone
The Mermaid- Stevens (VA) 1922 Davis L; Stone
Pretty Fair Maid- Tillett (NC) 1922 Brown C; Chapp
The Mermaid- Gott (ME) 1924 Barry A
The Wrecked Ship- McDaniels (MO) 1924 Rand A
The Mermaid- White (ME) 1926 Barry B
The Raging Sea How it Roars- Stoneman (VA) 1928
The Royal George- Tattrie (NS) pre1928 Mackenzie
We Poor Sailors- Donovan (ME) 1929 Barry E
The Mermaid- Harmon (TN) 1930 Henry
Pretty Mermaidens- Sullivan (VT) 1932 Flanders A
Our Gallant Ship- Tyler (VA) 1932 Davis CC
The Mermaid- Barlow (KY) 1933 Niles B
The Mermaid- Lovingood (NC) 1936 Scarborough
The Mermaid- Pace (KY) 1937 Lomax REC (See: The Mermaid- Pace (KY) 1917 Sharp B)
The Mermaid- Short (MO) 1940 Randolph C
The Gallant Ship- Greene (VT) pre1941 Flanders B
The Mermaid- Crawley (KY) 1942 Niles A
Long May the Loud Waves- Leary (NC/MA) pre1943
The Mermaid- Howells (RI) 1945 Flanders D
The Mermaid- Jessup (CT) 1951 Flanders C
The Mermaid- Dusenbury (AR) 1936 Randolph B
The Ship A-Raging: Gunter (OK) pre1964 Moores
The Mermaid- Irby (MS) 1936 Hudson
The Mermaid- Ford (WI) 1937 Cowell REC
Our Gallant Ship- Edwards (VT) pre1962 Cazden
The Mermaid- Starke (FL) pre1950 Morris
The Waves on the Sea- Carter Family (VA) 1941 REC
The Sailor's Song- Tate (VA) pre1979 Yates REC
The Mermaid- Wease (WV) pre1970 Gainer
The Mermaid- Glassock (WV) pre1957 Musick
The Mermaid- Smith (NS) pre1950 Creighton
It's Three Times Round- Hankins (IO) c.1865
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THE MERMAID (No. 289) Kittredge 1917 JOAFL
A fragmentary American text (with tune) was published by Barry in JAFL 18 : 136 (from Vermont), as taken down in 1905 (cf. 22 : 78); a good copy (from Missouri), collected by Belden, is in 25 : 176-177; another (from Tennessee), in "The Focus," 3 :447-448 and (with tune) 4 :97-99.[1] Miss McGill gives words and music in her "FolkSongs of the Kentucky Mountains" (1917, pp. 45-49). The ballad is also reported from Virginia (Bulletin, No. 2, p. 6; No. 3, p. 5; No. 4, p. 9; No. 5, p. 9);[2] from Mississippi by Perrow (JAFL 27 : 61, note 2); from Nebraska by Miss Pound (p. 10).
"The Mermaid" doubtless owes much of its currency in America to its inclusion in various "songsters." It is found, for example, in "The Forget Me Not Songster" (New York, Nafis & Cornish; also St. Louis and Philadelphia), p. 79; "Pearl Songster" (New York, 1846), p. 155; "Uncle Sam's Naval and Patriotic Songster" (New York, Philip J. Cozans), pp. 40-43.[3] It was issued as a broadside by Leonard A. Deming about 1838-40 ("at the Sign of the Barber's Pole, No. 61 Hanover St. Boston and at Middlebury, Vt.": Harvard College, 1916, lot 12), and by H. de Marsan, New York (List 14, No. 56), about 1861. Its perpetuation is more or less insured by its inclusion in "Heart Songs" (Boston, 1909).[4]
A fragmentary text, taken down by Kittredge in 1878 from an old Massachusetts lady who had learned it about 1808, has the first stanza of Child's version A (5 : 149), which is lacking in all other versions, British or American, so far as has been ascertained.5 At all events, it does not occur in any of those here registered, or in any of the following English broadside copies: Ebsworth, in his Roxburghe Ballads, 8:446-447; Harvard College, 25242.4, i, 207 (J. Arthur, Carlisle); 25242.17, iii, 36 and 102 (John Harkness, Preston, No. 146); same, iv, 16 (John Gilbert, Newcastle-upon-Tyne), 147 (John Ross, Newcastle-upon-Tyne); v, 141 (J. Catnach); xi, 53 (H. Such, No. 53); 25242.28 (Pitts). Perhaps this stanza was adapted from the beginning of Martin Parker's famous "Neptune's Raging Fury" (Roxburghe Ballads, ed. Ebsworth, 6 : 432; Ashton, "Real Sailor Songs," No. 76; Masefield, "A Sailor's Garland," pp. 160-163).
1 Compare Virginia Folk-Lore Society, Bulletin, No. 2, p. 6.
2. The ballad is printed in A. F. Wilson's Songs of the University of Virginia, 1906.
3 There is a comic version in The "We Won't Go Home till Morning " Songster (New York. R. M. DeWitt), pp. 8-9.
4 Whence it is extracted in the Boston Transcript, Feb. 14, 1914.
5. Except the variety of A in " The Sailor's Caution " cited by Child (5 : 148). Asbton's second version (Real Sailor Songs, No. 4a) is Child's A; his first (No. 41) accords with the regular broadside.
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From British Ballad From Main; Barry and all; 1929.
THE MERMAID
(Child 289)
D. From the Forget-me-not Songster (Locke, Boston, about 1840).
1 One Friday morning we set sail,
And when not far from land,
We all espied a fair mermaid,
With a comb and glass in her hand.
The stormy winds they did blow,
And the raging seas they did roar,
The sailors on the deck did go,
And wished themselves on shore.
2 Then spoke a boy of our gallant ship,
And a good lad was he,
My parents in fair Portsmouth town,
This night will weep for me.
3 Then spoke a man of our good ship,
No braver m&n than he,
I have a wife in fair London town,
Who will a widow be.
4 Then spoke the captain of our ship,
A valiant man was he,
We want a boat, we shall be drown'd,
Shall founder in the sea.
5 The moon shone bright, the stars gave light,
My mother looked for me,
She long may weep with watery eyes,
And blame the ruthless sea.
6 Then three times round went our good ship
And sank immediately,
Left none to tell the sorrowing tale
Of our brave company.
This last text is derived from Child D b (V, 152) a broadside by Such with slight additions from other texts. It is by all odds the most aberrant form we have found, whether sung on the Maine coast, on Prince Edward Island, in Scotland, or by American college boys. Cox gives full references (p. 172), but no ballad has less interest to the student than this. A copy in Uncle Sam's Naval and Patriotic songster (no date), which is intermediate between the foregoing and those which precede it, shows that the song must have been a favorite with sailors long ago. The copy in Alfred L. Williams' article on "Street Ballads and Songs," (antedating 1895), which he says "may be heard even now perhaps from some old American shellback in the dog watch when the vessel is drifting on a calm sea," is identical with the copy in Uncle Sam's Naval and Patriotic Songster,
A variant of this text is the Forecastle Songster (Nafis and Cornish, New York, 1869), pp. 112-113. It has an additional stanza, inserted between stanzas 1 and 2:
The boatswain at the helm stands,
Steering his course right well,
With tears a standing in his eyes,
Saying how the seas do swell.
The cities named are New York and Boston.
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Irish Characteristics in Our Old Song Survivals
Anna Blanche McGill
Source: The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan., 1932), pp. 106-119
"Folk-Songs of the Kentucky Mountains" (Josephine McGill) includes among these lusty maritime favorites The Mermaid, which begins with a fine forthright narrative, followed by a resonant chorus:
Last Friday morning as we set sail
Not very far from land,
We all espied a fair Mermaid
With a comb and a glass in her hand.
The stormy winds do blow, blow, blow,
And the raging seas how they roar,
And us three sailors climbing to the top,
And the land all a-lying down below.
To hear this antique fable of Mermaid or Lorelei sung in a mountain-locked region gives the hearer a thrill and he wonders what long atavistic memories lent gusto to the rendering. Far more in character seems the presentation which Dr. P. W. Joyce recorded. The Irish Mermaid recounts the visit of a siren to a ship in the moonlight and the enchantment wrought upon captain and crew, who fell into a trance while the charmer escaped -to the dismay of the company, though neither the gay tune nor the humor of the words suggests that they were utterly desolate:
The Mermaid (Joyce)
O were my men drunk or were my men mad,
Or were my men drowned in care-O,
When they let her escape, which made us all sad?
And the sailors all wished she was there-O there,
And the sailors all wished she was there.
By the time this ballad arrived in Kentucky, it had lost such verses as these. There had apparently been a foreshortening or a speeding up of the story to the catastrophe of the storm, which was wont to follow the portentous, if diverting, appearance of sirens.
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289. THE MERMAID
Texts; Barry, Brit Bids Me, 363 / Belden, Mo F-S, 101 / Botkin, Am Play-Party Sg, 56 / Botkin, Treasry NE F-L, 872 / Brown Coll / Chappell, F-S Rnke Alb, 47 / Cox, F-S South, 192 / Davis, Tr d Bid Va, 521 / DeMarsan Broadside List 14, 4 56 / Deming Broadside (Boston, c. 1838) / Focus, III, 447; IV, 97 / Forget-me-not Songster (Locke, Boston, c. 1842) I Forget-me-not Songster (Nafis and Cornish, N.Y.), 79 / Forget-me-not Songster (Sadlier, N.Y.), 46 / Forecastle Songster (Nafis and Cornish, N.Y., 1849), 112 / Haun, Cocke Cnty, 112 / Heart Songs, 360 / Henry, F-S So Hgblds, 133 / Hudson, F-S Miss, 127 / Hudson, Spec Miss F-L, #23 / JAFL, XVIII, 136; XXV, 176; XXVI, 175 / Lomax and Lomax, Our Sgng Cntry, 151 / Luce's Naval Songs, 1 902, 1 1 8 / MacKenzie, Bids Sea Sgs N Sc, 65 / McGill, F-S Ky Mts, 46 / Morris, F-S Fla, 479 / Musick, F-L Kirksville, 12 / NTFLQ, IV, 179 / Pearl Songster (Huestis, N.Y., 1846), 155 / Pound, Am Bids Sgs, 26 / Pound, Nebr Syllabus, 10 / PTFLS, X, 162 / Randolph, OzF-S, I, 202 / Scarborough, Sgctchr So Mts, 189 / SharpK, EngF-S So Aplchns, I, 291 / Shoemaker, No Pa Mnstly (1919), 157 / Singer's Journal, I, 301 / Spaeth, Read 'em and Weep, 81 / Stout, F-L la, 14 / Thompson, Bdy Bts Brtcbs, 216 / Uncle Sam's Naval and Patriotic Songster (Cozzens, N. Y.), 40 / Pa FLS Bull #s 2 5, 8 10 / Alfred Williams, Street Bids and Sgs (pre- 1895).
Local Titles: As I Sailed Out One Friday Night, Our Gallant Ship, The Mermaid, The Royal George, The Shipwrecked Sailors, The Sinking Ship, The Stormy Winds, The Stormy Winds How They Blow (Do Blow), The Three Sailor Boys, The Wreck.
Story Types: A: A ship sets sail on a Friday, a day of ill-omen. It sights a mermaid at sea, a fact which bodes ill-weather. The men on board all resign themselves that the ship will go down. It does.
Examples: Barry (A), Belden, Davis (A).
B : The story Is the same as that of Type A. However, the captain "plumbs" the sea fore and aft and realizes the boat will sink and that all the men on board will be in Heaven or Hell "this night". The other crew members do not appear. Examples: Lomax and Lomax.
Discussion: The Type A American texts of this song follow the Child B-D series rather closely, although the first stanza of the JAFL, XXVI, 175 fragmentary song allies it with Child A. A man lies in bed thinking of the hard life of the sailors. This version does not mention the mermaid, however, although she may have appeared in one of the forgotten stanzas. The Type B version has no parallel in Child and probably has resulted from gradual degeneration through transmission, or from print.
The ballad has been included in many published works both in Britain (see Cox, F-S South, 172) and in America. Cox, op. cit. 9 and MacKenzie, Bids Sea Sgs N Sc, 65 give lists of college songbook texts. Some references of this sort are The American College Songster (Ann Arbor, 1876), 56; Noble's Songs of Harvard (cop. 1913), 82; W. H. Hill's Student's Songs, 27; and
Wake's Student Life in Song (Boston, cop. 1879), 47. It has been parodied frequently. See Scarborough, Sgctchr So Mts, 190; The Slam-Bang Songster (cop. 1870), 8; and The We Won't Go Home Until Morning Songster (cop. 1869), 8. For its use as a children's game see Gomme, Traditional Games, pp 143, 422; For its use as a play-party game see Botkin, Am Play-Party Sg y 56. For other published texts, which have had a large influence on the form of this song, see the broadside and songster references included in the bibliography above.
American texts usually have a "stormy winds" chorus which will vary in position and use in the different versions and variants.