1851 jest about trad repertoire

[Charles Doyle]

The stanza in question belongs principally to the ballad regularly titled "The Mermaid" (Child, no. 289); however, like other memorable snatches of old tunes, it could migrate to different songs.

Child's "A" text, from "Newcastle, 1765?" lacks the stanza, which appears in the "B" text, quoted from Chappell’s Popular Music of the Olden Time (1859):

Then three times round went our gallant ship,
And three times round went she;
For the want of a life-boat they all went down,
And she sank to the bottom of the sea.

Child associated his "B" version with the date 1840, although Chappell identified his text of the ballad is a composite, with some stanzas perhaps annexed from later sources.

The vastly popular Forget-Me-Not Songster (by 1850, editions had issued from a dozen or more publishers in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Saint Louis, Montreal, and probably elsewhere), contained "The Mermaid," including this stanza (with its ironic point of view):

Then three times round went our good ship,
And sank immediately,
Left none to tell the sorrowing tale,
Of our brave company.

I've quoted from a 1974 reprint of an undated New York edition; the reprint company (Norwood Editions) claims 1835 as the year of publication.

So, to respond to Jonathan’s query, there was definitely "mention of that ballad in America" prior to 1851.

--Charlie

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---- Original message ----


Jonathan Lighter's query:

>
>>This idea of a wrire poking fun at the expected repertoire of a traditional singer so long ago comes as something of a surprise, to me at least.  Perhaps the author had Mrs. Hogg in mind. The source is _Bertie, or Life in the Old Field: A Humorous Novel_, by "Gregory Seaworthy" {George Higby Throop] (Philadelphia: A. Hart, 1851), p. 123:
>>
>>   We resumed our singing, and ran over the greater part of my aunt's collection of songs; the most of which, I undertake to say, did not date farther back than the fifteenth century.
>>
>>   This part of the story is set in North Carolina.  The only trad song quoted (p. 43) is "The Mermaid":
>>
"Then three times round went our gallant ship,
Then three times round went she;
Then three times round went our gallant ship,
And she sunk to the bottom of the sea!"
>>
>>   Is this the first mention of that ballad in America?
>>

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Larry Horn's reply:


>As usual, I don't know from antedates, but I do know this same quatrain shows up elsewhere in traditional Anglo-American ballads, e.g. in "House Carpenter", often in slightly different versions, e.g.
>
>Oh twice around went the gallant ship
>I'm sure it was not three
>When the ship all of a sudden, it sprung a leak
>And it drifted to the bottom of the sea
>
>I think it's sometimes "three times around...I'm sure it was not four"
>
>Recorded by Jean Ritchie, Joan Baez, even Dylan...
>
>LH

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