Lowlands Low- Surber (FL-KA) c1890 Morris B
[From Folksongs of Florida by Morris, 1950. Ship could also be named "Merry Golden Tree." Seems to be a mixture of two ballads. Notes from Morris follow:
R. Matteson 2014]
For a Scottish version, see Ford's Vagabond' Songs and Ballad's of Scotland, p. 103. See also Gould and Fleetwood's version collected in South Brent (Ballads and Songs from the West, III, 25), and Logan's A Pedlar's Pack of Ballads and Songs for two variants, pp. 42-46. For additional American variants, see Sharp, I, 290; Cox, pp. 169-171; Barry, Eckstorm, and Smyth, pp. 339-347; Flanders and Brown, pp. 230- 231; Henry, FSSFI, pp. 127-130; Hudson, pp. 125- 127; Scarborough, SC, pp. 187-189; Pound, pp.24-26; Shoemaker, pp. 125-128; McGill, pp. 97-98; Flanders and Norfleet, pp. 40-41: JAFL, XVIII, 125-127; XXIII, 429-430; xxx, 331; XLV, 26-29; XLVIII, 312-314, 386-388; Kirkland, p. 79; Smith and Rufty, pp. 59-63; Wyman and Brockway, LT, pp. 72-75; Cambiaire, p. 93; Shearin and Combs, p. 9; Randolph, Ozark, pp- 177-179; Belden, pp. 97-100, Brewster, pp. 158-153; Gardner and Chickering, pp. 214-215; Davis, Folksongs, p. 35; and Randolph, I, 195-201 For a fictional use to which a variant has been put, see Matschat, Sawannee River, p. 67.
THE SWEET TRINITY (THE GOLDEN VANITY)
(Child, No. 286)
B. "LOWLANDS LOW." Text furnished by Miss Elsie Surber, Panatta City, from the singing of her father, who learned it from his mother in Kansas about sixty years ago.
There was a little ship and she sailed upon the sea,
And the name that they gave her was the Mary Golden Tree,
As she sailed on the low and lonesome low,
As she sailed on the lonesome sea.
Up stepped a captain of our gallant ship
And a well-spoken captain was he;
He says, "This night we'll all be drowned,
And we'll sink to the bottom of the sea."
Up stepped a boy, and a well-spoken boy was he;
"I've got a mother in fair London town,
And this night she'll be looking for me,
And this night she'll be looking for me."
"She may look and she may weep with watery eye;
She can look to the bottom of the sea,
And us poor sailors'll rise to the top
And she'll lodge and she'll lie down below."