The Mermaid- Boone (NC) 1918 Sharp C
[From English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, Vol 2 by Cecil J. Sharp and Maud Karpeles; 1932 edition.
My title, Sharp used the generic title, The Mermaid for all four versions, no local titles supplied. They were collected in 1917 or 1918 so they could not have been published in his first 1917 book. This version is standard and has the extended chorus as found in the 1868 Carmina Collegesia (as a popular college song) and also in Child B, C, and D. Below are his notes.
R. Matteson 2014]
No. 42. The Mermaid.
Texts without tunes: Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 289. A. Williams's Folk Songs of the Upper Thames, p. 84. W. R. Mackenzie's Ballads and Sea Songs of Nova Scotia, No. 16. Cox's Folk Songs of the South, p. 172 (see also further references). Journal of American Folk-Lore, xxvi. 175.
Texts with tunes: Journal of the Folk-Song Society, iii. 47. Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Times, ii. 742. Tozer's Fifty Sailors' Songs, p. 92. British Ballads from Maine, p. 363. Davis's Traditional Ballads of Virginia, pp. 521 and 602. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xviii. 136. McGill's Folk Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, p. 46.
C. "The Mermaid." Sung by Mrs. SINA BOONE at Shoal Creek, Burnsville, N. C, Sept. 28, 1918. Hexatonic (no 7th).
1. One Friday morning we set sail,
And we hadn't got far from land,
Till there I spied a fair mermaid
With a comb and a glass in her hand.
Refrain: And the stormy winds may blow, blow, blow,
And the raging seas may flow,
While it's me a poor sailor a-climbing to the top
And the landsmen lying down below.
2 Then it's up said the captain of our gallant ship,
And a well-looking boy was he;
I've a father and a mother in my native land,
And this night they're weeping for me.
And the stormy winds, etc.
3 It's up said the captain of our gallant ship,
And a well-looking man was he ;
I've a wife and a child in my own native land,
And this night a widow may be.
4 Then three times around went our gallant ship,
And three times around went she;
And the third time that she sailed round,
She sank to the bottom of the sea.