Squid-Jiggin' Ground, The

DESCRIPTION: A song of the life of a squid fisherman. The fishermen are named, as are their homes and their peculiarities. The final stanzas warn of the messy work: "Now if ever you feel inclined to go squiddin', leave your white shirts and collars behind in the town"
AUTHOR: Arthur R. Scammell (1913-1995)
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1929
KEYWORDS: fishing nonballad moniker work
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Fowke/Johnston-FolkSongsOfCanada, pp. 51-53, "The Squid-Jiggin' Ground" (1 text, 1 tune)
Doyle-OldTimeSongsAndPoetryOfNewfoundland, "The Squid-Jiggin' Ground" (1 text, 1 tune): p. 66-67 in the 2nd edition; pp. 57-58 in the 3rd; pp. 53-54 in the 4th; pp. 42-43 in the 5th
Blondahl-NewfoundlandersSing, pp. 32-33, "The Squid-Jiggin' Ground" (1 text, 1 tune)
Mills-FavoriteSongsOfNewfoundland, pp. 6-7, "Squid-jiggin' Ground" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 127, "The Squid-Jiggin' Ground" (1 text)
England-HistoricNewfoundlandAndLabrador, pp. 52-53, "Squid-Jiggin' Ground" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, SQUIDJIG*
ADDITIONAL: A. R. Scammell, _My Newfoundland_, Harvest House, 1966, pp. 118-119, "The Squid-Jiggin' Ground" (1 text 1 tune)
Roud #4429
RECORDINGS:
Omar Blondahl, "Squid Jiggin' Ground" (on NFOBlondahl05)
R. Sheaves, "The Squid Jigging Ground" (on MUNFLA/Leach)
Maudie Sullivan, "The Squid Jigging Ground" (on MUNFLA/Leach)
May Whalen, "The Squid Jigging Ground" (on MUNFLA/Leach)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "When Our Boys Gave Up Squiddin''" (tune)
cf. "The Napan Heroes" (tune)
cf. "Hitler's Song" (tune)
SAME TUNE:
Hitler's Song (File: Guig177)
Our Boys Gave Up Squiddin' (File: Guig295)
NOTES [1260 words]: Fowke writes, "The tale of what happens when fishermen head for 'The Squid-Jiggin' Ground' is the most widely known of all Newfoundland songs.... It was written by... Arthur R. Scammell when he was only fifteen....
"The squid is a species of cuttle-fish about ten inches long which is used as bait for larger fish. It has the peculiar characteristic of squirting forth an inky liquid when it is disturbed. Large schools of squid move in at certain parts of the Newfoundland coast during August, September, and October, and then the fishermen head out to pull them in with line and jigger."
Hallowell, pp. 145-146, says that squid was used primarily as bait to catch cod and other fish, but it was also used as fertilizer for vegetable gardens and dried and used to feed dogs in winter.
A jigger is a line with two hooks facing in opposite directions, which was dropped in the water and bobbed up and down. According to Young, p. 226, the result looked something like a fish, which would sometimes cause other fish to come to investigate. The prime advantage over ordinary fishing with a hook and bait was that it could catch fish even if they did not take the bait. According to Young, p. 227, the jigger has now been outlawed because it often kills fish, including fish too small to be used for food or otherwise undesirable. Knowing Newfoundlanders, I suspect their responses to that were mostly unprintable....
Squid jiggers, according to StoryKirwinWiddowson, p. 523, were a little different, with many smaller hooks (20-40), but presumably operated the same way. Interestingly, although "squid jigging" is attested as early as 1883, and a "squid jig" from 1861, there is no mention of the phrase "squid jigging ground" prior to Scammell.
The song received a big boost when it was sung on the Newfoundland radio program "The Irene B. Mellon," although it was written before that show went on the air. For that program, which promoted several other songs which seem to have become folk songs, see the notes to "The Cliffs of Baccalieu."
This song is undoubtedly Arthur Scammell's "hit," but he is responsible for several other songs in the Index: "Squarin' Up Time," "The Six Horse-Power Coaker," "The Shooting of the Bawks," "The Old-Time Sealing Fleet," and "Save Our Swilers." Scott Hadley notes that some collections of his works include My Newfoundland: Stories, Poems, Songs (St. John's: Harry Cuff Publications, 1988) and Newfoundland Echoes (St. John's: Harry Cuff Publications, 1988). Collected Works of A. R. Scammell was also published by Harry Cuff in 1990.
DictNewfLabrador, p. 305, lists "My Newfoundland" as a 1974 recording and catalogs several other books by Scammell. It says that Scammell was born in Change Islands in 1913, and wrote "The Squid Jiggin' Ground" in 1929. He taught for a few years in the 1930s, then went to college at McGill University in 1939. He would stay in Montreal for about thirty years, teaching high school -- yet continued to write on Newfoundland themes. He returned to Newfoundland when he retired, and was given an honorary doctorate by the Memorial University in 1977. An annual writing award was named for him in 1985.
There is also at least one school named for him (Clarke, p. 194).
Scammell supposedly wrote the song while fishing with his father in Change Islands, and he claimed that the characters in the song are all real (Clarke, p. 193). Clarke has a picture of a young Scammell on p. 194.
The introduction by Ella Manuel to Scammell's collection My Newfoundland reminds us that there is a political remark of sorts in this song that people usually miss today. The second verse ends
There's a red rantin' Tory out here in a dory,
A-runnin' down Squires on the squid-jiggin' ground.
"Squires" is Richard Anderson Squires (1880-1940), who was Prime Minister 1919-1923 and 1928-1932. He was a controversial figure who played a non-trivial part in Newfoundland's progress toward financial disaster in the 1930s (in the period from 1921 to 1923, his government drove up Newfoundland's already-too-high national debt by more than 40%; Noel, p. 152; eventually, the island found it impossible to borrow any more and went bankrupt; Noel, pp. 188-189, resulting in the "Commission of Government," in which Newfoundland gave up its Dominion status).
O'Flaherty, pp. 304-305, speaking of a time when he tried to open a legislative seat by bringing false charges against its occupant, says, "He was a man who took risks, who veered close to lawlessness.... This sprang, likely not from clumsiness or inexperience, but from a belief that no matter what scrape he got into, someone of his quality who ha made his own way to the top in the hard spheres of politics and law would find his way out of it. It was a form of hubris.... There was a quality in him, a slipperiness and aloofness, which could inspire real anger [in the public]."
So complex were his dealings that was forced out by his own cabinet in a strange semi-coup in 1923 (Noel, pp. 158-160). He was even arrested for larceny (Noel, p. 171). But he came back to form a new government in 1928 (Noel, p. 293) and was at the height of his power when Scammell wrote this piece. Later, he would actually be charged with graft -- to the tune of $5000 per year from funds earmarked for veterans and their survivors (Noel, p. 198; O'Flaherty, p. 366, says that he was genuinely in charge of distributing the funds supplied by Britain from German reparations, but that he took a huge cut while handing out very little). Hiller/Neary , p. 181, calculates that $63,000 made its way into his pockets from various sources -- probably the equivalent of millions today. But that was after this was written.
For a bit more on Squires, and how he went from being Prime Minister to a target of mob violence, see the notes to "Anti-Confederation Song (II)"; also "Coaker's Dream."
William Henry Cave (1872-1941) was also a Newfoundland politician of this era, Minister of Shipping 1919-1923 and of Finance 1923-1924, but was out of office in 1928 (DictNewfLabrador, p. 56), so I don't know if he is the "Old Billy Cave" of the song. He did wear a mustache, so his whiskers could have been spattered. (On this point, I note that the glossary in Scammell's "My Newfoundland" glosses Squires but does not gloss Cave.)
None of the other characters named in the song were noteworthy enough to rate an entry in DictNewfLabrador; they may be real but are presumably not very well-remembered.
On another political note, on the day Newfoundland joined Canada, this song was played -- on the bells of the parliament tower! (Chadwick, p. 225). - RBW
Fowke-TraditionalSingersAndSongsFromOntario p. 166 identifies the tune as "Larry O'Gaff."
The tune is one used by The Flanagan Brothers for their 1927 release of "Mick from Tralee" (on The Flanagan Brothers, "The Tunes We Like to Play on Paddy's Day," Viva Voce 007 (1996) from Columbia 33187-F June 1927). It is close to the tune of the chorus to "Paddy's Panacea" on Voice13.
The Moore broadside, Bodleian Harding B 26(417), includes the lines "For the lad I love lies at Sebastopol.... And in an Inkerman field your true lover does lie.... We fought for three days, till the fourth afternoon, He received his death summons on the 18th of June...." Is it strange that, so close to the event, the month is so far wrong? Inkerman and Alma -- also cited -- are in October 1854. On the other hand, of course, the Battle of Waterloo was June 18, 1815, and the printer wanted to preserve the rhyme from an earlier version. - BS
BibliographyLast updated in version 6.0
File: FJ051

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2024 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.