Pittenweem Fisher-Wife's Song, The

DESCRIPTION: The fisher-wife wakes her husband and three sons. The sun shines like gold in their boat and it is time, while they still live, to row out -- "were I a man I'd off to sea" -- and, when they return at night, she'll hear their "songs and tales"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (Greig/Duncan8)
KEYWORDS: fishing sea nonballad family
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Greig/Duncan8 1760, "Fisher Song" (1 fragment)
ADDITIONAL: Christopher Stone, Sea Songs and Ballads (Oxford, 1906 ("Digitized by Google")), #24 pp. 36-37, "We'll Go To Sea No More"
J. E. Patterson, The Sea Anthology: From the Earliest Times Down to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1913 ("Digitized by Google")), p. 182, "The Pittenweem Fisher-Wife's Song"
Roud #13136
NOTES [48 words]: The line about hearing songs is ironic if Greig's assessment is accurate: "There are not many traditional songs dealing with fisher folk; and as for fisher folk themselves they do not seem to have any old minstrelsy dealing with their special calling and interests" [Greig #153, p. 2]. - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD81760

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