Smuggler's Song (II), The

DESCRIPTION: "When the blink o' the day is fading fast... O, that is the hour for to flash the oar." The singer talks of the troubles at sea, sneers at the German royalty, then waxes at length about the joys when they come back to shore.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1930 (Ord-BothySongsAndBallads); reportedly published 1844
KEYWORDS: ship sea home
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ord-BothySongsAndBallads, p. 386, "Smuggler's Song" (1 text)
Roud #3795
NOTES [105 words]: It's hard to determine what this is about. Although the title refers to smuggling, the song itself has no such references. We have only two facts: Ord-BothySongsAndBallads reports that the song was published in 1844 in the Ayrshire Wreath, and then there is the reference to "the German" (it doesn't say King, or Kaiser, but said German lives in a palace).
My best guess, on that basis, is that the song refers to Napoleon's blockade of Great Britain -- the "Continental System," proclaimed in Berlin on November 21, 1806, in which the German states were reluctantly included. For details on this, see "The Ports are Open." - RBW
File: Ord386

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