Sir Francis Drake, or Eighty-Eight

DESCRIPTION: "In eighty-eight, ere I was born, As I can well remember, In August was a fleet prepared, The month before September." Spain and allies prepare an "Armado." They fail. "If they come again, a, They shall be served with that same sauce."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1841 (Halliwell, Early Naval Ballads of England, according to Palmer-OxfordBookOfSeaSongs)
KEYWORDS: navy battle food
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1558-1603 - Reign of Elizabeth (I)
1588 - Voyage of the Spanish Armada
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Chappell-PopularMusicOfTheOldenTime, pp. 211-213, "Jog On, Jog On" (1 text, 1 tune)
Chappell/Wooldridge-OldEnglishPopularMusic I, p. 159, "Hanskin, or Jog On, or Eighty-Eight" (1 text, 1 tune, but the text is of a different song; only its presence in Chappell-PopularMusicOfTheOldenTime allows us to know that the tune belongs here)
Palmer-OxfordBookOfSeaSongs 7, "Sir Francis Drake, or Eighty-EIght" (1 text, 1 tune)
Stone-SeaSongsAndBallads XLIX, pp. 81-82, "Sir Francis Drake: or Eighty-Eight" (1 text)
Sidgwick-BalladsPoemsIllustratingEnglishHistory, pp. 114-115, "The Defeat of the Spanish Armada" (1 text)
Roud #22269
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Spanish Armada" (subject of the Armada)
NOTES [71 words]: Palmer thinks this has been damaged by oral tradition. I wonder if it wasn't intended to be funny. It's certainly rather silly as it now stands.
Not to be confused with the "Jog on, jog on" song from Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale," which begins, "Jog on, jog on, the footpath way, And merrily hent the style-a." Sidgwick-BalladsPoemsIllustratingEnglishHistory, p. 200, says that this was sung to the same tune, however. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: PaSe007

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