Disguised Sailor (The Sailor's Misfortune and Happy Marriage; The Old Miser) [Laws N6]

DESCRIPTION: When a girl's father cannot talk her out of marrying a sailor, the father has the boy pressed. The girl follows in disguise; they wind up in the same bunk. At length she reveals herself. They return home. The girl's father has died; they are married
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1864 (broadside, LOCSinging as200940)
KEYWORDS: courting sailor pressgang father disguise marriage
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar, Newf) Britain(England,Scotland) Ireland US(MW) Australia
REFERENCES (14 citations):
Laws N6, "Disguised Sailor (The Sailor's Misfortune and Happy Marriage; The Old Miser)"
Gardham-EarliestVersions, "PRESS GANG, THE, I"
Greig-FolkSongInBuchan-FolkSongOfTheNorthEast #114, p. 1, "In Fair London City" (1 text)
Greig/Duncan1 174, "Merchant's Daughter and Her Sailor" (4 texts, 1 tune); Greig/Duncan1 175, "In Fair London City" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sharp-OneHundredEnglishFolksongs 50, "The Bonny Lighter Boy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Karpeles-TheCrystalSpring 59, "The Bonny Lighter Boy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Henry/Huntingdon/Herrmann-SamHenrysSongsOfThePeople H108a, pp. 329-330, "The Rich Merchant's Daughter" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton/Senior-TraditionalSongsOfNovaScotia, pp. 146-147, "Disguised Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune, considered "confused" by Laws)
Leach-FolkBalladsSongsOfLowerLabradorCoast 35, "The Lady and the Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
Karpeles-FolkSongsFromNewfoundland 47, "The Press Gang" (1 text, 1 tune)
Gardner/Chickering-BalladsAndSongsOfSouthernMichigan 62, "The Weaver is Handsome" (2 texts, 1 tune, both short and both starting with variants "I am a young girl and my fortune is sad"; both seem confused and neither contains the complete plot, but "A" at least has the father's feigned consent and the press gang; "B" has the dressing in men's clothes)
Ashton-RealSailorSongs, #55, "The Sailor's Misfortune and Happy Marriage" (1 text)
Scott-ACollectorsNotebook-31TraditionalSongs, p. 33, "Colomba's Sweet Shore" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT 742, DISGSAIL*
Roud #601
RECORDINGS:
Gerald Aylward, "Lady and Sailor" (on MUNFLA/Leach)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 19(40), "The Lady and Sailor" ("There was a rich merchant in London did dwell"), W. Birmingham (Dublin), c.1867 ; also 2806 c.15(59), Firth c.12(252), "The Lady and Sailor"
LOCSinging, as200940, "The Farmer's Daughter" ("It is of a rich farmer, I dare not tell his name"), H. De Marsan (New York), 1861-1864
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "There Was an Old Miser"
cf. "Jack Monroe (Jackie Frazer; The Wars of Germany)" [Laws N7]
cf. "The Jolly Plowboy (Little Plowing Boy; The Simple Plowboy)" [Laws M24]
cf. "James and Flora (Flora and Jim, The United Lovers)"
ALTERNATE TITLES:
There Was a Rich Merchant
The Rich Merchant's Daughter
The Hills o' Traquair
NOTES [98 words]: [In Sharp's version,] the plot is fragmentary; the girl's father has the boy pressed, and he pledges his undying love. That's all. - PJS
Broadside LOCSinging as200940: H. De Marsan dating per Studying Nineteenth-Century Popular Song by Paul Charosh in American Music, Winter 1997, Vol 15.4, Table 1, available at FindArticles site.
The general plot in Karpeles-FolkSongsFromNewfoundland, Leach-FolkBalladsSongsOfLowerLabradorCoast and the Bodleian "The Lady and Sailor" broadsides agrees but the couple get married, go to "Columbia's [or England's] fair shore" and don't return home. - BS
Last updated in version 6.8
File: LN06

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