Ed de Moel

Child Ballads - Lyrics

Child 289
Mermaid
Version F

Kinloch Manuscripts, VII, 245. From the recitation of a little boy from Glasgow, who sang it in Grove St., Edinburgh, July, 1826.

Narrative

1   Greenland, Greenland, is a bonny, bonny place,
Whare there's neither grief nor flowr,
Whare there's neither grief nor tier to be seen,
But hills and frost and snow.
2   Up starts the kemp o the ship,
Wi a psalm-book in his hand:
'Swoom away, swoom away, my merry old boys,
For you'll never see dry land.'
3   Up starts the gaucy cook,
And a weil gaucy cook was he;
'I wad na gie aw my pans and my kettles
For aw the lords in the sea.'
4   Up starts the kemp o the ship,
Wi a bottle and a glass intil his hand;
'Swoom away, swoom away, my merry old sailors,
For you'll never see dry land.'
5   O the raging seas they row, row, row,
The stormy winds do blow,
As sune as he had gane up to the tap,
As . . . low.

This page most recently updated on 19-May-2011, 18:15:27.
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