The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #48959 Message #3039470
Posted By: Charley Noble
24-Nov-10 - 09:00 AM
Thread Name: South Australia:What the hell's a 'Rolling King'?
Subject: RE: What the hell's a 'Rolling King'?
Gibb-
Well argued as usual!
"Heave away, you rolling king" may simply be a description of what the stevedore was doing while shifting a bale of cotton along the dock or up the gangplank of a ship.
One gets a similar sense of what the stevedores were doing from this verse from a minstrel song from the 1850's:
O I wish I was in Mobile bay, Storm along, Stormy. Screwing cotton all de day, Storm along, Stormy. O you rollers storm along, Storm along, Stormy. Hoist away an' sing dis song, Storm along, Stormy.
And, of course, this may be our first encounter with "Stormy" as well.