Dear Richard,

Thank you very much for finally clearing the fog for me. Even though my deadline is weeks overdue I've been checking in on this website every now and then just to see if someone could possibly provide an answer. And to tell you the truth I was actually about to send you a personal e-mail about this, but then at the last minute decided not to, because I figured firstly that you had only written the instrumental music and not the shanties, and secondly that you wouldn't want to be bothered with silly questions from over-zealous translators with crappy ears... I now realize that I should have followed my instinct, and I'm very grateful that you took your time to explain things in such detail.

My, or rather our, own guess at the lyrics was not all that far from the truth, so I'm happy to conclude that my Swedish translation for the DVD edition of "Moby Dick" will work rather well. I quite agree that it's a great production on all accounts, and it's sad that I wasn't given more time (and a better script) to make the Swedish translation even better.

Again, many thanks, and all the best to you,

Rickard Sjöberg
translator and now enlightened shanty novice