Help define whaling term 'waik'?(blade)

Subject: Lyr Add: TRY, BOYS, TRY (Jonty Davis)
From: Barbara
Date: 25 Mar 03 - 07:41 PM

Can you help me find the right word for the tool they are using in verse three of the song below? The singers are Danny and Joyce McLeod, who are from Newcastle, I believe. It sounds like they are saying "waife" or "wake" or maybe "wyke" and the tool in question is probably either a blade on a handle or a part of the harpoon or perhaps a hook/blade combination.

Thanks,
Blessings,
Barbara


TRY BOYS TRY
Jonty Davis c1993

(Try means to render)

Chorus:
Try, boys, try and set light to his funeral pyre
Try, boys, try, let bold smoke fill the air
Try, boys, try, let the pitch and the sulfur flare
Try, boys, try, we will roast him in hell!

1. The cry comes from the top mast
Oh, there she blows again
So launch your boats and pull like hell
You merry whaling men!

2 The harpoon lance flies forward and
That whale he's wounded sore
So grab the ropes and hold him fast
You poxy whaling whores

3 His razor flukes are flying
And his flurries almost done
So stick a waike(?) into his back
You filthy whaling scum

4. We lash him up alongside
His carcass for to try
We'll cut him up and boil him down
Before he smells so high

5. We'll render him to tallow
Extract your ambergris
Fine scented ladies' sweet perfume
Owes much to tasks like these

Subject: RE: Help define whaling term 'waik'?(blade)
From: Barbara
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 03:32 PM

Surely someone recognizes the term. I may not have heard them correctly, but there must be something that sounds familiar.
Blessings
Barbara

Subject: RE: Help define whaling term 'waik'?(blade)
From: Les from Hull
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 04:13 PM

From the context of the song, it looks like the term refers to the 'stick with a flag on it' that claimed the whale kill for the ship that the whaleboat belonged to. I'll see if I can find anything in my books.

Subject: RE: Help define whaling term 'waik'?(blade)
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 04:53 PM

Can't find it in the old nautical dictionaries. Nothing in the complete OED. I have a couple of old whaling books, and will check those. I think Les may have guessed it, but it should be defined somewhere- unless the composer is guilty of a mondegreen.

Subject: RE: Help define whaling term 'waik'?(blade)
From: Barbara
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 05:30 PM

Uhm, it may be me, not the composer who is guilty of the mondegreen. I transcribed it from the CD. (Why is it UK CDs don't include the words?)It sounds most like "waif" or "wave" but given the dialect and that I live in the US, there's plenty of room for error. So go by the sound and not my spelling of it, if you're using dictionaries.
Does that help?
Blessings,
Barbara

P.S. The CD is "Never a Cross Word" by Danny and Joyce McLeod.

Subject: RE: Help define whaling term 'waik'?(blade)
From: Les from Hull
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 05:51 PM

The term 'weft' is sometimes used for a flag, but I haven't heard of it in this context. I'll pop up to Hull's wonderful Whaling Museum tomorrow (all of 100 metres from here!) and see what they call it.

Subject: RE: Help define whaling term 'waik'?(blade)
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 07:15 PM

Barbara-
UK CDs (and some US ones) don't include words for a simple reason: money. It generally costs more to do the printing than it does to make the CD.

Subject: RE: Help define whaling term 'waik'?(blade)
From: Barbara
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 10:18 PM

I see, dick. I thought it might be a matter of different copyright rules, or a strong feeling from folks that oral tradition is oral tradition, and not to be compromised by liner notes.
But no, it's money. As usual.
Thanks for the info. BTW, can people here order this CD from you? It's on the Old and New Tradition label.
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Help define whaling term 'waik'?(blade)
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 10:28 PM

I'd say that as many have liner notes and lyrics as don't; it just depends. It certainly isn't anything to do with anyone's feelings about oral tradition! I have noticed, though, that singer-songwriters almost invariably print their own lyrics if they can afford the production costs; and that this is often a mistake...

Subject: RE: Help define whaling term 'waik'?(blade)
From: Melani
Date: 27 Mar 03 - 01:58 AM

I think Les has got it right. I seem to remember the term "waif" meaning flag from "Logbook for Grace" by Robert Cushman Murphy, about a whaling voyage in I think 1912. Great book. I'll look it up at work on Friday if Les doesn't beat me to it.

Subject: RE: Help define whaling term 'waik'?(blade)
From: curmudgeon
Date: 27 Mar 03 - 02:53 PM

The Oxford Universal Dictionary defines "waif" as: A small flag used as a signal. Now naut.

However, I'm not sure how common this term was. In looking through pictures of whaling tools and implements, the only flag was called simply "boat flag." Also, I have never heard the term "harpoon lance" as these were two very different tools with very different purposes, ie, the harpoon, fluke or toggle, was what was first thrust in order to "hook" the whale, the lances used after to kill it.

But, I will email Joyce and Danny just to be sure -- Tom

Subject: RE: Help define whaling term 'waik'?(blade)
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 27 Mar 03 - 06:00 PM

C. M. Scammon, "Marine Mammals," 1874. "The officer who first discovers it (a whale) sets a waif (a small flag) in his boat and gives chase."
(OED, full edition)

Subject: RE: Help define whaling term 'waik'?(blade)
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 27 Mar 03 - 11:23 PM

CAMSCO will sell you anything that's in print. ANYTHING! and usually at a good price.

Subject: RE: Help define whaling term 'waik'?(blade)
From: Marc
Date: 28 Mar 03 - 12:05 AM

The word is waif. It infact was a simple flag used to mark the dead whale. After the whale was dead there might be others in the area worth persuing. According to the whale boat talk that the demo squad gives at Mystic Seaport, "it was an unwritten honor amongst yankee whalers, never to touch another boats waifed whale. Cool song. Nice bold romantic imagery. Arrh, Hearty Whaling Whores, Arrh.

Subject: RE: Help define whaling term 'waik'?(blade)
From: Barbara
Date: 28 Mar 03 - 02:05 PM

Thanks so much, folks. "Waif" solved, if not "harpoon lance" I'm pretty sure that's what he says. I thought at first it was "harpoon lads" but another listen says it's "lance".
The whole CD is worth a listen, with many Cicely Fox Smith verses in music form. This song, however, was from a 1993 folk oratorio by Jonty and Colins about the whaling industry.
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Help define whaling term 'waik'?(blade)
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Mar 03 - 12:31 AM

Hi Barbara, I'd have to agree with Marc. See 'History of the American Whale Fishery'. It shows what's called a 'mast head waif', looks like a large round metal strainer or sifter on a long pole. I can only guess that it looks this way (sifter) from the drawing rather than a flag would be to weather the wind, wave, whale & the elements. Also have to go with Curmudgeon, 2 different tools through there are different types of harpoons & lances as well as spades & forks. Barry

Subject: RE: Help define whaling term 'waik'?(blade)
From: Barbara
Date: 29 Mar 03 - 01:31 PM

The names of the two people who wrote the folk oratorio are Jonty Davis and Walker Colins.
Blessings,
Barbara