-- As for the theory of the ships having run aground in the "lowland sea": (BTW, we haven't decided if this is actually a reference to the coast of the "low countries", or not. I asked about that earlier, but there've been no other comments. I'm sure there are other lowland seas in the world -- or are there?) At first thought, I saw it as a similar but alternate vision to the ships being becalmed. However, if only the Spanish enemy was aground, there would be no need for the Golden Vanity to be worried -- she could have just sailed away. If both were aground, then how could the enemy ship "sink"? On the other hand, holing its bottom and flooding her hold would allow for the possibility of making sure the enemy stayed aground while the GV sailed off with the high tide. (I like my becalmed in the fog scenario better, I think.)

-- Someone asked about the GV just lobbing a "cartload of cannonballs" into the Sp. enemy, and another talked of the possibility of "shooting it out." There's nothing in the versions I've seen (admittedly not all of them) that the GV was a warship, or even armed at all. Only by inference is the Sp. enemy a warship (the assertion that the GV "feared she might be taken"). They might have been unarmed, but if the two countries were at war, the GV crew still feared that they could be "taken" especially if the enemy was a larger ship with a more numerous crew.

-- According to the song the cabin boy "swam" (not waded or slithered through the mud) both TO the enemy and also back. Even if the ships were aground they wouldn't have been "on dry land" as someone suggested... only in water shallow enough for the ship(s) not to be able to float freely (and shallow enough for the cabin boy to be able to stand on the bottom to get the leverage to drill his holes, as someone else suggested). How tall were 12 year old boys in those days? (Even those who might have reached puberty in order
to be lusting after the "lovely captain's daughter" who he had probably never seen?)

-- This HAS been a fascinating thread, and I marvel at some of the powers of imagination that have been exhibited... but I'm about at the end of mine. Let's face it: it's a song about an imaginary incident of derring-do by a young boy who suceeds in an impossible feat only to be done in by the perfidy of an unscrupulous adult. Still, as someone commented, it's a great song, and the very impossibility of the tale only increases the fun of singing it. Don't all peoples of all times in all countries enjoy telling "tall tales?" (And try to pass them off as true to "outland" sassenachs (read gullible) listeners? Let's just enjoy THIS tall tale. I don't like being a wet blanket, but I think we've milked this one for about all we can get out of it.

-- Some earlier posts here referred to the McBride twins... Willie and Arthur, and whether or not they were Irish. I think I'll go hunt for threads about them. (And the "twins" bit is a joke for the literal minded here.)

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