THE GHOSTLY FISHERMEN

Smile if you've got a mind to, or perhaps you'll lend and ear
For boy and man together, nigh on to forty year
I have sailed across the waters, from Western Banks to Grand.
I was in some herring vessels that went from Newfoundland.

And I've seen storms I tell you, where things looked kinda blue
And in somehow or other, I was lucky and got through.
But I'll not brag, however, I'm not so much but then
I'm not much easier frightened than most of other men.

But one dark night I speak of, we were off lee shores a way,
I never will forget it in all my mortal days,
When in my dim dark watch I felt a chilling dread
That bore me down as if I heard one calling from the dead.

When on deck that September came sailors one by one,
A dozen dripping sailors, just wait till I am done.
On the decks they 'sembled, but not a voice was heard
They moved about together but neither spoke a word.

Their faces pale and sea-wet, shone ghostly through the night.
Each took his place as freely as if he had a right,
And eastward steered the vessel until land was just in sight,
Or rather I should say, saw the lighthouse towers alight.

And then those ghostly sailors, moved through the rail again
And vanished through the mist, where sun can shine on them.
I know not any reason in truth why these should come
To navigate our vessel till land was just in sight.

They are the simple sailors, I hope God rest their souls,
When their ship went under that time on Georges Shoal,
And now you've got my story, it's just the way I said,
For I believe in spirits, since that time anywhere. (spoken)


(no tune)
Source: Folklore and the Sea (Horace Beck, Castle Books, 1999 - originally published in 1973 by the Maritime Historical Association), PP 176-177 Stephen, note page number discrepancy
(from H.P. Beck, Folklore of Maine, 1957, PP. 204-205

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Both versions in the Digital Tradition are from Doerflinger's Songs of the Sailor and Lumberman, and they seem to be about the same. Version 1 in the DT is version 1 in Doerflinger, and Version 2 is version 2. Doerflinger says the original lyrics, by Harry L. Marcy, appeared in 1874 in Fishermen's Ballads and Songs of the Sea published by Procter Brothers, a Gloucester stationery house. Doerflinger's Verison 1 sas sung by Captain Henry Burke of Lunenburg. Version 2 was recited by Captain Bernie Bell, fishing captain of West Dublin, on the Lahave River, Nova Scotia.

-Joe Offer-