This is a more complete version of the Mary L. Mackay than is currently in the database. I have provided annotation where differences occur between the texts. Many of the differences can be attributed to either folk process or to minor mondegreens. As stated lower in this text, many of the "variants" are actually the original words.

The Mary L. Mackay
1913, Frederick William Wallace
Collected by Helen Creighton in Song and Ballads of Nova Scotia
As sung by Edmund Henneberry
Variant texts in brackets

Oh, come all you hardy haddockers, who winter fishing go,
And brave the seas upon the banks in story winds and snow,
And ye who love hard driving, come listen to my lay
Of the run we made from Portland in the Mary L. Mackay.

We hung the muslin on her, [as] the wind began to hum,
Twenty hardy Nova Scotiamen chock full of Portland [bootleg] rum,
Mainsail, foresail, jib and jumbo on that wild December day,
As we passed Cape Elizabeth and slugged for Fundy Bay.

We slammed her by Monhegan as the gale began to scream,
Our vessel took to dancing in a way that was no dream.
A howler o'er the toprail [or taffrail or caprail or topsail]
We steered Sou'west [her East] away;
She was a hound for running was the Mary L. Mackay.

Storm along and drive along and punch her through the ribs [rips],
Don't mind your [the] boarding combers as the solid green she ships;
"Just mind your eye and watch the wheel [your helm]" our skipper he did say;
"Clear [clean] decks we'll sport tomorrow on the Mary L. Mackay."

Oh, the seas were looking ugly and the crests were heaving high,
Our vessel simply scooped her [them up] till her decks were never dry;
The cook he mouthed [moused] the pots and pans and unto us did say
"You'll get nothing else but mugups on the Mary L. Mackay."

We laced a hawser to the wreck and caulked the cable box,
We tested all our shackles and our fore and mainsail blocks;
We double gripped our dories while the gang began to pray
For a breeze to tear the bitts from out [out of] the Mary L. Mackay.

We slammed her to [by] Matinicus and the skipper hauled the log—
"Sixteen knots, Lord Harry! Ain't she just the gal to jog?"
The half-canned helmsman shouted as he swung her on her way,
"Just watch me tear the mainsail off the Mary L. Mackay."

The rum was passing merrily and the gang was feeling grand,
Long necks [a-] dancing in our wake from where we left the land.
[But] our skipper he kept sober for he knew how things would lay,
And [he] made us furl the mainsail on the Mary L. Mackay.

Under foresail and her jumbo we tore wildly through the night,
The foaming, surging whitecaps in the moonshine made a sight,
Would [To] fill your hearts with terror, boys, and wish you were away
At home in bed and not aboard the Mary L. Mackay.

Over on the Lurcher Shoals, the seas were running strong,
The roaring, angry breakers from three to four miles long
And [in] this wild inferno, boys, we soon had hell to pay,
We didn't care a hoot aboard the Mary L. Mackay.

We laced [lashed] our wheelsman [helmsman] to the box as he steered her through the gloom,
A big sea hove his dory mate right over the main boom;
It tore the oilpants off his legs and you could hear him say,
"There's a power of water flying o'er the Mary L. Mackay."

Our skipper didn't care [wish] to make his wife a widow yet,
[So] he swung her off to Yarmouth Cape with just her foresail set,
[We] And passed Forchu next morning and shut [shot] in at break of day,
And soon in sheltered harbour lay the Mary L. Mackay.

From Portland, Maine, to Yarmouth Sound, two twenty miles we ran,
In eighteen [nineteen] hours, my bully boys, now beat that if you can.
The gang said 'twas [it was] seamanship, the skipper he kept dumb [mum]
But [For] the force that drove our vessel was the power of Portland [bootleg] rum.

When Wallace wrote this he was describing a run the Effie Morrisey took in December, 1913. He changed the names to protect the guilty. Even so, apparently, it was an instant hit and the captain, Bob Bartlett, requested a signed copy from him under the original name as the "Log of a Record Run." Wherever possible, the words in brackets match the originally published words before the folk process began to transmute the song. My theory is that many of the variants Creighton recorded were the result of ignorance, such as the substitution of "mouthed" for "moused." I have heard all of the words in brackets or seen most of them in the original text, such as "shot" vs. "shut." Often the bracketed words make more sense than the words commonly used today.