Thanks for spotting another anachronous portrayal of "Lowlands." I can add it to my list of interest in how it is being used these days in which, as Big Al says, it seems "the toffs have heard of" it.

If anyone is crazy enough (I doubt), you can read my rambling run-down of information on the "Lowlands" chanty here:

Lowlands Away (historiography)

Keep in mind that this is looking at just one song, the chronological "warp." When one starts to look at the "weft"--the combination of all the stuff going on at various times--a better picture of chanties emerges...where the thoughts of "Well, maybe it *could* have been *this* way, in this one case, you never know" starts to appear less *likely* and more like idle speculation. Imagine all you want...green men could have brought chanties from the Mars in spaceships...but without a solid *base* of evidence (i.e. more than just an imagined story of one song/lyric), it's just yarns. There's more that's been considered in the dating of these things than just "This is the earliest we found something noted down."

We have access to more historical information today than Hugill or his predecessors had, and I think he may have even been shooting a little too early with that dating of chanties--on board ship at least. Mind you, in Hugill's and my definition, a chanty isn't just any work song on a sea vessel (it's a specific style/repertoire/genre/movement), which may be the cause of some confusion.