Q - not sure why you're telling me the Bodleian address (I'm more than familiar with it, it lives in my Folk Essential link directory. I also have my own copy of the index). Is this in case I rushed through your post the way I did with maeve's and missed the important bit ;-)

I was only looking at the versions collected in Canada, since Julia thought it was from PEI. The full 389 entries in Roud are too many to check!


I had a look at the songs on the Songs of the Sea album and initially wondered if they came from Doerflinger's Shantymen and Shantyboys, (published 1951), which does have the Dark-Eyed Sailor, but there are 5 from the record not in there I think. There were a few collections of shanties and sea songs available to him before 1956 and it's possible he used one or more of those as his source (Whall, Fox-Smith, Shay for example as well as Doerflinger)


Mick