Traditional Ballad Index:

I Am a Brisk Young Sprightly Lad

DESCRIPTION: "I am a brisk and sprightly lad, But just come home from sea, sire... A sailor's life for me, sir." "Yeo, yeo, yeo, Whilst the bosun pipes all hands With a yeo, yeo, yeo!" The sailor loves foreign ports, and promises to fight for the nation when attacked
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1948 (Shay)
KEYWORDS: sailor battle money
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Shay-SeaSongs, p. 138, "I Am a Brisk and Sprightly Lad" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Mother Bunch" (theme: daughter, wanting to marry, reminds mother of her own indiscretions)
cf. "Between the Meadow and the Moss" (theme:} daughter, wanting sex, reminds mother of her own indiscretions)
NOTES [57 words]: This is another of those sea-poems Shay seems to have dug up somewhere; I have not found it elsewhere.
The boast about each man "hasten[ing] to his guns" would surely have sounded very strange to the sailors who fought in the Napoleonic wars -- it is estimated that half of the men in Nelson's fleet were impressed, and more were quota men. - RBW.
Last updated in version 2.6
File: ShaSS138

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The Ballad Index Copyright 2019 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.