I've wondered about this, too, MudWeasel. The lyrics in the Digital Tradition are one of several versions found in Stan Hugill's Shanties from the Seven Seas, which has about ten pages on this series of songs. What makes me wonder, is that the Stormalong mentioned in these songs does not seem to be the tall-tale character "Old Stormalong" I've heard about in children's stories. I think the legend may have been corrupted by Walt Disney and his ilk.

I found a story called "Old Stormalong, the Deep-Water Sailorman" in Botkin's Treasury of American Folklore. The story was taken from Here's Audacity! American Legendary Heroes by good old Frank Shay (1930). The story includes lyrics similar to what we have in the Digital Tradition, so Shay apparently sees a connection. [Shay is best known for his book called My Pious Friends and Drunken Companions.


Here's what Shay says in his American Sea Songs and Chanteys (1948):

OLD STORMALONG is the only heroic character in the folklore of the sea: he was born, like the great clipper ships, in the imaginations of men. There is a legend, told in prose, of the time he was quartermaster of the Courser, the world's largest clipper. Stormy was taking his vessel from the North Sea through the English Channel, which was just six inches narrower than the Courser's beam. He suggested that if the captain sent all hands over to plaster the ship's side with soap he thought he could ease her through. It was a tight passage but the ship made it, the Dover cliffs scraping all the soap off the starboard side. Ever since, the cliffs at that point have been pure white and recent observers say the waves there are still foamy from the Courser's soap.

-Joe Offer-