Lyr Req: A Cornish Prayer ????

Subject: A Cornish Prayer ????
From: Gareth
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 04:51 PM

Silly request really, but it's been bugging me for weeks.

Does any catter know the actual words to the apocrval "Cornish Prayer" - Something on the lines of :- "We pray that shipwrecks never happen, but Lord if they do happen cast them upon this shore"

Not to be confused with moving the leading light !!

Gareth

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Cornish Prayer ????
From: GUEST,Marion in Cornwall
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 05:45 PM

I was looking at a book on the West Country the other day and came across these two, either of which may be what you're looking for.
An apocryphal version of a Cornish child's prayer:
"God bless Vaather 'n' Mawther, 'n' zend a ship t'shore vore mornin", and the prayer that Parson Troutbeck used "Dear God, we pray not that wrecks should happen, but that if it be Thy will they do, we pray Thee let them be to the benefit of Thy poor people of Scilly."

Regards, Marion

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Cornish Prayer ????
From: Gareth
Date: 04 Sep 02 - 06:49 PM

Pefick !!

Let the almighty's hand guide the wreckers lantern.

Gareth

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Cornish Prayer ????
From: Leadfingers
Date: 05 Sep 02 - 02:55 AM

The only Cornish prayer I know is 'From Ghouls,Ghosties and long leggetty beasties and things that go bump in the night,good lord deliver us'.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Cornish Prayer ????
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 25 Oct 07 - 06:42 PM

From The Yale Book of Quotations edited by Fred R. Shapiro:

From Ghoulies and Ghosties
And Long Leggetty Beasties
And things that go bump in the night
Good Lord, deliver us.

"The Cornish or West Country Litany." Earliest printed record occurs in F. T. Nettleinghame, Polperro Proverbs and Others (1926), but it certainly predates that printing.

Who would have guessed it was that recent, or that no one has turned up an older printed text?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Cornish Prayer ????
From: GUEST,Cats at Work
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 05:52 AM

Are you thinking of The Cornish Life boat Prayer which is sung extensively around Cornwall?
Chorus is
Should I be beset by gale,
let me not drink the bitterest cup,
but if the wind and wave prevail,
let not the deep swallow me up?

Subject: Lyr Add: THE WRECKER'S PRAYER (Andy Roberts)
From: GUEST,Cats at work
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 05:57 AM

Try this. I looked on Clusty not google.

The Wreckers Prayer

"Oh Lord, please don't let there be any shipwrecks,
Let the lighthouse shine out bright and clear.
But if you feel that there should be a shipwreck,
then please Lord, let that ship be wrecked here.

There's a path all the way from the clifftop
to the caves down below and the sea
It's steep and it's loose and it's slippery
On a moonless night, you need a little light
We don't want any accidents, you see.

If there needs to be a tragedy at sea
then let the cargo be washed ashore here

Oh the living is hard down this way
the soil is all stoney and poor
We don't have a port, no fish to be caught
There's just what the tide brings ashore
And the duty free liquor in store.

Next time it happens, don't let me be late
or allow too much salt water
to infiltrate

Oh Lord, please don't let there be any shipwrecks,
Let the lighthouse shine out bright and clear.
But when you feel that there should be a shipwreck,
then please Lord, let the next one be here.

- Andy Roberts 2003

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Cornish Prayer ????
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 11:02 AM

Wasn't Abide With Me, written by the vicar at St Ives?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Cornish Prayer ????
From: Cats
Date: 27 Oct 07 - 06:33 AM

William Lyte was a curate in Cornwall in 1817. In 1823 he bacame the vicar in the parish of Lower Brixham, Devon. So, yes and no!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Cornish Prayer ????
From: Cats
Date: 27 Oct 07 - 06:33 AM

Sorry, Henry Lyte, not William Lyte.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Cornish Prayer ????
From: sian, west wales
Date: 27 Oct 07 - 06:38 AM

I grew up with "from Ghoulies and Ghosties" - mum always used it, and her paternal grandfather's people were Cornish. I'm pretty sure it was just something that was knocking around in the family, rather than something that she picked up from a book. She's 86.

sian, west wales

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Cornish Prayer ????
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jul 08 - 07:11 PM

I listened to the Andy Roberts Wreckers Prayer online and thought it was pretty good..

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: A Cornish Prayer ????
From: GUEST,harper
Date: 09 Dec 17 - 08:50 PM

I have just spent some time trying to find an earlier version of the "Ghoulies and ghosties..." litany. It must have been around in some form in Shakespeare's time, as the fairies' song in Act 2, Scene 2 of Midsummer Night's Dream contains a similar sentiment. It is a lullaby sung by the fairies to Titania:

You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen.
Newts and blindworms, do no wrong.
Come not near our fairy queen.

[Chorus] Philomel, with melody
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby:
Never harm,
Nor spell nor charm,
Come our lovely lady nigh;
So, good night, with lullaby.

Weaving spiders, come not here;
Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence!
Beetles black, approach not near;
Worm nor snail, do no offense.

[Chorus]

I found this version in Walker, Archibald Stodard. The Beggar’s Wallet: Containing Contributions in Prose, Verse and Pictorial Illustration, Gathered from Certain Workers in Arts and Letters. Edinburgh: The Royal Victoria Hospital for Consumption, 1905, p. 163:

“From Ghaisties, Ghoulies, and long-leggity Beasties and Things that go Bump in the night - Good Lord, deliver us.”

I agree with others that it must have been in circulation much earlier than 1905.