Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Joybell
Date: 23 Nov 03 - 07:22 PM

And as to the gadget Sailor Jack invented. Well it never would have worked would it? The Mermaid knew that. She would have thrown it away except that Jack was so proud of it. It got passed down as a family heirloom. It's somewhere in the bottm drawer of the kitchen cupboard. Never found a domestic use for a drillin' tool that bored nine holes at once.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Joybell
Date: 23 Nov 03 - 06:25 PM

Well here's how it REALLY happened.
There was this little cabin boy (hereafter LCB) who fell in love with his captain's daughter. Captain was offering all kinds of incentives to anyone able to sink the enemy ship. Sooo - LCB invented a cunning device, he being Cornish and technologicaly adept.   On the evening that his gaget was finished he stood alone on the deck, the watch was dozing, and couldn't help but cry out into the night wind, "I have a magic tool!" Unbeknowst to him a Mermaid combing her hair on a nearby rock heard the brave boast. (Mermaid = expert underwater swimmer. Able to perform magic for a price.) She was very, very interested. Human male tools are usually completely inadequate to satisfy a Mermaid. They made this deal. "I'll help you sink the enemy ship but when I call you away, you must come to me!" said the Mermaid. LCB was sure he could avoid the Mermaid's payment (it never works but humans always think it will). The deed was done by the Mermaid. LCB only had to wait in the water beside his ship. Of course the Mermaid arranged for LCB to be thrown overboard into her arms. She was a little puzzled by LCB's claims about the "Magic Tool" but he satisfied her quite well anyway and they lived happily ever after.

How do I know all this? Well Folks that Little Cabin Boy was my great, great, great grandfather - Sailor Jack Semmens from Cornwall.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Peter T.
Date: 22 Nov 03 - 06:28 PM

Listening to the album of "Family Songs and Stories from the North Carolina Mountains" (Smithsonian Folkwayswith Doug and Jack Wallin, Doug sings yet another version of the "Golden Vanity" -- in this one the boy has "an instrument made for the use" and "cut ninety-nine gashes in the Turkish Robberree" (the name of the opponent in this one). That sounds more like it!!!!

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Joe_F
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 07:36 PM

Robin: I think that may be a version of

Peeping thru the knothole in grandpa's wooden leg,
Who'll wind the clock when I am gone, etc.

But I can't find a copy of it to check. I could have sworn it was in _The New Song Fest_.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 04:47 AM

20000 Folk Songs Site
lists a song

"A Boy He Had an Auger"

but currently no words, sorry...

:-)

Robin

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 11 Sep 03 - 09:41 AM

Head over keel is the normal mode.

SEA SONGS AND BALLADS, ed. by Christopher Stone includes "Sir Walter Raleigh Sailing in the Low-lands." In this version, the cabin boy uses a breast drill and Sir Walter takes him back aboard then gives him everything except the daughter. Even using a breast drill, there would have had to have been some sort of hooks to keep the driller from rotating as he drilled. The other possibility is that, as the song says "The which will bore fifteen good holes at once, sailing in the Low-lands," the multiplicity of holes anchored the person doing the drilling against rotation.

Although it is not the incident mentioned earlier, THE SEA WARRIORS, Richard Woodman, p.53, [author of the Nathaniel Drinkwater series] cites an event in 1794, when the French cavalry captured the Netherlands' fleet by attacking over ice on the Zuider Zee.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Gareth
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 07:14 PM

Schantieman - And if she 'pitchpoled' - Would it be "Head over keel" ?????

Gareth - Ducking and Weaving.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 07:04 PM

Those wouldn't be deep sea divers with helmets and all that. They weren't invented for hundreds of years. They'd be blokes swimming in the water, who would themseleves be "alternately above and below the water's surface"

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Joe_F
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 06:54 PM

HuwG: According to the OED, "between wind and water" means "on the load-line of a ship, which, as the vessel tosses, is alternately above and below the water's surface". This makes the mention of divers rather puzzling.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 10:31 AM

this name has to be a joke, right

Why should it be? After all, "Kettle" is not an uncommon English surname. (For example - journalist Marin Kettle, here writing about drink.)

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Schantieman
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 09:19 AM

To creep back to unsuitable names for vessels, the RN has four yachts at Jupiter Point (W of Plymouth) called Headstrong, Heads I Win, Hedonist and (wait for it).... Head Over Heels!

It hasn't yet.

Steve

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: HuwG
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 08:50 AM

From Purser Calderon's [1] account of the Spanish Armada (1588), referring to the Spanish Flagship, the "San Martin" :


"... the holes made in the hull between wind and water caused so great a leakage that two divers had as much as they could do to stop them up with tow and lead plates, working all day".

Evidently, it was possible for divers to use mallets and other tools under water, even while the ship was under way. On the other hand, I would assume that they were being helped by the crew, and were attached by lifelines. But at any rate, it seems that professional divers existed, and were skilled and resourceful craftsmen. If asked to scuttle rather than save a ship, they would probably have obliged.





[1] Calderon's account is used by most Armada historians, but this name has to be a joke, right ? It is the Spanish word for "cauldron" or "cooking-pot".

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 08:10 AM

All this speculation about what would or what would not have been possible to do in the way of drilling holes in ships is a bit beside the point. If it is true, as has been stated, that warships did in fact in Elizabethan times employ swimmers with augers, they must have been capable of carrying out some useful function. So isn't anybody who knows something about naval history going to do a bit of research into what that was, and cast light on the whole subject?

Perhaps the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich could come up with the goods?

It appears that the 1635 version featuring Walter Raleigh as the heavy has the ship called The Sweet Trinity. Perhaps "Golden Vanity" was an adjustment with biblical overtones - "Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity..." Which would be very fitting in relation to Water Raleigh's life story. (Even down to the double meaning of vanity, since he was something of a peacock - though I'm not sure if the word could carry the current meaning at that time.)

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: InOBU
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 07:55 AM

I think this thread could sink a ship!!!!!!!!!!!!! Larry

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: GUEST,Hrothgar
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 07:42 AM

That last post was me. What the hell happened to my cookie?

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 07:36 AM

EBarnacle, you might be thinking of the Basque Roads during the Napoleonic Wars.

Briefly, Cochrane came up with an idea to destroy the French fleet which was anchored in the Basque Roads. He sailed a ship filled with explosives, supported by nineteen fireships, towards the French. The explosion itself did not do a lot of damage, but it panicked many of the French into cutting their cables. By morning all but two were aground. Cochrane, by now back in his own ship, the frigate Imperieuse, signalled to Admiral Gambier to come and finish off the enemy.

Gambier, who had his nose out of joint because a junior captain had been sent to carry out this major mission, and who also thought that the use of explosion ships was diabolical, did not move. Cochrane with his frigate finished off one stranded battleship, and eventually Gambier sent in three line-of-battle ships which finished off three more. Gambier then ordered all ships to return.

After this disastrous waste of opportunity Gambier was cleared by a very political court-martial.

Cochrane was an amazing man - read any biography of him you can get. Some of his exploits turn up in the Hornblower books, as well as others.


Now - back to the thread - if the cabin boy held on to the rudder post with one hand to prevent counter-rotation while he drilled his little holes ........

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Phot
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 06:46 AM

Teribus, wait til next season, both Stringbags will be back, if you want I'll try and keep all vintage AC enthusiasts up to date with whats going on at work, I'll see what I can come up with.

Chris

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Teribus
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 05:03 AM

Hi Gareth,

A week last Sunday saw your Swordfish flying at about 800 - 1000ft over the Solent - absolutely magnificent.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Melani
Date: 08 Sep 03 - 10:41 PM

Deckman--our Sea Scouts managed to sink both a Cal 20 and a sailing whaleboat exactly the way you described, by leaving the cork out--fortunately both in shallow water.

Skip--don't tease us like that--with a .45?

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Gareth
Date: 08 Sep 03 - 07:16 PM

Hmmm ! Well they do say a Swordfish could sink a ship, now if the cabin boy had had This at his command ????

Gareth

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Reiver 2
Date: 08 Sep 03 - 06:14 PM

-- As for the theory of the ships having run aground in the "lowland sea": (BTW, we haven't decided if this is actually a reference to the coast of the "low countries", or not. I asked about that earlier, but there've been no other comments. I'm sure there are other lowland seas in the world -- or are there?) At first thought, I saw it as a similar but alternate vision to the ships being becalmed. However, if only the Spanish enemy was aground, there would be no need for the Golden Vanity to be worried -- she could have just sailed away. If both were aground, then how could the enemy ship "sink"? On the other hand, holing its bottom and flooding her hold would allow for the possibility of making sure the enemy stayed aground while the GV sailed off with the high tide. (I like my becalmed in the fog scenario better, I think.)

-- Someone asked about the GV just lobbing a "cartload of cannonballs" into the Sp. enemy, and another talked of the possibility of "shooting it out." There's nothing in the versions I've seen (admittedly not all of them) that the GV was a warship, or even armed at all. Only by inference is the Sp. enemy a warship (the assertion that the GV "feared she might be taken"). They might have been unarmed, but if the two countries were at war, the GV crew still feared that they could be "taken" especially if the enemy was a larger ship with a more numerous crew.

-- According to the song the cabin boy "swam" (not waded or slithered through the mud) both TO the enemy and also back. Even if the ships were aground they wouldn't have been "on dry land" as someone suggested... only in water shallow enough for the ship(s) not to be able to float freely (and shallow enough for the cabin boy to be able to stand on the bottom to get the leverage to drill his holes, as someone else suggested). How tall were 12 year old boys in those days? (Even those who might have reached puberty in order
to be lusting after the "lovely captain's daughter" who he had probably never seen?)

-- This HAS been a fascinating thread, and I marvel at some of the powers of imagination that have been exhibited... but I'm about at the end of mine. Let's face it: it's a song about an imaginary incident of derring-do by a young boy who suceeds in an impossible feat only to be done in by the perfidy of an unscrupulous adult. Still, as someone commented, it's a great song, and the very impossibility of the tale only increases the fun of singing it. Don't all peoples of all times in all countries enjoy telling "tall tales?" (And try to pass them off as true to "outland" sassenachs (read gullible) listeners? Let's just enjoy THIS tall tale. I don't like being a wet blanket, but I think we've milked this one for about all we can get out of it.

-- Some earlier posts here referred to the McBride twins... Willie and Arthur, and whether or not they were Irish. I think I'll go hunt for threads about them. (And the "twins" bit is a joke for the literal minded here.)

Reiver 2

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 10:39 PM

I'm with Bob the Deckman on this one.

That was Bob Clark, by the way. Not the Bob Clark who owned the Place Next Door, but the Bob Clark who played left-handed guitar and sang.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Gareth
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 07:17 PM

(See an earlier post of mine) I still maintain that the Skipper recognised that the cabin boy had served on the "Good Ship Venus" and was still SORE about that.

On the other hand, revenge may not have been his motive, rather a desire to protect his daughter from the sexual proclivities of the cabin boy ---- ????

BTW

As one who has walked/struggled/slithered over the mud in the Medway/Swale/London River/Whitstable Bay at times I would cast a doubt about the enemy being attacked at low water by a deshipped cabin boy. Particullay if weighted down with an auger, or scuttling charges, fuses etc.

But if it had been winter, perchance the cabin boy could have walked over the ice ???

ALSO BTW - Ta ! Huw. for your corrections to my synposis of the "Hornblower" story.

Gareth

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Deckman
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 06:54 PM

GEEZE ... You guys are brutal! Where's the romance? No wonder there's no wimmen posting anymore! Bob

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 06:12 PM

I think your friend is full of it. Here is a chance to drown the other ship, no loss of life on your ship, as opposed to big explosions, swords up your wazoo, and if you are lucky, the rest of your life in a galley ship in North Africa. The cabin boy takes some initiative, so if it goes wrong, no great loss, one cabin boy. Kid who plays the harmonica, probably, sense of adventure, while the rest of us sit around moaning about how we are going to die. Boy playing hero, so captain says, what the hell, I'll give you the moon. Could the captain have stopped at gold and silver, probably, but he was probably amused by the whole thing, hey I'll throw in my daughter, and make you Archbishop of Canterbury -- watch the looney kid drown, interesting story to talk about tomorrow, let's watch, and I'll put a pound on the kid to drown, 100-1 on the side with the first mate.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 05:33 PM

Some decades ago, a friend of mine had a somewhat different slant on the matter of the cabin boy. His argument (augerment?) went as follows:—

"Okay. Here they are, sailing in the Lowland Sea, and they fear they will be taken by the Spanish enemy. Then this kid has an idea of how he can save the ship, save the captain, save his mess mates, and save his own sorry ass. So instead of just doing it, he jumps on the opportunity to blackmail the captain for gold and silver and the captain's fair young daughter his bonny bride to be. What would he have done if the captain had told him, 'Stick it, you little twerp! We'll take our chances and shoot it out!' Would he have just sat there sulking and let them fight it out, see a lot of his mess mates get killed, and maybe get killed himself? Why are his mess mates so broken up about this kid when he actually does die? He was using their lives as bargaining chips! The kid's an opportunistic little roach! I have no sympathy!"

Well . . . he does seem to have a point.

Also, I was thinking of the people (some folk singers I know, both here on Mudcat and face to face) who rail on about how stupid the plots of operas are! When it comes to stupid plots, there are a few ballads that can easily match the dumbest of opera scenarios.

But wotthehell! It's still a good song.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: kendall
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 10:11 AM

The battle between the Monitor and the Virginia ended in a draw, The Virginia went aground, and the Monitor left to sink another day.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 10:08 AM

I think EBarnacle is on to something here. If both ships were temporarily grounded in shallow water (the lowland sea), waiting for the tide to come back in, wouldn't that give a likely lad the idea to paddle over to the other ship, bore a few holes in it, and swim back with the rising tide (the song does mention the drifting tide)? Course it doesn't deal with the other technical issues, but I like the images.

yours,

Peter T.

P.S. I assume the name "The Golden Vanity" is a tipoff that the ensuing story wasn't going to go well. The other ship name it echoes is "The Golden Hind". All the many names of ships attached to this song have to have "eee" on the end!

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 08:40 AM

There was at least one incident, I am not sure in which war, in which several opposing vessels were grounded and their crews attacked each other with the intent of damaging the enemy vessel. One side succeeded and sailed off with the rising tide, leaving the other to sink in the lowland sea.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: HuwG
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 07:50 AM

Some further thoughts on the possibility that the enemy of the "Golden Vanity" (and the "Vanity" herself) were grounded at the time of the incident.

1. It would explain why the cabin boy was in extremis after swimming back to the "Vanity". He had been swimming over dry land. You could argue, why then was he drowning ? Well, it is possible to drown in a puddle if too exhausted to stand or get up. Or, that the tide was coming in.

2. It might explain why the captain was so ungracious. He realised that some superhuman feat, for which he had promised in advance a sum of gold and his daughter's hand, was in fact a deed which anyone could have accomplished. So, as he watched his foe simply fail to float, he would no doubt have smote his forehead and cried, "Doh!". And taken measures to avoid paying out.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Phot
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 03:08 AM

No worries Amos!...........I still think the Torpex is the best soloution though! ;)

Wassail!
Chris

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Amos
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 08:32 PM

Phot:

Apologies for confusing your jest with density! :>) Would you believe I have met people who could deliver it with no humor at all intended??

A

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Nerd
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 06:27 PM

Is a golden vanity a bathroom fixture? If so, how about "The Silver Bidet" or "the platinum crapper"? Now THOSE are bad names for a ship...

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Phot
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 06:17 PM

Get real Amos, it was supposed to be funny!

Chris

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Amos
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 05:41 PM

Peter:

There is something to your question and something even more to the choosing of such a nonsensical name. Do you know if it has a birthright in English literature or some obscure religous or moral essay? What, indeed, is a golden vanity? Is it one that stands out from other vanities, as one of the deadly sins might? Whence does such a phrase grow?

A

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Peter T.
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 03:40 PM

I think the intriguing thing is to name your ship "the Golden Vanity". Is this not asking for trouble?

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Nerd
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 03:26 PM

An African or a European swallow?

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: kendall
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 03:18 PM

a one ounce swallow could not carry a coconut...

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 02:12 PM

Only one problem with that: if the Spanish enemy was grounded, why couldn't the Golden Vanity, Sweet Trinity, Merry Golden Tree, Turkey Revelry, or whatever, 1) if feeling bloody-minded, just lob a cartload of cannon balls at it in the usual manner, thus rendering it unable to sail anywhere when the tide rose; or 2) simple raise a middle digit and sail blithely off while letting a chorus of Bronx cheers waft across the water on the breeze?

'Course it wouldn't be much of a story then. . . .

But then again, if both ships were grounded, that would change things. But that's reading quite a bit into it, and one would think that anything that important would have been mentioned in the ballad.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Amos
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 01:19 PM

HuwG:

Your "grounded on a Dutch bar" hypothesis is the first one I've heard that sounds even feasible; but I am sorry to say it seems to me such a dramatic component of the story would not have been dropped out of the story even by the most ruthless Folk Process.

(The most ruthless folk process is the one that says, "Folk you and the horse you came in on!")


A

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 12:57 PM

the version I know best has the Spanish enemy "lay"-ing along the Lowland sea just before sunk rather then "sailing"

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: HuwG
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 12:55 PM

I have been reading (all right, skimming) every source I can lay my hands on, and the following possibilities present themselves:

1. In < href="http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=62576&messages=87#1012367">Gareth's post above re. Horblower's capture of the "Estrella del Sur". Apparently, the swimmers detailed for the job of knobbling the "Estrella" used knives to pry the copper off one of the rudder braces below the waterline, then used an auger to drill a hole large enough to pass a stout line through, to which the drogue was attached. Since this was underneath the ship's counter, I suppose it possible that they could find rudder pintles and other projections from the ship's hull to brace themselves against while they pried and drilled.

2. In the case of the "Golden Vanity", we may all have overlooked one possibility; that the Spanish or whatever enemy vessel sunk by the cabin boy was grounded at low tide (happens a lot in the Low Countries). This would explain why her crew had leisure to play snap, or snakes and ladders, or whatever. The cabin boy could stand on a solid bottom and work against a similarly immovable ship's hull. After a few hours, the tide comes in, glug, glug, glub, bubble.

3. The ship's crew in life belts ? When were these introduced ? It could give us a "not-before" date for this song, unless the dreaded "folk process" added this little touch over the course of time.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Amos
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 12:47 PM

Phot:

When you work an augur on land, you are NOT pushing against the air for your leverage. You are pushing through your back and legs against the earth.

Try doing work while floating sometime and you'll see what I mean...

A

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Phot
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 12:16 PM

The arguments about torque reaction seem to be ranting on and on, just remember that water is eight times denser than air, which, giving the drag factor of the human body would enable said cabin boy quite a bit of leverage.

Ah sod it! 250Lbs of Torpex should do the trick!!

Wassail Chris

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Jeri
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 11:58 AM

The odds are that Pvt William McBride simply wasn't.

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 11:50 AM

I heard ya Kendall.

Rick

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Amos
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 09:52 AM

I did say "maybe", T, but I am glad to hear another Catter has worked bottoms.

A

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 09:45 AM

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: Teribus
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 03:02 AM

Very good point Jeri.

On the subject of assumptions, Amos - 04 Sep 03 - 07:11 PM

"I hear ya, Capn. Maybe these guys never scrubbed a hull from underneath?"

Certainly in my own case, you might be on very shakey ground on that one. Others related to a couple of well known "folk" songs:

- The assumption by many that the Pte William McBride of "No Mans Land" fame was Irish - odds are more likely that he was not.

- The assumption that the song Arthur McBride, is Irish and was written by someone who had successfully evaded enlistment. That song sounds like classic barrack-room black humour and wishfull thinking. Earliest recollection of the song was in the South West of England in the 1820's (1826 seems to ring a bell from a thread on the subject).

Subject: RE: Gold.Vanity. Can you REALLY sink a ship?
From: old moose
Date: 05 Sep 03 - 01:39 AM

I would say,dammned unlikely. When I was a lad of ten and eleven my dad was building us a log cabin down in the woods in Oregon. He was doing it in a first class style using two sided cants and pinning all the corners. doors and window with trenails--wooden pins an inch or so in diameter. My brother and I using my grand dad's brace, couldn't have weighed more than three pounds or so, and an auger one and a sixteenth in size drilled all those holes, admittedly in in fir and hemlock, semi-seasoned, not seasoned oak, or teak or some other ship building timber, but from direct experience, (I could swim in those days too, and cabin boys in the suixteenth century were often ten to twelve years of age, hell, right up into the twentieth century they were often that old,) (not that I ever tried to carry an auger,but I used to try to carry two large rocks and bang 'em together to make peoples' ears pop) it ain't gonna be did. Heck git yer graddad's brace and a half inch auger and a scrap pi8ece of olg oak three or four inches thick and lean on the auger. Nope, wouldn't work. Wouldn't work. Put it all down to poetic license el moose p.s. ASk the deckman about this business of drilling with a brace and auger, in his line of work I'll bet he knows. which is no doubt why he uses power tools.My dad switched as soon as the firsr hand held electric drill motor came out.