Deb Lewis

***The Greenland Whale Fisheries survives because it has a really great
tune, but it preserves a date very badly. <g> "It was in eighteen
hundred and fifty five (or three or something) and on June the
fourteenth day (or someteenth day)..." All that needs to rhyme is
"day" with "sailed away."***

I know this song!

My Aunt Eula used to sing a version of it to me but I don't remember all
the words.

Was in eighteen hundred and fifty three
On June the thirteenth day
That our gallant ship
Her anchors weighed
And for Greenland sailed away, brave boys
For Greenland sailed away

(Something missing here)

The lookout in the crosstrees stood
With spyglass in his hand
There's a whale, there's a whale,
there's whalefish he cried
And she blows at every span, brave boys
She blows at every span.

(Something here I don't remember)

Now we struck that whale and the line paid out,
But the whale made a flounder with her tail,
And the boat capsized and four men were drowned,
And we never caught that whale, brave boys,
And we never caught that whale.

To lose that whale, our captain cried,
It grieves my heart full sore,
But to lose four of my gallant men
It grieves me ten times more, brave boys
It grieves me ten times more.

(Something here I've forgotten)

Now Greenland is a dreadful place
It's a land that never is green
Where there's ice and snow, and the whalefishes blow
and the daylight's seldom seen, brave boys
And the daylight's seldom seen.

I have looked for this song, the way my auntie used to sing it but never
found her version of it and never liked the other versions well enough to
remember them. <g>

And I think it was July something when the Electra fell in the ocean far
away. <g>

Deb Lewis

Sandra Dodd

On Mar 13, 2006, at 12:40 PM, Deb Lewis wrote:

> To lose that whale, our captain cried,
> It grieves my heart full sore,
> But to lose four of my gallant men
> It grieves me ten times more, brave boys
> It grieves me ten times more.


There's another way it's sung sometimes where the captain says that
to lose those men (however many of them) it grieved his heart full
sore, but oh, to lose that 40 barrel (or however many barrels) whale,
it grieves me ten times more.

He wasn't as nice a captain. <g>

I have no idea how many men and how many barrels, but partly that's
my number-memory disability. I just can't remember numbers very well
unless they make visual patterns in my head, and few do.

Sandra