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The English and Scottish Popular Ballads

Edited by Francis James Child.

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Greenland

THE MERMAID—F

[_]

Kinloch MSS, VII, 245. From the recitation of a little boy from Glasgow, who sang it in Grove St., Edinburgh, July, 1826.

1

Greenland, Greenland, is a bonny, bonny place,
Whare there's neither grief nor flowr,
Whare there's neither grief nor tier to be seen,
But hills and frost and snow.

2

Up starts the kemp o the ship,
Wi a psalm-book in his hand:
‘Swoom away, swoom away, my merry old boys,
For you'll never see dry land.’

152

3

Up starts the gaucy cook,
And a weil gaucy cook was he;
‘I wad na gie aw my pans and my kettles
For aw the lords in the sea.’

4

Up starts the kemp o the ship,
Wi a bottle and a glass intil his hand;
‘Swoom away, swoom away, my merry old sailors,
For you'll never see dry land.’

5

O the raging seas they row, row, row,
The stormy winds do blow,
As sune as he had gane up to the tap,
As [OMITTED] low.