minstrel: Love going to sea

[Lisa and Ken Theriot]

Johann wrote:

[I'm surprised you didn't mention "The Handsome Cabin Boy" where lass goes 
to sea, becomes romantically involved with the captain (and also his 
wife!). Becomes pregnant. Delivers child, to the consternation of the crew 
and the delight of the ship's doctor. Not period, but a hoot all the same. 
I'll have to go to Mudcat and look it up.]

It's there.  I already had such a long post I was trying to limit it to 
just songs following very near the pattern JK brought up.  We've actually 
talked more offlist; here's the rest:


[The band Pentangle has a traditional piece on their album, A Maid that's 
Deep in Love....Sounds like it could be the same song. . .]


Nope, that's one of a whole different class of cross-dressing maid at sea 
songs.  In these, the girl goes to sea either to look for her love or just 
to be in the navy, and the captain (or the captain's wife, often both) 
falls in love with her and she either capitulates (and frequently gets 
knocked up) or jumps ship.  Several versions cross up at the end with "Maid 
on the Shore", which is a totally different song (wherein the girl does NOT 
cross-dress, teases the captain, lulls him to sleep, robs him and jumps 
ship).


Canadee-I-O
http://www.mudcat.org/!!-song99.cfm?stuff=fall99+D+2247878

The Handsome Cabin Boy
http://www.mudcat.org/!!-song99.cfm?stuff=fall99+D+5446262

The Maid That's Deep in Love
http://www.mudcat.org/!!-song99.cfm?stuff=fall99+D+8063472
(Odd title that, since we never find out what happened to her true love...)

Short Jacket
http://www.mudcat.org/!!-song99.cfm?stuff=fall99+D+11153898
http://www.mudcat.org/!!-song99.cfm?stuff=fall99+D+11155897


Then there's a couple of oddballs Like "Tarry Trousers" where the girl 
threatens to go to sea after her love but never does, 
http://www.mudcat.org/!!-song99.cfm?stuff=fall99+D+11939071

And "Female Rambling Sailor", a eulogy to a girl whose sweetheart died in 
the navy and so she sets out to do the same (and succeeds), http://www.m  
udcat.org/!!-song99.cfm?stuff=fall99+D+4305464


Just goes to show, there's no good idea that isn't worth doing _to death_!


I've still left out all the ones related to dressing as a man to enter the 
_army_, of which there are several.  If you go to the Mudcat site, click on 
the lower search box on "Search by keyword" and when you get the keyword 
list, click on "transvestite" (I kid you not).  Interesting that there are 
about 3 that involve a man dressing as a woman (usually to avoid people 
trying to kill him), and about 50 that involve a woman dressing as a man.


Since all these songs happened too late to interest Mr. Child, we'll never 
know how he would have parceled these out, i.e., which would have been 
"variants" and which would have rated their own number.  (Of course I have 
no great opinion of how Child DID parcel out his numbers; it seems to vary 
with how much he liked the song.  Some songs get their own number when they 
are alike in every important respect: compare "Child Waters" (#63) with 
"The False Lover Won Back" (#218), or "Fair Janet" (#64) with "Lord Salton 
and Anachie Gordon (#239).  On the other hand, there are versions of 
"Glasgerion" (#67) so different that one is a love story, one is a bawdy 
comedy, and one is a tragedy of proportions only a ballad can reach.)


Adelaide