“A Seaman and His Love (The Welcome Sailor)”

Description

The singer hears a girl wailing for her love, gone these seven years at sea. He offers a token from her love, saying he is dead and she should marry whoever carries it. She says she will mourn forever. The stranger reveals himself as her missing love

Notes

Bodleian Douce Ballads 2(236a) broadside seems to be the version cited above for PBB 77; the theme and some lines match Creighton-Maritime but, as the comment for PBB 77 notes, there are a lot of additional frills.

The ballad is recorded on one of the CD's issued around the time of the bicentenial of the 1798 Irish Rebellion. See:

Franke Harte and Donal Lunny, "The Love Token" (on Franke Harte and Donal Lunny, "My Name is Napoleon Bonaparte," Hummingbird Records HBCD0027 (2001)) - BS

Same tune

• "I Am So Deep In Love" or "Through the Cool Shady Woods" (per broadsides Bodleian Douce Ballads 2(236a), Bodleian Wood E 25(153), Bodleian Douce Ballads 2(237b))

Cross references

• cf. "John (George) Riley (I)" [Laws N36] and references there, especially N34

Broadsides

• Bodleian, Douce Ballads 2(236a), "The Valiant Sea-Mans Happy Return to His Love, After a Long Seven Years Absence," P. Brooksby (London), 1672-1696; also Wood E 25(153), "The Valiant Sea-Mans Happy Return to His Love, After a Long Seven Years Absence"; Douce Ballads 2(237b), "The Valiant Seamans Happy Return to His Love, After a Long Seven Years Absence"

References

1. Laws N29, "A Seaman and His Love (The Welcome Sailor)"
2. Gardner/Chickering 53, "A Seaman and His Love" (1 text)
3. SHenry H581, pp. 318-319, "The Love Token" (1 text, 1 tune)
4. Peacock, pp. 530-533, "Jimmy and Nancy" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
5. Creighton-Maritime, p. 58, "Down by the Seaside" (1 text, 1 tune)
6. PBB 77, "The Valiant Seaman's Happy Return to His Love, After a Long Seven Years' Absence" (1 text, presented as traditional though it includes references to Hero and Leander, "Ulisses" and Penelope, and Dido and Aeneas. Presumably it is a broadside reworking of a traditional text, this being the best candidate for the original)
7. BBI, ZN2883, "When Sol could cast no light"; ZN2884, "When Sol did cast no light"
8. DT 763, SEAMLOVE
9. ADDITIONAL: Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928; notes to #189, ("The Sailors") (1 text)
10. Roud #604
11. BI, LN29