“Down in the Diving Bell (The Mermaid (II))”
Description
Singer, a sailor, sees amazing sights while down in the diving bell (including the Atlantic Cable used as a clothesline). He courts and marries a mermaid and they live happily, if wetly, ever after
Notes
I call this "Down in the Diving Bell" to differentiate it from "The Mermaid", and because it seems to have entered tradition under that title. The origin is almost certainly music-hall or vaudeville. - PJS
Bodleian Harding B 11(965) has no reference to the Atlantic cable (which would have set an early date of 1865; an article on the diving bell was printed in 1771 in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (source: _The History of the Diving Bell_ by Arthur J Bachrach, Ph.D. on the Historical Diving Society site.)) - BS
Cross references
- cf. "The Mermaid" (subject matter)
- cf. "The Merman (Pretty Fair Maid with a Tail)" [Laws K24] (plot)
- cf. "Married to a Mermaid" (theme of marrying a mermaid)
Broadsides
- Bodleian, Harding B 11(965), "Down in the Diving Bell," J. Harkness (Preston) , 1840-1866
Recordings
- Warde Ford, "The Mermaid (Down in the Diving Bell)" (AFS 4199 A2, 1938; tr.; in AMMEM/Cowell)
References
- Roud #5013
- BI, RcDitDB