Blow Ye Winds/Blow away the morning dew, sea shanty

Leggi in italiano

Blow Ye Winds/ Blow away the morning dew is a popular version of the folk ballad “Baffled Knight”. This ballad is reported in many text versions both in the eighteenth-century collections and in the Broadsides, as well as transmitted orally in Great Britain and America with the titles of “Blow (Clear) (Stroll) Away The Morning Dew”.

Blow away the morning dew

BAFFLED KNIGHT 
The Baffled Lover (knight), The Lady’s Policy, The Disappointed Lover, The (Bonny) Blow Ye Winds High-O, Clear Away the Morning Dew

Child #112 A (Tudor Ballad)
Child #112 B (Thomas D’Urfey)
Child #112 D ( Cecil Sharp)
Child #112 D (Shepherd Lad)

SEA SHANTY
Blow Ye Winds (in the Morning)
Blow Away The Morning Dew

Blow Ye Winds

Roud 2012 ; Ballad Index LxU044 ; trad.]

Here are the three versions transcribed by Stan Hugill and sung by Hulton Clint as part of the project “A Journey through Stan Hugill’s Shanties from the Seven Seas

The Baffled Knight version: As I walked out one morning fair
to view the meadows round,
Twas on a Sunday mornin’, down ‘cross the Southern Sea,
Our ship she lay at anchor, while awaitin’ for a breeze,
Whaling forebitter

Roll And Go(p103-4),
American Sea Songs and Chanteys(p126-8),
Sea Songs and Shanties(p21-2),
The Chanty Man Sings (words only)(p9-10),
The Oxford Book of Sea Songs(p240-2),
Songs of American Sailormen(p91-3),
Best Loved American Folk Songs(p144-5),
The Making of a Sailor(p346-8),
The Book of Navy Songs(p81),
Songs The Whalemen Sang(p42-6),
Chanteying Aboard American Ships(p130-1),
An American Sailor’s Treasury(p132-4),
The Way Of The Ship(p120-1),
Shanties from the Seven Seas(III)(p168-71),
Shanties from the Seven Seas (complete)(III)(p219-24)

Blow Ye Winds Heigh Ho: Whaling shanty

The most popular version in the Folk revival is the whalers one[1], sometimes under the title “Blow, Boys, Blow” or “Boston Come-Ye-All,” clearly a forebitter (fo’c’sle [forecastle]) in which they describe themselves the harsh working conditions aboard a whaler [2]. The model taken from the Dolk Revival of the 50s follows the text transcribed by Joanna Colcord [3]

‘Tis advertised in Boston, New York and Buffalo,
Five hundred brave Americans,
a-whaling for to go, singing
Blow, ye winds in the morning,
And blow, ye winds, high-o!
Clear away your running gear,
And blow, boys, blow!
(or And blow, ye winds, high-o!)

They send you to New Bedford(1),
that famous whaling port,
And give you to some land-sharks(2)
to board and fit you out.
They send you to a boarding-house,
there for a time to dwell;
The thieves they there are thicker
than the other side of hell!
They tell you of the clipper-ships
a-going in and out,
And say you’ll take five hundred sperm(3)
before you’re six months out.(4)
It’s now we’re out to sea, my boys,
the wind comes on to blow;
One half the watch is sick on deck,
the other half below.
But as for the provisions,
we don’t get half enough;
A little piece of stinking beef
and a blamed small bag of duff(5).
Now comes that damned old compass(6),
it will grieve your heart full sore.
For theirs is two-and-thirty points
and we have forty-four.
Next comes the running rigging,
which you’re all supposed to know;
‘Tis “Lay aloft, you son-of-a-gun,
or overboard you go!”
The cooper’s at the vise-bench,
a-making iron poles,
And the mate’s upon the main hatch
a-cursing all our souls.
The Skipper’s on the quarter-deck
a-squinting at the sails,
When up aloft the lookout sights
a school of whales.
“Now clear away the boats, my boys,
and after him we’ll travel,
But if you get too near his fluke,
he’ll kick you to the devil!”
Now we have got him turned up(7),
we tow him alongside;
We over with our blubber-hooks
and rob him of his hide.
Now the boat-steerer
overside the tackle overhauls,
The Skipper’s in the main-chains,
so loudly he does bawl!
Next comes the stowing down, my boys;
‘twill take both night and day,
And you’ll all have fifty cents apiece
on the hundred and ninetieth lay(8).
Now we are bound into Tonbas(9),
that blasted whaling port,
And if you run away, my boys,
you surely will get caught.
Now we are bound into Tuckoona(10),
full more in their power,
Where the skippers can buy the Consul
up for half a barrel of flour!
But now that our old ship is full
and we don’t give a damn,
We’ll bend on all our stu’nsails
and sail for Yankee land.
When we get home, our ship made fast,
and we get through our sailing,
A winding glass around we’ll pass
and damn this blubber whaling!

FOOTNOTES
(1) New Bedford in Massachusetts during the mid-19th century was a major whaling port that had reached its peak in those years. see Whaling Museum
(2) boarding masters who are also boarding houses to provide boarding and accommodation see https://terreceltiche.altervista.org/paddy-west/
(3) it was the English who, established in the “new world”, launched the hunt for the sperm whale
(4) in reality the work on a whaling ship was the most badly paid and dangerous, and it was also an engagement that could last several months.
(5) dried fruit pudding that cooks in a cloth bag (such as Christmas pudding)
(6) verse with still unresolved meaning the nautical compass combined with the wind rose was once with 32 points (rhombuses). According to a hypothesis “we have forty-four” is a typo for four-four that is the 4 cardinal points and the 4 intermediate points, see https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=161058. The version with 4 points is the most simplified because each point indicates one of the fundamental cardinal points: North, South, West and East.
(7) One of the most dangerous techniques for whaling was hitting it with harpoons tied to the keel of boats. The injured whale remained tied to the boat and dragged it until it got tired, only to be killed. The danger was that the whale would dive and drag the boat and crew into the sea. The carcass of a newly killed whale (especially the North Atlantic right whale) floats and is therefore easily dragged from the boat
(8) at the moment I don’t understand the meaning of the sentence
(9) Tumbes / Tumbez port of Peru at the mouth of the Tumbes River in the Gulf of Guayaquil
(10) I don’t have a clue where Tuckoona is at the moment ?!

Burl Ives & Ralph Hunter Singers 1956
The Almanac Singers (feat Peter Seeger)
Black Irish Band live

[1] variants
https://mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=727,727,727,727,727,727,727,727&SongID=727,727,727,727,727,727,727,727
https://mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=728
https://mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=726,726&SongID=726,726
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=19204
http://brethrencoast.com/shanty/Blow_Ye_Winds.html
http://www.musicnotes.net/SONGS/04-BLOWY.html
[2] https://www.vice.com/it/article/znjvjj/alaska-caccia-alla-balena
[3] pp. 191-192, “Blow, Ye Winds” (from “Elizabeth Swift”, 1859, New Bedford Public Library 1920)
[4] https://tesi.supsi.ch/1945/2/Scim%C3%A9Dossier.pdf

Blow away the morning dew

A shanty version est known as “The Shephers lad” (The Baffled knight Child’s # 112 version D), summarized in four stanzas

Nils Brown in Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag (Sea Shanty Edition, Vol. 2)

I
There was a shepherd boy,
keeping sheep upon the hill,
he laid his bow and arrow down
for to take his fill
Blow ye wind in the morning
Blow ye winds aye-O.
Clear away the morning dew,
and blow boys blow.
II
He looked high and he looked low,
He gave an under look
And there he spied a pretty maid,
Swimming in a brook.
III
“Carry me home to my father’s gate
before you put me down
then you shall have my maidenhead
and twenty thousand pounds”
IV
And when she came to her father’s gate
So nimbly’s she whipt in;
and said ‘Pough! you’re a fool without,’
‘And I’m a maid within”

Blow away the morning dew: JOHN SHORT VERSION

John Short

Another sea shanty version comes from the testimony of John Short. The curators of the project write: “[Richard Runciman] Terry [in The Shanty Book Part II (J. Curwen & Sons Ltd., London. 1924)] comments that although Short started his Blow Away the Morning Dew with a verse of The Baffled Knight, he then digresses into floating verses. In fact three of the verses recorded and published by Terry, not one derive from The Baffled Knight! Short sang only the “flock of geese” verse to Sharp. Sharp did not publish the shanty, but other authors also give Baffled Knight versions. The other predominant version in collections is the American whaling version but still using the tune associated with The Baffled Knight and the chorus remaining close to the usual words.

Jim Mageean  in Short Sharp Shanties : Sea songs of a Watchet sailor vol 3

Jerzy Brzezinski (Stan Hugill version)

I
As I walked out one morning fair,
To view the meadows round,
it’s there I spied a maid fair
Come a-tripping on the ground.
Blow ye wind of morning
Blow ye winds aye-O.
Clear away the morning dew,(1)
and blow (me bully) boys blow.
II
My father has a milk white steed
He is in the stall
he will not eat it’s hay or corn(2)
And it will not go at all
III
When we goes in a farm’s yard
see a flocking geese
we downed their eyes
and closed their eyes
and knocked five or six
IV
As I was a-walking
down by a river side,
it’s there I saw a lady fair
a-biding in the tide
V
As I was a-walking
out by the Moonlight,
‘Tis there I saw a yaller gal,
her eyes they shone so bright.
VI
(?
?
she says “Young man this is the place
for a man must play”
VII
As I was a-walking
down Paradise street
it’s there I met a (junky?) ghost
he says ‘Will ye stand treat?’
FOOTNOTES
(1) Stan Hugill : See all clear yer runnun’ gear
(2) Stan Hugill : He is a clever circus horse, he can balance on a ball,

LINK
https://mainlynorfolk.info/folk/songs/blowyewindsinthemorning.html
http://terreceltiche.altervista.org/venticelli-e-pecore-nella-balladry-inglese/
http://www.contemplator.com/child/morndew.html
https://mudcat.org//thread.cfm?threadid=64609

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Pubblicato da Cattia Salto

Amministratore e folklorista di Terre Celtiche Blog. Ha iniziato a divulgare i suoi studi e ricerche sulla musica, le danze e le tradizioni d'Europa nel web, dapprima in maniera sporadica e poi sempre più sistematicamente sul finire del anni 90

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