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In eighteen hundred and forty-six,
On March the eighteenth day;
We hoisted our colours to the top of the mast,
And for Greenland sailed away, brave boys,
And for Greenland sailed away.
And when we reached that fine foreign shore,
Our goodly ship to moor;
We wished ourselves back home again,
With the girls upon the shore, brave boys,
With the girls upon the shore.
The lookout in the cross-tree stood,
A spy glass in his eye (in his eye)
Overhaul, overhaul, let your big boats fall,
And you'll put your boats to sea, brave boys,
And you'll put your boats to sea.
The captain stood on the quarterdeck,
The ice was in his eyes (in his eyes)
There's a whale, there's a whale, and a whalefish, he cried,
And she blows at every span, brave boys,
And she blows at every span.
The harpoon struck and the line played out,
In a single flurry of his tail (of his tail)
He capsized our boat and we lost five men,
And we did not catch that whale, brave boys,
And we did not catch that whale.
The losing of those five jolly men,
It grieved our captain sore (he was poisoned)
But the losing of that fine sperm whale,
Now it grieved him ten times more, brave boys,
Now it grieved him ten times more.
Oh, Greenland is a barren land,
A land that bears no green;
Well, there's ice and there's snow, and the whale fishes blow,
And an ale I've seldom seen, brave boys,
And an ale I've seldom seen.
In eighteen hundred and forty-seven,
On March the seventeenth day (Paddy's Day)
We hoisted our colours to the top of the mast,
And for Greenland we set sail, brave boys,
And for Greenland we set sail.
This variant arranged and recorded by Great Big Sea - Pre GBS (Rankin Street Tape - Live At The Blarneystone, 1991).
See more songs by Great Big Sea.
A variant was recorded as The Greenland Whale Fisheries by Ryan's Fancy (Dark Island - A Portrait Of Ryan's Fancy ©1971, Audat Records).
See more songs by Ryan's Fancy.
A variant was recorded as Greenland Whale Fishery by Siochána (Cops For Cancer - On The Beat, 2000).
A variant was also collected in 1952 from Thomas Sullivan of King's Cove, NL, by Ken Peacock and published as Whaling Song in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 1, pp.147-148, by The National Museum Of Canada (1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved. Kenneth Peacock noted that though seemingly of mid-nineteenth century composition this sea ballad originated more than one hundred years earlier as a black letter broadside telling a similar tale before 1725. Peacock also noted that the heyday of the Greenland whale fishery was in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and three broadside versions, issued by Pitts, Catnach, and Such, appeared during this period. All the variants collected in the North Atlantic region are based upon, or influenced by these later broadsides.
