> Brass Monkey > Songs > Flame of Fire
The Sailor's Tragedy / A Sailor By My Right / Flame of Fire / The Dreadful Ghost
[
Roud 568
; Master title: The Sailor's Tragedy
; Laws P34
; G/D 2:341
; Ballad Index LP34
; Bodleian
Roud 568
; Wiltshire
1068
; trad.]
John Roberts and Tony Barrand sang The Dreadful Ghost in 1977 on their Folk-Legacy album of ballads of the supernatural, Dark Ships in the Forest. They commented in ther liner notes:
In a number of songs, a ship refuses to sail because of the presence of a Jonah, an evil-doer who must be sacrificed before the vessel can proceed. Our version of this one is Canadian, collected by Helen Creighton in the Maritimes, collated with Newfoundland texts gathered by Kenneth Peacock. Jean Ritchie, on hearing it sung, remarked that it must have been written by a woman.
Debra Cowan sang The Dreadful Ghost in 2002 at the 23rd Annual Sea Music Festival at Mystic Seaport.
Martin Carthy sang Flame of Fire in 2004 on Brass Monkey's fifth album, Flame of Fire. He commented in the record's sleeve notes:
I've changed a couple of details in Flame of Fire and am happy to have done so. I thought it extremely unfair that one of the beguiled women has to come back from Hell with Imps to get at her betrayer so I substituted Heaven and Angels who do the same. Then they send him to hell. The song comes from Maud Karpeles' two-volume edition of Cecil Sharp's songs.
Lyrics
John Roberts and Tony Barrand sing The Dreadful Ghost |
Martin Carthy sings Flame of Fire |
---|---|
It's of a sailor of whom I write, |
I am a sailor by my right, |
Oh, one of them, for public shame, |
I promised I would be true to both, |
She hung herself down from a tree, |
For she hanged herself all on a tree. |
And this was writ in letters large: |
“If on the earth just let me lie. |
“Let them take warning by my fate, |
“While he's on earth will I be just, |
One morning on the topmast high, |
One day he stood on the main mast high, |
His true love all on the deck did stand, | |
Down decks, down decks this young man goes, |
“Oh captain, captain, can you say so, |
So up on deck this captain goes, |
Down from the deck then the captain goes, |
“It was in St. Taliens this young man died, | |
“And if you don't bring him up to me, | |
Down decks, down decks this captain goes, | |
“Oh, don't you remember when I was a maid, |
“I am the spirit sent for you, |
Down in her boat she forced him, |
Into her boat they all forced him then |
And as she sank, she rose again, |