Author: Cecil Sharp

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2017-12-08

Total Pages: 92

ISBN-13: 9781981552429

Book Size: 8 1/2" x 11." Book Lenght: 92 pages. * * * * From the Introduction. THE sailors' chantey is, I imagine, the last of the labour-songs to survive in this country. In bygone days there must have been an enormous number of songs of this kind associated with every rhythmical form of manual labour; but the machine killed the landsman's work-song too long ago for it now to be recoverable. The substitution, too, of the steam-engine for the sail in deep-sea craft has given the death-blow to the chantey; but in this case there are, happily many old sailors still living who can recall and are ready to sing the songs that they used to chant tramping round the capstan, or when yards were raised and sails hoisted or furled. How old the chantey may be it is impossible to say, but that the custom amongst sailors of singing in rhythm with their work was in vogue as far back at least as the fifteenth century, the vivid description of the voyage in "The Complaynt of Scotland" (c. 1450) places beyond question. Notwithstanding the antiquity of the chantey the word itself is quite modern; indeed, the compilers of the Oxford Dictionary are unable to cite its use in literature earlier than 1869. Moreover, although the authorities are more or less in agreement regarding the derivation of the word (Fr. chante), its spelling is still in dispute. The Oxford Dictionary (1913) gives the preference to "shanty"; Webster's New International Dictionary (1911) to "chantey"; while the Century Dictionary (1889) prints both forms "chantey" and "shanty." Clark Russell and Kipling write it "chantey," and Henley "chanty." As the balance of expert opinion appears to favour "chantey" that spelling is adopted here.....