Sea Shanty

[Captain Kong]

Here is a little poem I found in the internet,
Good Sailors go to Fidlers Green when they die, sounds good.

Do not kow who wrote it.



FIDDLERS GREEN


As I roved by the dockside one evening so fair
To view the salt waters and take in the salt air
I heard an old sailorman singing a song
"Oh take me away boys me time is not long

Wrap me up in me oilskin and blankets
No more on the docks I'll be seen
Just tell me old shipmates, I'm taking a trip mates
And I'll see you someday on Fiddlers Green

Now Fiddlers Green is a place I've heard tell
Where sailormen go if they don't go to hell
Where the weather is fair and the dolphin do play
And the cold coast of Greenland is far,far away

Now when you're in dock and the long trip is through
There's pubs and there's clubs and there's fair lassies too
And the girls are all pretty and the beer is all free
And there's bottles of rum growing on every tree

Where the skies are all clear and there's never a gale
And the fish jump aboard with a swish of the tail
Where you lie at your leisure there's no work to do
And the skippers below making tea for the crew

Wrap me up in me oilskin and blankets
No more on the docks I'll be seen
Just tell me old shipmates, I'm taking a trip mates
I'll see you again on Fiddlers Green

Now I don’t want a harp nor a halo, not me
Just give me a breeze and a good rolling sea
I'll play me old squeeze box as we sail along
With the wind in the rigging to sing me a song.
And I'll see you again on Fiddlers Green..................".


Wrap me up in me oilskin and blankets
No more on the docks I'll be seen
Just tell me old shipmates, I'm taking a trip mates
And I'll see you someday on Fiddlers Green
, bad ones go to Davy Jones Locker

[Don Rafferty]

Not sure who wrote it, but I think Barney McKenna of the Dubliners did one of the best versions, with a bit of extra impact 'cos he was a trawlerman as well.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=FID...Q&ved=0CEMQqwQ

[alan vickers]

Wonderfully sums up the "Merch" I used to know. Alan Vickers.

[Gordon Hockin]

Takes me back, swamped with memories, would love to live it all again

[John Albert Evans]

Its a language we all learned without knowing that we had.
We used it every day and now its all going, how sad.

[happy daze john in oz]

I found one of the comments on one of the songs a bit odd.
Irish were taken as slaves to West Indies and that is why their accent sounds a bit Irish.
the whole bloody story sounds a bit Irish if you ask me.

[Terry Calpin]

The memories come flooding back with every word! Thanks Reg!

I have Reg's poem in the Vindicatrix Book of Poems. I did half the drawings in it, my brother did the other half. he's a better drawer than me. I did have on my computer Reg reciting the poem its very very good but I cant find it. So if any one knows where I can get it let me know Please. Terry

[Keith at Tregenna]

I found one of the comments on one of the songs a bit odd.
Irish were taken as slaves to West Indies and that is why their accent sounds a bit Irish.
the whole bloody story sounds a bit Irish if you ask me.

‘Sláinte Mon’ – The Irish of Jamaica.

That Irish is Jamaica’s second-most-predominant ethnicity may come as a surprise, especially to those outside the country. It all started in 1655 when the British failed in their efforts to claim Santo Domingo from the Spaniards, and took Jamaica as a consolation prize.

https://www.irelandsown.ie/slainte-m...sh-of-jamaica/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfip96k1cE0

[Keith at Tregenna]

Here is a little poem I found in the internet,
Good Sailors go to Fidlers Green when they die, sounds good.
Do not kow who wrote it.

Fiddler’s Green has become such a standard on the folk circuit across the world than many people mistakenly regard it as a traditional song It is in fact relatively new. It was written in 1966 by singer and songwriter John Conolly from Grimsby in Lincolnshire in England.

Conolly was steeped in the folk tradition and was proud of the fact that he had written a song with such an authentic feel that people thought it was hundreds of years old.

The newly written Fiddler’s Green was picked up in 1968 by Tim Hart and Maddy Prior, two of the leading lights in the folk world at that time. They recorded it on their album, Folk Songs of Olde England.

https://www.irishmusicdaily.com/fiddlers-green

[Doc Vernon]

[FONT="Source Sans Pro",sans-serif]

Fiddlers Green *Another Version*

Halfway down the trail to Hell,

[/FONT]

In a shady meadow green
Are the Souls of all dead Troopers camped,
Near a good old-time canteen.

And this eternal resting place
Is known as Fiddlers’ Green.

Marching past, straight through to Hell
The Infantry are seen.
Accompanied by the Engineers,
Artillery and Marines,
For none but the shades of Cavalrymen
Dismount at Fiddlers’ Green.Though some go curving down the trail
To seek a warmer scene.
No Trooper ever gets to Hell

Ere he’s emptied his canteen.
And so rides back to drink again
With friends at Fiddlers’ Green.

And so when man and horse go down
Beneath a saber keen,
Or in a roaring charge of fierce melee
You stop a bullet clean,
And the hostiles come to get your scalp,
Just empty your canteen,
And put your pistol to your head
And go to Fiddlers’ Green.


Note

Fiddler’s Green is a legendary imagined afterlife, where there is perpetual mirth, a fiddle that never stops playing, and dancers who never tire. Its origins are obscure, although some point to the Greek myth of the “Elysian Fields” as a potential inspiration. In general, historical data, referencing Fiddler’s Green refers to both the sailor’s and cavalry’s paradise. The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition (OED2) has a citation from 1825 as the sailor’s paradise. Since the 19th century, British sailors have called the traditional heaven of mariners Fiddler’s Green, “a place of unlimited rum and tobacco.”
Old seamen are such notorious yarn spinners that it is difficult to know which of their stories to believe about Fiddler’s Green. Some say that an old salt who is tired of seagoing should walk inland with an oar over his shoulder. When he come to a pretty little village deep in the country, and people ask him what he is carrying, he will know he has found Fiddler’s Green. The people will give him a seat in the sun outside the village inn, with a glass of grog that refills itself every time he drains the last drop and a pipe forever smoking with fragrant tobacco. From then onwards he has nothing to do but enjoy his glass and pipe, and watch the maidens dancing to the music of a fiddler on the village green.