Music Of The Waters - online book

Sailors' Chanties, Songs Of The Sea, Boatmen's, Fishermen's,
Rowing Songs, & Water Legends with lyrics & sheet music

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	Music of the Waters.              143
	books on popular traditions, songs, superstitions, legends, and every sort of folk-lore. The song of the corsairs he introduces in his volume of " Traditions et Superstitions d& la Haute Bretagne." He says, in speaking of the corsairs, "That he has not been able to gather much of their history. Their souvenir rests principally in the fishermen's songs, and that the one quoted is a favourite with the Bretons, and seems to have originated in the latter part of the eighteenth century." I have made no attempt at rhyme in my translation of the verses of this most truly nautical but unpoetical song. The music of it was noted by Monsieur Bourgault Du Coudray. In the same work Monsieur Sebillot speaks of some extraordinary character­istics of the old Breton seamen. One paragraph aroused my interest in no small degree ; he says : " I myself have met with old sailors whose dream of delight was to be able before dying to eat the heart of an Englishman quite raw, and one of them it is said, confessed on his death-bed to his confessor, that he would not mind stretching a point and eating it cooked." It is to be hoped that in the event of this slightly unamiable desire being granted, the indi­gestion so richly merited would reward the effort. The following song is known as " Les Marins de Groix," or " The Sailors of Groix " :— ^i^BE^^_, r 1-f- , J—.q^=*=g=z:f=E Nous e - tions trois ma - rins de Groix, Nous e - tions ^, _____________         v ten.___________ ■JKM—«-^==d=^=l=?~r i—H-i r c r — P= trois ma-rins de Groix, Em-bar - ques sur le Saint fran-qois; Mon tra - de - ri, tra, la, la, la Mon tra - de - ri, tra, la, lai - - re.........