The Shanty Book

[Pg iii]

FOREWORD

By SIR WALTER RUNCIMAN

IT is sometimes difficult for old sailors like myself to realize thatthese fine shanty tunes—so fascinating to the musician, and which nosailor can hear without emotion—died out with the sailing vessel, andnow belong to a chapter of maritime history that is definitely closed.They will never more be heard on the face of the waters, but it iswell that they should be preserved with reverent care, as befits alegacy from the generation of seamen that came to an end with thestately vessels they manned with such skill and resource.

In speech, the old-time 'shellback' was notoriously reticent—almostinarticulate; but in song he found self-expression, and all theromance and poetry of the sea are breathed into his shanties, wheresimple childlike sentimentality alternates with the Rabelaisian humourof the grown man. Whatever landsmen may think about shanty words—withtheir cheerful inconsequence, or light-hearted coarseness—there canbe no two opinions about the tunes, which, as folk-music, are anational asset.

I know, of course, that several shanty collections are in the market,but as a sailor I am bound to say that only one—Capt. W.B. Whall's'Sea Songs, Ships, and Shanties'—can be regarded as authoritative.Only a portion of Capt. Whall's delightful book is devoted toshanties, of which he prints the melodies only (withoutaccompaniment); and of these he does not profess to give more thanthose he himself learnt at sea. I am glad, therefore, to welcomeMessrs. Curwen's project of a wide and representative collection. Dr.Terry's qualifications as editor are exceptional, since he was rearedin an environment of nineteenth-century seamen, and is the onlylandsman I have met who is able to render shanties as the old seamendid. I am not musician enough to criticize his pianoforteaccompaniments, but I can vouch for the authenticity of the melodiesas he presents them, untampered with in any way.

WALTER RUNCIMAN.

Shoreston Hall,
Chathill, 1921.

[Pg iv]

CONTENTS

WINDLASS & CAPSTAN SHANTIES: