• Home
    • Recordings
  • Schedule
  • Press/Programs
    • BIO
    • Photo Gallery
    • EPK
    • Robert Burns, Man, Myth, Music
    • Irish Bards & Blarney
    • Music of the Maine Coast
  • Contact
  • News
  • The Grand Design
    • Grand Design Audio
    • Grand Design Video
  • Weddings
  • Song of Ships & Sailors

    Castlebay

    • Home
      • Recordings
    • Schedule
    • Press/Programs
      • BIO
      • Photo Gallery
      • EPK
      • Robert Burns, Man, Myth, Music
      • Irish Bards & Blarney
      • Music of the Maine Coast
    • Contact
    • News
    • The Grand Design
      • Grand Design Audio
      • Grand Design Video
    • Weddings
    • Song of Ships & Sailors
    0:00/???
    1. The Banks of Newfoundland

    From the recording Bound Away

    Share

    This is an amalgamation of three different versions. There are some themes common to all the versions. The ship is built from unseasoned wood, causing it to fail in the tempest. The captain freezes his feet.

    Lyrics

    You may all bless your happy lot that safely dwell on shore
    You do not know what howling winds around poor seamen roar
    You do not know what hardships great that we were forced to stand
    For fourteen days and fourteen nights on the banks of Newfoundland

    Our captain, mate and sailors ten made up our good ship's crew
    Ten passengers we had on board made up to twenty-two
    Some had wives and families on their dear native strand
    Hoping soon to come across by the banks of Newfoundland

    We sailed away through frost and snow from the day we left Quebec
    And if we had not walked about we'l have frozen to the deck
    But being a true-born sailor man as ever took command
    Our captain doubled our grog each day on the banks of Newfoundland

    Our vessel never sailed before the stormy western sea
    She was well rigged and fitted out before she sailed away
    But made of green unseasoned wood, she little could withstand
    The hurricane that struck us on the banks of Newfoundland.

    The tempest blew from sunset to the cold wintry dawn
    When she fell on to leeward, two of her masts were gone
    Our captain says: 'My brave boys, we must inventions plan
    For to hoist a signal of distress on the Banks of Newfoundland'

    If you had seen our doleful state your heart would be oppressed
    It blew a most tremendous gale with the wind from the southwest
    Some of our men jumped overboard thinking they would swim to land
    But alas, it was five hundred miles from the banks of Newfoundland

    By the morning of the twelfth day our provisions had run out
    On the morning of the thirteenth day the lots were cast about
    The lot fell to the captain¹s son, but hoping relief at hand,
    We spared him another day on the banks of Newfounfland

    On the morning of the fourteenth day we told him to prepare
    We gave to him another hour for to offer up a prayer
    But Providence proved kind to us, kept blood from every hand
    For an English vessel hove in sight on the banks of Newfoundland.

    Oh when we were taken off the wreck we were more like ghosts than men
    They clothed us and they fed and then brought us home again
    But five of our brave sailor men ne'er saw their native land
    And our captain lost both feet by frost on the Banks of Newfoundland

    Of all the gallant company that were our brave ship's crew
    There live but five to tell the tale, and passengers but two
    For the rest, their friends may shed salt tears on their native strand
    But the mountain waves roll o'er their graves on the Banks of Newfoundland

    • Log out