This sentimental ballad was written in the first half of the 19^th Century as “The Poor Little Fisherman’s Girl” and was published in several books and numerous broadsides.  Despite its great popularity with printers, it made little impression on the oral tradition, Mr Parnell’s fragment being the only time is has been collected in England.  Apart from that, it has only turned up once in Scotland and four times in the USA.  A version collected in North Carolina has a tune similar to Mr Parnell’s.  One wonders whether Mr Parnell knew the whole song or whether Sharp simply wanted the tune and possibly regarded the words as Victorian sentimentality.

The printed words were as follows:

It was down in the country a poor girl was weeping,
It was down in the country poor Mary Ann did mourn,
She belonged to this nation, I have lost each dear relation,
Cried a poor little fisherman’s girl, my friends are dead and gone.

Oh, who has a soft heart to give me some shelter.
For the winds do blow, and dreadful is the storm,
I have no father nor mother, but I’ve a tender brother,
Cried a poor little fisherman’s girl, my friends are dead and gone.

Oh once I had enjoyment, my friends they reared me tender,
I passed with my brother each happy night and morn,
But death has made a slaughter, poor father’s in the water,
Cried a poor little fisherman’s girl, my friends are dead and gone.

So fast falls the snow, and I can’t find a shelter,
So fast falls the snow, I must hasten to the thorn,
For my covering the bushes, my bed is in green rushes,
Cried a poor little fisherman’s girl, my friends are dead and gone.

It happened as she passed by a very noble cottage,
A gentleman he heard her, his breast for her did burn,
Crying, Come in my lovely creature, he view’d each drooping feature,
You’re a poor little fisherman’s girl, whose friends are dead and gone.

He took her to the fire, and when he’d warmed and fed her,
The tears began to fall, he fell on her breast forlorn,
Crying, Live with me forever, we part again—no never,
You are my dearest sister—our friends are dead and gone.

So now she’s got a home, shes living with her brother,
Now she’s got a home, and the needy neer does scorn,
For God was her protector, likewise a kind conductor,
Of the poor little fisherman’s girl, when her friends are dead and gone.

Notes by Gwilym Davies March 2020