The Sweet Trinity (The Golden Vanity)
No: 286; variant: 286C
- 'I HAVE a ship in the North Countrie,
And she goes by the name of the The Golden Vanity;
I'm afraid she will be taken by some Turkish gallee,
As she sails on the Low Lands Low.'
- Then up starts our little cabin-boy,
Saying, Master, what will you give me if I do them destroy?
'I will give you gold, I will give you store,
You shall have my daughter when I return on shore,
If ye sink them in the Low Lands Low.'
- The boy bent his breast and away he jumpt in;
He swam till he came to this Turkish galleon,
As she laid on the Low Lands Low.
- The boy he had an auger to bore holes two at twice;
While some were playing cards, and some were playing dice,
He let the water in, and it dazzled in their eyes,
And he sunk them in the Low Lands Low.
- The boy he bent his breast and away he swam back again,
Saying, Master take me up, or I shall be slain,
For I have sunk them in the Low Lands Low.
- 'I'll not take you up,' the master he cried;
'I'll not take you up,' the master replied;
'I will kill you, I will shoot you, I will send you with the tide,
I will sink you in the Low Lands Low.'
- The boy he swam round all by the starboardside;
They laid him on the deck, and it's there he soon died;
Then they sewed him up in an old cow's-hide,
And they threw him overboard, to go down with the tide,
And they sunk him in the Low Lands Low.