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Three Jolly Fishermen

[ Roud 3496 ; Master title: Three Jolly Fishermen ; TYG 82 ; Ballad Index PaSe099 ; Mudcat 30614 ; trad.]

Steve Gardham: A Yorkshire Songster Mary and Nigel Hudleston: Songs of the Ridings Roy Palmer: Oxford Book of Sea Songs

Frank Wetherill (70) of Danby, Whitby sang Three Jolly Fishermen in 1962 to Colin S. Wharton who collected songs in the North Riding of Yorkshire for his Leeds University Thesis. It was published in 2019 on the Musical Traditions anthology of songs from the Colin Wharton Collection, Songs of the North Riding.

Yorkshire Relish sang Three Joplly Fishermen at Whitby Folk Week in August 1990, which was included in 1991 on the festival’s cassette From the Humber to the Tweed, and Derek and Dorothy Elliott with Chris Parkinson sang Three Joplly Fishermen on their 2002 CD Ship to Shore.

Ye Mariners All sang Three Jolly Fishermen on 2003 on their Golden Hind album Songs of the Sea. John Roberts noted:

Three Jolly Fishermen I first heard sung by Ian Robb and the late David Parry. It is a Yorkshire fishermen’s song, and is published in Roy Palmer’s Oxford Book of Sea Songs.

Kate Rusby sang Three Jolly Fishermen in 2014 on her Pure album Ghost.

Lyrics

Ye Mariners All sing Three Jolly Fishermen

We are three jolly fishermen
We are three jolly fishermen
We are three jolly fishermen
While the merry, merry bells do ring.
Make haste, make haste.
You be too late.
What fish, my dear.
I cannot wait
For my fine fry of herring,
My bonny silver herring,
Mind how we sell them
While the merry, merry bells do ring.

We cast our nets upon the rocks, etc.

There’s white and speckled bellied ’uns, etc.

We sell them three for fourpence, etc.

We are three jolly fishermen, etc.