Child named this Bonnie Annie, listing two Scots versions in which the daughter of a lord or merchant, variously from Forfar or Dumbarton, elopes with an Irishman who is either a ship’s captain or a rich squire. In the A version it’s clear (i) that the ship is in some way becalmed or unable to steer, (ii) that the captain blames the situation on “fey folk on board”, and (iii) that “black bullets” are cast (a process analogous to the drawing of lots) to determine who is to blame, with Annie drawing the equivalent of the short straw. In the B version there’s no mention of fey folk or black bullets, and the ship’s navigational difficulties are caused by a more prosaic sand bank.

Even these two early sources, then, are contradictory and ambiguous. Why, - if this is a ‘Jonah Ballad’, and the young mother obviously the Jonah aboard - is it necessary to cast those black bullets? Is her seducer actually the ship’s captain, or a passenger? Why (in 24B) does he suddenly change his mind and send a lifeboat out after her? The several versions collected later in England don’t help at all. Most contain no mention of the captain’s inability to sail the ship, leaving the motivation for jettisoning mother and baby a mystery. Would listeners of the day have been aware of the ‘Jonah’ status of the pair and filled in the gaps in their own minds? The intriguing exception is the version collected by Baring-Gould from James Masters of Bradstone, which includes the line “the sails were outspread but of miles made not any”. Here, it seems, we have evidence for a becalmed ship. Unfortunately Baring-Gould tinkered considerably with the texts he collected, deliberately inserting Child's “black bullets” stanza in one of his notated texts “to complete the story”, so it’s difficult to be certain of the authenticity of his “sails outspread” line.

Many folk revival singers have covered the ballad, generally using the text and tune collected from Emma Overd by Cecil Sharp as their starting point – although Frankie Armstrong’s rendition of David Clements’ version (recorded by Vaughan Williams and available on the EFDSS CD A Century of Song) is a powerful alternative. I based my melody on the one sung to Cecil Sharp by Louie Hooper and Lucy White of Hambridge in 1903, but messed around with it a bit to create a two-part tune. My first line is much the same as theirs, my second I seem to have invented, my third is a phrase they used for a refrain, doubled, and my fourth is their second. It sounds a lot more confusing, when I try to describe it in writing, than it would if you could hear their original.

My text is from several English versions, including snippets from the Baring-Gould text. The last verse seems to be unique to a version collected by George Gardiner from William Bone – I thought it rounded off the tale well.