Cecil Sharp's Note 42 (1916)

No. 42. The Bold Fisherman

FOR other versions with tunes, see the Journal of the Folk-Song Society (volume i, p. 138; volume v, pp. 132–135); and English County Songs (p. 110).

I have always felt that there was something mystical about this song, and I was accordingly much interested to find that the same idea had independently occurred to Miss Lucy Broadwood, who, in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society (volume v, pp. 132, 133), has developed her theory in a very interesting manner. She believes that the “Bold Fisherman,” as it appears on broadsides, is but "a vulgar and secularized transmutation of a mediæval allegorical legend,” and points out that the familiar elements of Gnostic and Early Christian mystical literature, for example, “the River, the Sea, the royal Fisher, the three Vestures of Light (or Robes of Glory), the Recognition and Adoration by the illuminated humble Soul, the free Pardon,” etc., are all to be found among variants of this ballad. The early Fathers of the Christian Church wrote of their baptized members as “fish,” emerged from the waters of baptism. For a full exposition of this view, however, the reader is referred to the note above mentioned.

I have several variants, and I think in every case the tune is in 5-time. The words in the text have been compiled from the sets given me by various singers.