Cecil Sharp's Note 77 (1916)
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No. 77. The Crabfish
A Scottish version of this curious song, “The Crab,” is given in A Ballad Book by C. K. Sharpe and Edmund Goldsmid (volume ii, p. 10), published in 1824. The footnote states that the song is founded upon a story in Le Moyen de Parvenir. Some of the words have been altered.
The tune is in the Mixolydian mode, and was sung to me very excitedly and at break-neck speed, the singer punctuating the rhythm of the refrain with blows of her fist upon the table at which she was sitting.