A. L. Lloyd's liner notes to Leviathan explain this song about the 1840s Greenland whaling season:
When the ships left London, Hull, Dundee for the northern grounds, the yards would be decorated with ribbons snatched from any pretty girls venturing near
the quay, and the men would sing on the maindeck till the harbour bar was passed. They would put in at the Orkneys or Shetlands to take on fresh provisions and water, and perhaps a man or two to complete the crew, and then off to the cold coast of Greenland. This tender farewell song was a favourite of Fred Clausen, a meat-cutter aboard the Southern Express, and native of Stoneferry, Hull. Its elegiac tone suggests it was made by a Scottish whalerman (English whale balladeers generally inclined to rough adventure or outspoken complaint). John Ord, folk song collector and superintendent of police, heard the melody, or something very like it, sung by fisher girls
in north-east Scotland in the 1880s.
16 variants are included in the Greig-Duncan collection, demonstrating the song's popularity within Scotland.