The Nightingale

(Sweet Nightingale)

This is one version of the familiar story of a farmer's son in love with a squire's daughter being pressed for sea. "This is by no means an improbably circumstance," writes Frank Kidson, Traditional Tunes (1891).

Captain Fred Haynes of Freeport, Nova Scotia is Doerflinger's source for this version, with his wife lending the fourth stanza. Other early print sources include Barrett's English Folksongs (18--?) and Kidson's The Forecastle Songster (1847).