The Sweet Trinity
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"The Sweet Trinity", also known as "The Golden Vanity" or "The Golden Willow Tree", is Child Ballad 286. The first surviving version, about 1635, was "Sir Walter Raleigh Sailing In The Lowlands (Shewing how the famous Ship called the Sweet Trinity was taken by a false Gally & how it was again restored by the craft of a little Sea-boy, who sunk the Gally".
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[edit] Synopsis
A captain of a ship (the Sweet Trinity or Golden Vanity or Golden Willow Tree of the title) laments the danger it is in; Sir Walter Raleigh complains that it was captured by a galley, but the commoner complaint is that it is in danger from another ship, which may be French, Turkish, Spanish, or British (British is featured in American variants.) A cabin boy offers to solve the problem. The captain promises him rich rewards, which vary enormously between versions. The boy swims to the ship, bores holes in its hull, and sinks it.
He swims back. Usually, the captain declares he will not take him up, let alone reward him; in some variants, he extorts the rescue and reward by threatening to sink his ship as well, but usually, he drowns (sometimes after saying he would sink the ship if it weren't for the crew). Occasionally, the crew rescue him, but he dies on the deck. In the variant with Raleigh, Raleigh is willing to keep some of his promises, but not to marry him to his daughter, and the cabin boy scorns him.
[edit] Media
[edit] Recordings
- The Carter Family recorded it in 1935 under the title "Sinking in the Lonesome Sea"
- The Almanac Singers (Pete Seeger on lead local) recorded it on "Deep Sea Chanteys and Whaling Ballads" (1941)
- A.L. Lloyd on "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Volume III" (1956)
- The Chad Mitchell Trio recorded it on "At the Bitter End" (1964)
- Martin Simpson on the album Golden Vanity (1976)
- Steeleye Span recorded it in 1995 for the album "Time", but it appeared instead on an anthology "The Best of British Folk Rock"
- The Friends of Fiddler's Green on This Side of the Ocean (1997)
- Loudon Wainwright III recorded a version under the name "Turkish Revelry" on Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys (2006)
In 1966 Benjamin Britten made an arrangement of the song (opus 78) for boys' voices and piano. In 1992 Bob Dylan performed it at a concert. This later appeared as a bootleg album called "Golden Vanity" (recordings made 1988 - 1992) (see Dylan bootlegs).
[edit] Variants
Aaron Copland used it as one of the songs in his Old American Songs sets.
June Carter Cash includes a corrupted version entitled "Sinking in the Lonesome Sea" in her 2003 album Wildwood Flower.
