The Three Jolly Fishermen

Lyrics

1
(Lead) We are three jolly fishermen,
(All) We are three jolly fishermen,
We are three jolly fishermen, while the merry,merry bells do ring.
(Lead) Make haste, make haste, (Chorus) You be too late,
(Lead) One fish, my dear, (Chorus) I cannot wait,
(All) For me fine fry of herring, me bonny silver herring,
Mind how you sell them while the merry, merry bells do ring.

2
We cast our nets unto the rocks.

3
We’ve white an’ speckled bellied uns.

4
We sell them three for fourpence.

John added that it was traditional for a woman to sing ‘Make haste’ and ‘One fish, my dear’ harking back to the song’s origins.

Joined on the chorus by Steve Gardham, Ray Black and Mark Ellison.

This is a traditional song

Provenance

This simple little glee still has traces of the stage song in it and in fact it very likely derives from Lady Nairn’s well-known Caller Herring published in 1824 which some of us sang at school. It was based on an original street cry of Newhaven fishwives, so basically it started out as a street cry. The traditional version, no doubt the source of the oral versions, appeared on broadsides by Fordyce of Newcastle (c.1830s) and Wilson of Whitehaven, probably via Fordyce’s Carlisle outlet, and later by Harkness of Preston, Lancashire. These three versions vary very little, Fordyce and Wilson using Lady Nairn’s title and Harkness using Come buy my silver herring. Here follows Fordyce’s version for comparison.

Come buy, buy my herring,
My fine silver herring;
And mark while I am singing,
How the merry, merry bells do ring.

We cast our nets into the sea—
We cast our nets into the sea—
We cast our nets into the sea,
And silver fish caught we.

My fine silver herring—
And mark while I’m selling,
How the merry, merry bells do ring.
Come buy, buy my herring,
Come buy them—five for twopence,
They’re fine, fresh and caller,
And just come from the sea.
Come buy, come buy, you’ll be too late,
Come buy, come buy, you’ll be too late,
To buy a broil of herring,
My fine silver herring,
And mark while I’m selling
How the merry bells do ring.

Not particularly a Yorkshire song, Cecil Sharp found several versions in Somerset, Hammond collected a Dorset version, and as a singing game it was found in Middlesex  and north Staffordshire. In this form John Hornby published a version in The Joyous Book of Singing Games E. J. Arnold, Leeds, c.1910. Hornby doesn’t state where he obtained his version but most of his correspondents were from the Leeds area and he included many pieces from his own childhood in the Yorkshire Dales.

As a glee or harmony song it has been very popular in the North Yorkshire Moors area, versions being collected at Levisham, Runswick Bay, Danby and Littlebeck. The version sung by Tom Calvert of Runswick Bay was published in Roy Palmer’s The Oxford Book of Sea Songs OUP, 1986, p207, and its reprint Boxing the Compass, and the Danby version was published in Michael Dawney’s The Iron Man, Galliard, 1974, p30.
The first stanza and tune have been appropriated on the Prairies as a vehicle for a children’s naughty song which has bawdy connections. (See A Prairie Home Companion Folk Song Book, M and J Pankake, Faber, 1988, p85.)