Married to a Mermaid

AKA Married to a Mermai-ed
First Published 1866?
Lyrics A.L.C (William Makepeace Thackeray?) Music M. Watson Roud RN9143

Music Hall Performers Arthur Lloyd
Folk performances Source Singers
Hudleston, N.A. 1999 England : Yorkshire
Modern performances		 

Oh, 'twas on the deep Atlantic, in the equionnoctial gales,
That a young feller fell overboard, among the sharks and whales;
He fell right down so quickly, so headlong down fell he,
That he went out of sight like a streak of light,
To the bottom of the deep, blue sea.

Singing Rule Britannia,
Britannia rules the waves
For Britons never, never, never
Will be slaves.

The boats went out to look after him and we thought to find his corpse,
When he came to the top with a bang and sung in a voice sepulchrally hoarse;
'Oh, my comrades and my messmates all, pray do not grieve for me,
For I'm mar-ri-ed to a mer-mi-ed at the bottom of the deep blue sea.'


'In my cheste my twelve months pay you'll find, likewise a lock of my hair,
And this locket from my neck you'll give unto my young wife dear,
My carte-de-visite to my grandmother take, tell her not to take on about me,
For I'm mar-ri-ed to a mer-mi-ed at the bottom of the deep blue sea.


He told us how, when he first went down, the fishes all came round he,
And they seemed to think, as they stared at him, that he made uncommonly free.
But down he went, though he didn't know how and he thought, 'It's all up to me.'
When he came to a lovely mer-mi-ed at the bottom of the deep blue sea.


She raised herself on her beautiful tail and gave him her wet, white hand;
Saying, 'Long have I waited for you, my dear, you're welcome safe to land.
Go back to your messmates for the last time and tell them all from me,
That you're mar-ri-ed to a mer-mi-ed at the bottom of the deep blue sea.

The chorus, of course comes from the patriotic British song written in the 1740s, a poem set to music by Thomas Arne. According to Christopher Pulling and other writers, the remainder of the words were written by novelist William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63), using the pseudonym “A.J.C.”. The sheet music for the version sung by Arthur Lloyd, published after Thackeray’s death, in 1866 has the words:

Known among a select circle to be an impromptu of the late Mr Thackeray

Harold Scott: Early Doors

It seems likely that Thackeray would have written a song, or perhaps improvised it, in the 1840s when he was a regular at “Evans’s Late Joys”, one of the late-night song and supper rooms of London that provided so many of the early stars of the Halls.

It seems that Arthur Lloyd inherited the song and successfully sang it in the Halls after Thackeray’s death.

The song is relatively well-known as a shanty, and it seems surprising that it only appears to have been collected once. A song still song often sung in folk singarounds.

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