een in the absence of a corpse, but that she was
unable to do so. Just before giving up in despair my friend was seized
with a brain wave, and asked her if it would suffice for him to lie
down on the floor and personate the corpse. When he had done this the
old woman found herself able to get on with the keening.

An incident related to me quite casually by Sir Walter Runciman throws
a similar light on the inseparability of a shanty and its labour. He
described how one evening several north country ships happened to be
lying in a certain port. All the officers and crews were ashore,
leaving only the apprentices aboard, some of whom, as he remarked,
were 'very keen on shanties,' and their suggestion of passing away the
time by singing some was received with enthusiasm. The whole party of
about thirty apprentices at once collected themselves aboard one
vessel, sheeted home the main topsail, and commenced to haul it up to
the tune of 'Boney was a warrior,' changing to 'Haul the Bowlin'' for
'sweating-up.' In the enthusiasm of their singing, and the absence of
any officer to call ''Vast hauling,' they continued operations until
they broke the topsail yard in two, when the sight of the wreckage and
the fear of consequences brought the singing to an abrupt conclusion.
In my then ignorance I naturally asked: 'Why couldn't you have sung
shanties without hoisting the topsail?' and the reply was: 'How could
we sing a shanty without having our hands on the rope?' Here we have
the whole psychology of the labour-song: the old woman could not keen
without the 'body,' and the young apprentices could not sing shanties
apart from the work to which they belonged. The only truly
satisfactory results which I ever get nowadays from an old sailor are
when he has been stimulated by conversation to become reminiscent, and
croons his shanties almost subconsciously. Whenever I find a sailor
willing to declaim shanties in the style of a song I begin to be a
little suspicious of his seamanship. In one of the journals of the
Folk-Song Society there is an account of a sailor who formed a little
party of seafaring men to give public performances of shanties on the
concert platform. No doubt this was an interesting experience for the
listeners, but that a self-conscious performance such as this could
represent the old shanty singing I find it difficult to believe. Of
course I have had sailors sing shanties to me in a fine declamatory
manner, but I usu