Sir Patrick Spens

Story

It was the middle of winter, and the sea was terribly treacherous. The King of Scotland needed a great sailor to command his ship for a royal errand to Norway, so sent a letter to Sir Patrick Spens. Laughing, weeping, and fearing for his life, Sir Patrick set off on the voyage, only for the ship to encounter a storm on the crossing. Dashed to pieces, the ship and its sailors sunk to the bottom of the ocean, leaving those left on shore to wait fruitlessly for their return.

Why we chose it

A traditional Scottish ballad which appears in many poetry anthologies and is still performed today.

Where it came from

Sir Patrick Spens is an old Scottish folk song by an anonymous author, first recorded in Sir Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765), though the incidents related may well date to the 13^th century. It has been published in many anthologies since. 18 different versions of the song were collected by Francis James Child (1825 – 1896) in his enormous collection The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882 – 1898). In some versions, Spens makes it to Norway, only to be offended by the Norwegian lords, leave, and be wrecked on the way home. Most versions agree that the moon the sailors see represents a bad omen.

Where it went next

Sir Patrick Spens is one of the most popular and often anthologised British ballads.

Associated Stories

There are many other dramatic ocean narratives from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) to Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.