This very popular Child ballad is known by many names, including "The Sweet Trinity", "The Golden Willow Tree", "The Turkish Revelry", "Merry Golden Tree" and "The Sweet Kumadee." The title of the oldest 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)".

There are many variations with different outcomes for the brave cabin boy. In most variants, the captain refuses to take him back aboard the ship, let alone reward him; some versions have the boy sinking his captain's ship or threatening to sink it, but more often, he drowns (sometimes after saying he would sink the ship if it weren't for the crew). In other versions he is rescued by the crew, but dies on the deck.

It has been recorded many times, some notable examples being the Carter Family's "Sinking in the Lonesome Sea" (1935), The Almanac Singers (1941), A.L. Lloyd (1956), Paul Clayton (1956), Pete Seeger (1957), Richard Dyer Bennet (1958), Burl Ives (1959), Almeda Riddle (1959), Odetta, Jean Ritchie (1961), Barbara Dane, Cisco Houston, Lonnie Donegan (1960 - as the b-side of his hit song "My Old Man's a Dustman"), The New Lost City Ramblers (1963), Martyn Wyndham-Read, Ewan MacColl (1964), The Chad Mitchell Trio (1964), Steeleye Span (1995), Loudon Wainwright III (2006), Peter, Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan (on a bootleg recording of a 1992 concert), Crooked Still (2009), and, of course, Lew Dite. Ranzo (hultonclint) also has an interesting chantey version of the song.

This song was requested by KitsunegariBlu.

You can watch a playlist of my renditions of the Child ballads:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B2D0D5657EA394E4

For lyrics and chords of my songs please go to my website: http://www.raymondcrooke.com