Serendipitous bit

[muckefuck]

At work we're learning something called "Resource Description and Access". You don't really need to know anything about it except that it's exactly as tedious as it sounds. To keep awake during our weekly discussions, I have to focus on any shiny bit of fluff that blows through the room. Recently, we were tackling the sticky subject of how the standards apply to compilations and collections. Some of our examples were songbooks and one of the song titles which leapt out at me was "The House Carpenter". I made some smartalecky remark about it and a colleague of mine responded, "I actually know that one."

A couple days later, nihilistic_kid posted this:

Comments

[come-to-think.livejournal.com]

It's an old song, No. 243 in Child's collection. In some versions, the demon grows to enormous height, breaks the mast, and sinks the ship. In tamer versions, especially American ones, the demon is missing and the ship simply sinks.

I have heard that in the earliest versions, the seducer is not a demon, but the ghost of the lady's former lover.