I Saw Three Ships in the Morning—Murfin Winter Holidays Music Festival 2024-‘25

                                                                            The Chieftains with Marianne Faithful perform I Saw Three Ships in the Morning.

The very old English carol I Saw Three Ships in the Morning is apt for the last Sunday of the Christmas Season and eve of the Feast of the Epiphany or Feast of the Three Kings.  There is some veiled mystery to the reference to ships for a nativity story set far from any sea or port.  Most likely the ships are the ships of the desert—camels—ridden by the wandering wise men or kings.  Other explanations include the three ships that bore the purported relics of the Magi to Cologne Cathedral in the 12th Century or a reference  to Wenceslaus II, Duke of Bohemia—yes the Good King Wenceslaus of another carol, whose coat of arms  featured “Azure three galleys argent.”

The reference to “Christmas day in the morning” is for the beginning of the seers's journey supposedly on Christmas night when the Star began leading them.  On Twelfth Night they finally approach Bethlehem.

The Magi follow the Star to Bethlehem on their ships of the desert.

An alternative 19th Century version, I Saw Three Ships on New Year’s Day, told of a trio of beautiful singers each on her own ship sailing to a wedding as either entertainment or brides.

A 19th Century children's book illustration of I Saw Three Ships on New Year's Day.

The earliest printed version of I Saw Three Ships is from the 17th Century around Derbyshire and was also published by William Sandys in 1833. The song was also called As I Sat On a Sunny Bank and was particularly popular in Cornwall.  Many different melodies were used and English folklorists Cecil Sharp and Janet Blunt  noted the tunes and lyrics of dozens of versions, primarily from the south of England in the first decade of the 20th Century.

In this English Christmas card the singing maidens of the New Year's version were hinted at in the figureheads of the ships.

Various arrangements have been recorded by Jean Richie,  Nat King Cole, Glen Campbell, Celtic Women, Sting, and even alt-rockers Bare Naked Ladies.

The Chieftains in the 1980s.

But today we enjoy a version by the revered Irish ensemble The Chieftains with vocal by Marianne Faithfull on their 1991 album The Bells of Dublin.