Usually regarded as a capstan or pumping shanty, some collectors also give it for halyards.The version here is almost the only one heard nowadays, but there is also a version where the sailor appears in the lover’s dream. Although the shanty has been traced at least as far back as 1860, there is no trace of any version with the dream before 1882, and the dead lover first appears in John Masefield’s (later Poet Laureate) version in ’A Sailor’s Garland’ in 1906.