Two other collections have also been of special service--_The English and Scottish Popular Ballads_, edited by Professor F. J. Child, 5 vols., Boston, 1895, and _Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript_, edited by Professor J. W. Hales and Dr. F. J. Furnivall, 3 vols., London, 1868. There are also several special collections of Naval Ballads, to which references are frequently made in this introduction and in the notes. Of these the most important are: (1) _Early Naval Ballads of England_, collected and edited by J. O. Halliwell for the Percy Society in 1851. (2) _Sea Songs and Ballads by Dibdin and others._ London, Bell and Daldy, 1863. This contains an appendix consisting of ballads written before Dibdin’s day. (3) _Real Sailor Songs_, collected and edited by John Ashton, 1891, which is valuable from the number of modern street ballads it contains. (4) _Sea Songs and Ballads_, selected by Christopher Stone, with an introduction by Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge, Oxford, 1906. (5) _A Sailor’s Garland_, selected and edited by John Masefield, London 1906. One word as to the text of the ballads and songs contained in this volume. It was at first intended to preserve the exact spelling of the originals. In the older pieces it was possible to do this because there was usually an authoritative text accessible, which it was easy to follow throughout. But the later ballads, issued on broadsheets and slips, and frequently reprinted again by country printers, swarmed with misprints due to mere carelessness which it would have been unnecessary and undesirable to reproduce. Moreover, it was often needful to compare several versions in order to obtain a tolerable text. For these reasons a certain number of obvious errors of the press have been corrected. Some variants, with comments on the text of the ballads, and an indication of the source from which the text is derived, will be found in the notes at the end of the volume. It should be noted that in order to save space two lines have often been printed as one. CONTENTS PAGE The Battle of Sluys 1 Les Espagnols Sur Mer 3 The Pilgrims Sea Voyage 4 Sir Andrew Barton 6 John Dory 16 The Mariner’s Song 17 A Joyful New Ballad, declaring the Happie Obtaining of the Great Galleazzo 18 An Excellent Song on the Winning of Cales by the English 21 The Sailor’s Onely Delight 23 The Seaman’s Song of Captain Ward 25 The Song of Dansekar the Dutchman 27