The Watchet Sailor

Also known as The Tailor’s Lament, The Watchet Sailor recounts the story of a girl and a sailor who agree to be married when he returns home from a voyage. Upon his arrival he finds out the girl is shortly to be wed to a tailor. At the church the sailor persuades the girl to marry him instead, and the tailor is left embittered and grief-stricken. Play this smoothly and sadly. The melody is written in the natural minor scale starting on D, also known as D aeolian mode.

Selected from Folk Roots for Violin. In this and timeless collection, Hywel Davies presents fresh arrangements of traditional British folk tunes as well as complementary, folk-inspired compositions of his own.