St. Brendan's Fair Isle

Jimmy Driftwood (Battle Music)

I first heard Danny Doyle sing this on his album "Twenty Years a-Growing". Written by the late Arkansas songwriter Jimmy Driftwood who also wrote "The Battle of New Orleans", "The Tennessee Stud", and hundreds of other songs. Jimmy had originally recorded the Brendan song on an album called "Tall Tales In Song" in 1960. It seems it had two titles, the other one being "The World's largest Fish". This was probably in reference to the legend of St. Brendan celebrating Mass on the back of a whale!

When I was a lad on the Emerald Isle
I heard many stories both wondrous and wild
About the great monsters and dragons that be
That follow the ships as they sail on the sea
Now I being an artist with canvas and paint
I sailed with St. Brendan and his jolly saints
We told all the people good-bye for a while
We sailed to St. Brendan's fair Isle, fair Isle
We sailed to St. Brendan's fair Isle

We being on the ocean for ninety-four days
We came to a spot where the sea was ablaze
Those demons from Hades were dancing with glee
And burning the sailors alive on the sea
Then St. Brendan walked on the blistering waves
He threw all the demons back into their caves
And all of the saints wore a heavenly smile
We sailed to St. Brendan's fair Isle, fair Isle
We sailed to St. Brendan's fair Isle

That night when the brethren were lying asleep
A great dragon came up from under the deep
He thundered and lightninged and made a great din
He awakened St. Brendan and all of his men
The dragon came on with his mouth open wide
We threw in a cross and the great dragon died
We skinned him and cooked him and feasted a while
We sailed to St. Brendan's fair Isle, fair Isle
We sailed to St. Brendan's fair Isle

At last we came to a beautiful land
We all went ashore and we walked on the strand
We took our long bows and we killed us some food
Then we roasted it up and had pot-barbeque
Then after a while we were singing a song
We noticed the island was moving along
We ate and we drank and we rode in great style
We sailed to St. Brendan's fair Isle, fair Isle
We sailed to St. Brendan's fair Isle

Oh, Brendan said, "boys, this is much to my wish
We sail on the back of the world's biggest fish"
"Hold tight to the rope now that pulls our oul ship
For we'll need it me boys if this fish takes a dip"
We sailed every ocean, we sailed every sea
We sailed every spot that a sailor could be
In forty-four days we sailed ten million miles
We sailed to St. Brendan's fair Isle, fair Isle
We sailed to St. Brendan's fair Isle