click on the button for a sample displaying
click on the button for a sample displaying
and return to this point, a source of great knowledge
for much less familiar "things" for which we can forage.
Is your name GREEN or LEE or JONES or DAWSON, and if not, do you know of anybody with those names? In my telephone book there are thousands of them!
They are all directly and CLOSELY associated with the Royal Navy, and having been told that, I am sure that you have guessed at DAVY JONES, or Davy Jones's Locker, and guessed correctly, and also FIDDLERS GREEN, which are both mentioned in "Jackspeak".
is a much used
expression associated with death and having a watery grave, but it is not quite
as simple as that. You see, Davy Jones is not exactly a nice man, and he
collects not dead sailors per se, but dead PIRATES only - 'baddies'. According
to the OED [Oxford English Dictionary] - that's the one that takes two bootnecks
to carry and is a little more authoritative than most other published articles -
"Davy Jones (______ _______). Also simply Davy.
In nautical slang: The spirit of the sea; the sailors' devil. Davy Jones's (or
Davy's) locker: the ocean, the deep, esp. as the grave of those who perish at
sea.
1751 Smollett Per. Pic. xiii. (Brewer), This same Davy Jones, according to the
mythology of sailors, is the fiend that presides over all the evil spirits of
the deep."
a Royal
Sailor perhaps, then Davy Jones is not for you, much the same as heaven and hell
to a believer, and you would have gone [will go] to Fiddlers Green. Returning to
the OED again, it rather looks as though we "good" but dead sailors share
Fiddlers Green with others including animals -
"b. Fiddler's Green (Naut.): _a sailor's elysium, in which wine, women, and song
figure prominently' (Farmer).
1825 Sporting Mag. XVI. 404 My grannan_used to tell me that animals, when they
departed this life, were destined to be fixed in Fidler's Green.
1836 W. H. Maxwell Capt. Blake I. xv. note, It is_believed that tailors and
musicians after death are cantoned in a place called _Fiddler's Green'.
1837 Marryat Dog-fiend ix, We shape a course for Fiddler's Green.
1883 J. D. J. Kelly in Harper's Mag. Aug. 441/2 The pilotless narrows which lead
to Fiddler's Green, where all good sailors go."
That leaves just the names DAWSON and LEE, and guess what, I cant find them in 'Jackspeak'.
Not only are they women, but both were called NANCY which as we
all know, is a pet-name for Ann or Anne. NANCY DAWSON was a prostitute {and
later a wife} and NANCY
LEE was a wife. This is the OED input for 
-
"Nancy Dawson (______ _______). ? Obs.
[See quot. 1890.]
A sailor's dance or song; a nancy-boy.
1766 C. Anstey New Bath Guide ix. 64 With what Grace his Gloves he draws on,
Claps, and calls up Nancy Dawson: Me thro' ev'ry Dance conducting.
1771 Smollett Humph. Cl. I. 176, I can dance a Welsh jig, and Nancy Dawson.
_1810 W. Hickey Mem. (1960) xxv. 418 The dragoons_marched off_the fifes
playing _Nancy Dawson'.
1840 Family Mag. (Cincinnati) 332/2 She sailed through the waltz like an
elephant dancing _Nancy Dawson' in the ring of a menagerie.
1890 Barrère & Leland Dict. Slang II. 81/1 Nancy Dawson, a name for a molly,
an effeminate youth, apathetic, &c._ The original Nancy Dawson was a noted
prostitute, on whom there is a song still current among sailors."
From Nancy Dawson comes nancy-boy, an effeminate male youth or man/ a homosexual man - see 1890 above.
...............................
This is the music for the dance Nancy Dawson NANCY DAWSON.mid, which is sometimes used for "round and round the mulberry
bush" when it is called "Cheerily Man". The words to the song are vague but go
something like these:- Of all the girls in our town,
The red, the black, the fair, the brown,
That dance and prance it up and down,
There's none like Nancy Dawson. etc.
And finally to 
. If you have a Manual of Seamanship VOL 1 of
1951, then turn to page 263 {Naval Ceremonial} and under 'Ceremony Ashore' you
will see the reference to Nancy Lee. Look at this file
nancy lee. Good hunting.