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| by Kay Nielsen |
Plot
The ballad begins with an ominous warning from our hero's foster-mother that gives us a pretty clear hint as to how the ballad will end. "How will I die?" asks Lord Peter. "At sea," she answers. Apparently unperturbed, Peter goes down to the sea shore, and starts to build a ship. Soon he sets sail, and once out at sea, predictably enough, things start to go wrong. A dead calm creeps up and leaves the ship lying still on the ocean top.
The ship's crew decide that their problems are due to their having a sinner aboard, and they throw dice to find out who is responsible for their predicament. The dice clearly indicate that Lord Peter is the one. So he confesses his sins, and from what he reveals it does seem that he has not behaved himself too well. He then tells his fellow sailors what they should say to his foster-mother and also to his lover about what has become of him, and he pleads to God that he might make it to land again. Finally they throw him overboard, and at that, the ship begins to move again.
As ever, there are variations in the story. In some versions, it is a storm rather than a calm that comes to trouble them. And in some versions, the ending is different, and the whole ship sinks as Lord Peter finishes speaking.
Here is a Swedish ballad text from Geijer and Afzelius.
Some of the Scandinavian ballads have a relationship with traditional English-language ballads (as catalogued by Child), and for some ballads this relationship is closer than for others. The story told in Child ballad #57 Brown Robin's Confession is clearly similar to the story of Lord Peter's Sea Voyage, though many details, the beginning, and the ending are all different, and the Child ballad is much shorter (at least in its surviving form, with only nine verses). But the stories are broadly similar: a ship runs into difficulties out at sea, a man is singled out to make confession to atone for the sins that (presumably) caused the problems, and that man is in both cases the most important man on board. The Swedish ballad actually follows the biblical story of Jonah quite closely. And the episode where the seamen throw dice to decide who is to blame for the unhappy plight of the ship is treated quite similarly in both Lord Peter and Brown Robin.
Melodies
Several melodies are known for the ballad Lord Peter's Sea Voyage.
(1) Herr Peders Sjöresa -- Ahlström No 194 (Östergötland), Berggreen No 36 (Östergötland), Arwidsson No 67.
(2) Herr Peders Sjöresa -- Ahlström No 193 (Värmland).
(3) Herr Peders Sjöresa -- Arwidsson No 67 variant. (in 6/8 time)
(4) Herr Peders Sjöresa -- Södermanlands Kulturhistoria No 33 (Södermanland).
None of these melodies have an omkväde (chorus) line. One text variant appearing in Geijer and Afzelius does have an omkväde line, but I am not aware of the melody that goes with this.
I have made a video where can see a demonstration of what the melodies sound like (with English and Swedish text, only the first two melodies) on YouTube here.
The recordings listed below do not use these melodies, however.
Recordings
Here is a traditional unaccompanied performance by Hilma Ingberg from Bromarf in Finland.
Carin Kjellman and Ulf Gruvberg would later go on to form the band Folk och Rackare. But their first record Med Rötter i Medeltiden (1974) was released as a duo, and it included the ballad Herr Peders Sjöresa. This youtube link to the album track unfortunately seems to be restricted, so it may not work for you. The melody is the same as in the traditional performance above.
Triakel are a Swedish folk band consisting of singer Emma Härdelin, fiddle-player Kjell-Erik Eriksson, and organist Janne Strömstedt. You may recognise the name Emma Härdelin as she is also the singer in the band Garmarna, whose interpretations of traditional ballads I sometimes mention here. Triakel have recorded a number of ballads on their albums. Herr Peder appears on their 2014 album Thyra, an album showcasing the songs of the Jämtland singer Thyra Karlsson.
I was pleased to find out that Nordman recently recorded this ballad for their album Patina (2014). Nordman are a folk-rock duo who were big in the 1990s, with this song being an especially big hit in Sweden. They made a comeback when I was living in Sweden with an entry in Melodifestivalen (the Swedish national song contest) in 2005 that unfortunately didn't quite make it all the way to Eurovision. Nordman have a very characteristic sound that is based around the nyckelharpa ... but the nyckelharpa is not very prominent on this track (just on the album cover ...)!
This used to be a youtube link to a live performance of this ballad by Nordman. The video seems to have disappeared, but I will leave the link in case it works for people outside the UK. Here is a link to Nordman's recording on Amazon. The melody they use is the same as for the two recordings listed above.
Punsch, Herr Peder (live). I'm afraid I don't know anything about this --- they discuss a little bit about the medieval ballads in general before starting the performance, and use a different melody:
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J. N. Ahlström, 300 Nordiska Folkvisor, Stockholm, 1878
A. P. Berggreen, Folke-Sanger og Melodier, Copenhagen, 1860
A. I. Arwidsson, Svenska Fornsånger, Vol 2, Stockholm, 1887
E. G. Geijer and A. A. Afzelius, Svenska Folkvisor Från Forntiden, Stockholm, 1814--1816
My own translation of Lord Peter's Sea Voyage is included in Lord Peter and Little Kerstin.
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