Great Norse Rover

Words: Brom Blackhand
Tune: Irish Rover
Source: Standing Song Stone Book
MIDI / NWC / PDF

In the year of Thor nine-hundred-and-six,
Our flags and our sails we unfurled.
And we cast off at ten with a full crew of men,
In an effort to sack the whole world.

We'd a hell of a ship, through the waves she did slip,
And, oh, how the dark wind drove her.
She had one score of masts and two thousand oars,
And they called her the Great Norse Rover.

We had ten million spears, and enough food for years;
We had three million chests for our gold;
We had one thousand maids for the days between raids;
We had two million axes, all told.

We had fifty fierce cats for our thousands of rats,
And they battled about all over.
We had ten million kegs of the best Danish mead
On the decks of the Great Norse Rover.

There was Ingolf the Grim, there was no fear in him;
There was Ivar from Novgorod town;
There was Floki the Light who was too scared to fight,
And we hoped he'd fall over and drown.

There was Erik the Fool, who was drunk as a rule,
And raisin' hell all over.
And old Hrothgar the Brown, who had sacked Dublin town
Was the skipper of the Great Norse Rover.

We'd been five years at sea when the scurvy got bad,
And the ship lost her way in the fog,
And that whale of a crew was reduced down to two;
It was me and the Captain's old dog -- (BIG dog.)

Then the ship struck a rock, a great big rock,
And she almost tumbled over,
And when I looked around, the poor dog was drowned --
Hey, I'm the last of the great Norse Rovers.

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