June Tabor - The Brean Lament lyrics

The waters they washed them ashore, ashore
And they never will sail the seas no more
We laid them along by the churchyard wall
And all in a row we buried them all
But their boots we buried below the tide
On Severnside

The gulls they fly over so high, so high
To see where their bodies all safe do lie
They fly all around and loud they do call
Where all in a row we buriеd them all
But their boots we buriеd below the tide
On Severnside

Spoken: The bodies of the drowned at sea
Were not buried in the church
But on the tideline until the 1870s
And even when accorded Christian
Burials were never brought into
The church it'self
But buried in the Sailors' Graveyard the sea
Might wish to reclaim them many
People believed
Drowned sailors returned as seagulls
And that, according to estuary law
A gull would attack an exhausted
Swimmer, who was still managing
To escape his fate
Out of sheer envy of the living
On many Western coasts, it was the practice
Even in days of more Christian funerals
To bury the boots of the dead on the tideline

The waters they washed them ashore, ashore
And they never will sail the seas no more
We laid them along by the churchyard wall
And all in a row we buried them all
But their boots we buried below the tide
On Severnside