Little Powder Monkey Jim Revisited: An insight into a traditional Tristan da Cunha Folk Song

Abstract

The song 'Little Powder Monkey Jim' was collected from Fred Swain on the South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha in 1938 and 1970. A comparative analysis of the two versions was published by Peter Munch also in 1970. This article identifies the Victorian ballad from which this song derives - 'The Powder Monkey (An Old Salt's Story)', composed in 1881 by W. Michael Watson - and briefly extends Munch's comparison backwards to the original version