I Saw Three Ships
The 25th Track 9
This must be one of the best known English carols. First printed in 1666, according to the New Oxford Book of Carols the story is based on the medieval journeys of the magi’s skulls. These relics were taken to Constantinople in the fourth century by the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great and “discoverer of the True Cross”, thence to Milan, and finally in 1162 to Cologne Cathedral where they remain to this day.
The notes in the book also refer to this version of the carol in Baring-Gould’s manuscript collection, which was noted from a boatman on the River Humber by the artist Lewis Davis, and preserves the link with Cologne:
I axed ’em what they’d got on board
They said they’d got three crawns [skulls]
I axed ’em where they was taken to
They said they was ganging to Coln upon Rhine
I axed ’em where they came frae
They said they came frae Bethlehem
A different version, from Adderbury in Oxfordshire, can be heard at A Folk Song A Week Week 270 – As I sat on a sunny bank.