The Brean Lament

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 itself
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