JOHN DORY
The Text is from Ravenscroft’s Deuteromelia (1609), the only text that has come down to us of a ‘three-man’s song’ which achieved extraordinary popularity during’ the seventeenth century.
The Story.—‘Good King John of France’ is presumed to be John II., who was taken prisoner at the battle of Poictiers and died in 1364. But the earliest literary reference to this ballad occurs in the play of Gammar Gurton’s Needle, acted in 1566, where the song ‘I cannot eat but little meat’ is to be sung ‘to the tune of John Dory.’ From Carew’s Survey of Cornwall (1602) we learn a little more: ‘Moreover, the prowess of one Nicholas, son to a widow near Foy [Fowey], is descanted upon in an old three-man’s song, namely, how he fought bravely at sea with John Dory (a Genowey, as I conjecture), set forth by John, the French king, and, after much bloodshed on both sides, took, and slew him, in revenge of the great ravine and cruelty which he had fore committed upon the Englishmen’s goods and bodies.’