Walkaway (stamp and go) shanty. Exaggerated story about a whaling voyage. The crew nails the ship to a whale's tail and thus sails to the North Pole and back. Each stanza ends with "'And that's the truth', said he."
[Harlow's version is] taken from a 1935 issue of _Sea Breezes_ magazine, published in Liverpool, as given by Capt. A.G. Cole. - SL