Cod liver oil served a very important purpose in the diet of the early settlers of Newfoundland. Â In the age before antibiotics, taking one’s daily dose of cod liver oil could mean the difference between life and death if one came down with the flu during Newfoundland’s frigid, windy and sometimes unrelenting winters.
Cod liver oil was traditionally manufactured via curing in the sun which gently fermented the oil over time. The naturally rendered oil was served raw in bottles.
Raw cod liver oil was so important to this rugged, independent culture that popular folk songwriter Johnny Burke of St. John’s, Newfoundland wrote a song about it in the 1800s. Â The song proved so enduring that it is considered a Newfoundland traditional folk song.
Below are the lyrics to this fun little tune along with a video of the Canadian folk-rock band Great Big Sea performing it (from their album The Hard and the Easy).
If you love your raw cod liver oil, then feel free to sing along! Â You will be laughing by the end I feel quite sure!
Cod Liver Oil Song (Lyrics)
I’m a young married man and I’m tired of life
Ten years I’ve been wed to a pale sickly wife,
She’s nothing to do only sit there and cry
Praying and praying to God she would die.
A friend of my own came to see me one day
He told me my wife she was pining away
He afterwards told me that she would get strong
If I get a bottle from dear Dr John.
Oh doctor, oh doctor, oh dear Dr John
Your cod liver oil is so pure and so strong
I’m afraid of my life, I’ll go down in the soil
If me wife don’t stop drinking your cod liver oil.
I bought her a bottle, well just for to try
And the way that she drank it you’d think she might die
I bought her another, it vanished the same
And then she got cod liver oil on the brain.
I bought her another, she drank it no doubt,
And then she began to get terrible stout,
And when she got stout well of course she got strong
And I became jealous of dear Dr John.
Oh doctor, oh doctor, oh dear Dr John
Your cod liver oil is so pure and so strong
I’m afraid of my life, I’ll go down in the soil
If me wife don’t stop drinking your cod liver oil.
Me house it resembles a great doctor’s shop
Its covered in bottles from bottom to top
Well early the morning the kettle does boil
You would swear it was singing of cod liver oil.
Oh doctor, oh doctor, oh dear Dr John
Your cod liver oil is so pure and so strong
I’m afraid of my life, I’ll go down in the soil
If me wife don’t stop drinking
Oh doctor, oh doctor, oh dear Dr John
Your cod liver oil is so pure and so strong
I’m afraid of my life, I’ll go down in the soil
If me wife don’t stop drinking your cod liver oil.
Hilarious!
Love that song!!
That makes me smile!
Thank you for everything! I’m in the baby steps phase of changing over to a traditional diet. I love your blog and vlogs and I just wanted to say thank you! I look forward to finding your news letter in my inbox and check every day like a kid waiting to see if santa has come!
Way to go Sue!!!!!
I love Great Big Sea – a great Canadian band. Thanks for the Canadian connection here!
Love your blog and all the great information you share. Thank you for your generosity of spirit in sharing so much.
My Dad’s side of the family is all Canadian … love my Canadian readers 🙂 My Dad actually attended Medical School at McGill in Montreal.
@Bryan We have an n=5 situation in our home, but since we’ve been taking the raw, fermented cod liver oil similar to what the Newfoundlanders revered, we’ve needed no antibiotics whatsoever for chest infections. This has been many years now with 3 kids in school getting exposed to all sorts of germs. Like you, I’m not willing to stop taking it to find out if its the FCLO but I feel pretty sure it is given its historical importance to wellness prior to the widespread use of penicillin around 1940.
Hilarious!
That’s great!
Since I’ve been taking a teaspoon of traditionally fermented cod liver oil every day, I’ve had no respiratory illness for almost three years now. I used to get 3 or 4 colds every year all my life. That dropped to 1 or 2 with high vitamin cod liver oil for a couple of years, but none in almost three years with FCLO is quite amazing for me. And I just turned 60 not long ago. I know this is n=1, but I’m not going to quit to find out if it’s the FCLO 🙂
Great big sea is one of my absolute favorite bands <3
I like the song and LOVE the FCLO !!!! Thank you for sharring