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Mo Ghaol Òigear A'Ch​ù​il Duinn (My Darling Is The Brown​-​Haired Young Man)

from Zithers by Andrew Cronshaw

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about

A song melody from St Kilda, published in Inverness bandleader William Morrison’s 1812 'Collection of Highland Music' (this tune “communicated to the Author by Miss McLeod of Rodall”) and by well-known Gaelic singer Anne Lorne Gillies’s in her excellent 2005 book 'Songs Of Gaelic Scotland'. Among her extensive notes to this melody, Anne Lorne Gillies writes, “The girl who composed this song believes herself to be in love with a ‘fine gentleman’ from Islay by the name of Campbell, and now she can’t stand the callow local lads anywhere near her. Rumour has it that she is pregnant – but if she could write she’d send a letter to Islay to reassure him that there is no truth in the whispers. I learned this most interesting song from the Revd William Matheson. The words are published in the 'MacDonald Collection Of Gaelic Poetry' (1911), where it is suggested that the girl was called Mòr (or Marion) Gillies, and that the object of her affections was Campbell of Islay, the 19th century Gaelic-speaking ‘aristocrat, courtier, lawyer, public servant, world traveller and man of many talents’.”
The two Reverends MacDonald quaintly comment “She sets forth her feelings in smooth measure and simple but chaste style”.
The words of the repeating motif in the tune translate into English as “My darling is the brown-haired young man, with whom I fell so completely in love”
I wonder how such a personal song, heart-felt by one in the island’s very small population, who was, as expressed in the song, to a degree alienated from parts of that population, came to be sung enough to be transmitted down the years to others.

credits

from Zithers, released March 11, 2020
Trad. arr. Cronshaw
(74-string fretless zither)

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Andrew Cronshaw London, UK

Andrew Cronshaw is a British multi-instrumentalist and producer, soloist and also leader of the Finnish/Armenian/British band SANS, who also has a long career as a writer on roots musics, particularly those of the Nordic, Baltic, eastern and central European and Iberian regions, for fRoots, The Rough Guide to World Music etc. ... more

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