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keberoxu Binneas nam Bard/Bardic Melody (13) RE: Binneas nam Bard/Bardic Melody 06 Jun 17


The second piece in Binneas nam Bàrd is titled, variously,
"Garabh agus na Mnathan" or "Garabh is na Mnathan."
It has a total of 38 verses.
The melody is printed on page 15, followed by all the verses.

To resume the article, introduced in the previous post.

continued:
In some cases, when I had, as I thought, found the cadences, and proceeded to lay them out according to the lines, I was left with a number of superfluous bars of music. An instance of this kind is "Garabh agus na Mnathan." I conjectured that there was a refrain; and so it seems to be. No hint of a refrain is given along with the words in Leabhar na Féinne. I therefore made one, after the pattern of those at page 198 of that book, for the purpose of illustrating the music. [This is the tale of how arson destroyed a dwelling where the Fianna women waited for their men. One of the Fianna turned out to be the culprit, and the ballad describes how the arsonist was put to death with Finn's sword for his crime.]

This ballad is known under a variety of names:
Losgadh Bruth Farbairn
Garabh
Losgadh Farmail
Losgadh Tigh Farala 's gun an Fhéinn aig a' bhaile

MacDonald [Highland Vocal Airs] names it "Laoidh Ghara 's nam ban,"
the grammar of which is not above suspicion.[...] [T]he ballad is mere rhymed narrative and as wooden as can well be....The versification is rugged, and every stanza requires its own division of the time.

There follow: the melody, with the opening lines fitted underneath;
the remaining verses, in Scottish Gaelic;
and finally, MacFarlane's English translation of the whole.

from The Celtic Review, Volume I, no. 1, July 1904 (published quarterly), Edinburgh. Article on pages 36 - 47, written by Malcolm MacFarlane.


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