The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #7177   Message #478233
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
07-Jun-01 - 08:08 AM
Thread Name: Lyr ADD: The Herring Song
Subject: RE: Lyric:The Herring Song
Whatever Eliza sings, it's Kinsale in the traditional versions of this variant.  The nonsense words may be Irish, and they may not; Eliza herself used to think that they might be Welsh.  Seamus Ennis -from whom Eliza's set may well derive- sang aber-um-vane and aber-o-ling, but he doesn't seems to have expressed an opinion as to the words' derivation or meaning.

Malcolm