Gow my leshtal dy vel mee cho anmagh as shoh. Cre'n aght haink y snaih shoh seose reesht? I was still a Mudcat virgin in 1997.

It was the custom to call farmers by the name of their farm. My grandfather, Thomas Alfred Corteen, farmed the ancestral homestead of Ballacorteen in Maughold. He was known as "The Ballacorteen", or Alfie Ballacorteen. He later moved to Bride and became The Ballahard.

The name given by Mona in the notes as "Colcheragh" is usually written Qualtrough, from Mac Walter. Nicholas Qualtrough farmed the Raby, so he was known as Nicholas Raby, or just "The Raby". As it happens, Raby is still found as a surname in Mann.

The lyrics in the Kennedy collection are as translated by Mona. Other than in Mona's version, both in Manx and English, I've never seen or heard the verse about "Streih lhiam son my chirree/How I grieve for my sheep" other than in this version.

In the Manx and the English as translated, you'll see that there were some sheep left alive, though I think he's said to have lost something like 2,000 in the snow. There's a quite different version in the Manx National Songbook (1896): not a translation but a sort of paraphrase. There are three verses which finish with the dramatic conclusion, "but the sheep were all dead". The Victorians loved the melodramatic flourish.

Funnily enough, I managed to mention the Horslips version in a thread yesterday about the song, When a Man's in Love.

S'quaagh yn theihll shoh, as s'quaagh adsyn t'aynjee.

Bobby Bob