Origins: Foggy Dew (Irish)

Subject: Origins: Foggy Dew lyrics
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Mar 15 - 07:00 AM

An old book printed in Dublin in 1900 includes Irish words to a song the editor calls "The Foggy Dew" ("An Drúcht Cheothach"). Can anyone translate the Irish headnote for me? (I've had to type the dotted consonants as followed by an "h").

"Sean fhonn fíos áluinn agus fíos Eireannach an fonn atá ris an abhrán so; acht fasaios! Tá na sean fhocail caillte go deo. Tá abhrán gráidh deunta dhe le file éigin do chuir focail beurla ris."

Part of its seems to say that the original words to the tune are lost, but I'd like to know more!

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Mar 15 - 07:06 AM

An English translation of the poem has this Irish note. Meaning?

"Bhí an t-aistriughadh leanas deunta leis an bhfear-eagair."

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: MartinRyan
Date: 14 Mar 15 - 07:49 AM

Can you post details of the book, please - or arrange to get a PDF of the page to me? Your brave effort at transcription has some ambiguities.


A first run at translation would be:

A truly beautiful and truly Irish air goes with this song; but unfortunately - the old words are lost. It has been made into a lovesong by some poet who put English words to it.

The second Irish quote says:

The translation which follows was made by the editor.

Author/Editor? Walsh/Breatnach?

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Mar 15 - 08:02 AM

Hi, Martin, and thanks so much. Am not surprised by my transcriptional "ambiguities"!

The book is T. O. Russell's "Fíor chláirseach na h-Eireann" (Dublin: Gill, 1900). You can see it here:

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b597814;view=1up;seq=28

Scroll to pp. 19, 128.

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Mar 15 - 08:03 AM

Don't know if it's this one you're referring to, recorded from Clare fiddle player, Martin 'Junior' Crehan
Jim Carroll

Martin Junior Crehan Bonavilla, Mullagh
Recorded in the singer's home, September 19 92 Carroll Mackenzie Collection

Oh, the sun shone on high, when l bade my love good bye.
As she went forth in exile to a far-off land.
And l smiled for her sake, though my heart fit to break
Sank in dark, doom despair as l clasped her hand.

Then l sighed for the rain, against the window pane.
And the cold dark blast of the wintry wind.
Through the long silent years of my hopes and my fears.
For the blue sky would bring my sad grief to mind.

But when twilight falls, oft' I'd dream that she calls.
And the rich, soft music of the voice I love
Makes the dusk grow bright, and the dark haze night
Glow with heavenly light like the stars above.
And when I wandered through, the dimmed foggy dew
That falls o'er the hills when the sunbeams wane.
Sure I know that at last, when the mists are all past.
That we'll meet to be parted ne're again.

But when twilight falls, oft' I'd dream that she calls.
And the rich, soft music of the voice l love
Makes the dusk grow bright, and the dark haze night
Glow with heavenly light like the stars above.

And when I wandered through, the dimmed foggy dew
That falls o'er the hills when the sunbeams wane.
Sure l know that at last, when the mists are all past.
That we'll meet to be parted ne're again.

Conversation between Junior Crehan, Pat Macklenzie and Jim Carroll: Before the song:
Pat: You mentioned The Foggy Dew' the other night. Do you have it all? Junior: l haven't the one about Dublin, but I have a small, shorter 'Foggy Dew'. After the song:
Jim: Lovely. Where did you have that from? Junior: Oh, l heard that and I going to school. Jim: I never heard that.
Junior: Didn't you? It's called 'The Foggy Dew' but there's another one:
"High over Dublin Town, they hung out the flag of war. Better to die 'neath an Irish sky than at Suvla or Sud-El-Bar."
"This song was written by Alfred Percival Graves and published in 'Irish Songs and Ballads' in 1880. Junior says he learned it when he was at school. It has nothing whatever to do with the erotic English song of the same name, nor the Irish song celebrating Easter Week 1916. It is highly likely that the attributed author of the Easter Week 'Foggy Dew', Canon Charles O'Neill (1887-1963), borrowed 'Graves' evocative title as a 'calm before the storm' scene-setter.
The English title is said to be a corruption of 'bugaboo*, the old term for the ghost that the gullible young woman is invited to hide from, under the young man's blankets."

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: MartinRyan
Date: 14 Mar 15 - 08:12 AM

You're welcome, Lighter.

Can't connect to that page for "copyright" reasons - and I don't have the book. If you transcribe the first verse we may be able to tell if it's a translation of Graves' poem - as may well be the case. There was a fashion for such back-creation into Irish at the end of the 19th. C - which is why I checked on Fr. Walshe, who popularised a lot of such.

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Mar 15 - 08:37 AM

Jim, Graves's words as given in his own "Father O'Flynn and Other Irish Lyrics" are quite different from Crehan's, which are unfamiliar to me. Thanks for posting them.

Here is Russell's English translation of the Irish. It seems unrelated to Graves's song (and is even less to my taste!):

O fair is the hour when on leaf and flower
The sparkling dew drops all brightly shine,
E'er the white sun's blaze and his dazzling rays
Of the morning mist leave scarce a sign.
All changeless and still over valley and rill
Lies the Foggy Dew of the Autumn night,
With its grey-blue sheen on the pastures green,
That's fairer far than the sun beams bright.

All the flowery vales and the bosky dales,
Untouched by the unborn morning breeze,
Are filled to the brim with a vapour dim,
And seem from afar like inland seas.
O that witching time e'er the sun in his prime
Drinks the sparkling dew from each glossy stem, —
Ere the full blown day drives the mist away
That makes of each drooping leaf a gem !

My guess is that the Irish words were inspired by the title of the tune, which, if I read the sources rightly, was - for trained musicians and others - usually that given by Bunting and employed by Graves.

The tune that is better known today, to which Canon O'Neill wrote the Easter Rising lyrics, seems first to have appeared in 1909, collected from Cathal McGarvey, the same man, presumably, who penned the lyrics of "The Star of the County Down."

It certainly seems unlikely (to put it mildly) that an English printer and an Irish musician should have come up independently with a title including the phrase "Foggy Dew."

And indeed, Joyce's 1909 version, learned "as a child" and somewhat like Bunting's is accompanied by one chastened stanza of "The Foggy, Foggy Dew."

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: GUEST,#
Date: 14 Mar 15 - 08:44 AM

I think the link might be useful to all of you. It's the book online.

https://archive.org/details/forchlirseac00russ

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Mar 15 - 08:56 AM

Junior's air is quite different to the regular 'foggy Dew'.
While I'm on the subject, our collection of around 450 Clare songs will be launched on Thurs 26th March, 8pm at Ennistymon Courthouse, Clare (now an arts centre for anybody steering clear of the law!)
Councilor Pat Hayes (Martin's Brother, P. Joe's son) will be letting fly the champagne bottle.
From then on it will be freely accessible on line on the Clare County Library website
Anybody in the vicinity is welcome to join us.
The Library already has a magnificent traditional music section BTW.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: Thompson
Date: 14 Mar 15 - 09:07 AM

There are two Foggy Dews; one is the one with the bachelor who lives all alone, and works at the weaver's trade; the other is the down the glen one Easter morn to a city fair rode I one. Which does this seem to be? (The Easter morn one, for obvious reasons, is post-1916, so is unlikely to be in a 1900 book, pace time travel.)

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Mar 15 - 09:17 AM

In fact there are several. The English song is usually called "The Foggy, Foggy Dew."

The various Irish melodies, and the various lyrics that accompany them, are always called "The Foggy Dew."

As Joyce shows, however, the English words used to be sung to at least one of the Irish tunes - something apparently unheard of today.

The usual familiar Sandburg/Britten tune of "The Foggy, Foggy Dew" seems unrelated to any of the Irish tunes.

Jim, I look forward to seeing your wonderful collection.

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: MartinRyan
Date: 14 Mar 15 - 04:32 PM

Russell's Irish seems to be a loose translation of Graves's English, as implied by his
Appendix comment.

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Mar 15 - 06:22 PM

Here is Graves's once highly admired poem, from his "Irish Songs and Ballads" (1880), p. 14:

THE FOGGY DEW

Oh! a wan cloud was drawn
O'er the dim, weeping dawn,
As to Shannon's side I returned at last;
And the heart in my breast
For the girl I loved best
Was beating — ah beating, how loud and fast!
While the doubts and the fears
Of the long, aching years
Seemed mingling their voices with the moaning flood;
Till full in my path,
Like a wild water-wraith,
My true love's shadow lamenting stood.

But the sudden sun kissed
The cold, cruel mist
Into dancing showers of diamond dew;
The dark flowing stream
Laughed back to his beam,
And the lark soared singing aloft in the blue;
While no phantom of night,
But a form of delight
Ran with arms outspread to her darling boy:
And the girl I love best
On my wild, throbbing breast
Hid her thousand treasures, with a cry of joy.


The melody (p. 207) is that collected by Bunting in 1839 and played, for example, by Eugene O'Donnell and James MacCafferty. I have also heard it played, perversely but effectively, as a march.

I can't tell if there's a meaningful resemblance between Bunting's tune and the well-known "Ye Banks and Braes" (composed by Niel Gow - as "The Royal Caledonian Hunt's Delight" - in or before 1788), a simplified version of which often carried "The Foggy, Foggy Dew" in England.

Superficially, of course, there is none.

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Mar 15 - 07:21 PM

Although the now classic tune variant (O'Neill's) first appeared in 1909, it is essentially the same as "Poor Old Granua Weal," No. 790 in "The Complete Petrie Collection," "From J. McCloskey, Dungiven."

George Petrie, the collector, died in 1866.

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: GUEST,Lucy Brennan
Date: 16 Mar 16 - 02:20 PM

I know of two musical versions of The Foggy Dew and three sets of lyrics. There's The Foggy Dew that's quoted all the time recently that goes "As down the glen one Easter morn to a city fair rode I , , , " and so on. Then there are other lyrics to this song which may come from a book called "Songs of the Gael" which is mostly a collecion made by Petrie. I only remember the first verse of this. It's mood is totally different - it goes:"The wisest soul by anguish torn will soon unlearn the lore it knew. And when the shining casket's worn, the gem within will tarnish too. But love's an essence of the soul, which sinks not with this chain of clay, which strives beyond the chill control of withering fear and pale decay."
The other version of The Foggy Dew is an entirely different air and I only know one set of lyrics which start: " I am an oul bachelor I live with my son, we work at the weaver's trade and the only, only thing I did that was wrong was to woo a fair young maid. I wooed her in the winter time and in the summer too, but the only, only thing I did that was wrong was to keep her from the foggy, foggy dew. . . . "
Hope this helps someone.
Lucy

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Mar 16 - 02:37 PM

We recorded this in County Clare
There's a recording of Junior Crehan singing it on The Carroll/Mackenzie collection website at Clare County Library
Jim Carroll

Oh, the sun shone on high, when I bade my love good bye,
As she went forth in exile to a far-off land.
And I smiled for her sake, though my heart fit to break
Sank in dark, doom despair as I clasped her hand.
Then I sighed for the rain, against the window pane,
And the cold dark blast of the wintry wind.
Through the long silent years of my hopes and my fears,
For the blue sky would bring my sad grief to mind.

But when twilight falls, oft' I'd dream that she calls,
And the rich, soft music of the voice I love
Makes the dusk grow bright, and the dark haze night
Glow with heavenly light like the stars above.

And when I wandered through, the dimmed foggy dew
That falls o'er the hills when the sunbeams wane.
Sure I know that at last, when the mists are all past,
That we'll meet to be parted ne'er again.

Conversation between Junior Crehan, Pat Macklenzie and Jim Carroll:
Before the song:
Pat: You mentioned 'The Foggy Dew' the other night. Do you have it all?
Junior: I haven't the one about Dublin, but I have a small, shorter 'Foggy Dew'.
After the song:
Jim: Lovely. Where did you have that from?
Junior: Oh, I heard that and I going to school.
Jim: I never heard that.
Junior: Didn't you? It's called 'The Foggy Dew' but there's another one:
High over Dublin Town, they hung out the flag of war,
Better to die 'neath an Irish sky than at Suvla or Sud-El-Bar.

"This song was written by Alfred Percival Graves and published in 'Irish Songs and Ballads' in 1880. Junior says he learned it when he was at school. It has nothing whatever to do with the erotic English song of the same name nor the Irish song celebrating Easter Week 1916. It is highly likely that the attributed author of the Easter Week 'Foggy Dew', Canon Charles O'Neill (1887-1963), borrowed 'Graves' evocative title as a 'calm before the storm' scene-setter. The English title is said to be a corruption of 'bugaboo', the old term for the ghost that the gullible young woman is invited to hide from, under the young man's blankets."
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Mar 16 - 04:17 PM

The second version that Lucy mentioned was fairly widely recorded and performed here in the US. My father sang that one, and I'm pretty sure he learned it from Burl Ives or Ed McCurdy, or possibly Richard Dyer-Bennet. They were big in the 50s and 60s when Dad was first starting out.

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: MartinRyan
Date: 16 Mar 16 - 05:19 PM

Then there are other lyrics to this song which may come from a book called "Songs of the Gael" which is mostly a collecion made by Petrie.

Lucy

Can I check something, please? Are you thinking of An t-ath Breathnach's "Songs of the Gael" which is a large collection of English words set to old Irish airs? I don't see the song there - at least not under the "Foggy Dew" title.

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: GUEST,Lucy Brennan
Date: 17 Mar 16 - 03:26 PM

Hi Martin,

The Songs of the Gael I'm thinking about are two small yellow hard-bound volumes. It's years since I had them in my hands and I can't be sure that's where I got the words for this song. And I don't even know that they'd be under the Foggy Dew title but the tune is as I said. The books I'm talking about include such songs as "Dumb, Dumb, Dumb" - "and the pretty little maid she was dumb, dumb, dumb. And the pretty little maid she was dumb." Another one it had was "The West's Awake" - "As all beside a vigil keep, the West's asleep the West's asleep. Oh long and well may Erin weep while Connacht lies in slumber deep. . . .But then a voice like thunder spake: The West's awake! The West's awake"! . . .   And so at last shall England quake: the West's awake, The West's awake." And I know there is part of it that goes ". . . shines fair and free, with thought of Ireland's liberty . . . . with lashing wind and crashing sea.' If I can remember more of it I'll let you know. I'm pretty sure Galway comes into it somewhere. That's the best I can do at the moment. Lucy

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: MartinRyan
Date: 17 Mar 16 - 03:42 PM

Sounds like An tAth. Breathnach's work alright - it's a set of four volumes and a wonderful piece of work, complete with tunes in tonic solfa. Brings me back!

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: GUEST,Lucy Brennan
Date: 17 Mar 16 - 10:39 PM

That's it! Martin. The tonic solfa! How right you are!
All the best,
Lucy

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 18 Mar 16 - 03:21 AM

Interesting thread.

I sing what is really Foggy Foggy Dew (the batchelor weaver song) but the musical arrangement I came up with doesn't leave room for the two extra syllables so it is the foggy dew. I took down my YouTube rendition because a few posting comments hadn't bothered listening but just assumed it was "an Irish terrorist chant" I was singing. The only way to remove the trolling was to remove the song. I do keep meaning to put it back.

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 18 Mar 16 - 06:49 AM

Over the Hills I went one day and a fair pretty Maid I spied
With her coal black hair and her mantle so green, an image to perceive



To the tune of the Easter Rebellion Foggy Dew - anybody know it?

I have had a look in the digitrack but it gives thousands of links

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: GUEST,Lucy Brennan
Date: 24 Mar 16 - 01:09 PM

Hi Martin,
I found "The wisest soul by anguish torn . . ." It's a poem by Thomas Moore. It's called "To Rosa . . . " Ah well, at least it's legitimate, being Irish having an Irish author!
Best,
Lucy

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 24 Mar 16 - 02:21 PM

Graves's "Foggy Dew" is very different from that attributed to him by Junior Crehan (Jim Carroll, March 14, 1915, above).

Neither song/ poem scans to any "Foggy Dew" tune I'm aware of, though perhaps they could be wrenched to fit "The Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon."

Perhaps.

Moore's "To Rosa" scans to Bunting's "Foggy Dew" (coll. in Belfast in 1839), but it would be interesting to know when the poem, written in 1804, was set to the music.

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 24 Mar 16 - 07:03 PM

Looking back upthread, I see that Graves evidently did get his words to fit Bunting's tune, but some of the lines do seem to include an "extra" measure.

The lyrics commencing "Over the hills I went one day" were written by E. Milligan to the "Foggy Dew" tune and published in 1910. Canon O'Neil may have had them in mine when writing "As down the glen I went one day," to the same tune, a few hears later. (Milligan's original words began "A-down the hills....")

Milligan's song has been collected a few times in shortened, rather altered form in the United States.

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew (Irish)
From: Lighter
Date: 26 Jun 20 - 09:15 PM

Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh) (Oct. 15, 1814):

"Mr, Dawson's bay gelding, Foggy Dew, five years old."

Sydney Morning Herald (Feb. 19, 1852): "Michael Kaley, alias Foggy Dew...charged with throwing stones in the streets."

Rutland [Vt.] Herald (Nov. 9, 1855): "A Den of Gamblers Broken Up...The house of Heman [sic] S. Walker, alias 'Foggy Dew.'"

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew (Irish)
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 28 Jun 20 - 07:06 PM

Lighter, I'm doing this from memory ("shielding" far from home), but the ?Graves song beginning "A wan cloud was drawn o'er the dim, weeping dawn....", as recorded by John McCormack, is set to an air which I'm pretty sure I've also seen as "The Little Red Lark", with another set of words in an old song-book. Might be in error, or it might be a worthwhile line to pursue.
By "extra measure" I wonder do you mean the way each fourth line has the last three syllables all on the same, repeated pitch? Good Luck.

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew (Irish)
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 28 Jun 20 - 07:54 PM

Graves wrote a different song, in the same 1880 book,to the "Little Red Lark" tune. Perhaps that's what you're thinking of?

https://tinyurl.com/yd24akjs

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew (Irish)
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 29 Jun 20 - 06:31 AM

Well, I did say I was working from memory! Don't have the books illustrated, but of course would have been able to check, and correct, a memory from (I just realised some time after posting last night) more than thirty years back, had I been home.

Good Luck.

Subject: RE: Origins: Foggy Dew (Irish)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 26 Apr 21 - 06:07 PM

Joe - verify DT lyrics