Gur Milis Morag
(Morag is Sweet)


Published in 1909
Songs of the Hebrides
by Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, pp.55-59
Titled "Hebridean Mother's Song".
Melody and words taken down from Ann MacNeil, Castle Bay, Barra


A Hebridean lullaby

The story of this song is a Hebridean analogue to that of Tennyson's "Enoch Arden'.' The woman, who in the song is singing to her child, had, when she was a girl, two lovers. The one she married went away as a soldier and was supposed to have been killed. The other took his place in the affections of the woman. But the long absent man unexpectedly returns, and the woman (hearing of his return) is singing this song to her child (which is not his child) as he arrives at her cottage door. It is a song of passionate love for the child, and of a passionate desire that the unexpected and unwelcome husband, 'Tormad Ruadh' were under the sod, cursing the French soldier who did not kill him.