The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #14795   Message #131975
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
04-Nov-99 - 10:19 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Dance to your Shadow
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Dance to your Shadow
Hin, hin, ha-ra-da-la
Hin, hin, ha-ra-da-la
Hin, ho ha-ra-da-la
Hin, ha-ra-dal o ro
Hin, hin, ha-ra-da-la
Hin, hin, ha-ra-da-la
Hin, ho ha-ra-da-la
Hin, ha-ra-dal o ro

There are tunes in the River Otter
Pools in the river water
Pools in the river and the river calls him.

Published by Boosey & Hawkes, 1921 as "The River Calling"; I haven't seen that edition, so I don't know who wrote the English words. It turns up again in the 1923 edition of "Songs of the Hebrides" (vol. 3) as "The Hazel by the River", with a quite different English text (uncredited, so perhaps by Marjory Kennedy-Fraser). The Gaelic text (of which neither English version is a translation) is as follows:

Theid mi null air an abhuinn
Thig mi nall air an abhuinn
Choimheadair an taillear.

Tha na maoir ga ma shireadh
Tha na saoir ga mo shireadh
Tha na maoir ga mo shireadh
Chagabh mi ach taillear.

Described as "An ancient Skye mouth-tune from Keith MacDonald's Puirt-a-Beul".

Malcolm