CAPE BRETON LULLABY
(Kenneth Leslie)
(Copyright R. Dickson, 530 King St. Shawville, PQ, Canada)
Driftwood is burning blue, wild walk the wall shadows
Night winds go riding by, riding by the lochie meadows
On to the ring of day flows Mira's stream, singing:
Caidil gu la, laddie, la, laddie,
Sleep the stars away.
Far on Beinn Breagh's side wander the lost lambies
Here, there, and everywhere, everywhere their troubled mammies
Find them and fold them deep, fold them to sleep, singing:
Caidil gu la, laddie, la, laddie,
Sleep the moon away.
Daddy is on the bay, He'll keep the pot brewin'
Keep all from tumblin' down, tumblin' down to rack and ruin
Pray, Mary, send him home, safe from the foam, singing
Caidil gu la, laddie, la, laddie,
Sleep the dark away.
"Caidil Gu La" or "Caidil Gu Law (Latha)" is the title of a fiddle tune in the Simon Fraser Collection. One translation given to this Scottish Gaelic phrase is "sleep on to day." Leslie had composed his own melody for "Lullaby," but the melody to which Cape Breton Lullaby is now sung is the old Scottish air at half speed.
Kenneth Leslie was born in Pictou, Nova Scotia in 1892. His father, the owner of a small shipping company, was drowned off Amherst Island in the Magdalens in 1905.
Leslie wrote poetry.His collection "By Stubborn Stars and Other Poems" won the Canadian Governor-General's Award in 1938. In the early 1930's he hosted a radio show in Newark, New Jersey, sometimes playing his fiddle and singing in Gaelic.
He was a crusading journalist and political activist, but returned to Nova Scotia in 1950 and continued to publish collections of poetry. He died in 1974.
Quite often this song is put down as traditional, although it was first published in "Songs of Nova Scotia" in 1964. Later it was recorded by Catherine MacKinnon. Leslie himself used to sing the song to a somewhat different tune, a traditional Scottish air played at half speed. I have only heard one version that used an alternative tune, by Draught Porridge, but am unsure if that is the original tune. The most common arrangement is that used by Catherine MacKinnon, who was the first to record it.
Various eastern Canadian acts have recorded this lullaby. A very nice version is by PEI singer Therese Doyle on her CD "Forerunner"; one of the women from the Rankin Family has also recorded it.
I am told that there is also a version entirely in Gaelic, although the short biography of Leslie that I have doesn't mention this. It might have been written recently, but I have never heard it. I doubt it exists, because Cape Breton gaelic singer Mary Jane Lamond would have certainly covered it.
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