The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #7177   Message #500613
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
07-Jul-01 - 12:25 PM
Thread Name: Lyr ADD: The Herring Song
Subject: RE: Lyric:The Herring Song
I've just been looking at George Petrie's Complete Collection of Irish Music (ed. C. S. Villiers, 1903) and happened to notice that number #502, We Brought the Summer With Us, carries the following text:

Of all the fish that's in the sea
The herring is king, the herring is king.
Sing thurgamur fein an samhra linn
'Tis we have brought the summer in
The storm is o'er 'tis calm again;
We're safe on shore from the raging main,
Sing thugamar fein an samhra linn,
'Tis we have brought the summer in.

Text transcribed as printed.  It would take very little to mutate the Gaelic phrase (of which the final line is more-or-less a translation) into aber-um-vane and aber-o-ling.

Malcolm