Lyr Add: Togail Curs Air Leodhas

Subject: Lyr Add: Togail Curs Air Leodhas (Traditional)
From: RunrigFan
Date: 29 Nov 22 - 09:16 PM

Tugainn leamsa 's dean cabhaig 's theid sinn thairis a null        
Dh'eilean uasal na Gaidhlig rinn ar n-arach 'nar cloinn        
Tir nan treun-fhear is calma choisinn ainm a measg Ghall        
'S theid sinn comhla a leannainn thir an rainich a null        
Ni sinn gluasad gu dana        suas na braighean 's na caoil        
Gheibh sinn aiseag gu sabhailt        null gu aite mo ghaoil        
'S nuair a bhuaileas i'm bagh ann cluinn' tu 'Ghaidhlig gach taobh
'S gheibh sinn aoigh agus failte 'n eilean baigheil an fhraoich        
        
Chi thu muir, chi thu mointeach        chi thu moine mu'n cuairt        
Chi thu cnuic ghlas is leoidean        air am b'eolach sinn uair        
Chi thu machraichean comhnard 's tha gu leor dhiubh air tuath        
Ann an Nis, ait' 's boidheach thogadh og ann mi suas        
        
Chi thu Tiumpan tha aosmhor air aidann nan stuagh        
'S tric tha sholus toirt saorsainn so na laoich th'air a chuan        
'S iomadh bat' th'air a sgiursadh 's i gun churs ri droch uair        
Rinn an soills' ud a stiuireadh        steach an cuiltean Loch-a-Tuath        
        
Chi thu iasgairean turail 's fhearr air stiuireadh cur lion        
Mach a cladach Phort-nan-Giuran        b'e sud cliu bh'ac a riamh        
Sud am baile rinn d'arach 's fhuair thu gradh ann is dion        
'S chi thu 'n dachaidh a dh'fhag thu mar a bha i bho chian        
        
'S nis nach aontaich thu, rùin, leam 's dèan co-dhùnadh air ball        
Leig do shoraidh gun smuairean le dùthaich nan Gall        
Dol gu fearann ar sinnsir bha cho strìtheil na cheann        
'S nì sinn tàmhachd san tìr sin        gus an sìnear sinn ann

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Togail Curs Air Leodhas
From: RunrigFan
Date: 29 Nov 22 - 09:28 PM

Christine Primrose sings 3 verses

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0247/5213/files/COMD2024_Christine_Primrose_S_tu_nam_chuimhne.pdf?16154056427886929143

Mac-talla sings an extra verse

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0247/5213/files/COMD2054_Mac-talla_-_Mairidh_Gaol_Is_Ceol.pdf?4022749924453069063

Christine gives the writer as Donald Morrison

Other recordings are The Lochies and Donald MacRae have the title as

Tuigainn Leam 'S Dean Cabhaig
or
Tuigainn Leam 'S Dean Cabhag

Dean Alexander, Angus D. MacColl and Battlefield Band as a instrumental

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Togail Curs Air Leodhas
From: RunrigFan
Date: 29 Nov 22 - 09:30 PM

https://www.discogs.com/release/23833343-Iain-MacKay-Creag-An-Fhraoich

too

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Togail Curs Air Leodhas
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Nov 22 - 11:06 PM

From the Mudcat FAQ:

Posting Lyrics

The Digital Tradition Format

All lyrics and tunes submitted to the Mudcat Café are considered for inclusion in the Digital Tradition Folk Song Database, so it's best to post lyrics in Digital Tradition format:

• TITLE OF SONG IN ALL CAPS
  
• (Songwriter name, or "traditional," or "songwriter unknown" on the second line in parentheses)
  
• Skip a space
• Text of the song
  
• Any background information you'd like to include
  
• Please try to remember to include your initials (not your Mudcat name) at the end, so you can be credited for submitting the song.
• Also, please be sure to include information about the source of the lyrics you posted. If you got them from a songbook, name the songbook. If you got them from sheet music at the Levy Sheet Music Site or Bodleian Ballads or the Library of Congress or another extremely reputable Website, that's important information. If it's from a Website that includes a transcription of what somebody thinks they heard on a record they heard twenty years ago, it's likely to of questionable accuracy - but it still may have value to us. So, please, be specific about the source of your information, so that people can follow up on what you posted if there's a question.

---

I'm working on refining guidelines for submitting lyrics. Here's a copy of my e-mail to somebody:

Hi - we'd love to have any folk lyrics you'd like to post at the Mudcat Cafe. All lyrics that are submitted stay in the forum, and people can find them using our search engines. Many of the lyrics are also "harvested" and included in the Digital Tradition Folk Song Database, which now has lyrics for some 9,000 songs (you can access the database in the blue DigiTrad search box you find on most Mudcat pages).
If you'd like to post a song, first check that database to see whether it's already there or not. Make sure you put the lyrics in a thread that has a title that's related to the song (like an ongoing thread that's collecting train songs, if that's appropriate; or a thread you start that has the song title as the title of the thread.). The SUBJECT line for the message with the lyrics should include this information:
Lyr ADD: title of song here

Ideally, you should follow the Digital Tradition Format:

• song title on the first line IN ALL CAPS
• songwriter name (in parentheses) on the second line
• skip a space
• then the lyrics
• skip a space
• then any notes
• and then finish off with your initials

Yes, there are copyright questions, but we leave it to the operators of the Digital Tradition to deal with them. In the meantime, we ask people to feel free to post whatever lyrics they'd like in the Mudcat Forum - keeping in mind that we are primarily a folk and blues site.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Togail Curs Air Leodhas
From: RunrigFan
Date: 30 Nov 22 - 04:26 AM

Noted, I was half-asleep. I make sure I include a source

Source for the Christine Primrose and Mac-talla from streaming with lyrics from pdf versions of the albums. It's worth noting no lyrics were ever included on the original Christine Primrose CD. Lochies version based on the streaming version via cassette version. Iain MacKay from discogs and youtube

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Togail Curs Air Leodhas
From: Felipa
Date: 30 Nov 22 - 02:00 PM

Setting a Course for Lewis, Travelling Towards Lewis - it's a song about sailing home to Lewis, one of the Western Isles of Scotland. The song describes the places and sights you would see on the way - mountains, moorlands, machair (sands), lighthouses, fishermen ...

There is a translation from Gaelic to English at the Celtic Lyrics site http://www.celticlyricscorner.net/mactalla/togail.htm

As Runrig Fan has noted, the tune is often played without the lyrics. You can find sheet music for a few settings at https://thesession.org › tunes › 19583.

The author of the song, Donald Morrison aka Dòmhnull Mac Ghille Mhoire, was from the Ness area of the Isle of Lewis. Here is another translation, from Tom Thompson. Verse 4 in the translation is not included at the beginning of the discussion, so I'll add it here. Verses 5 and 6 are reversed in order in this version.

TOGAIL CURS AIR LEODHAS Translation

1 Come [1] along with me, make haste, and we'll go across over there
To the proud Gaelic island where [2] we were raised as children;
The land of the bravest [3] heroes who won a reputation amongst foreigners,
And we'll go together, my darling, over to the land of bracken [4].

2 We'll go [5] boldly westwards [6] over the hills and the straits;
We'll get a ferry safely over to the place I love;
And when it lands at the harbour [7] there you'll hear Gaelic all round
And we'll get a welcome and a hospitable greeting [8] in the friendly
heather island. [9]

3 You'll see sea, you'll see moorland, you'll see peat mosses round about,
You'll see green hills and slopes that we once knew well;
You'll see level coastal plains and plenty of them are under cultivation
In Ness, a beautiful place, where I was brought up when young.

4 Nuair thig sèimheachd an t-samhraidh 's e 'n taobh thall àit as bòidhch',
Bidh gach struthán le sunnd air 's aig gach alltán bidh ceòl;
Bidh gach neòinean is flùrán ri dùsgadh 'nan glòir,
'S thig am feasgar 'gan crùnadh le ùr-dheal is ceò.

When the mildness of summer comes the other side [10] is a most beautiful place
Each streamlet is joyful and each little brook has its music
all the daisies and little flowers waken [11] into their glory
and evening comes to crown [12] them with fresh dew and mist.

5 You'll see skillful fishermen, the best at sailing and at casting nets,
Out from the shore at Port-nan-Giuran, that's what they were always famous for;
That's the town where you were brought up, and you got love and protection there,
And you'll see the home that you left, unchanged since long ago.

6 You'll see ancient Tiumpan [13] defying [14] the waves,
Its light [15] often gives deliverance to brave seamen;
It's many a boat that had been driven off couse and had lost its way [16] at a bad time
that that light guided into the security of Broad Bay [17].

7 Now agree with me, love, and make an end straight away,
Make your goodbyes, with no regrets, to the foreigners' land,
To go to the land of our ancestors who strived so ardently on its behalf
And we'll stay in that country as long as we live [18].

Translator's Notes

1. Tiugainn isn't historically a verb, but a personal preposition (delenited palatalised from of thugainn, towards us); however, so far as current Gaelic is concerned it behaves just like an indeclinable defective verb (1st person plural and 2nd person singular & plural imperative); it has displaced rachamaid (1p pl. ipv of rach) to some extent, but not completely. (I wonder if that's how irregular verbs come to exist in a language: are we seeing a step in the evolution of thig from irregular to even more irregular?)

2. literally: " the island which raised us", but that's just poetic license, not a normal Gaelic idiom.

3. "is calma"; as usual the superlative has to be buried in a relative clause; usually the relative copula is written "as" instead of "is".

4. Places in the western isles are often known by some descriptive phrase as an alternative to their name, usually only in poetry and not in ordinary speech; tìr an rainich (the land of bracken) is the northern half of Lewis; other examples include eilean a' cheò (the isle of mist, = Skye), tìr a' mhurain (the land of maram grass, = North Uist), tìr an eòrna (the land of barley, = Tiree), and eilean fraoich (the isle of heather, = Harris and Lewis)

5. Nì sinn gluasad: literally we shall make a movement.

6. Suas: Westwards; usually suas means up (away from the speaker) but "up the hills and the kyles" wouldn't make sense.

7. The most common meaning of buail is strike, but "bhuail an aiseag am bagh" means "the ferry landed at the harbour" rather than "the ferry crashed into the dock" which is what translating it as "strike" here would suggest. Also "bagh" means either harbour or bay according to context, here it's where the ferry touches land so it's harbour.

8. aoigh: either a guest, or a stranger, or the welcome given to one.

9. Isle of heather here means the whole Island (Harris & Lewis) as opposed to N. Lewis (tìr an rainich)

10.the other side - - the other side of the water, ie the island. Or perhaps it means the other side of the island, the Tolstas, Stornaway, and the Eye instead of Ness.

11.ri dusgadh is Lewis Gaelic, standard Gaelic is a' dusgadh; in standard gaelic the use of "ri" in the indicative forms a sort of infinitive of intent, or an imperative: they are to wake, rather than they wake.

12.I've taken 'gan as meaning gu + an rather than ag + an; if it's ag it means "comes crowning them" instead of "comes to crown them".

13.Tiumpan rather than Siumpan in English presumably comes from some phrase like "Solus an t-Siumpan" (Tiumpan Light) where there's a T sound in the Gaelic.

14.literally "on the face of the waves"

15.this is the light at the NE end of the Eye peninsula, not the Butt of Lewis light near Ness.

16."air a sgiursadh" = driven off course; "gun curs" = without a course, ie lost.

17.Loch-a-Tuath (The North Loch) is called Broad Bay in English; it's impossible to translate names like this unless you just happen to know what the place is called, there's no point in learners trying to remember name equivalences unless they intend to go to the places (and then they'll need them; although a seaman will understand Broad Bay because that's what's on the charts, a land-lubber may well use Loch-a-Tuath even when speaking English.

18.literally: until we are stretched out in it.

19."dhiubh" is what Morrison wrote (and is the standard Gaelic word" but you may hear people singing "dhaibh" instead, because in some Lewis dialects they confuse the rest of us by saying "for them" when they mean "of them".

http://www.geocities.ws/Paris/LeftBank/4843/tocal.html