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Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology

14 Sep 00 - 06:35 AM (#297035)
Subject: Songs about celtic mythology
From: GUEST,Fianna O'riely

I don't really know old traditional irish songs. can anyone give me names of songs that tell about myth stories? thanks. Fianna


14 Sep 00 - 09:14 AM (#297098)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: Big Mick

I am really glad you started this thread. Somewhere, on a long lost tape I remember a song about Oisin and Niamh and the Isle of Tir Na n-Og. I am pulling from memory, so forgive mistakes but it seems like it started with

Across the misty morning Isle of Erin,
Comes Niamh ......on her snow white steed


Anyone remember this? I would love to figure out who did it and get a CD. Damn, one part of aging that sucks is when the memory starts to go......

Mick


14 Sep 00 - 09:47 AM (#297120)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: MMario

This book here seems like it would be an interesting place to start. Don't foget that if you go through the links from mudcat instead of directly then the Mudcat gets a small percentage.

url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567186580/deannasworld0d/002-6523118-9032869


14 Sep 00 - 10:06 AM (#297130)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: Mbo

Check out the albums The Tain and The Book of Invasions by The Horslips. Excellent songs dealing with Celtic mythology.


14 Sep 00 - 10:27 AM (#297142)
Subject: Lyr Add: LAND OF YOUTH / TIR NA OG (from MBrennan
From: GUEST,Susan-Marie

This is not the song Big Mick remembers, but it's the same story. It's a modern song, not traditional. The Irish Gaelic is missing all the accents - someday I'll have to figure out how to do that.

LAND OF YOUTH (TIR NA OG)
Maire Brennan (from her 1992 album Maire Brennan)

Chorus: Is gra geal mo chroi thu
Fan liom i gconai
Is gra geal mo chroi thu
Beith mise dilis
Is gra geal mo chroi thu
Tusa mo mhuirin
Is gra geal mo chroi thu
Fan ag mo thaobh sa
(My love, stay with me. Always be true to me.
You are my sweetheart. Stay by my side.)

Beauty and grace with golden hair
Eyes like pearls came from the sea

CHORUS

Carried away on impulse
Followed my heart to the Land of Youth
Three hundred years and time stood still
Champions calling their warning

Wherever you will go I will go
Wherever you turn I'll follow so
Take me to the Land of Youth

CHORUS

Three hundred years
Fallen to earth the thunder sound
Years overtake him, a grey old man

CHORUS
(and then repeat last half of chorus:)
Is gra geal mo chroi thu
Tusa mo mhuirin
Is gra geal mo chroi thu
Fan ag mo thaobh sa

Three hundred years

Copyright 1992 Clannad Music/BMG Records

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 3-Sep-02.


14 Sep 00 - 10:44 AM (#297153)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: Alice

If you put @myth in the Digitrad search box, you get lots of songs related to mythology, some Celtic. LUGHNASAD DANCE is one.


14 Sep 00 - 10:49 AM (#297156)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: GUEST,Susan-Marie

MMArio - I've looked at "A Bard's Book of Pagan Songs" - my recollection is that it's all songs by a modern author, so if you're looking for traditional stuff you might not be interested.


14 Sep 00 - 11:29 AM (#297169)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: MMario

I was afraid of that. But it was the only thing I found in a search that looked even close...


14 Sep 00 - 12:03 PM (#297183)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: Peg

The band that does "Tir na Nog" (from the '70s) is on the tip of my tongue...I am on it!

Are you mainly interested in Irish-based mythology? There are also plenty of songs about old folk heroes that are English ballads, or Scottish...Bonny Prince Charlie inspired quite a few in Ireland and Scotland...

Thomas the Rhymer by Steeleye Span comes to mind...

Standing Stones (recorded by Loreena McKennitt) tells a tragic love story set near a mythical lover's stone in the Orkney isles...


14 Sep 00 - 12:08 PM (#297187)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: Mrrzy

I love the childrens show about the Knights of Tir-Na-n-Og... and in a song whose name escapes me, but the chorus runs Let Erin remember the days of old... there is a mention of Malachy (spelled in real life a lot longer than that!), but I was never clear if he was a real or a mythical personage. That song also has the nicest phrasing about a common view of Ireland/England - "The emerald gem of the Western world was set in the crown of a stranger" - beautiful imagery, that...

VERY good thread!


14 Sep 00 - 12:38 PM (#297212)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: Metchosin

Type Silkie into the DT and you will get a number of songs.


14 Sep 00 - 12:40 PM (#297215)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: MMario

Peg - as I understand it, Standing stones, the song, comes from a local legend about an actual standing stone circle...or at least that's what the web site I read from the orkneys said about it.


14 Sep 00 - 12:42 PM (#297218)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: Mbo

Ferdiad just laughed and shook his golden hair...


14 Sep 00 - 12:56 PM (#297229)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: Metchosin

Also on on one level, Loreena McKennitt's Stolen Child based upon the poem by W.B Yeats.


14 Sep 00 - 12:57 PM (#297231)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: Peg

Mick,

yes you are right, it is in the Peter Kennedy book (Loreena added some lyrics for her chorus). I think the "lover's stone" in the song is one of the stones that people can walk through? and are blessed forever with love if they do so...didn't work for this unfortunate couple, sadly...


14 Sep 00 - 01:53 PM (#297277)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: Alice

Fianna, are you still with us? Are any of these ideas what you had in mind?


14 Sep 00 - 03:12 PM (#297347)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: GUEST,Bruce O.

Edw. Bunting's 1840 collection, 'Ancient Music of Ireland', text page 87, gives "Dierdre's Lamentation" [text is English and song is probably 18th century]. See the Irish tune index on my website for copies of the tune. Search this Forum for info on 'Dierdre' [story of]. If the story is real, then it must have happened shortly before Fergus mac Roch moved to what is now Scotland, very close to 500 CE.


14 Sep 00 - 03:21 PM (#297353)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: GUEST,Bruce O.

Sorry, I forgot to mention that the spelling is sometimes 'Deirdre', as Bunting has.


14 Sep 00 - 05:01 PM (#297442)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: mousethief

If you count faeries as "celtic mythology" then the song Thomas the Rhymer (the only version I've ever heard is the Steeleye Span version) would count also.

Alex
O..O
=o=


14 Sep 00 - 08:43 PM (#297604)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: GUEST,Ro

Hello. I just had a question. Does anyone know where I can find mp3 of some ballads in this catagory? I have to find something for school, and I don't know where to look. Any answer will help greatly. Thanks, Ro luzallen@aol.com


21 May 05 - 08:59 AM (#1489971)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: maire-aine

Refresh. Still looking for more material. Thanks, M.


21 May 05 - 10:18 AM (#1490005)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: GUEST,Allen

Try Phil Lynott's tribute to his Irish heritage the fantastic "Roisin Dubh" which can be found on Thin Lizzy's "Black Rose".


30 Oct 08 - 01:31 PM (#2480059)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: Joe Offer

Mandrake Press (click) has a very extensive dictionary of Celtic mythological beings.

I came across a Celtic myth filk song in the Digital Tradition last night, On Midsummer Day, by Murtaugh. I wonder who Murtaugh was, and where the song came from. If anybody knows, please post in the Origins thread for the song.

-Joe-


30 Oct 08 - 09:18 PM (#2480439)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: GUEST,Neahga

Why not write to NPR's The Thistle and Shamrock radio show (http://thistleradio.com/) to ask if they have any suggestions?

The lady who DJs the show has quite a varied guest list and may have some good ideas of whom to contact, or where to go next.


30 Oct 08 - 10:25 PM (#2480477)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: Sandy Mc Lean

Stan Rogers "Giant"
http://www.last.fm/music/Stan+Rogers/_/Giant?autostart


30 Oct 08 - 10:28 PM (#2480481)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Songs about celtic mythology
From: Sandy Mc Lean

Try Again
Giant