The Song and The Story

 

 

 

In 1998 Ballingeary Cumann Staire launched "Ar Bruach Na Laoi" a collection of songs and music. One of the songs was "Cá Rabhais ar Feadh an Lae", which is the Irish version of "Lord Randal", a widespread ballad with a long history.

The following introduction and lyrics for "Lord Randal" are from the sleeve notes of the Topic Records album "English and Scottish Folk Ballads" from the early 1960s with Ewan MacColl and A.L. Llyod. We have also included the lyric of "Cá Rabhais ar Feadh an Lae" as sung by Síle Uí Chroinín, Kilmore, Ballingeary. Síle heard it from Moll Peatsaí Twomey (néé Quill), Cúil Aodh..

 

 

LORD RANDAL

 

This is one of the most widespread of all European ballads, known in Italy, Germany, Holland, the Scandinavian countries (including Iceland), also in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. It has been particularly common in Britain. Sharp noted seventeen versions of it in Somerset alone; though curiously enough Gavin Grieg, who collected several hundred ballads in the folkloristically rich parish of New Deer, Aberdeenshire, found only four versions of Lord Ronald - as many Scottish singers prefer to call it – and two of these he describes as ‘very fragmentary’.

 

It is possible that the ballad began its life in Italy, where it was printed on a Veronese broadsheet dated 1629 under the title of L’Avvlenato (The Poisoned One). There is no sure trace of the ballad in Britain before the closing years of the eighteenth century, in Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum (1787 – 1803) to which Burns contributed several Scottish folk songs. Sir Walter Scott thought that the ballad may originally have concerned the death of Thomas Randal, Earl of Murray and nephew to Robert Bruce, who died at Musselburgh in 1332. This is sheer guesswork of the kind that early ballad scholars liked to indulge in. There is not even evidence that Sir Tomas Randal was poisoned. In the Mid-nineteenth century, Lord Randal was made into a cockney burlesque song much favoured by stage comedians, and in its comic form it may still be heard among schoolchildren in the poorer parts of London.

 

The melody used by Ewan MacColl (learnt from his mother, of Perthshire origin) is of major- minor character with mixolydian inflections, due to its fluctuating 3rd and 7th steps. Some of the Scottish Lord Randal tunes are forms of well-known Villikens and his Dinah melody, and it is possible that Ewan MacColl’s tune is a distant and colourful cousin of the same humble family.

 

 

LORD RANDAL

 

‘Oh, whaur hae ye been, Lord Randal, my son?

Oh whaur hae ye been, my bonny young man?’

‘I’ve been to the wild wood, mither, mak’ my bed soon,

For I’m weary wi’ huntin, and I fain would lie doon.’

 

‘Whaur gat ye your supper, Lord Randal, my son?

Whaur gat ye your supper my bonny young man?’

‘I dined wi’ my true love, mither, mak’ my bed soon,

For I’m weary wi’ huntin, and I fain would lie doon.’

 

‘What happened to your bloodhounds, Lord Randal, my son?

What happened to your bloodhounds, my bonny young man?’

‘Oh, they swelled and they died, mither, mak’ my bed soon,

For I’m weary wi’ huntin, and I fain would lie doon.’

 

‘What gat ye to your supper, Lord Randal, my son?

What gat ye to your supper, my bonny young man?’

‘Oh, I gat eels boiled in brose, mither, mak’ my bed soon,

For I’m weary wi’ huntin, and I fain would lie doon.’

 

‘I fear that ye are poisoned, Lord Randal, my son,

I fear that ye are poisoned, my bonny young man.’

‘Oh aye, I’m poisoned, mither, mak’ my bed soon,

For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain would lie doon.’

 

 

‘What will ye leave your brither, Lord Randal, my son?

What will ye leave your brither, my bonny young man?’

‘The horse and the saddle that hangs in yon stable,

For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain would lie doon.’

 

‘What will ye leave your sweetheart, Lord Randal, my son?

What will ye leave your sweetheart, my bonny young man?’

‘The tow and the halter that hangs on yon tree,

And there let her hang for the poisonin o’ me’.

 

Cá Rabhais Ar Feadh An Lae

 

Cá rabhais ar feadh an lae uaim a bhuachaillín óg?

Cá rabhais ar feadh an lae uaim a laoigh ghil ‘s a stór?

Bhí me ag fiach is fealaireacht, a Mhairín ó.

Anois cóirig mo leaba, táim breóite go leor.

 

Cád a bhí agat dod’ dinnéir, bhuachaillín óg?

Cád a bhí agat dod’ dinnéir, a laoigh ghil ‘s a stór?

Bhí feoil agam go raibh ní inti, a Mháirín ó.

Anois cóirig mo leaba, táim breóite go leor.

 

Cad a fhágair ag t’athair a bhuachaillín óg?

Cad a fhágair ag t’athair, a laoigh ghil ‘s a stór?

Fagad coiste is ceithre capall, a Mháirín ó.

Anois cóirig mo leaba, táim breóite go leor.

 

Cad a fhágair ag do mháthair, a bhuachaillín óg?

Cad a fhágair ag do mháthair, a laoigh ghil ‘s a stór?

Fágfad póg ‘is míle beannacht, a Mhairín ó.

Anois cóirig mo leaba, táim bróite go leor.

 

Cad a fhágair ag do naí chéile, a bhuachaillín óg?

Cad a fhágair ag do naí chéile, a laoigh ghil ‘s a stór?

Fagfad rópa chun í a chrocadh, a Mhairín ó.

Ach anois cóirig mo leaba, táim bróite go leor.

 

Cár mhaith leat bheith curtha, a bhuachaillín og?

Cár mhaith leat bheith curtha, a laoigh ghil ‘s a stór?

I dteampall Chill Mhuire, a Mhairín ó.

Ach anois cóirig mo leaba, táim bróite go leor.