Snow Gull

DESCRIPTION: Scots Gaelic. The singer (a girl who has lost her love?) asks the gull where her love sleeps. She describes the dead all together in the land under the waves.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1909 (Kennedy-Fraser/MacLeod-SongsOfTheHebrides)
KEYWORDS: death separation bird
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Hebr))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Kennedy-Fraser/MacLeod-SongsOfTheHebrides I, pp. 84-87, "The Seagull of the Land-Under-Waves" (2 texts with literal and loose English translations, 1 tune)
NOTES [85 words]: This is one of those thoroughly dubious pieces. Reading the notes in Kennedy-Fraser/MacLeod-SongsOfTheHebrides, it's not clear that this song ever existed in Gaelic as it stands. And it did not exist in English until she published it. And yet, Gordon Bok sings an English version so different from the Kennedy-Fraser/MacLeod-SongsOfTheHebrides text that oral tradition (if only in Bok's family) seems to have taken over the translated text.
When in doubt, even extreme doubt, we index -- so here the song is. - RBW
File: KFrI084

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