Song of the Gillie More

DESCRIPTION: Scottish and Soviet farmers and workers share much. "Jocks and Ivans by the score Swappin yarns"; "Gar it ring frae shore tae shore, Leith tae Kiev -- Don tae Gairloch"
AUTHOR: Hamish Henderson (1948) (source: McMorland/Scott-HerdLaddieOTheGlen)
EARLIEST DATE: 1989 (McMorland/Scott-HerdLaddieOTheGlen)
KEYWORDS: farming work nonballad Russia Scotland
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Bord))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
McMorland/Scott-HerdLaddieOTheGlen, pp. 143, 156, "Song of the Gillie More" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Hamish Henderson (edited by Alec Finlay), _Alias MacAlias: Writings on Songs, Folk and Literature_, 1992; second edition, Polygon, 2004, p. 18, "The Gillie More" (1 excerpt)
Roud #21759
NOTES [270 words]: Ironic that Kiev is in Ukraine, not Russia, and wants no part of Russia. (And it's now generally called by the Ukrainian name "Kyev," not "Kiev.") There may be more Communists in Scotland now than are left in Kyev.
Hamish Henderson himself wrote of this piece (Hamish Henderson (edited by Alec Finlay), Alias MacAlias: Writings on Songs, Folk and Literature, 1992; second edition, Polygon, 2004, pp. 17-18):
"I hope it will not seem out of place if I add that one of my own songs, now in the repertoire of Dick Gaughan, was directly inspired by -- and indeed eventually sponsored by -- a trade union. This was 'The Gillie More' (Gaelic Gille Mór, the Big Fellow), which I wrote after hearing that among the messages of fraternal good wishes exchanged during Scottish-Soviet Friendship Week, at the height of the Cold War, was one 'From the Blacksmiths of Leith to the Blacksmiths of Kiev.'
"The man who was responsible for the dispatch of this resonant greeting was the late Jimmy Jarvie, secretary of the Leith branch of was was then the Associated Blacksmiths' Forge and Smithy Workers' Society. Hearing this, I went down to Leith to talk with him about it and see him and his mates at work. They were marine or ships' blacksmiths, and I wanted to learn something of the terminology of the trade. In the song, my aim was to express the reality of Scottish-Soviet 'solidarity,' and to do this I decided to conjure up the figure of the 'Big Fellow,' familiar in the folklore of many trades -- the superhuman individual who is really the sum total of the men who make up the union and give it its communal strength." - RBW
Last updated in version 7.1
File: McSc143

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