Ta Me Mo Shui (I Am Awake)

DESCRIPTION: Gaelic. The singer lies awake until cock crow though the rest of the household sleeps: he had met a banshee the night before and she had doomed him to love her "until crack of Doomsday"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1976 (OBoyle-TheIrishSongTradition)
KEYWORDS: foreignlanguage love magic
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Tunney-WhereSongsDoThunder, pp. 37-39, "Ta Me Mo Shui" (1 text)
OBoyle-TheIrishSongTradition 24, "Ta me 'mo Shui" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES [94 words]: If you were brought up on the stories I was brought up on, you probably just think of a banshee as a (non-human) creature whose cry causes death. Not so in Irish legend; "Bean Sidhe" is a "woman of the hills" -- a member, presumably, of the old fairy folk, the Aes Sidhe, the "people of the hills." The Bean Sidhe may be young and beautiful, or an old hag; a family may have its own special Bean Sidhe -- an immortal, who announces the death of each member of the family. Legends of a young man falling in love with one are rare, but it fits the Irish concept. - RBW
File: TST037

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