Intra-Gaelic Collaboration Committee , Waulking Work Group Sub-Committee, Interim Report

 

Irish tend to know very little about Scots Gaelic, its literature and culture and Scottish Gaels tend to know very little about Irish language. Foreigners tend to take an interest in one of the two languages and duplicate that disinterest and, dare I say, ignorance. It is a shame.

I’ve been highlighting some Scottish Gaelic matters lately not only because they are interesting, but because they could be very interesting, I think, to Irish and to foreigners interested in Irish.  I said long ago that the Scots Gaels are really just Irish with boats. That is an exaggeration and since the 17^th century the two peoples have drawn farther and farther apart, but it is not an exaggeration like saying, for example,  the world is in good shape.

I read that groups of women on Cape Clear, Ireland, fulled woolen cloth with their feet  in the 19th century, but other than that, I’ve never found any reference to waulking cloth in English State documents and independent commentary on Ireland (Gernon, Spenser, Davies, Carew, etc etc.) from the 16^th and 17^th centuries that otherwise provides a lot of scattered information on Irish culture. (If you're curious, the English commentators thought the culture and society needed to be drastically reformed or exterminated,)

The waulking process was an important focus of “women’s culture” in the Highlands up until the earlyish 20^th century, however, at least in South Uist and Barra where it continued most strongly. (It seems to have petered out in the very early 20^th century in the other islands and West Coast.).

Below is a video of a waulking recreated for a British government World War II movie about how we’re all pulling together to defeat the Germans, even the picturesque primitives up where they produce Harris Tweed. This waulking is headed by young Kitty MacLeod from Lewis, one of the great traditional singers of that period: a woman who did a lot to champion actual traditional song over the piano-ized drawing room version that had become dominant because of the Mod (i.e. Oireachtas) and because a lot of Highlanders had had to emigrate south to the cities where they were concerned with respectability.       

 (More about her: https://raretunes.org/kitty-macleod/)

And a link to her singing a bit of a waulking song:  https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/49477?l=en

The film is a bit of a waulking song, then a bit of the clapping process from after the cloth was waulked. Waulkings were traditionally done inside and the location was not chosen based on background scenery, as far as I know.

Most collections of Gaelic song in the first half of the 20^th century included waulking songs, but the main collections are Orain Luaidh Mairi nighean Alasdair, published by K. C. Craig, 1949, and Hebridean Folksongs: Waulking Songs from Barra, South Uist, Eriskay and Benbecula, edited by J.L.

Campbell in three volumes from Oxford, Clarendon Press.

The first is a little book of 124 pages that from the outside looks like maybe an Army manual on engine repair and it just gives the words of the songs in a continuous text, separated only by the vocables of the chorus of the next song: no notes, background or anything. The effect is sort of like a big historical novel following the fortunes of Gaelic women since, say, the 15^th century.  Certain themes are very prominent. You can also learn a lot from the songs about the texture of women’s life and experience in that period.

The thing about the songs is that the latest versions, the ones preserved, usually consist of several sections, often on different themes. This is thought to reflect the waulking process where the singer could put in stanzas from different songs because she thought they were relevant or maybe she was tired and forgot, or the tunes were similar, or who knows: no one has studied the relationship of sections, either as regards theme, metrical patterns (much), tune etc. By the early 20th century, the arrangement of stanzas in the songs had been set and were regarded as forming distinct "songs".  In a way, they are almost Modernist poems, commenting on life from shifting, sometimes oblique perspectives,

Well, after all that speechifying, here is a bit of a song and a translation from page 70 of Craig. (Actually, I ended up not translating, but glossing words that are unfamiliar to an Irish speaker. Sorry! It’s a busy day: so busy I was also very inconsistent about following Craig's apparently idiosyncratic system of fadas.)

Marbhphaisg (mallacht) air an mhulad (brón) as (is) buaine,

‘S tric (minic) ugam (chugam)  e, ‘s ainneamh bhuam (uaim)  e.

‘S duilich (doiligh, deacair) dhomhsa a chur air fuaradh,

A chur a deas no a chur a tuadh bhuam.

A chur do chuideachta nan uaislean,

A chur a choimheadachd an guailleadh,

A chur a’ shealg (seilg) na h-eilide ruaidheadh (rua).

Thug e an latha an diugh gu  (go) buan dhiom

Aig an loch ma (um) ‘n robh mi suarach (tuirseach etc.)

D’fhalbh (d’imigh) mo run air ghiulain bhuam air,

Man an fhir bu mhath sa chruadal (cath etc.)

Thilleadh dhachaidh crodh (i.e. ba, beithigh) na tuathadh (i.e. would retrieve cattle taken by raiders).

Truagh gun (gan) fardrach air mo chomas

Agus soirbheas tioram soilleir.

Sheoladh i gu Tobar Mhoire (Tobermory, Mull)

Far a bheil mo run an comann  (Mar a bhfuil, san áit go bhfuil)

...Skipping four lines: I’m getting tired typing

Truagh gun choill air an taobh shuas dhiom

Ach an fhairrge ghlas na cuantan,

Bheirinn sgriob (sciurd) chon an druim uachdrach,

As a sin, do dh’achadh luachrach (pairc).

Far a bheil mu rún an t-uasal,

Tric (minic) a laigh thu sinte suas rium (liom)

‘S bhíodh do cheann air bac mo ghuailleadh (gualainn).

(Sorry, change of plan. I did say I'd supply a translation and I don't want anyone to think I don't keep to what I say, so here it is, the work of thirty seconds. (That's an excuse.)

A curse on sorrow: lasting sorrow,

often it is with me, seldom not with me.

It is difficult to send it off with the wind,

to send it away south or north

or away among the nobles,

to send it among ???,

to send it to hunt the red hinds.

It spent the day with me

at the loch where I was sorrowful.

It carried away with it my love

for the man who was stalwart in time of need

who would return cattle stolen from us.

A pity I have no ship

and a spell of dry calm weather

to send it to Tobermory

where my love is...

It is a shame there's no forest beside me

only the blue sea with its vasts.

I would go off to the higher hills

and then to the rushy field

to where my love is.

It's often you were stretched out beside me,

the back of your head in the hollow of my shoulder

Campbell’s book, on the other hand, has tons of notes on different versions of the songs: previous  appearances in print: vocabulary: themes metrics; tunes etc, plus careful real translations. Campbell was a very important collector and supporter of Gaelic in the early and mid-20th century. He was particularly focused on Barra and South Uist, and eventually bought the sort of nearby island of Canna and lived there. He collected in the 1930s and on, and in Cape Breton too before anyone else knew Gaelic culture was thriving there at that point.  He published various other very interesting things including a novel about the heroic career of a naughty cat, Uilliam Dona (Uirsgeil Uilleim Dhona). These three books are expensive, but worth it, I think, if you’re interested in this kind of thing.

Here’a bit from a well-known song that I happened to open the book to:  page 138)

A phiuthrag as a phiuthar, gaoil a phiuthar

Gur minig a bha me ‘s tu ‘m bruthach

Gur minig a bha mi ‘s tu ‘m bruthach,

Am bothan beag iseal cumhang.

Gun lub siomain, gun strad tughaidh,

An díle mu’r ceann, as bhiomaid subhach.

A phiuthrag a’s a phiuthar. ‘m faod tu eirigh?

Chan fhaod, a ghaoil, ‘m faod thu fein e?

Tha 'm bainne mar dh’fhag thu ‘n dé e,

Tha an crodh 's na laoigh feadh a chéile,

Bhó dhruimfhionn donn a's a laoigh fhéin ann.  (i.e. the calves are taking the milk)

 

Little sister, beloved sister.

Often were you and I on a hillside

Repeat the line

In a little hut, low and narrow,

Without a roof rope or a wisp of thatching,

With the pouring rain above us, and we were happy.

 

Little sister, can you arise?

I cannot, my dear, can you yourself?

The milk is as you left it yesterday.

The cows and calves are all mixed up

The brown white-backed cow and her calf there.

The Tobar a' Dualchais site makes available incredible riches collected in Scotland and all you have to do is click to access it.  Most of the waulking songs there are sung just by individuals, but they are still great. One South Uist singer who had hundreds of songs was Kate MacDonald of Garryheillie. It's hard to bring a link from that site to here, but you can find her easily on the site using Search.

The waulking "beat" is characteristic and has been used effectively by modern groups like Runrig and Nitework that I can link to, though.

The Gaelic techno traditional group Niteworks song in question is the second one on this long video below, about 5:30. The group Sian are the singers. Somhairle Mac Gilleain provides the spoken intro. 

Actually though, the first tune is also on a waulking beat...

The spoken bits of the third song are Calum Ruadh Mac Neacail, a Skye "village bard" from the Braes area. Gairm published an edition of his songs in 1976 and they were described as holding a tension between the tradition of "village" poetry and a modern ethos. (An Irish example of "village" poetry is translated in my 2021 post The Civilization of Cats.)The school of Scottish Studies published a record of him singing a few of his songs. He died in 1978.