These words resolve themselves into the Gaelic La! fair! aire! dun teine! "Day! sunrise! watch it on the hill of fire (the sacred fire)"; and La! fair! aire! dun De! "Day! sunrise! watch it on the hill of God."

In the Recueil de Chanson's Choisies (La Haye, 1723, vol. i., page 155), there is a song called Danse Ronde, commencing L'autre jour, pres d'Annette of which the burden is Lurelu La rela! These syllables seem to be resolvable into the Celtic:—Luadh reul! Luadh! (Praise to the star! Praise!); or Luath reul Luath (the swift star, swift!); and La! reul! La! (the day! the star! the day!).

There is a song of Beranger's of which the chorus is Tra, la trala, tra la la, already explained, followed by the words—C'est le diabh er falbala. Here falbala is a corruption of the Celtic falbh la! "Farewell to the day," a hymn sung at sunset instead of at sunrise.

Beranger has another song entitled "Le Jour des Morts," which has a Druidical chorus:—

Amis, entendez les cloches Qui par leurs sons gemissants Nous font des bruyans reproches Sur nos rires indecents, Il est des ames en peine, Dit le pretre interesse. C'est le jour des morts, mirliton, mirlitaine. Requiscant in pace!

Mir in Celtic signifies rage or fuss; tonn or thonn, a wave; toinn, waves; and tein, fire; whence those apparently unmeaning syllables may be rendered—"the fury of the waves, the fury of the fire."

Tira lira la. This is a frequent chorus in French songs, and is composed of the Gaelic words tiorail, genial, mild, warm; iorrach, quiet, peaceable; and la, day; and was possibly a Druidical chant, after the rising of the sun, resolving itself into Tiorail-iorra la, warm peaceful day!

Rumbelow was the chorus or burden of many ancient songs, both English and Scotch. After the Battle of Bannockburn, says Fabyan, a citizen of London, who wrote the "Chronicles of England," "the Scottes inflamed with pride, made this rhyme as followeth in derision of the English:—

"Maydens of Englande, sore may ye mourne For your lemans ye 've lost at Bannockisburne, With heve a lowe! What weeneth the Kyng of Englande, So soone to have won Scotlande, With rumbylowe!"

In "Peebles to the Play" the word occurs—

With heigh and howe, and rumbelowe, The young folks were full bauld.

There is an old English sea song of which the burden is "with a rumbelowe." In one more modern, in Deuteromelia 1609, the word dance the rumbelow is translated—

Shall we go dance to round, around, Shall we go dance the round.

Greek—Rhombos, Rhembo, to spin or turn round.

The word is apparently another remnant of the old Druidical chants sung by the priests when they walked in procession round their sacred circles of Stonehenge and others, and clearly traceable to the Gaelic—Riomball, a circle; riomballach, circuitous; riomballachd, circularity.

The perversion of so many of these once sacred chants to the service of the street ballad, suggests the trite remark of Hamlet to Horatio:—

To what base uses we may come at last! . . . . . . Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay, May stop a hole to keep the winds away.

The hymns once sung by thousands of deep-voiced priests marching in solemn procession from their mystic shrines to salute with music and song, and reverential homage, the rising of the glorious orb which cheers and fertilises the world, the gift as well as the emblem of Almighty Power and Almighty Love, have wholly departed from the recollection of man, and their poor and dishonoured relics are spoken of by scholars and philosophers, as trash, gibberish, nonsense, and an idle farrago of sounds, of no more philological value than the lowing of cattle or the bleating of sheep. But I trust that all attentive readers of the foregoing pages will look upon the old choruses—so sadly perverted in the destructive progress of time, that demolishes languages as well as empires and systems of religious belief—with something of the respect due to their immense antiquity, and their once sacred functions in a form of worship, which, whatever were its demerits as compared with the purer religion that has taken its place, had at least the merit of inculcating the most exalted ideas of the Power, the Love, and the Wisdom of the Great Creator.



ON VISITING DRUIM-A LIATH, THE BIRTH-PLACE OF DUNCAN BAN MACINTYRE.

The homes long are gone, but enchantment still lingers, These green knolls around, where thy young life began, Sweetest and last of the old Celtic singers, Bard of the Monadh-dhu', blithe Donach Ban!

Never mid scenes of earth, fairer and grander, Poet first lifted his eyelids on light; Free mid these glens, o'er these mountains to wander, And make them his own by the true minstrel right.

Thy home at the meeting and green interlacing Of clear-flowing waters and far-winding glens, Lovely inlaid in the mighty embracing Of sombre pine forests and storm-riven Bens.

Behind thee these crowding Peaks, region of mystery, Fed thy young spirit with broodings sublime; Each cairn and green knoll lingered round by some history, Of the weird under-world, or the wild battle-time.

Thine were Ben-Starrav, Stop-gyre, Meal-na-ruadh, Mantled in storm-gloom, or bathed in sunshine; Streams from Corr-oran, Glash-gower, and Glen-fuadh Made music for thee, where their waters combine.

But over all others thy darling Bendorain Held thee entranced with his beautiful form, With looks ever-changing thy young fancy storing, Gladness of sunshine and terror of storm—

Opened to thee his heart's deepest recesses, Taught thee the lore of the red-deer and roe, Showed thee them feed on the green mountain cresses, Drink the cold wells above lone Doire-chro.

How did'st thou watch them go up the high passes At sunrise rejoicing, a proud jaunty throng? Learn the herbs that they love, the small flow'rs, and hill grasses, And made them for ever bloom green in thy song.

Yet, bard of the wilderness, nursling of nature, Would the hills e'er have taught thee true minstrel art, Had not a visage more lovely of feature The fountain unsealed of thy tenderer heart?

The maiden that dwelt by the side of Maam-haarie, Seen from thy home-door, a vision of joy, Morning and even the young fair-haired Mary Moving about at her household employ.

High on Bendoa and stately Ben-challader, Leaving the dun deer in safety to bide, Fondly thy doating eye dwelt on her, followed her, Tenderly wooed her, and won her thy bride.

O! well for the maiden that found such a lover, And well for the poet, to whom Mary gave Her fulness of love until, life's journey over, She lay down beside him to rest in the grave.

From the bards of to-day, and their sad songs that dark'n The day-spring with doubt, wring the bosom with pain, How gladly we fly to the shealings and harken The clear mountain gladness that sounds in thy strain.

On the hill-side with thee is no doubt or misgiving, But there joy and freedom, Atlantic winds blow, And kind thoughts are there, and the pure simple living Of the warm-hearted folk in the glens long ago.

The muse of old Maro hath pathos and splendour, The long lines of Homer majestic'lly roll; But to me Donach Ban breathes a language more tender, More kin to the child-heart that sleeps in my soul.

ST ANDREWS. J. C. SHAIRP.



Transcriber's Note: In the original text, the word 'tra' in "Ai, tra, la, la, la" is spelt with a breve over the a.

THE END