The Tannahill Weavers
The Mermaid's Song
1992 - Green Linnet GLCD 1121 CD
Track List
Greenwood Side/The Highland Laddie/Pattie
Logie o' Buchan
Elspeth Campbell/Kenny Gilles of Portnalong, Skye/Malcolm Johnstone/Thornton Jig
The Cuillins of Rhum
The Mermaid's Song/The Herra Boys/Captain Horn/The Fourth Floor
Are Ye Sleeping Maggie/The Noose and the Ghillie
A Bruxa/Las Mañeras Grandes
Come Under My Plaidie
Welcome Royal Cherlie/Campbell's Farewell to Redcastle
Flashmarket Close/MacArthur/Colonel Fraser/The Swallow's Tale
The Ass in the Graveyard
Credits
Roy Gullane: Guitar, vocals
Phil Smillie: flute, whistles, bodhran, vocals
Les Wilson: bouzouki, keyboards, vocals
John Martin: fiddle, viola, vocals
Kenny Forsyth: highland bagpipes, Scottish small pipes, whistles
Recorded at Pier House Studios, Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1992
Engineered by Peter Haigh
Mixed by Peter Haigh and Phil Smillie
Produced by the Tannahill Weavers.
Sleeve Notes
ORAN NA MAIGHDINN - MHARA, The Mermaid's Song, is a melancholy Gaelic song of lost love between a mermaid and a mortal youth. The mermaid laments, "It was with falsehood you beguiled me; sleep is restless when the sea is troublesome. Last night I was in Corrievrackan, tomorrow I'll be in Iona. Look out on the bottom of the ocean; a shimmering that no eye can see in the court of the king's castle."
Tales of mermaids, and of love between mermaid and mortal are common in the Scottish folklore tradition, though not all so tragic as that of the mermaid who fell in love with a young shepherd on an island off the west coast of Scotland. After a time the youth tired of his sea-maiden, and came no more to the rocky shore where they had so often met. Day after day, the mermaid waited for her faithless lover in vain. Eventually, her heart broken, she dashed herself to pieces against the entrance arch of a cave which she had loved to haunt in the days of her happiness. The arch, it is said, bears grim witness to the tragedy - the clear impression, in dull red, of the mermaid's form.
Special thanks go to : Jim Sutherland for the use of keyboards; Dave Gromley for the bodhráns; Herschel and Sarah Freeman; Ben David and wee Molly; Peter for his invaluable patience in the studio; Rosie Martin for her relaxed way, which is a tonic for us all; Maggie for all her sterling work on and off the road; Detlef and Florian at Bremer Konzertbüro.