Tha Mo Rùn air a’Ghille (I Love the Lad)

[read english version]

Traces of “I Love the Lad,” popular and frequently
sung throughout Cape Breton, date back to the latter
part of the seventeenth century in a song compossed by
Nighean Tighearna Ghrannd for the famous bard and cattle
raider Dòmhnall Donn (Donald MacDonald) of Bohuntin,
Lochaber. This song is a powerful description of a
woman’s despair at losing her lover.

Chorus:
Tha mo rùn air a’ ghille
‘S mór mo dhùil ri thu thilleadh
‘S mi gu siubhladh leat am fireach
Fo shileadh nam fuar-bheann

Oidhche Shamhna dhomh ‘s mi m’ònar
Smaointich mi gun dianainn òran
‘S truagh a Rìgh nach mi bha pòsd’
Ri òigear a’ chùil dualaich

Gura h-e mo ghaol an t-òigear
A’ chùil duinn ‘s a’ leadain bhòidhich
‘S mi gu siubhladh leat far m’eòlais
Ged tha an còta ruadh ort

Chuir thu falt mo chinn gu talamh
Chuir thu mo ghruaidh dhearg an tainead
‘S truagh nach robh mise ‘s an anart
Mun deachaidh mo luaidh riut

Ged tha blàth na bric’ air d’aodann
Cha do lughdaich e mo ghaol ort
‘S mi gu siubhladh leat a’ saoghal
Nan saoilinn-se do bhuannachd

Phòsainn thu dh’aindeòin mo chàirdean
Gun toil m’athar, no mo mhàthar
Eachann saor a tha mi ‘g ràitinn
Bhon ‘s e chnàmh a’ ghruag dhiom

Tha mi nochd a’ dol a laighidh
‘S cinnteach leam gum faic mi aisling
Thu bhi sìnte ann ‘am leabaidh
Tacan air a’ chluasaig

Bagpipes: Paul K.MacNeil
Friends on the Chorus: Janet Buchanan, Laurel MacDonald,
Frances MacEachern, Leslie McDaniel, Michelle Smith,
Bonnie Thompson
Guitar/Bodhran/Percussion: Laurel MacDonald “
Toob”: Philip Strong

Tha Mo Rùn air a’Ghille (I Love
the Lad)

Chorus
I love the lad. Great is my hope for you to return. I
would travel the moorland with you under the drip of the
cold mountains

Alone on Halloween night, I thought I
would compose a song. Its a pity I wasn’t married to the
youth with the curled hair.

The young man of the brown hair and
lovely tresses is my darling, I would fare with you to
unknown places, even though you wear the redcoat.

You sent the hair of my head to the
ground. You made my red cheeks thin. Its a pity that I
wasn’t in the death shroud before I fell in love with
you.

Although your face is scarred by
smallpox, it didn’t lessen my love for you. I would
travel the world with you, if I thought I could win you
over.

I would wed you in spite of my kin,
without consent form my father or my mother.

I give his name, Hector the carpenter,
since its he who has caused the hair to wear from my
head.

Tonight, as I go to rest, its certain
I will see a vision. You will lay in my bed for awhile
on the pillow.