DASG Blog

Duain na Nollaige

I am here today to let you know about odes that are said at Christmas time. Perhaps you don’t have an interest in religion, but the odes are just beautiful in terms of it literature and poetic and historical Gaelic, with gorgeous and ornamented vocabulary and phrases from a time long ago.

Some of the odes today were recorded in Carmena Gadelica, by Alistair Carmicheal, with examples such as “Nuall Nollaig”, “Duan Nollaig”, “Heire Bannag”, “Heire Bannag, Hoire Bannag”, “Bannag nam Buadh”, “An Òigh agus an Leanabh”, etc. Here is two of them from Carmena Gadelica (I) & (III): (1)Rugadh Buachaille (p.146) and (2) An Òigh (p.114) [Here are the translations].

(1) Rugadh Buachaille nan Treud
That night the star shone,
Was born the Shepherd of the Flock,
Of the Virgin of the hundred charms,
The Mary Mother.
 
The Trinity eternal by her side,
In the manager cold and lowly.
Come and give tithes of thy means
To the Healing Man.
 
The foam-white, breastling, beloved,
Without one home in the world,
The tender holy Babe forth driven,
Immanuel!
 
Ye three angels of power,
Come ye, come ye down;
To the Christ of the people
Give ye salutation.
 
Kiss ye His hands,
Dry ye His feet
With the hair of your heads;
And O! Thou world-pervading God,
And ye, Jesu, Michael, Mary,
Do not Ye forsake us.

(2) An Òigh
The virgin was beheld approaching,
Christ so youn on her breast,
Angels bowing lowly before them,
And the King of life was saying, ’Tis meet.
 
The Virigin of locks most glorious,
The Jesus more gleaming-white than snow,
Seraphs melodious singing their praise,
And the King of life was saying, ’Tis meet.
 
O Mary Mother of wondrous power,
Grant us the succour of thy strength,
Bless the provision, bless the board,
Bless the ear, the corn, the food.
 
The Virgin of men most glorious,
The Jesus more gleaming-white than snow,
She like the moon in the hills arising,
He like the sun on the mountain-crest. [in the brink of the mountains]
 
There is another on Christmas Eve and Midnight Mass, Tàladh Chrìosta [Christ’s Lullaby] (or the Lullaby of the Saviour), that is sung today in certain areas. I wont write the entire lullaby for you but I’d recommend that you read it and give it a listen:

Tàladh Chrìosta
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah.
my love, my love and my treasure are You
my treasure and my joy are You
my lovely, becoming son are You
I'm not worthy of being near You.
 
though it's a reason for praise to me
it's a great reason for care
it's a great reason for homage
the King of the Elements being in my arms.
 
though You're a feeble baby
for sure, the King of Kings are You
You're the rightful, true heir
of the Kingdom of God of the graces.
 
though the King of Glory are You
they refused the inn to You
but joyful angels were heard
giving glory to the Highest One.
…
the peoples would come to welcome You
they would pay homage to You as Saviour
there will be great joy among the seed of Adam
the Redeemer has come, has come.
 
come, O sinner, do not fear
you'll get what you want of graces
though your faults be red like scarlet
your soul will be white like the snow of the high hills.
 
hosanna to the Son of David
my King, my Lord and my Saviour
great is my joy to be lulling You
blessed among the women am I.
 
The full lullaby can be found here with the melody found here, at research.culturalequity.org. I hope that you enjoyed the blog and I hope you all have a Merry Christmas. Do you know any other Christmas odes? Let us know on facebook, twitter and our own website!