PS 140 – Weighing from Land

      Togail bho Thìr

Primary Sources

C2 One of the Deads Lament C2.56: 127
K3 Togail o Thìr / Weighing from Land K3.12: 85
JK Togail Bho Thir JK.59: 162
KS Togail O Thir / Weighing from Land / A Boat Rowing Tune KS.2: 3

Notes on Gaelic Titles

Cumha nam Marbh Cumha na Mairbh / Lament for the Dead K1 & KK. Lament for the Dead. This Gaelic title is found as Angus MacKay’s name for The Rout of Ben Doig (PS 217). His spelling has been amended to treat ‘the dead’ as plural on the basis of his use of the article na, taken to be for nam though pronounced as he writes it. Colin Campbell’s names – One of the Deads Lament (PS 140) and Dead’s Lament (PS 141) – also suggest a plural form, the first title being his peculiar non-native way of saying ‘One of the Laments for the Dead’. On the other hand, MacKay’s spelling mairbh with the vowel ‘ai’ suggests he treated ‘the dead’ as singular.

Togail bho Thìr Togail o Thìr / Weighing from Land K3; Togail Bho Thir JK; Togail ’O Thir / Weighing from Land / A Boat Rowing Tune KS. Conventionally Weighing from Land, though this implies lifting (‘weighing’) an anchor. In fact togail here simply means starting out.

Roderick Cannon (2009), rev. Barnaby Brown 2015

Other Material

William Donaldson’s Set Tunes Notes (2005)

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