PS 169 – The End of the Little Bridge

      Ceann na Drochaide Bige

Primary Sources

C2 The End of the Little Bridge C2.85: 203
D1 Ceann na Drochaid Big / The Clan’s Gathering D1.7: 38
Kiaunma Drochid a Beig / The Head of the Little Bridge G.12: 28
K1 Ceann na Drochaid a Bige / The End of the Little Bridge / Index: The End (or Battle) of… K1.72: 165

Notes on Gaelic Titles

Ceann na Drochaide Bige The End of the Little Bridge C2; Ceann na Drochaid Big / The Clan’s Gathering D1; Kiaunma Drochid a Beig / The Head of the Little Bridge G; Kiaun na drochid a beig… Gesto Notes; Ceann na Drochaid a Bige / The End of the Little Bridge K1; The End (or Battle) of ~ K1 index. The End/Head of the Little Bridge. MacLeod of Gesto (G) confirms – if he did not suggest – Angus MacKay’s explanatory gloss ‘or battle’,  with a story of a skirmish in Ireland in which the MacLeod piper played ‘inviting the Camerons to follow him, which they did’. A nineteenth century MS refers to a song ‘Cean na Drochaid or the head of the Bridge’, without the adjective (D. Morrison, Manuscript, Stornoway Public Library, c.1820; reference provided by the late Rev. W. Matheson, The Blind Harper, The Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, Edinburgh [1970]; see N. Macdonald, The Morrison Manuscript[:]Traditions of the Western Isles by Donald Morrison[,] Cooper[,] Stornoway, No Imprint [1975], p. 24).

Roderick Cannon (2009)

Archive Recordings

1971 George Moss
1981 George Moss

Other Material

2007 Recording of Campbell’s setting by Allan MacDonald
2019 Edition of Gesto’s setting with audio commentary by Barnaby Brown

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