Fear A'Bhata: A Song History

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“Fear a’ Bhàta” (“The Boatman”) is a Scottish Gaelic love song in which a young woman keeps watch for a boatman she fears has forgotten her, and part of its refrain is made of vocables that carry no literal meaning.[1] The song was already in print in 1804, when Alexander and Donald Stewart included it in their collection of Highland verse, naming no author and heading it as a love song to a sailor by a certain young woman.[2] In 1841 the introduction to John Mackenzie’s Sar-Obair nam Bard Gaelach pointed to it as one of the popular songs made by “obscure or unknown peasants and seafaring men.”[3]

Early photograph of two fishermen in caps and heavy jackets seated side by side next to a basket

Hill and Adamson, Newhaven Fishermen, salted paper print from paper negative, 1843–47. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the song.

Later tradition gives the song both an author and a story: one telling holds that Sìne NicFhionnlaigh of Tong, on the Isle of Lewis, made it toward the end of the eighteenth century for Dòmhnall MacRath (Donald MacRae), a young fisherman from Uig.[4] Some versions of the story add a happier sequel than the song itself offers, with the pair marrying about a year later.[4] Because the early printings consulted here name no author, this attribution is best treated as tradition rather than documented fact.[2][3]

The song travelled widely, and is found in Ireland and Newfoundland as well as Scotland.[1] Sam Henry printed it in his “Songs of the People” newspaper column in 1939, remarking that Rathlin Island still kept the oldest and most complete version.[5] Kenneth Peacock, collecting in Newfoundland, called it a milling song, sung by a group shrinking wet homespun wool by hand, with everyone joining the chorus.[1] Alfred Moffat’s The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Highlands set the old Gaelic words beside “O, My Boatman,” an English singing translation by Lachlan MacBean.[6][1] In the folk revival Sandy Denny recorded it in 1966 for the BBC World Service programme Cellar Full of Folk, broadcast early in 1967, and Silly Wizard recorded it in 1978 on Caledonia’s Hardy Sons.[7] Linda Brockinton includes it as a duet in Simply Dulcimer, a book of her fingerstyle dulcimer arrangements, mostly of Scottish and Irish classics.[8]

Our book that contains the song "Fear A'Bhata"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Ballad Index: "Fhear a Bhata (Fhir a Bhata: I Climb the Mountains)".
  2. Internet Archive: "Cochruinneacha Taoghta de Shaothair nam Bard Gaeleach" (Alexander and Donald Stewart, 1804).
  3. Internet Archive: "Sar-Obair nam Bard Gaelach, or The Beauties of Gaelic Poetry" (John Mackenzie, 1841).
  4. LearnGaelic: "Learn a Gaelic song - Fear a’ bhàta".
  5. NI Community Heritage Archive: "Shared Music of Dalriada – Fear a’ Bhàta".
  6. Internet Archive: "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Highlands" (Alfred Moffat).
  7. Mainly Norfolk: "Fhír a Bhata (The Boatman)".
  8. Linda Brockinton: "Simply Dulcimer".
  9. Image: Hill and Adamson, Newhaven Fishermen, salted paper print from paper negative, 1843–47. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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