Tàladh Chrìosda ('Christ's lullaby') is the popular name for the Scottish Gaelic Christmas carol Tàladh ar Slànaigheir ('the Lullaby of our Saviour'). It is traditionally sung at Midnight Mass in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. The 29 verses of the hymn date from the 19th century and are intended to represent a lullaby for the Christ Child by the Blessed Virgin.
The same hymn was popularised throughout the Anglosphere during the early 20th century by Marjory Kennedy-Fraser as an art song with translated lyrics and the title The Christ-Child's Lullaby.
The song was written down from the oral tradition by Fr. Allan MacDonald (1859-1905), one of the most important figures in modern Scottish Gaelic literature and Celtic studies, and appeared in his 1893 Catholic hymnal in Gaelic. American ethnomusicologist Amy Murray first heard the lullaby being sung from the choir loft of St Michael's Roman Catholic Church upon Eriskay. Deeply moved, she asked Father Allan afterwards whether it was another of his translations of Gregorian chant into Scottish Gaelic. Fr. MacDonald made a face and admitted that he had transcribed the music and lyrics after hearing the lullaby sung by traditional singers inside a ceilidh house and had included both in his hymnal. Fr. MacDonald admitted, however, to preferring the now lost way it had previously been sung and expressed a belief that it's adaptation to choral performance at Mass had harmed the lullaby significantly.[1]
The words are believed to have been written by Fr. Ranald Rankin (c.1785-1863) (Scottish Gaelic: Maighstir Raonall, An t-Urramach Raonall Mac Raing), a Roman Catholic priest from Fort William, Scotland. Like other priests of his generation, Fr. Ranald Rankin grew up and studied for his vocation covertly, as both the Penal Laws and the religious persecution of the strictly illegal and underground Catholic Church in Scotland since the 1560 Scottish Reformation were still very much a fact of life. He first attended, according to historian Odo Blundell of Fort Augustus Abbey, the secret Lismore Seminary before being sent to continue his studies in Spain at the Royal Scots College in Valladolid.[2]
After his ordination and return to Scotland, Fr Rankin served between 1827 and 1838 among the Catholics of Badenoch, where he was tireless is seeking financial contributions to build a proper church building during the immediate aftermath of Catholic Emancipation in 1829. Dom Odo Blundell later described him as, "one of the best and most popular priests that ever came to the parish, with both rich and poor". One Badenoch seanchaidh, or tradition bearer, later described Fr. Rankin as, "a little wee man like myself, but awful quick and very good at the shinty." Despite having travelled far and wide to collect subscriptions towards the building of the new church building located near the bridge in Kingussie and dedicated to St Michael the Archangel, Fr. Rankin was transferred to Moidart in 1838, well before it was completed.[3]
At Fort William in Moidart, Fr. Rankin was documented by the succeeding parish priest, Fr. Hugh Chisholm, as having served the parish between 1838 and 25 July 1855. It is believed that the hymn was composed shortly before the latter date.
In his Moidart: Among the Clanranalds, Fr. Charles Macdonald writes that Father Rankin was "an outspoken advocate in behalf of emigration." Fr. Rankin had long believed that leaving Scotland was the only way for his parishioners to escape the dire poverty under which they lived due to both excessive rents and the constant threat of eviction by Anglo-Scottish landlords. When the Highland Clearances ordered by Ranald George Macdonald, 19th Chief of Clanranald, depopulated the Moidart and Lochaber countryside and replaced his parishioners with sheep at the height of the Highland Potato Famine, Fr. Rankin urged the families of the evicted, who were offered a choice between resettlement on agriculturally worthless parts of the Clanranald estates and departure for Australia in an assisted emigration scheme by the Highland and Island Emigration Society, to choose the latter. Fr Rankin also promised his parishioners that he would soon follow them to Australia.[4]
The bulk of his former parishioners arrived at Port Phillip in 1852.[5] According to John Watts, Little River and Belmont were the main population centers in the Colony of Victoria of Roman Catholic Gaels from Lochaber and Moidart.[6]
After belatedly obtaining a release from Bishop James Kyle, Fr. Rankin sailed from Scotland aboard the James Baines to Australia. In 1857, he was assigned by Bishop James Alipius Goold of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Melbourne as parish priest in Little River, near Geelong. Fr. Rankin built a church and Catholic school out of locally obtained bluestone, but died there in February 1863. He is still considered, though, the founding pastor of St Michael's Roman Catholic Church in Little River.[7][8]
The hymn is believed to have been composed shortly before Fr Rankin emigrated to Australia and became a missionary at Little River, Victoria. The hymn was originally titled Tàladh ar Slànuighear ('the Lullaby of our Saviour') and sung to a tune called Cumha Mhic Àrois ('the Lament for Mac Àrois').
The lyric appears as item 10 in the University of Glasgow Library's Bàrd na Ceapaich manuscript where it is entitled Taladh ar Slanuighir (Cuimhneachan do Chloinn Mhuideart) which can be translated as 'Our Saviour's Lullaby (Memento to the Children of Moidart)'. The same manuscript again gives the title for the tune as Cumha Mhic Arois ('Lament for Mac Àrois') and supplies the same information regarding the author of the lyric and, presumably, date of publication – An t-Urramach Raonall Mac Raing. An t-8mh Mios, 1855 (Fr. Ronald Rankin, August 1855).
Donald MacLean's Typographia Scoto-Gadelica (1915) p329 documents the first publication of the hymn as follows.
RANKIN (Rev. RONALD, R.C), THE SAVIOUR'S LULLABY. 1855. "Taladh Ar Slanuighear. Air Fonn 'Cumha Mhic Arois'" and at the end "Cuimhneachan do Chloinn Mhuideart bho Raonall Mac-Raing. An T-8mh Mios. 1855."' 12mo. 4 pp. These copies were circulated among the Parishioners on the emigration of the Author to Australia.
"Mac Fir Àrois" (lit. "the son of the Man of Aros" fig. "Son of the Laird of Aros") – i.e. the Tanist of Aros on the Isle of Mull in Scotland – is traditionally held to have drowned in Loch Friosa in Mull.
The Rev. John Gregorson Campbell, states the following. "The heir of Aros, a young man of great personal activity, and, it is said, of dissolute manners, having an opinion of himself that there was no horse he could not ride, was taken by a water-horse into Loch Frisa, a small lake about a mile in length in the north-west of Mull and devoured. This occurred between his espousal and marriage, and the Lament composed by his intended bride is still and deservedly a popular song in Mull. There seems to be this much truth in the story, that the young man was dragged into Loch Frisa by a mare which he was attempting to subdue and drowned. It would appear from the song that his body was recovered."[9]
However, 'Mhic Àrois' appears to be a garbling of a term like 'mac Fir Àrasaig' (son of the Man of Arisaig). The medieval title 'Fear Àrasaig (Laird of Arisaig) belonged to Clan Mackintosh. In p168 of An Gaidheal Vol II (1873), Donald C MacPherson wrote the words for what he titled 'Cumha Mhic a Arois. No Cumha Mhic-an-Tòisich.' ("The Lament for the Son of a-Arois. Or the Lament for Mackintosh".) The lyric he provides is a variant of the lyric for Cumha Mhic an Tòisich but contains a line 'Dheagh mhic a Arois' (Good Son of a-Arois).
The tune of Tàladh ar Slànaigheir bears similarities to the group of songs related to the pipe lament Cumha Mhic an Tòisich (Mackintosh's Lament), which has another alternative title of Cumha Mhic Rìgh Aro (Lament for the Son of the King of Aro). However, these similarities are only in general melodic structure and poetic metre, but not in musical mode or scale. It is therefore possible that the tune used in the Outer Hebrides for Tàladh ar Slànaigheir is a substitute related melody.
In an article tracing the sources of the Gaelic hymns in Fr. Allan MacDonald's 1893 Catholic hymnal, John Lorne Campbell states the following concerning the melody of Tàladh ar Slànaigheir, which survived only in the Outer Hebrides, "The tune is said to be "Cumha Mhic Arois" in all these early printed sources, but the hymn is now sung to an air which appears to be derived from the chorus of an old waulking song."[10]
The waulking song melody was identified by Campbell's wife, American ethnomusicologist Margaret Fay Shaw, as An cuala sibh mar dh'éirich dhòmhs.[11]
Recordings exist of two versions of the tune for this.
The variants of the tune of Tàladh ar Slànaigheir differ in mode from each other in a similar fashion to variants of the song Chaidh mo Dhunnchadh dhan Bheinn (my Duncan went to the hill). In the case of both songs, the major third of the scale is weakened in one melodic variant and strengthened in another.
The following text is the version published by the Chief of Clan Chisholm, Colin Chisholm (1806–1896), in the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness Vol XV (1888–89), pp239–242.