My Lagan Love

Joseph Campbell

Where Lagan stream sings lullaby
There blows a lily fair
The twilight gleam is in her eye
The night is on her hair
And like a love-sick lennan-shee
She has my heart in thrall
Nor life I owe nor liberty
For love is lord of all

Her father sails a running-barge
‘Twixt Leamh-beag and The Druim
And on the lonely river-marge
She clears his hearth for him
When she was only fairy-high
Her gentle mother died
But dew-Love keeps her memory
Green on the Lagan side

And often when the beetle’s horn
Hath lulled the eve to sleep
I steal unto her shieling lorn
And thru the dooring peep
There on the cricket’s singing stone
She spares the bogwood fire
And hums in sad sweet undertone
The songs of heart’s desire

Her welcome, like her love for me
Is from her heart within
Her warm kiss is felicity
That knows no taint of sin
And, when I stir my foot to go
‘Tis leaving Love and light
To feel the wind of longing blow
From out the dark of night

From Songs of Man, Luboff and Stracke, (NY: Bonanza, 1965)
Note: According to Luboff & Stracke, the tune is from Ulster and the words early 20th century. I would guess that it is a “parlour” song that has passed into tradition on the strength of the tune more than the words.

In Scottish Gaelic a “leannan-sidhe” is a Faery Lover. This type of Faery Lover often takes a person’s love and then leaves. He or she goes back where they came from leaving the human pining for their lost love. The poor mortals in the tales of leannan sidhe often died of sorrow.

Quote from Mary O’Hara’s book “A Song For Ireland”
The leánan sídhe (fairy mistress) mentioned in the song is a malicious figure who frequently crops up in Gaelic love stories. One could call her the femme fatale of Gaelic folklore. She sought the love of men; if they refused, she became their slave, but if they consented, they became her slaves and could only escape by finding another to take their place. She fed off them so her lovers gradually wasted away – a common enough theme in Gaelic medieval poetry, which often saw love as a kind of sickness.

Most Gaelic poets in the past had their leanán sídhe to give them inspiration. This malignant fairy was for them a sort of Gaelic muse. On the other hand, the crickets mentioned in the song are a sign of good luck and their sound on the hearth a good omen. It was the custom of newly-married couples about to set up home to bring crickets from the hearths of their parents’ house and place them.