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Updated 12/21/2018

 


Colin's Cattle
 

Colin’s Cattle is a Gaelic air. There is a widespread tale variously laid in Argyll, Perth, Inverness, and in other counties of the highland of fairies singing to cows. In one such example, an invisible maiden sings to the cows of Colin –

Crodh Chailean! Crpdh Chailean!
Crodh Chailean mo ghaoil,
Crodh Chailean mo chridhe,
Air lighe cheare fraoish.

Cows of Colin! Cows of Colin!
Cows of Colin of my love,
Cows of Colin of my heart
In color of the heather-hen.

In one version of the song, Colin’s wife and her infant child had been lifted away by the fairies to a fairy bower in the glen between the hills. There she was kept nursing the babes which the fairies had stolen, until upon Hallow Eve, when all the bowers were open, Colin by placing a steel tinder above the lentil of the door to the fairy bower was enabled to enter the bower and in safety lead forth his wife and child.