OT: 16 February 1901 – Keith N. MacDonald – “Puirt-a-Beul ‘Mouth Tunes’ or ‘Songs for Dancing'” [Mus]

The Oban Times, 16 February, 1901

Puirt-A-Beul

“Mouth-tunes,” or “Songs for Dancing.”

By Dr. Keith N. MacDonald

“Nighean na Cailliche Crotaiche Crubaich” is one of the old-fashioned tunes giving a picture of female attractiveness out of the common, evidently done in irony, and probably from disappointment.  The rustic gentleman abuses both mother and daughter, the former for being hump-backed and lame, and the worst old woman in the country, and the latter as a virago, who stamped both her feet on the floor, and scolded him.  It is in jig or march time.