Annotation:Muileann Dubh

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MUILEANN DUBH (Black Mill (The)). AKA - "The Devil's Mills," "Mullin Dhu (The Dark Mill)," "Mullin Du." AKA and see "Black Laddie (The)," "Oyster Wife's Rant/Oyster Wives' Rant." Scottish; Reel, Strathspey or Air. A Dorian (most versions): A Mixolydian (Gow). Standard tuning (fiddle). One part (Skye): AB (Athole, Kerr, McGlashan, Shears, Surenne): AAB (Gow, Martin, Perlman): AABB (Williamson). "Very old" (Skye, Gow). The melody exists in air, strathspey and reel versions. James Aird (c. 1803) gives the title as "Mullindough, or The Black Laddie," and the exact same tune and title were copied by fifer or fiddler John Fife into his 1780-1804 music copybook (Fife was perhaps from Perthshire, and may also have spent time at sea; there are references to battles in the Caribbean and the Mediterranean in the manuscript).

Puirt a beul (mouth music) words to the tune begin:

Tha nead na circe fraoich anns a' mhuileann dubh,
'Sa Mhuileann dubh 'sa Mhuileann dubh;
Tha nead na circe fraoich anns a' mhuileann dubh,
As t-samhradh.

The moor hen's nest is in the black mill,
The black mill, the black mill
The moor hen's nest is in the black mill,
At summer time.

Apparently, on Cape Breton Island the tune/song was not allowed to be played in certain parts because it was so closely associated with the MacDougalls of Margaree, who apparently were extremely touchy about hearing it played within their earshot! It appears that one line of a stanza of the puirt a beul set to the melody goes "Tha nead circe fraoiche 's a' mhuilean dubh." (In the black mill is the heather-hen's nest). The offense to the Margaree MacDougalls was due to a joke that was told about hens at the expense of the clan, and they were so sensitive to any reference to the joke that they could not tolerate mention of poultry of any kind, and took the playing of the tune to be a veiled insult against the clan. Barry Shears remarks his pipe version is only one of many settings of the tune played by Cape Breton musicians.

The story of the tune was recited in Gaelic by John Allen Beaton of Broad Cove Marsh, Inverness County, Cape Breton, to researcher Dr. Seósamh Watson in 1982. It seems that a member of the community had taken quite ill one winter, and a man was dispatched to fetch the priest to administer to him. All haste was to be made, as the death was thought to be imminent, but the priest and his summoner were uncommonly fond of music. The passed a mill on the journey to the sickbed, and as they did so they were captivated by a melody emanating from the structure, and they were compelled to stop. Instead of ending, however, the melody played on without conclusion, until finally the priest, remembering his duty, said, "Get going. We'll be late for the sick man. That's the devil in there and he's trying to keep us back. Get Going! We can't be listening to the tune." Upon which they resumed their journey. When they arrived they found they were too late; the man had died. The tune, however, stayed with them, and they called it "Muileann Dubh a' Logadair"; 'The Devil's Mills'. Dr. Watson thought the odd word 'Logadair' may have been a corruption of the Lochaber placename, Auclaucharach, in Glen Roy, Scotland. [see An Rubha, vol. 9, No. 1, Winter 2005/06].

Source for notated version: George MacPhee (b. 1941, Monticello, North-East Kings County, Prince Edward Island) [Perlman].

Printed sources: Aird (Aird's 6th and Last Volume of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs), c. 1803; No. 3, p. 3. Carlin (Gow Collection), 1986; No. 406 (appears as "The Mullin Du"). Gow (Complete Repository), Part 3, 1806; p. 23. Kerr (Merry Melodies, vol. 1), c. 1875; Set 9, No. 2, p. 7. Lowe (Collection of Reels and Strathspeys), 1844. Martin (Ceol na Fidhle, vol. 4), 1991; p. 9. MacDonald (The Skye Collection), 1887; p. 114. Martin (Traditional Scottish Fiddling), 2002; p. 86. McGlashan (A Collection of Reels), c. 1786; p. 20 (appears as "The Mullin du"). Perlman (The Fiddle Music of Prince Edward Island), 1996; p. 96. Shears (Gathering of the Clans Collection, vol. 1), 1986; p. 59 (pipe setting). Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; p. 44. Surenne (The Dance Music of Scotland), 1852; p. 138. Williamson (English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish Fiddle Tunes), 1976; p. 52 (appears as "The Mullin Dhu").

Recorded sources: CAT-WMR004, Wendy MacIssac - "The 'Reel' Thing" (1994). Green Linnet SIF 1139, "Eileen Ivers" (1994. Recorded in duet with Natalie MacMaster). Rounder 7001, Joe Cormier - "Scottish Violin Music from Cape Breton Island" (1974).

See also listings at:
Alan Snyder's Cape Breton Fiddle Recording Index [1]
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [2]

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