Annotation:Blue Devils (1) (The)

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BLUE DEVILS [1], THE (Y Gofid Glȃs). Welsh, Air (6/8 time). G Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The Welsh title, "Y Gofid Glȃs," can be translated as "The Blue Devils" or "The Blue Grief"; gofid means an 'affliction' or 'trouble'. The song "Blue Devils" was printed in John Thomas's Cambrian Minstrel (p. 189), set to the air "Yr Hen Ofid Glas", with words that begin:

I'm a disease of high degree,
Blue Devils I am call'd;
The chambers that encompass me
Are fair and many-wall'd.

Chorus: See saw, see saw,
On beds of state my breath I draw,
Doctors, too, of lore immense,
Ladies bright of charms intense,
First in rank and polish'd sense,
My nurses are by law.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Jones (Musical, Poetical, and Historical Relicks of the Welsh Bards, vol. 2), 1802; p. 62. Thomas (Cambrian Minstrel), 1845; p. 189.

Recorded sources:

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