Question about Scottish tune name.

Trad Irish Music
1

There’s a lovely air in the Gow Collection called Ha Na Boddachin. I tried looking it up on the web to see if I could find out what the tune name means but I had no luck. Does anybody besides the Shadow know?

2

Somebody with the Gaelic may have to do a phonetic interpretation. Nothing came up when I searched the Sabhal Mor Ostaig Stòr-Dàta.

It could be related to bodach which is a word for a man, like Father Christmas is Bodach na Nollaig or a scarecrow is a bodach-starraig.

Cheers,
Aaron

3

Nice tune. I found a couple of references.

From a 19th century dictionary:
Bodachan, -ain, m. a little old man; s. bodachas

And from here:
http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/gaidhlig/wentworth/faclair/dualchainnt/clar-gaidhlig.doc
bodachán n little bogey (ghost) n

4

Thanks for helping. I came across bodach as an old man but not as a ghost. I can’t find any word that starts with an H though.

5

In my little Irish dictionary, bodach means “lout”.

6

Bodach looks like a versatile word with different meanings for different contexts… a translator’s nightmare.

I think ha is probably some type of preposition or article, but I’m just guessing. My Gaelic comes from a couple failed attempts as an autodidact and from piping and listening to traditional music.

Cheers,
Aaron

7

“Cha”, perhaps?

8

Hey Steve, I asked the question for you over at ‘Footstompin’.

You might be interested in the replies:
http://www.footstompin.com/forum?threadid=55502

:boggle:

9

Hmmm… I guess I’m going to have to conclude that there is no easy translation for the title. A friend of mine wants to record it which is why I was asking. If she does, I doubt that she’ll mention the orgasm part in the liner notes. Thanks for the suggestions.