_Nowell! Nowell! Nowell! Nowell!_
This is the salutation of the Angel Gabriel.
Mr Halliwell, in his Archaic Dictionary, says "Nowell was a cry of joy,
properly at Christmas, of joy for the birth of the Saviour." A political
song in a manuscript of the time of King Henry the Sixth, concludes--
Let us all sing nowelle,
Nowelle, nowelle, nowelle, nowelle,
And Christ save merry England and spede it well.
The modern Gaelic and Celtic for Christmas is _Nollaig_--a corruption of
the ancient Druidical name for holiday--from _naomh_, holy, and _la_,
day, whence "Naola!" the burden of a Druidical hymn, announcing the fact
that a day of religious rejoicing had arrived for the people.
A very remarkable example of the vitality of these Druidic chants is
afforded by the well-known political song of "_Lilli Burlero_" of which
Lord Macaulay gives the following account in his History of England:--
"Thomas Wharton, who, in the last Parliament had represented
Buckinghamshire, and who was already conspicuous both as a libertine and
as a Whig, had written a satirical ballad on the administration of
Tyrconnel. In his little poem an Irishman congratulates a brother
Irishman in a barbarous jargon on the approaching triumph of Popery and
of the Milesian race. The Protestant heir will be excluded. The
Protestant officers will be broken. The great charter and the praters
who appeal to it will be hanged in one rope. The good Talbot will shower
commissions on his countrymen, and will cut the throats of the English.
These verses, which were in no respect above the ordinary standard of
street poetry, had for burden some gibberish which was said to have been
used as a watchword by the insurgents of Ulster in 1641. The verses and
the tune caught the fancy of the nation. From one end of England to the
other all classes were constantly singing this idle rhyme. It was
especially the delight of the English army. More than seventy years
after the Revolution a great writer delineated with exquisite skill a
veteran who had fought at the Boyne and at Namur. One of the
characteristics of the good old soldier is his trick of whistling
Lilliburllero. Wharton afterwards boasted that he had sung a king out of
three kingdoms. But, in truth, the success of Lilliburllero was the
effect and not the cause of that excited state of public feeling which
produced the Revolution."
The mysterious syllables which Lord Macaulay asserted to be gibberish,
and which in this corrupt form were enough to puzzle a Celtic scholar,
and more than enough to puzzle Lord Macaulay, who, like the still more
ignorant Doctor Samuel Johnson, knew nothing of the venerable language
of the first inhabitants of the British Isles, and of all Western
Europe, resolve themselves into _Li! Li Beur! Lear-a! Buille na la_,
which signify, "Light! Light! on the sea, beyond the promontory! 'Tis
the stroke (or dawn) of the day!" Like all the choruses previously
cited, these words are part of a hymn to the sun, and entirely
astronomical and Druidical.
The syllables _Fol de rol_ which still occur in many of the vulgarest
songs of the English lower classes, and which were formerly much more
commonly employed than they are now, are a corruption of _Failte reul!_
or welcome to the star! _Fal de ral_ is another form of the corruption
which the Celtic original has undergone.
The French, a more Celtic people than the English, have preserved many
of the Druidical chants. In Beranger's song "Le Scandale" occurs one of
them, which is as remarkable for its Druidic appositeness as any of the
English choruses already cited:--
Aux drames du jour,
Laissons la morale,
Sans vivre à la cour
J'aime le scandale;
Bon!
_Le farira dondaine_
Gai!
_La farira dondé_.
These words resolve themselves into the Gaelic _La! fair! aire! dun
teine!_ "Day! sunrise! watch it on the hill of fire (the sacred fire)";
and _La! fair! aire! dun De!_ "Day! sunrise! watch it on the hill of
God."
In the Recueil de Chanson's Choisies (La Haye, 1723, vol. i., page 155),
there is a song called Danse Ronde, commencing _L'autre jour, pres
d'Annette_ of which the burden is _Lurelu La rela!_ These syllables seem
to be resolvable into the Celtic:--_Luadh reul! Luadh!_ (Praise to the
star! Praise!); or _Luath reul Luath_ (the swift star, swift!); and _La!
reul! La!_ (the day! the star! the day!).
There is a song of Beranger's of which the chorus is _Tra, la trala, tra
la la_, already explained, followed by the words--_C'est le diabh er
falbala_. Here _falbala_ is a corruption of the Celtic _falbh la!_
"Farewell to the day," a hymn sung at sunset instead of at sunrise.
Beranger has another song entitled "Le Jour des Morts," which has a
Druidical chorus:--
Amis, entendez les cloches
Qui par leurs sons gemissants
Nous font des bruyans reproches
Sur nos rires indecents,
Il est des ames en peine,
Dit le pretre interessé.
C'est le jour des morts, _mirliton, mirlitaine_.
Requiscant in pace!
_Mir_ in Celtic signifies rage or fuss; _tonn_ or _thonn_, a wave;
_toinn_, waves; and _tein_, fire; whence those apparently unmeaning
syllables may be rendered--"the fury of the waves, the fury of the
fire."
_Tira lira la._ This is a frequent chorus in French songs, and is
composed of the Gaelic words _tiorail_, genial, mild, warm; _iorrach_,
quiet, peaceable; and _là_, day; and was possibly a Druidical chant,
after the rising of the sun, resolving itself into _Tiorail-iorra la_,
warm peaceful day!
_Rumbelow_ was the chorus or burden of many ancient songs, both English
and Scotch. After the Battle of Bannockburn, says Fabyan, a citizen of
London, who wrote the "Chronicles of England," "the Scottes inflamed
with pride, made this rhyme as followeth in derision of the English:--
"Maydens of Englande, sore may ye mourne
For your lemans ye 've lost at Bannockisburne,
With _heve a lowe!_
What weeneth the Kyng of Englande,
So soone to have won Scotlande,
With _rumbylowe!_"