Edmund of the Hill (Ned of the Hill)

"Oh who is without
That with passionate shout
Keeps beating my bolted door?"
"I am Ned of the Hill
Forspent wet and chill
From long trudging marsh and moor"
"My love, fond and true
What else could I do
But shield you from wind and from weather?
When the shots fall like hail
They us both shall assail
And mayhap we shall die together."

"Through forest and through snow
Tired and hunted I go
In fear both from friend and from neighbor
My horses run wild
My acres untilled
And they all of them lost to my labor
But it grieves me far more
Than the loss of my store
That there's none who would shield me from danger
So my fate it must be
To fare eastward o'er sea
And languish amid the stranger"

"Ce-h-e sin amuh
Go bhfuil faor ar a ghuth
A' reaba mo dhoruis dunta?"
"Mise Eamonn a' Chnuic
Ta baidhte fuar fliuch
O shior-shuil sleihbte is gleannta"
"A lao ghil's a chuid
Cad do dheannfainn-se dhuit
Mara gcuirfinn ort beinn dom ghuna?
'S go mbeidh pudar dubh
Is go mbeimis araon muchta"
"Is fada mise amuh
Faoi shneachta is faoi shioc
Is gan danacht agam ar einne
Mo bhranar gan cur
Mo sheisreach gar sgur
Is gan iad agam ar aon chor
Nil caraid agam
(Is danaid liom san)
Do ghlacfadh me moch na deanach
Is go gcaithfe me dul
Thar fairrge soir
O's ann na fuil mo ghaolta"

translation from the Gaelic by Donal O'Sullivan
Edmund Ryan of the Hill was an Irish earl displaced by Cromwell
after the Battle of the Boyne who stayed in Ireland to fight the
British. Here he sheltered with his old girlfriend. Later a
neighbor killed him while giving him "shelter" for the reward
money, only to find that the reward had just been withdrawn after
Edmund had done an Englishman a service.
Printed in Donal O'Sullivan's Songs of the Irish
Other version recorded by Jean Redpath
Sung in by Bridget Fitzgerald
SOF