Annotation:Lude's Supper
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LUDE'S SUPPER ("Suipeir Tighearna Leoid" or "Suipar Chiurn na Leod"). Scottish, Air. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. A composition of Ulster-born (d. 1653) harper Rory Dall (Blind Rory), whose last name is given variously as O'Caithean, O'Cathain, O'Cahan or O'Callen (but whom was known in Scotland as Roderick Morrison, or Rory Dall), who received the patronage of several Scottish noble families. James Logan (The Scottish Gael, vol. 2, 1831, p. 267) says that he was "one of the last native harpers. He served in that capacity to the laird of Mac Leod, but on the death of his master, Dunvegan castle and its establishment being abandoned, he began an itinerant life."
The tune appears in James Oswald's (1710-1769) Caledonian Pocket Companion Book 10 (1760), Daniel Dow's (1732-1783) Collection of Ancient Scots Music [1] and Bruce Armstong's The Highland Harp. John Gunn, in his Historical Enquiry respecting the Performance on the Harp in the Highlands, says that about the year 1650 Ruaidhri Dall Morison accompanied the Marquis of Huntly on a visit to Robertson of Lude and celebrated the event with this composition, called "Suipar, chiurn na Leod, or Lude's Supper". Sanger and Kinnaird (Tree of Strings, 1992) suggest that it was not Morison who was in attendance, since he was not born until 1656, but rather the harper was Ruaidhri Dall O'Cahan. Similarly, if the date of the visit is correct it is unlikely that the Marquis of Huntly was involved as George Gordon, the second Marquis, was arrested in 1648 and executed in 1649, after which his estates were held by Argyll until 1660.
Gunn also mentions that a beautiful harp was in the possession of the Robertsons of Lude, and that tradition had it that it originally came from the hands of Mary Queen of Scots, an assertion that is fanciful and dismissed today. The Robertson's remembered that "Lude's Supper" was formerly played on the harp in question by General Robertson's great-grandfather.
See also note for "Give Me Your Hand" for more on Rory Dall.
Source for notated version: Dow (Collection of Ancient Scots Music), c. 1775; p. 43. Oswald (Caledonian Pocket Companion Book 10), 1760; pp. 6-7.
Printed sources:
Recorded sources: Ossian - "Seal Song" (1981).
See also listing at:
Hear the group Ossian play the song on youtube [2]