Bothan Àirigh am Bràigh Raithneach [English translation]

It's my soul and my darling

who went to Glen Garry yesterday:

A man with golden locks

and kisses with the taste of honey.

O hi ò hu ò o hu ò

Hi rì ri ò hu eile

O hì ri ri ò gheallaibh ò

It is you who are the best suited by your clothes

of all who are on earth

It is you who are the best suited by your uniform

of all the men I have seen

It is you who are the best suited by your hose

and soft lace-up shoes,

a London-style dark green coat,

and crowns will buy it1

When you used to go to2 the fair

it was3 my stuff that came home4,

my belts and my combs

and my narrow headband with clips

My belt comes from Edinburgh

and my scarf from Dunkeld,

we get cattle from the Mearns

and sheep from the lowlands.

We are raising them

on a shieling in the Rannoch Hills

in a bothie full of fun

which was closed in with treetops

The cuckoo and the rock-dove used to

make music for us on the branches

and the brown stag and its bellowing

used to wake us in the morning.

1. 1 crown = 0.25 pounds sterling; that would have made it a very expensive coat back when the song was first sung. This line is one way of saying "expensive" in gàidhlig if you want to make 8 syllables of it to fit the metre of the verse2. literally: reach3. tenses of the copula are different in Gaelic and in English - the present is used often in Gaelic (as here) where English requires the past, but that's because English uses the same verb for Gaelic bi as it uses for the copula4. i.e. he would bring home the things she wanted