Calen o Custure me was a popular 16th century love
song.
The song is something of a mystery: what does its
repeated refrain mean,
and what language is it? In Irish Gaelic ?
First appeared as a broadside ballad, entered in the
Stationer’s Register in London on 10th March 1582.
The broadside has not survived, but A Sonet of a Louer
in the praise of his lady.
To Calen o Custure me: sung at euerie lines end
appeared in A Handefull
of pleasant delites by Clement Robins...(+)
Calen o Custure me was a popular 16th century love
song.
The song is something of a mystery: what does its
repeated refrain mean,
and what language is it? In Irish Gaelic ?
First appeared as a broadside ballad, entered in the
Stationer’s Register in London on 10th March 1582.
The broadside has not survived, but A Sonet of a Louer
in the praise of his lady.
To Calen o Custure me: sung at euerie lines end
appeared in A Handefull
of pleasant delites by Clement Robinson and divers
others, published 2 years later in
1584. This is the only version of the lyric to survive,
so it is impossible to know if
this replicates or differs from the words of the
earlier broadside.
Extract source:
https://earlymusicmuse.com/calen-o-custure-me/
