Traditional Scottish Gaelic Melody (BUNESSAN)

BUNESSAN is a traditional Scottish Gaelic melody whose individual composer is unknown. Its earliest located printed appearance is in Lachlan Macbean’s Songs and Hymns of the Gael, published in 1888, where the melody accompanied the English form of Mary MacDonald’s Gaelic nativity hymn commonly known as Child in the Manger. MacDonald lived near Bunessan on the Isle of Mull, and the tune name comes from that locality.

The melody belonged to oral tradition before Macbean’s publication. A Church of Scotland account preserves the tradition that Alexander Fraser noted it from the singing of a travelling Highland singer, but the exact chain of transmission cannot be reconstructed with certainty. Its first printed association was therefore with a Christmas text, not with Eleanor Farjeon’s morning hymn.

For Songs of Praise Enlarged in 1931, the editors selected BUNESSAN for a new daily-thanksgiving hymn, and Farjeon supplied the English text to fit it. Martin Shaw’s arrangement for that hymnal is distinct from the underlying traditional melody. BUNESSAN itself is public domain, while Shaw’s setting and later harmonizations or arrangements have their own copyright histories.