Choral Public Domain Library

I have often listened to choirs lovingly sing A Celtic Blessing. And I have no doubt that composers have set the piece with the utmost sincerity. But it always make me cringe when I hear "May the road rise to meet you..."
I, for one, have no wish to walk permanently uphill. I strongly suspect - I know - that there is a bad mistranslation of an idiom at work here.

I speak a Celtic language, Gaeilge/Irish, and understand enough of its very close sister language Gàidhlig/Scots Gaelic. The unfortunate line comes from the common blessing 'Go n-éirigh an bóthar leat' (Gu n-èirigh an rathad leat in Scots G, I presume). Unquestionably Éirigh/Èirich means 'to rise'. However, in the idiom it means 'to succeed' or 'to bring success'. There is no intimation of roads shaking themselves free of their foundations and slapping people in the face. Come to think on it, I'm not sure exactly what the English version actually means anyway. It seems like a nonsense.

The lesson for composers/arrangers must be: always be sure of the text you are setting, expecially it is it a translation.

In the case of the Celtic Blessing, I suppose it is too late to do anything about it. But I will always cringe when I hear it- and resist a temptation to shout; "No, no, no!"

Sorry. I can't forego the joke, overused though it is, about having some Gaelic spirit in me--several fifths, by measure, though not all at the same time.

I've done some hiking in hilly and mountainous areas, and I have some experience in human anatomy, as a result of the confluence of the two, I can say not only is it easier to walk up an incline with a given grade than to walk down the same incline, but to explain why. The natural tendency of the body is to be parallel with an extension of the radius of the spheroid that is the earth. Walking up an incline, the foot is less than 90 degrees to the lower leg, or hypo extended. Walking down, the foot is more than 90 degrees to the lower leg, or hyper extended, and generally a less secure feeling than walking on either the level of going uphill. If one also considers that strategically heights are more easily defended than lower places, a "rising road" leads to a greater sense of security than one descending into a valley. I've never had the sense of the "rising road" reference in the Gaelic blessing was to a road coming away from the subgrade.

ns

I note that you stint on the measure, - fifth of a gill. But I suppose it's better than the 6th in England. Best of all is the quarter of the gill in Ireland. Five of them and who needs a road anyway!

Well, I really did not stint on the measure; it's an old U.S. joke, dating from a time when a particularly common measure by which most many spirits were sold was a fifth, short for a fifth of a gallon. There were a number of jokes on the same or related themes, but they have lost a bit of currency now that in most cases, the spirits formerly purveyed in fifths, are now sold instead in a volume of 3/4 of a liter.

ns