Mist Covered Mountain

Double jig in A Dorian, composed by the Irish fiddler Martin “Junior” Crehan (1908–1998) and named for Mount Callan, which stands in view of his home at Bonavilla, near Mullagh, West Clare. Crehan is generally credited with reworking it from the Scottish song “Chi Mi na Mòrbheanna” (The Mist Covered Mountains of Home); Charlie Piggott has suggested the Scottish melody circulated around west Clare as a band march before Crehan turned it into a jig. In the common settings the B part runs twice the length of the A part, built on a repeated high phrase that falls back through the octave. Clare County Library holds a transcription signed by Crehan that sets the tune in A Dorian, along with a recording of him playing it in G Dorian on a fiddle tuned roughly 80 cents below standard pitch. De Dannan named their 1980 Gael Linn LP after the tune (CEF 087), and Martin Hayes recorded it on his Green Linnet debut (GLCD 1127, 1993).