These words are easily resolvable into the Celtic; Ai! or Aibhe! Hail! or All Hail! Trath—pronounced trah, early, and la, day! or "Ai, tră, là, là, là"—"Hail, early day! day," a chorus which Moses and Aaron may have heard in the temples of Egypt, as the priests of Baal saluted the rising sun as he beamed upon the grateful world, and which was repeated by the Druids on the remote shores of Western Europe, in now desolate Stonehenge, and a thousand other circles, where the sun was worshipped as the emblem of the Divinity. The second portion of the chorus, "High trolollie lee," is in Celtic, Ai tra la, la, li, which signifies, "Hail early day! Hail bright day!" The repetition of the word la as often as it was required for the exigencies of the music, accounts for the chorus, in the form in which it has descended to modern times.
"Fal, lal, là," a chorus even more familiar to the readers of old songs, is from the same source. Lord Bathurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset, wrote, in 1665, the well-known ballad, commencing:—
To all you ladies now on land,
We men at sea indite,
But first would have you understand
How hard it is to write.
With a fal, lal, là, and a fal lal, là,
And a fal, lal, lal, lal, là.
Fal is an abbreviation of Failte! welcome! and là as already noted signifies a day. The words should be properly written Failte! la! la! The chorus appears in the "Invitation to May," by Thomas Morley, 1595:—
Now is the month of Maying,
When merry lads are playing,
Fal, la, là!
Each with his bonnie lass,
Upon the greeny grass,
Fal, la, là!
The Celtic or Druidical interpretation of these syllables is, "Welcome the day."
"Fal, lero, loo," appears as a chorus in a song by George Wither (1588-1667):—
There was a lass—a fair one
As fair as e'er was seen,
She was indeed a rare one,
Another Sheba queen.
But fool, as I then was,
I thought she loved me true,
But now alas! she's left me,
Fal, lero, lero, loo.
Here Failte, as in the previous instance, means welcome; lear (corrupted into lero), the sea; and luaidh (the d silent), praise; the chorus of a song of praise to the sun when seen rising above the ocean.