"The Skye Boat Song" is a Scottish

Music of Scotland

Scotland is internationally known for its traditional music, which has remained vibrant throughout the 20th century, when many traditional forms worldwide lost popularity to pop music...

 folk song, which can also be played as a waltz, recalling the escape of Prince Charles Edward Stuart

Charles Edward Stuart

Prince Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart commonly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or The Young Pretender was the second Jacobite pretender to the thrones of Great Britain , and Ireland...

 (Bonnie Prince Charlie) from Uist

Uist

Uist or The Uists are the central group of islands in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.North Uist and South Uist are linked by causeways running via Benbecula and Grimsay, and the entire group is sometimes known as the Uists....

 to the Isle of Skye after his defeat at the Battle of Culloden

Battle of Culloden

The Battle of Culloden was the final confrontation of the 1745 Jacobite Rising. Taking place on 16 April 1746, the battle pitted the Jacobite forces of Charles Edward Stuart against an army commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, loyal to the British government...

 in 1746. Charles escaped in a small boat, with the aid of Flora MacDonald, disguised as a serving maid. The song is a traditional expression of Jacobitism

Jacobitism

Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...

 and its story has also entered Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 as a national legend

Legend

A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...

.

The lyrics were written by Sir Harold Boulton, 2nd Baronet, to an air collected by Annie MacLeod (Lady Wilson) in the 1870s. The song was first published in Songs of the North by Boulton and MacLeod, London, 1884, a book that went into at least fourteen editions. In later editions MacLeod's name was dropped and the ascription "Old Highland rowing measure arranged by Malcolm Lawson" was substituted. It was quickly taken up by other compilers, such as Laura Alexandrine Smith's Music of the Waters (published 1888).

According to the collector of folk music lore, Andrew Kuntz, MacLeod was on a trip to the isle of Skye and was being rowed over Loch Coruisk

Loch Coruisk

Loch Coruisk is an inland fresh-water loch, lying at the foot of the Black Cuillin in the Isle of Skye, in the Scottish Highlands.-Geography:...

 (Coire Uisg, the "Cauldron of Waters") when the rowers broke into a Gaelic rowing song "Cuachag nan Craobh" ("The Cuckoo in the Grove"). Miss MacLeod set down what she remembered of the air, with the intention of using it later in a book she was to co-author with Boulton, who later added the section with the Jacobite

Jacobitism

Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...

 associations. " As a piece of modern romantic literature with traditional links it succeeded perhaps too well, for soon people began "remembering" they had learned the song in their childhood, and that the words were 'old Gaelic lines'," Andrew Kuntz has observed (see link).

The song was not in any older books of Scottish songs, though it is in most miscellanies like The Fireside Book of Folk Songs. It is often sung as a lullaby

Lullaby

A lullaby is a soothing song, usually sung to young children before they go to sleep, with the intention of speeding that process. As a result they are often simple and repetitive. Lullabies can be found in every culture and since the ancient period....

, in a slow rocking 6/8 time

Metre (music)

Meter or metre is a term that music has inherited from the rhythmic element of poetry where it means the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented...

. In addition to being extremely popular in its day, and becoming a standard among Scottish folk and dance musicians, it has become more widely known in the modern mainstream popular music genre. Among the modern renditions which became well known were Glen Ingram's Australian pop rendition in the late 1960s where it became a big hit in that country, Roger Whittaker

Roger Whittaker

Roger Whittaker is an Anglo-Kenyan singer-songwriter and musician with worldwide record sales of over 55 million. His music can be described as easy listening. He is best known for his baritone singing voice and trademark whistling ability...

's duet version with Des O'Connor

Des O'Connor

Des O'Connor, CBE is an English comedian and singer. A former talkshow host, he was the presenter of the long-running Channel 4 gameshow Countdown for two years...

 released in 1986, which combined O'Connor's vocals with Whittaker's whistling version, which was part of his repertoire since at least the mid-1970s. Calum Kennedy also included a version on Songs of Scotland and Ireland (Beltona 1971). The cellist Julian Lloyd Webber

Julian Lloyd Webber

Julian Lloyd Webber is a British solo cellist who has been described as the "doyen of British cellists".-Early life:Julian Lloyd Webber is the second son of the composer William Lloyd Webber and his wife Jean Johnstone . He is the younger brother of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber...

 recorded an instrumental version of the song on the album Encore! / Travels With My Cello Volume 2

Travels with my Cello

Cello Song is an album recorded by the cellist Julian Lloyd Webber in 1993 for Philips.An autobiography of the same name, Travels with my cello was published in 1984.-Track listing:# The Flight of the Bumble-bee by Rimsky-Korsakov...

.

Traditional renditions of the melody put it in the Mixolydian mode

Mixolydian mode

Mixolydian mode may refer to one of three things: the name applied to one of the ancient Greek harmoniai or tonoi, based on a particular octave species or scale; one of the medieval church modes; a modern musical mode or diatonic scale, related to the medieval mode.-Greek Mixolydian:The idea of a...

 while contemporary singers often finish on the fourth note of the scale abruptly transforming the song into the more familiar Ionian mode

Ionian mode

Ionian mode is the name assigned by Heinrich Glarean in 1547 to his new authentic mode on C , which uses the diatonic octave species from C to the C an octave higher, divided at G into a fourth species of perfect fifth plus a third species of perfect fourth : C D...

 (Major scale

Major scale

In music theory, the major scale or Ionian scale is one of the diatonic scales. It is made up of seven distinct notes, plus an eighth which duplicates the first an octave higher. In solfege these notes correspond to the syllables "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti/Si, ", the "Do" in the parenthesis at...

).

Lyrics

Chorus:

Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,

Onward! the sailors cry;

Carry the lad that's born to be King

Over the sea to Skye.

Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar,

Thunderclaps rend the air;

Baffled, our foes stand by the shore,

Follow they will not dare.

Chorus

Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep,

Ocean's a royal bed.

Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep

Watch by your weary head.

Chorus

Many's the lad fought on that day,

Well the Claymore could wield,

When the night came, silently lay

Dead in Culloden's field.

Chorus

Burned are their homes, exile and death

Scatter the loyal men;

Yet ere the sword cool in the sheath

Charlie will come again.

Alternative Lyrics

These are the lyrics, based on a lyric for the melody written by Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....

 and notably performed by Scottish Folk group The McCalmans

The McCalmans

The McCalmans were a folk song trio from Scotland. Formed in 1964, they recorded and toured without interruption up until they disbanded in December 2010....

, amongst others:

Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,

Say could that lad be I.

Merry of soul, he sailed on a day,

Over the sea to Skye.

Mull was astern, Rùm to the port,

Eigg on the starboard bow.

Glory of youth glowed in his soul,

Where is that glory now?

Speed bonny boat like a bird on a wing,

Onward the sailors cry.

Carry the lad that's born to be king,

Over the sea to Skye.

External links

• Andrew Kuntz, The Fiddler's Companion: A Descriptive Index of North American and British Isles Music for the Folk Violin and Other Instruments: authentic origins of the "Skye Boat Song"
• Pop Archives: Covers of "The Skye Boat Song"
• "The Skye Boat Song",by Robert Louis Stevenson, published in the collection "Songs of Travel and Other Verses" at Project Gutenberg