Leland,
Great story. I trust you are aware that piping has deep roots in Skye. It was the home of the MacCrimmons, hereditary pipers to the MacLeod clan for quite a while. They had a "college" in Dunvegan, where they taught the Ceol Mor, "big music", long before the military stuff came along. One of the most haunting piobreached tunes of the Ceol Mor is Cha Till MacCruimen, "MacCrimmon will Never Return", a lament that was written by Donald MacCrimmon after having a premonition of his own death at the Rout of Moy. Try to find it on midi, if you can't, let me know.
Twybil
-----Original Message-----
From: Leland Torrence <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 9:35 am
Subject: [BP] Skye
Michael,
I have not been to the place of my family’s ancestors, but one day, I will make good. Yesterday, a rainy, New England day in too early spring –forsythia and magnolia a week away – I stopped at Richter’s for a couple of Bowmore Islay 18 year. As I sat there a few moments, before joined by Deter, and some early to leave the scaffold, I was humming the Skye Boat Song in my head. Often around Easter, I think of my Dad. It was his favorite song. As legend goes, the family received our coat of arms by rowing Robert The Bruce (not the would be king of the song) to safety on the Isle of Man. As the story goes, a storm blew up, and the Bruce had been impressed tha
t the men broke into song. My Dad would hum the melody to us as babies, and later, on the water, or sitting looking at the mountains. We had a single bag piper play it as we walked his remains to be sprinkled into Bloody Brook. I am going to go have another this afternoon, and I will think of him, and you.
Best,
Leland
Skye Boat Song
(Sir Harold Boulton, 1884)
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,
Thunder clouds rend the air;
Baffled our foe's stand on the shore
Follow they will not dare
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
Many's the lad fought on that day
Well the claymore could wield
When the night came, silently lay
Dead on Culloden's field
Burned are our homes, exile and death
Scatter the loyal men
Yet, e'er the sword cool in the sheath,
Charlie will come again.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Words by Sir Harold Boulton, Bart., 1884. Music by Annie
MacLeod.
From: The listserv where the buildings do the talking [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Se
nt: Friday, April 10, 2009 6:08 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [BP] welcome
In a message dated 4/10/2009 2:00:15 AM Central Daylight Time,
Deborah writes:
I love Laphroaig as a winter dram; if I shut my eyes, I'd swear I was
sitting in a big old hearth soaking up the warmth of the fire, it's so
peaty. 
Some time in the mid 60's ; I was hitchiking through Skye and got a ride with a local farmer who thought well enough of this hulking young american with a back pack and peach fuzz on his chin to offer him a spot for his sleeping bag and a place by the fire and hot supper at the family table ;
For those who have never been ; Skye is enchantingly beautiful with purple heather and purple mountains .
The sun was going down on this day and we were on a vey twisty turning gravel road when we became escoureted by two black and white Scottish sheep dogs who brought us to the front door of the main cottage ; a thick walled stone cottage with the tiny stone windows of the 19th cent .
The house and garden overlooked the wind tossed race of the inner hebrides ;
and with the mystical purple mountains and the suns reflection off the sea
and clouds I thought I was in some dream of the celtic twilight of the Gods . .
We uncermonously entered the front door of the house and I realized I had entered a different world ;
the floor was rolled oiled
clay and there before the roaring peat fire was a beaten copper tub with two naked children having thier saturday bath given by thier mother as two octogenarian grand parents looked on from chairs by the fire
Everyone including the kids welcomed me ;but they all were speaking Gallic ; which I had never heard before .
Its a very poetic ; a song like language .
Unsure I wasn't dreaming I too was offered a chair by the fire and given a glass of something peaty as the rosy cheeked children were exited from the bath and rubbed hard with a dry towel before the fire
My first taste of the liquid plunged me into the wildness of the place .and my memlory of traveling through it
The peat , the fire , the granite , the purple mountains and the briny rugged coast of the Hebrides .all fell in on me with this complex taste with a bite of sea weed
The next tastes began to conjure up images and legends of the sea
the monsters and the stories of the little people of the lochs ;
the devic spirituality of the druids and the pagans who worshiped this magical mystical land of rocks of Old Gods and potions whose very liquid I was drinking captured me and held me in some timeless root to the inner celtic world .
of dream and story .
The father interupted my visons and spoke to me in English to make me feel more at home
but it was the glass ...... the briny nectar of the ..Lag
avulin
..that tied it all together and welocmed me home
Slange Na Var ; Py
Ps In warm climates the taste of whiskey isn't as comforting as the colder or lighter spirits as a beverages ;
**************
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