Skye Boat Song: Bagpipe,

This late 19th Century Air for this #SlowAirSunday: features Skye Boat Song. Is it true that Bonnie Prince Charlie fled after realizing the Scots defeat against the English army at the battle of Culloden Moor. With the help of Flora MacDonald who disguised the Prince as a serving Maid and accompanied him on a boat bound for the Isle of Skye? This Air captures this story.

History:
The text of the song gives an account of how Bonnie Prince Charlie, disguised as a serving maid, escaped in a small boat after the defeat of his Jacobite rising of 1745, with the aid of Flora MacDonald. The song draws on the motifs of Jacobitism although it was composed nearly a century and a half after the episode it describes. It is often supposed that it describes Charles's flight from the mainland, but this is unhistorical. The only time Charles was in Skye was when he left Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides to avoid the increasingly thorough Government searches.

Lyrics:
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.
Many’s the lad, fought in that day
Well the claymore did wield;
When the night came, silently lay
Dead on Culloden's field.
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.
Burned are their homes, exile and death
Scatter the loyal men;
Yet ere the sword cool in the sheath
Charlie will come again.

Spotlight:
Outlander Series w/Sam Heughan
   • "Outlander" – The Skye Boat Song Lyric Vid...  

Filmed by MukMuk Prodkt
Bagpipes: Tress the Dark Isle Piper

www.darkislepiper.com