The Skye Boat Song Piano - Digital Sheet Music

SKU: A0.1572405

Late 19th-century Scottish song recalling the journey of "Bonnie Prince Charlie" - Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart - from Benbecula to the Isle of Skye after his final and devastating defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. The song refers to his flight after his failed attempts at regaining the thrones of Scotland, England and Ireland under the auspice of the Jacobite rebellion. He was smuggled to Skye with the help of Flora MacDonald, disguised as an Irish maid named Betty Burke, in a small boat.

The original gaelic song was written around 1782 by William Ross, entitled Cuachag nan Craobh ("Cuckoo of the Tree"), and laments to a cuckoo that the object of his desire - Lady Marion Ross - doesn't return his feelings. The song is set in the style of a iorram, a Gaelic rowing song. After learning the tune during a boat ride, the author Anne Campbell MacLeod, who was co-writing a book with author Sir Harold Boulton, published the song in their book Songs of the North (1884) with Sir Harold Boulton's new, English lyrics. Although Robert Louis Stevenson re-wrote the lyrics in 1885 shortly after MacLeod and Boulton's book was released, these are the original lyrics written by Sir Harold.

The Skye Boat Song

[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.

1. 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]

2. Many's the lad, fought on that day
Well the claymore did wield;
When the night came, silently lay
Dead on Culloden's field.

[Chorus]

3. 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]

4. Burned are their homes, exile and death
Scatter the loyal men;
Yet ere the sword cool in the sheath
Charlie will come again.