The World of the Blue Bells Trilogy

For those who love music or Scotland, I’d like to throw out a mention today that Nan Hawthorne, author of An Involuntary King,blogger, and internet radio owner, is featuring a week of Scottish music at her radio station,   Radio de Danann   in honor of Blue Bells of Scotland. 

 Since taking up harp ten years ago, I have especially enjoyed the music of Ireland and Scotland, and have acquired a collection of hundreds of pieces, including from two 19th century books I was lucky enough to find.  I passed on a lengthy but very partial list of titles to Nan.  She also collected titles from Bruce Golightly of Druidsong, several other musician friends, and a thorough search on the internet.

Listening to the music of a country is an education in the history, people, language, and land. 

Who doesn’t know of Loch Lomond: the bonny banks, the bonny braes, the shady glen, and Where in purple hue, the hielan’ hills we view?

  The Loch Tay Boat Songtells us not only about Loch Tay, but:

Nighean ruadh, your lovely hair
Has more glamour I declare
Than all the tresses rare
‘tween Killin and Aberfeldy.

The Braes of Balquhidder describe the landscape:

Will you go lassie go
   To the braes of Balquidder
Where the high mountains run
   And the bonnie blooming heather
Where the ram and the deer
   They go bounding together
Spend a long summer day
   By the braes of Balquidder

A glance through titles alone is a lesson in geography: Rowan Tree (with berries red and bright…), Bluebells of Scotland (where the bluebells sweetly smell), The Rising of the Lark (wake to hail the king of day, warbling louder still…) and Flow Gently, Sweet Afton (How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below/ Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow…).  Scottish Rivers celebrates the uniqueness of…well, Scottish rivers:

But our sturdy Scottish rivers, they come tumbling from the bens
Like a crowd of happy children, to make music in the glens.

One of my all-time favorites, whose melody has been frequently re-used, is Wild Mountain Thyme, telling of gathering the thyme from among the blooming heather.  (Blooming, in this case, is used in the botanical, literal sense, not in the My Fair Lady sense.  Just saying…it could be that someone really hated that heather.)

Other songs describe the the life and customs.  The Pleughman (Plowman), and The Piper of Dundee describe typical occupations, while Caller O’u–The Boatmen of the Firth tells a tale with which most of us would be less familiar: the girls who sold oysters door to door, calling caller o’u, caller o’u!   Take a Dram andWee Deoch an Doris celebrate the tradition of a parting drink on sending your guest home.  Scottish Takeaway, a much more recent piece, celebrates Scottish food:

I love my mince and tatties, haggis, neeps and skirlie too;
If I dinna get my stovies, I dinna ken what I’ll do.
Bagpipes and whisky will always make me sing,
Is there a Scottish takeaway in Beijing?

Black puddin’, white puddin’, porridge for my piece,
Give me Arbroath smokies and I’ll stuff ‘em down my face.
I think that I’ll go crazy, if I don’t get my cullen skink.
Is there a Scottish takeaway in Beijing?

And the lively Mairi’s Wedding, one I often play on harp, tells of the toast for a new bride:

Plenty herring, plenty meal 

Plenty peat to fill her creel,

Plenty bonny bairns as weel

That’s the toast for Mhàiri.

Jock O’Hazelden,another song I particularly enjoy playing on harp, tells the sad story of an arranged marriage to the local lord, with the twist of the bride running away with her beloved Jock O’ Hazelden.

And if you’re looking for a lesson in language, Scottish music is full of Scots and Gaelic.  Several of my collections of Scottish music feature quite lengthy lists of translations.  Here are a few.

braw=excellent, brave
cantie=cheerful
braes=hillsides
furr=furrow
gled=buzzard

brankie=violence
lofe=honour
shank=walk
slaes=blackthornstwa=two
corbies=crows (or ravens)
fail dyke=wall of turf
wot=know
kens=knows
hause-bane=neck bone
een=eye
theek=thatch

Not surprisingly, as from the earliest traveling minstrels, music continues to tell the stories of great battles: Gilliekrankie (or Killiekrankieas it’s often spelled) tells of the1689  Jacobite victory at Killiecrankie.  In the novel Blue Bells of Scotland, Shawn sings this particular song around a campfire–in 1314.  The blank faces around the campfire quickly clue him in to his mistake.

Jamie Foyers focuses on a single battle in the Napoleonic Wars.  The Battle of Harlaw, about the battle between Donald of the Isles and Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar, on July 24, 1411, was a popular song in the mid 1500′s, according to The Complaint of Scotland.  The Battle of Sherramuir of 1715 is remembered in a song by the same name.  William Wallace and his 1297 victory over Edward I at Stirling Bridge have been commemorated from Blind Harry down to Robert Burns.  The first verse of  Battle of Stirling by William Sinclair tells us:

To Scotland’s ancient realm,
Proud Edward’s armies came;
To sap our freedom and overwhelm
Our martial forces in shame.
“It shall not be” brave Wallace cried!
“It shall not be” his chiefs relied!
By the name our fathers gave her,
Our steel shall drink the crimson stream,
We’ll all her dearest right redeem,
Our own broadswords shall save her.

Sound the Pibrochexalts the Jacobites, singing the praises of the clans rallying around Bonny Prince Charlie, carrying us from the Isle of Skye through hills and glens, across Loch Shiel to the sad ending at Culloden, all with a rousing chorus in Gaelic of tha tighin fodham (pronounced Ha Cheen Foam, and meaning, it comes upon me or I have the wish).  Bonny Prince Charlie and the Jacobites have a whole host of music in their praise, including Johnny Cope, Yellow Locks of Charlie, andYe Jacobites By Name.

Nan tells me there are several pieces that celebrate the Battle of Bannockburn, in addition to Scots What Hae and Flower of Scotland, Scotland’s national anthem, with its stirring promise to send proud Edward’s army home to think again.

There are historical events that may not have been battles per se: Queen Mary’s Escape from Loch Leven, set to the melody of The Aran Boat Song,tells the fascinating, but litle-known story of Mary’s escape, in May of 1568, from captivity.  The song describes escape over water:

Those pond’rous keys shall the kelpies keep,
   And lodge in their caverns dark and deep;

And it turns out that several hundred years later, a set of heavy keys, thought to be the ones used in Mary’s escape, was indeed found deep in Loch Leven.

The Massacre of Glencoerecounts the midnight murders of the MacDonalds by the Campbells, in the hills of Glencoe, bringing down through history how the MacDonalds fled into the snow-covered mountains, seeking safety.

This, of course, barely skims the surface of Scottish music.  Please stop by this week and hear over a hundred pieces of Scottish music at Radio de Danann!