Dakota Beacon

Yesterday, November 30, was St. Andrew’s Day, the feast day of Scotland’s patron saint. In honor of that nation, therefore, I decided to share with you a beautiful music video and a wee bit o’ Scottish culture.

The song, “The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond” has been associated with the ill-fated “’45”, the Jacobite uprising in Scotland which began in 1745, with the return of the Catholic Stuart Pretender Prince Charles Edward Stuart (“Bonnie Prince Charlie”) to lead the rebellion. It ended in defeat in April of 1746, on the bleak and bloody moor of Culloden.

The song has been interpreted many different ways, most of them melancholy. One version of the story is that it is of two brothers. The British were fond of a special kind of torture – two brothers or close friends would be captured, one to be freed and one to be executed, and the decision as to which would live and which die was left to the two prisoners. One would take the “high” road (his head carried along the high road on a pike) while the other took the other, low, road home to Scotland. Another version was that a girl must bid her captured soldier lover goodbye forever, that they would never meet again in this world. That is the story told in this video by the beautiful Celtic singer, Ella Roberts.

Besides the beautiful singing, please note that the “older Ella” is actually her grandmother. The young lovers are separated forever in this world by war and the British but the girl keeps faith and waits to be reunited. The video is spectacularly beautiful, and the other star in the video is the camera man. His work is stunning. The video reminds me of the classic Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy movie, Maytime, with the long-suffering bereaved woman reunited, young again, after a lifetime apart.

Enjoy “Loch Lomond” and if you are in the mood for more from Scotland today – and more beautiful Scottish scenery, watch the next ones!

Loch Lomond (Ella Roberts): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb8AGuD2uOI

A couple of “kid” acts (can’t resist ‘em).

Highland dancing is a real test of endurance and precision.

A young highland dancer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX5toGIUZAo

A young pipe band, Edinburgh.

Scotland the Brave:, A Scottish Soldier:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdLDMTXm6tM&t=192s

The next song was written by a weaver, Robert Tannahill, presented here by the legendary Corries.

Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go (The Corries): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVQkdV4GwLc

This song is about the treacherous Massacre of Glencoe. Firs, here is a brief explanation (in a wonderful Scottish accent): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNiucTNiUc8

Glencoe (John McDermott): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UFMx3xE9Ko

This is a bagpipe rendition of “Dark Island”. Dark Island is so named because it is a small island which is always in the shadow of mountains which surround it.

Dark Island (Steve Thrasher): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH7Qg0LwY6Q

Enjoy!

Yours aye,

Sally

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