Links, Downloads and Audio

Duart Castle, Mull and the Isle of Iona, Argyll, Scotland-by Mark Jordan    

An audio guide to the castle of Duart on the Isle of Mull and the Isle of Iona.

Captain MacLean of Pennycross

Highland bagpipe music played by Willie Ross (1897-1966). Courtesy of raretunes.org. 

Pagans Folly with their song “I’ll be a McLean till I die”

Warsong of the Clan Macleans-Andrew Maclean

WAR-SONG OF LACHLAN HIGH CHIEF OF MACLEAN FROM THE GAELIC

Was translated in 1815 by Sir Walter Scott and prefaced thus by Scott : ‘ This song appears to be imperfect, or, at least, like many of the early Gaelic poems, makes a rapid transition from one subject to another; from the situation, namely, of one of the daughters of the clan, who opens the song by lamenting the absence of her lover, to an euloginm over the military glories of the Chieftain. The translator has endeavored to imitate the abrupt style of the original.

A weary month has wandered o’er

Since last we parted on the shore;

Heaven! that I saw thee, love, once more,

Safe on that shore again!

‘T was valiant Lachlan gave the word:

Lachlan, of many a galley lord:

He called his kindred bands on board,

And launched them on the main.

Clan-Gillian is to ocean gone;

Clan-Gillian, fierce in foray known;

Rejoicing in the glory won

In many a bloody broil:

For wide is heard the thundering fray,

The rout, the ruin, the dismay,

When from the twilight glens away

Clan-Gillian drives the spoil.

Woe to the hills that shall rebound

Our bannered bag-pipes’ maddening sound!

Clan-Gillian’s onset echoing round,

Shall shake their inmost cell.

Woe to the bark whose crew shall gaze

Where Lachlan’s silken streamer plays!

The fools might face the lightning’s blaze

As wisely and as well!