Harp 26. O’er the Sea to Skye, Scottish traditional. (The Skye Boat Song)

Harpist Fionnuala Dubh shares her progress as a student under the maestra Olga Shevelevich.
31st March - 4th July 2021
This was the sixth piece from my third set of repertoire. An arrangement for harp of the traditional Scottish song, ‘Over the Sea to Skye’, also called ‘The Skye Boat Song’.
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"The Skye Boat Song" is a late 19th-century Scottish song recalling the journey of Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) from Benbecula to the Isle of Skye as he evaded capture by government troops after his defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.
Sir Harold Boulton, 2nd Baronet composed the lyrics to an air collected by Anne Campbelle MacLeod in the 1870s, and the line "Over the Sea to Skye" is now a cornerstone of the tourism industry on the Isle of Skye.
Alternative lyrics to the tune were written by Robert Louis Stevenson, probably in 1885. After hearing the Jacobite airs sung by a visitor, he judged the words of this song to be "unworthy", so made a new set of verses "more in harmony with the plaintive tune".
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Original lyrics:
[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.
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Robert Louis Stevenson's 1892 poem, which has been sung to the tune, has the following text:
[Chorus:]
Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.
1. Mull was astern, Rum on the port,
Eigg on the starboard bow;
Glory of youth glowed in his soul;
Where is that glory now?
[Chorus]
2. Give me again all that was there,
Give me the sun that shone!
Give me the eyes, give me the soul,
Give me the lad that's gone!
[Chorus]
3. Billow and breeze, islands and seas,
Mountains of rain and sun,
All that was good, all that was fair,
All that was me is gone.