Sheila Chandra Lament of McCrimmon/Song of the Banshee.

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Official video for 'Lament of McCrimmon/Song of the Banshee' 1991. Taken from Sheila's fifth solo album 'Roots and Wings'.

Doon Cuillin's peaks, the mist is sailing
The banshee croons her note of wailing
But my blue 'een, with sorrow are streaming
For him who will never return, McCrimmon

No more, no more, no more, McCrimmon
In war nor in peace, shall return McCrimmon
Till dawns the sad day, of doom and burning
McCrimmon in home no more returning

The breeze on the brae, is mournfully mourning
The brook in the hollow, is plaintively mourning
But my blue een, with sorrow...
For him who will never, for him who will never, return, McCrimmon

No more etc.

(In Scotland, when a person is dying, it is said that the 'banshee' - a female messenger from the other world - comes to wail and lament their passing. 'Een is a dialect word for 'eyes'. A brae is the crest of a hill. 'Doon' - so far as I can establish - means an isolated ancient site. Cuillin's peaks are on the Isle of Skye.)

"The legend of this lament is that it was written on the eve of the battle of Culloden Moor in 1746 which was the last stand of the Scots against the English. In the Scottish tradition, great musicians would have their deaths commemorated by the writing of a lament in their name. It was also the tradition that pipers would be in the front line of an attack, playing as loudly as they could, to scare the enemy. This particular McCrimmon was said to be the finest piper in all of Scotland and Ireland. And he knew he would be in the front line of a hopelessly outnumbered army. So, on the eve of the battle, knowing he would likely be killed and that there was no other greater musician to do it for him, he had to write his own lament. (Can you imagine!). The words were added later.

"Most laments are written on a major scale - which can belie their sadness. Here I have added improvisations in the style of a Shehnai (another reed instrument but from North India - traditionally used to play sad songs when a bride leaves her home for her husband's house) in a minor scale to highlight the sadness of the words, and to contrast the stoicism of the main melody. If the legend is true, McCrimmon must have been writing this melody a day or two before the battle on the 16th April 1746. The 14th April is my birthday. In folk traditions it's relatively rare to know the name of the composer of a tune, let alone the very charged emotional circumstances it which they might have written it. As a result I feel a special connection to this song, letting my throat slide over the same notes he must have hummed under his breath while marching the five miles from Inverness to the battle site."