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Scottish folk music is a genre of folk music that uses forms that are identified as part of the Scottish musical tradition. There is evidence that there was a flourishing culture of popular music in Scotland during the late Middle Ages, but the only song with a melody to survive from this period is the "Pleugh Song". After the Reformation, the secular popular tradition of music continued, despite attempts by the Kirk, particularly in the Lowlands, to suppress dancing and events like penny weddings. The first clear reference to the use of the Highland bagpipes mentions their use at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547. The Highlands in the early seventeenth century saw the development of piping families including the MacCrimmons, MacArthurs, MacGregors and the Mackays of Gairloch. There is also evidence of adoption of the fiddle in the Highlands. Well-known musicians included the fiddler Pattie Birnie and the piper Habbie Simpson. This tradition continued into the nineteenth century, with major figures such as the fiddlers Niel and his son Nathaniel Gow. There is evidence of ballads from this period. Some may date back to the late Medieval era and deal with events and people that can be traced back as far as the thirteenth century. They remained an oral tradition until they were collected as folk songs in the eighteenth century.
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Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne – also known as Carolina Baroness Nairn in the peerage of Scotland and Baroness Keith in that of the United Kingdom – was a Scottish songwriter. Many of her songs, such as, "Will ye no' come back again?", "Charlie is my Darling", "The Rowan Tree" and "Wi' a Hundred Pipers' remain popular today, almost two hundred years after they were written. One of her songs, "Caller Herrin'", was sung at the 2021 commemoration of the 1881 Eyemouth disaster. She usually set her words to traditional Scottish folk melodies, but sometimes contributed her own music.
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"Bonnie Charlie", also commonly known as "Will ye no come back again?", is a Scots poem by Carolina Oliphant, set to a traditional Scottish folk tune. As in several of the author's poems, its theme is the aftermath of the Jacobite Rising of 1745, which ended at the Battle of Culloden. Written well after the events it commemorates, it is not a genuine Jacobite song, like many other songs that were "composed in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but ... passed off as contemporary products of the Jacobite risings."
"Wha'll be King but Charlie?" also known as The News from Moidart, is a song about Bonnie Prince Charlie, sung to the tune of 'Tidy Woman', a traditional Irish jig the date of which is unclear but the tune was well known by 1745. The lyrics were written by Caroline Nairne. Because Nairne published anonymously, the authorship of this and her other poems and lyrics was once unclear, however, late in her life Nairne identified herself and modern scholars accept that these lyrics are hers. Carolina, Baroness Nairne was a Jacobite from a Jacobite family living at a time when the last remnants of political Jacobitism were fading as Scotland entered a period of Romantic nationalism and literary romanticism. Bonnie Prince Charlie stayed in the house where Caroline Nairne was born and reared when fleeing British capture after losing the Battle of Culloden.
The Laird o' Cockpen is a song written by Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne (1766–1845), which she contributed anonymously to The Scottish Minstrel, a six-volume collection of traditional Scottish songs published from 1821 to 1824. Much of the Scottish poetry in Carolina's time was concerned with writing genteel verses for somewhat bawdier earlier songs, and The Laird o' Cockpen is no exception, being set to the music of "O when she cam' ben she bobbit".
Songs of Separation was a music project created in the aftermath of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum to explore through the medium of music ideas of separation. It was organised by double-bass player Jenny Hill and brought together ten female folk musicians from Scotland and England for one week in June 2015 on the Isle of Eigg. The resulting album won the "Best Album" category in the 2017 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.
References
- ↑ "The Rowan Tree Scottish - Scottish Folk Song By Lady Nairne". www.scottish-country-dancing-dictionary.com. Retrieved 2024-01-27.
- ↑ WHITELAW, Alexander. Book of Scottish Song; Collected and Illustrated with Historical and Critical Notices. p. 59. United Kingdom, Blackie & Son, 1843.
- ↑ "Nobel-prize winner on why the Rowan Tree is moving film fans to tears in Living". 14 November 2022.