The Skye Boat Song

A late 19th-century Scottish song recalling the escape of Prince Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) to the Isle of Skye after his defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. While the historical events date to 1746, when Flora MacDonald disguised the prince as a serving maid and sailed him from Benbecula to Skye to evade capture, the song itself was created over a century later. The melody originated from an older Gaelic love song "Cuachag nan Craobh" composed around 1782 by William Ross. The popular English lyrics were written by Sir Harold Boulton, who collaborated with Anne Campbell MacLeod after she heard local rowers singing a Gaelic tune on Loch Coruisk in the 1870s. The song was first published in 1884 in their collection "Songs of the North."