The Scots are a curious people. In foreign parts they are considered dour, and yet no dancing is more full of life and sparkling vigour than our traditional Highland dancing. And there always seems to have been this urge towards a natural, spontaneous form of dance.

A Highland dancer needs the physique of an athlete, coupled with grace of movement, a sense of rhythm and considerable imagination. The best Highland dancers can give a performance that few classical ballet dancers could surpass, for the will and the spirit to dance is there, as well as the ability.

In the lowlands of Tayside, as well as in the Highlands, there has always been an instinctive desire for music, dance and song. In the old days people had to make their own entertainment, and in social gatherings round the fireside there was scope for “local talent.” Many country songs and ballads, sung in kitchens and bothies a century ago, are still being sung. They may deal with love and marriage, convivial nights, farm life and work. As a rule the “bothy song” describes a mood, the ballad tells a story. Some of the melodies, handed down from generation to generation, are admirable.

In most bothies will be found a fiddle or an accordion, and many a ploughman is a musician of considerable skill. These men have known the old Scots airs since childhood; their forbears listened and danced to the spirited strains of Neil Gow, Scott Skinner and other “Strathspey Kings” of the past. Many of them can compose new tunes in the same idiom, for the music is born in them.

“When wark is ower and supper dune,
The bothy band comes on the scene;
At jigs, strathspeys and Hielan’ reels
There’s few can beat the bothy chiels.”

“Mouth music” has been said to date from the time of Culloden, when the pipes were forbidden and dancers could only use a word-rhythm that in a way reproduced the pipes, and kept alive the traditional tunes. But probably “mouth music” is as old as the pipes themselves.

A song, written by Mrs Agnes Lyon, a native of Dundee, is another great favourite, Neil Gow’s Farewell to Whisky.

Whisky o, whisky o,
A drap o’ Heilan’ whisky o,
I’ll sing ye a sang or dance ye a reel,
For a drap o’ Hielan’ whisky o.

Songs may be lyrical, but many are more inclined to be boisterous. “The Ball o’ Kirriemuir,” describing a barn dance, is known the world over. How many verses it has nobody knows. It goes on for ever, like Auld Esk or Prosen Proud!

The best of this music and song may be said to have sprung from the soil, and despite its artistic limitations, it should certainly command a place in these notes on our folklore.

But to end this brief note on song and dance, I should like to mention that fine old ballad about Leezie Lindsay, who was the lovely daughter of Sir Alexander Lindsay of Evelick Castle, in the Braes of the Carse. This ballad tells the tale of a wandering outcast who woos and wins this fair lady, then proves to be a Highland chieftain:

“Will ye gang tae the Hielans, Leezie Lindsay,
Will ye gang tae the Hielans wi’ me,
For I am Lord Ronald MacDonald,
A Chieftain o’ high degree.”

It’s one of many stirring tales associated with these parts, and no doubt it will long be remembered and sung.

Return to Folklore