The Lament of Flora McDonald is one of Hogg’s most popular Jacobite songs and is featured on the University of Stirling’s research site studying James Hogg. This song was “first produced as a song sheet and later included in the Second Series of his Jacobite Relics in 1821. The tune and its accompaniment were written by Niel Gow junior, who apparently told Hogg that the melody was an ‘ancient Skye air’. Hogg is said to have written new lyrics for it, even though Gow provided original Gaelic verses, and Hogg was very proud of this song, noting in 1831: ‘I could hardly believe my senses that I had made so good a song without knowing it’. Its popularity is evident in a number of independent song sheets throughout the 1820s and ’30s. It also appeared in George Thomson’s Select Melodies of Scotland (1822), in The Border Garland (1828) and in Songs by the Ettrick Shepherd in 1831 where he calls it ‘Flora Macdonald’s Farewell’”. This quote is from the University site at http://www.jameshogg.stir.ac.uk/cd.php
and has MP3 files available for free download.Can you find this song elsewhere? Your local library? Can you find it on Amazon.com? Will this song only be heard while this study of James Hogg endures then fade into the mist of time? Listen to this song and share it with your friends or the bookwraith will claim another victim.
