The wind blows cauld and the wind blows wet
The heather coarse and high
The drums beat out o'er Culloden Moor
And Cumberland is nigh,nigh
And Cumberland is nigh.
Ye hielanders fatigued and starved
Wha line Culloden Moor
Ye're goin' tae die for a Stuart Prince
And a cause that isnae yours,yours
A cause that isnae yours.
Noo Chairlie's bonnie and Chairlie's braw
But see how Chairlie runs,
And leaves his bonnie lads tae face
The Bloody Butcher's guns, guns
The Bloody Butcher's guns.
Macdonald, Cameron, Macintosh
Macneil, MacLean, MacKay
Tak heed, tak head, turn round your steed
The Bloody Butcher's nigh, nigh
The Bloody Butcher's nigh.
A cold wind blows and nothing grows
The heather sways bluid red.
The Stuart Prince tae France has flown
And a' his lads are dead, dead
And a' his lads are dead.
Footnote: A braw song by Gordon Menzies, of Gaberlunzie fame, to
commemorate the 259th anniversary of the Battle of Culloden on 16
April 1746. In an hour the better trained and equipped Hanoverian
army under the Bloody Butcher, The Duke of Cumberland, swept aside
the last hope of restoring the exiled, ill-fated Stewarts to the
throne. The battle was summed up by the Jacobite soldier and Gaelic
poet John Roy Stuart -
Mo chreach, armailt nam breacan
Bhith air sgaoileadh's air sgapadh's gach àit',
Aig fìor-bhalgairean Shasuinn
Nach do ghnàthaich bonn ceartais 'nan dàil;
Ged a bhunnaich iad baiteal
Cha b'ann d'an cruadal no 'n tapadh a bhà,
Ach gaoth aniar agus frasan
Thighinn a nios oirnn bhàrr machair nan Gall.
(Woe is me for the plaided troops scattered and routed everywhere at
the hands of these utter foxes of England who observed no fairness
at all in the conflict or the skill of them but the westward wind
and the rain coming down on us from the flat lands of the
lowlanders.)
Gordon's song 'Culloden' featured on the first album recorded by
Gaberlunzie in 1969 and was recently re-released on CD.
