#hallaig

On October 26th 1911 the Gaelic poet, Sorley MacLean, was born on the island of Raasay.

He was brought up within a family and community immersed in Gaelic language and culture, particularly song. Sorley studied English at Edinburgh University from 1929, taking a first class honours degree and there encountering and finding an affinity with the work of Hugh MacDiarmid, Ezra Pound, and other Modernist poets. Despite this influence, he eventually adopted Gaelic as the medium most appropriate for his poetry. However, it should be noted that MacLean translated much of his own work into English, opening it up to a wider public than the speakers of the Gaelic language.

During the Spanish Civil War, MacLean was torn between family commitments and his desire to fight on behalf of the International Brigades, illustrating his left-wing - even Marxist - political stance. He eventually resigned himself to remaining on Skye. He fought in North Africa during World War Two, before taking up a career in teaching, holding posts on Mull, in Edinburgh and finally as Head Teacher at Plockton High School.

It is often said that what Hugh MacDiarmid did for the Scots language, Sorley MacLean did for Gaelic, sparking a Gaelic renaissance in Scottish literature in line with the earlier ‘Scottish Renaissance’, as evinced in the work of George Campbell Hay, Derick Thomson and Iain Crichton Smith. He was instrumental in preserving and promoting the teaching of Gaelic in Scottish schools. Through the diverse subject matter of his poetry, he demonstrates the capacity of the Gaelic language to express themes from the personal to the political and philosophical.

MacLean’s work was virtually unknown outside Gaelic-speaking circles until the 1970s, when Gordon Wright published Four Points of a Saltire - poems from George Campbell Hay, Stuart MacGregor, William Neill and Sorley MacLean. He also then appeared at the Cambridge Poetry Festival, establishing his fame in England, as well as Scotland and Ireland, where he had become something of a cult figure thanks to a fan base including fellow poet Seamus Heaney. A bilingual Selected Poems of 1977 secured a broader readership and a new generation began to appreciate his work.

Latterly, he wrote and published little, showing his concern with quality and authenticity over quantity. Never a full-time writer, he was also a scholar of the Highlands with a vast knowledge of genealogy, and an avid follower of shinty. Amongst other awards and honours, he received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1990. He passed on in 1996 at the age of 85, and was survived by his wife and two daughters.

I have posted many times about Sorley, and probably overused Martyn Bennet’s Hallaig, but if you haven’t heard it, please go to Youtube and search for it, you won’t regret it.

Todays poem is Tràighean/ Shores, the Gaelic version first, followed by the verse translated by his fellow bi-lingual poet, Iain Crichton Smith.

Nan robh sinn an Talasgar air an tràigh

far a bheil am beul mòr bàn

a’ fosgladh eadar dà ghiall chruaidh,

Rubha nan Clach `s am Bioda Ruadh,

sheasainn-sa ri taobhn na mara

ag ùrachadh gaoil ‘nam anam

fhad ‘s a bhiodh an cuan a’lìonadh

camas Thalasgair gu sìorraidh:

sheasainn an siud air lom na tràghad

gu `n cromadh Priseal a cheann àigich.

Agus nan robh sinn ciudeachd

air tràigh Chalgaraidh am Muile,

eadar Alba is Tiriodh,

eadar an saoghal `s a’bhiothbhuan,

dh’fhuirichinn an siud gu luan

a’ tomhas gainmhich bruan air bhruan.

Agus an Uibhist air tràigh Hòmhstadh

fa chomhair farsaingeachd na h-ònrachd,

dh’fheithinn-sa an siud gu sìorraidh

braon air bhraon an cuan a’ sìoladh.

Agus nan robh mi air tràigh Mhùideart

còmhla riut, a nodhachd ùidhe,

chuirinn suas an co-chur gaoil dhut

an cuan ’s a’ ghaineamh, bruan air bhraon dhiubh.

’S nan robh sinn air Mol Steinnseil Stamhain

’s an fhairge neo-aoibhneach a’ tarraing

nan ulbhag is gan tilgeil tharainn,

thogainn-sa am balla daingeann

ro shìorraidheachd choimhich ’s i framhach.

If we were in Talisker on the shore

where the great white foaming mouth of water

opens between two jaws as hard as flint –

the Headland of Stones and the Red Point –

I’d stand forever by the waves

renewing love out of their crumpling graves

as long as the sea would be going over

the Bay of Talisker for ever;

I would stand thee by the filling tide

till Preshal bowed his stallion head.

And if the two of us were together

on the shores of Calgary in Mull

between Scotland and Tiree,

between this world and eternity,

I’d stand there till time was done

counting the sands grain by grain.

And also on Uist, on Hosta’s shore,

in the face of solitude’s fierce stare,

I’d remain standing, without sleep,

while sea were ebbing, drop by drop.

And if I were on Moidart’s shore

With you, my novelty of desire,

I’d offer this synthesis of love,

grain and water, sand and wave.

And were we by the shelves of Staffin

where the huge joyless sea is coughing

stones and boulders from its throat,

I’d build a fortified wall

Against eternity’s savage howl.

As well as Hallaig I enjoy listening to Somhairle by Niteworks, an Electronic Celtic fusion band from the Isle of Skye who put some of Sorley’s words to music. Listen to it below

thank you so much kags i love you to the moon and back ❣💕💞💗💖💞💝💘!!!!

‘Time, the deer, is in the wood of Hallaig’

The window is nailed and boarded through which I saw the West and my love is at the Burn of Hallaig, a birch tree, and she has always been

between Inver and Milk Hollow, here and there about Baile-Chuirn: she is a birch, a hazel, a straight, slender young rowan.

In Screapadal of my people where Norman and Big Hector were, their daughters and their sons are a wood going up beside the stream.

Proud tonight the pine cocks crowing on the top of Cnoc an Ra, straight their backs in the moonlight – they are not the wood I love.

I will wait for the birch wood until it comes up by the cairn, until the whole ridge from Beinn na Lice will be under its shade.

If it does not, I will go down to Hallaig, to the Sabbath of the dead, where the people are frequenting, every single generation gone.

They are still in Hallaig, MacLeans and MacLeods, all who were there in the time of Mac Gille Chaluim: the dead have been seen alive.

The men lying on the green at the end of every house that was, the girls a wood of birches, straight their backs, bent their heads.

Between the Leac and Fearns the road is under mild moss and the girls in silent bands go to Clachan as in the beginning,

and return from Clachan, from Suisnish and the land of the living; each one young and light-stepping, without the heartbreak of the tale.

From the Burn of Fearns to the raised beach that is clear in the mystery of the hills, there is only the congregation of the girls keeping up the endless walk,

coming back to Hallaig in the evening, in the dumb living twilight, filling the steep slopes, their laughter a mist in my ears,

and their beauty a film on my heart before the dimness comes on the kyles, and when the sun goes down behind Dun Cana a vehement bullet will come from the gun of Love;

Hi Tess!!! 8^)))))) hope youre doing good

8. have you had water today?

I had a sip just now to take a pill;; but haha no not really it's been busy but thank you for the reminder;;;