The Spindle-Side of Scotish Song

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1902 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII CAROLINA, BARONESS NAIRNE: THE QUEEN OF SONGSTRESSES IN the annals of the Spindle-side of Scottish Song that was a red-letter day on which the high-born and versatile Carolina Oliphant of Gask, afterwards Lady Nairne, while driving through a village near her Highland home, noted, amid the confusion of the annual fair, that many persons held in their hands a small book of songs with a yellow cover. Her curiosity being aroused, she despatched her footman to purchase a copy which, on examination, proved to be a collection of old Scots songs and ballads, many of them so essentially gross in sentiment and diction that their dissemination was a positive danger to the morality of the songloving peasantry of Scotland--a danger rendered more subtle because the indelicate verses were linked with those unique melodies which were 4 an heirloom to the nation from the remote past. That day a noble impulse rose in Carolina Oliphant's heart--an impulse which, though she knew it not, placed the sceptre of Scottish song in her hand: she resolved to purify those ribald national songs and to use her lyric genius to elevate the minstrelsy of her native land. This was in the year 1793, when she was twenty-seven years old, and in the full zenith of her stately charms and of her popularity as a county beauty. The eighteenth century had brought to Scotland an extraordinary revival of the lyric impulse and--with it--a renewal of love for the national melodies. The desire to sing was in the air; it was epidemic, so to speak, and in remote places all over the land the spirit of song was floating, seeking, like the winged thistle-down, congenial conditions for its growth. Already Neil Gow and his brotherhood of the violin were enchanting the people with their music; All...