There's romanticizin' and there's romanticizin'. In this case K-F's adaptation into English seems wonderfully faithful to the original's spirit and much of its sense - or at least as much as Philippa translated for us in 1998.

Everybody on Barra a hundred-odd years ago would have understood the allusions and the local pride behind them. A bare translation into English would not adequately convey these elements.

Remember too that K-F also preserved the original words as well as the airs to Hebridean songs. Bare translation thus remains an option. (Well, she may have regularized the airs a little - something almost irresistible to a Romantic composer - but the irregualr stanzas of "Kishmul's Galley" suggest that she left that aspect pretty much alone.)

I've often wondered how many people sang "Kishmul's Galley" in the first place. Barra was pretty small. And I wonder if Flora MacNeill consciously altered any of the lyrics she learned. Not a criticism, though. When I was in college I thought her rendition of the song was the greatest British field recording of a solo singer ever made.

And you know what? Maybe it is!