In Percy Scholes, Oxford Companion to Music, 10th 1953, p958
Skye Boat Song

The tune is dated to being heard in 1879...
The words by Boulton "date from 1884"

"Later some other words were written to the tune by Robert Louis Stevenson, who apparently believed the tune to be a pure folk tune and in the public domain. This latter set of words has appeared in association with the tune in certain song books, by permission of Lady Wilson and Sir Harold Boulton, and a confusion has originated, particulary as both sets of wors include 'Over the sea to Skye'."


Songs of the North volume 1 edited by AC Macleod and Harold Boulton, was published in 1885. Date of publication is confirmed in English Catalogue of Books as Macleod 1885, The Times new books column July 1885, and in the entry for it in Matthew McLennan Young, Field & Tuer: The Leadenhall Press, 2010, Oak Knoll Press/British Library, pp64-65, which dates it to June 1885.

Young spells her as MacLeod and Macleod in that same entry. Anne Campbell Macleod [sic] (1855-1921) was daughter of Very Rev Norman Macleod and a long line of distinguished Macleod preachers and Gaelic scholars who are written up in DNB and elsewhere. She included two songs with words by her grandparents in Songs of the North volume 1. She is named Macleod in the Who Was Who entry for her husband Sir James Wilson (died 1926).

In Songs of the North volume 1 1885 the melody is credited as Arranged by Malcolm Lawson.

At least 35 editions of Songs of the North are known, many in public domain somewhere, and it was still being published with a 50th anniversary edition in 1935 and another in 1958.

Some of the songs were sold separately by JB Cramer & Co (for 2/6 nett) of which Skye Boat Song was one, popular available in two keys and as a duet, but undated and without a plate number. It credits music in two texts printed as extras in different typefaces above the line for Malcolm Lawson, Macleod and Boulton's arranger. These replace the space formerly occupied by Arranged by. Everything else printed is in the normal Songs of the North style.

The volume 1 imlicitly came first, the sheet music separately later.
The overprinting is probably added later by Cramer, who were not involved in the original 1885 publication of Songs of the North volume 1, and it reads:

"AIR (founded upon an old "CHANTY", / Composed by A.C. MACLEOD." /

"[bold italics] Four bars taken down from Hebridean boatmen / four bars aded by A.C. Macleod."

Best wishes