Freso:

The 'R McLeod' referred by 'The Cottars' is presumably a mistake for A C (Annie Campbell) MacLeod, Harold Boulton's co-editor on Songs of the North. It was she who adapted a traditional melody (basically, she wrote the second strain) - whether heard in Skye, in the most common anecdote, or noted from a singer in Moidart as Andy M Stewart is quoted earlier in this old thread as having stated - into the tune to which Boulton set his 'Skye Boat Song'. She married the diplomat Sir James Wilson in 1888, and spent some 20 years with him in India.