Skye Quotes

Speed bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing.
Over the sea to Skye.

Often we saw the dazzling brightness of blown spray, or of gulls following a boat, and a rosy light on the snow of the highest hills, On days of broken cloud there would be
travelling gleams on the slopes, moving pools of light, like those cast by the head-lamps of a car. And one bright day in February, when I was rowing close under a little cliff, I saw the quivering play of ripples reflected on the smooth face of the rock.
Margaret Leigh.

To visit Skye is to turn your back on the present and walk into antiquity. You hear a foreign language; you are surrounded by Macleods, Macdonalds and Nicolsons; you come on grey stones standing upright on the moor, marking the site of a battle, or the burial place of a chief. You listen to traditions of ancient skirmishes; you sit on the ruins of ancient date. The loch yonder was darkened by the banner of King Hako. Prince Charles wandered over this heath or slept in that cave.
Alexander Smith.

From the lone shieling on the misty island,
Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas,
Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.
Anon.

On a fine morning there is not in the whole world a
prettier sheet of water than Loch Eishart. Everything
about it is wild, beautiful, and lonely. You drink a strange
and unfamiliar air. You seem to be sailing out of the
nineteenth century away back into the ninth. You are
delighted, and there is no remembered delight with which
you can compare the feeling. Over the Loch the
Cuchuillins rise crested with tumult of golden mists; the
shores are green behind; and away out, towards the
horizon, the Island of Rum, ten miles long at the least,
shoots up from the flat sea like a pointed flame. It is a
granite mass, you know, firm as the foundations of the
world; but as you gaze the magic of morning light makes
it a glorious apparition, a mere crimson film or shadow. Beyond Rum, fifteen miles out yonder, the sea is smooth, and flushed with more varied hues than ever lived on the changing opal, dim azures, tender pinks, sleek emeralds. It is one sheet of mother-of-pearl. The hills are silent. . . But the sea, literally clad with birds, is vociferous.
Alexander Smith

It's a far croonin’ that is pullin’ me away,
As take I wi’ my cromak to the road,
It’s the far Coolins that are puttin’ love on me,
As step I wi’ the sunlight for my load:

It’s by Shell water that the track is to the west,
By Aillort and by Morar to the sea,
It’s the cool cresses I am thinkin’ o’ for spunk,
And bracken for a wink on Mother knee:

It’s the blue Islands that are pullin’ me away,
Their laughter puts the leap upon the lame;
The blue Islands from the Skerries to the Lews,
Wi’ heather honey taste upon each name:

Sure, by Tummel and Loch Rannoch and Lochaber
I will go
By heather tracks wi’ heaven in their wiles;
If you’re thinkin’ in your inner heart the braggart’s
in my step,
You’ve never smelt the tangle o’ the Isles.
Kenneth MacLeod.

Return To Tour Skye