United States or Mexico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A man whose life we would save on the field, or the rock-face, or the sea, at the risk of our own lives or the more abominable peril of wound and agony, will die in a ditch of the Spotted Death or a fever before the most valiant of us would put out a hand to cover him again with his blanket He will get no woman to sound his coronach, even if he were Lord of the Isles.
Glenurchy at its foot was wailing with one loud unceasing coronach made up of many lamentations, for no poor croft, no keep, no steading in all the countryside almost, but had lost its man at Inverlochy. It was terrible to hear those sounds and see those sights of frantic women setting every thought of life aside to give themselves wholly to their epitaphs for the men who would come no more.
But the Great Earl's mither was living they were a doughty and a dour race, the women o' the house o' Glenallan and she wad hae nae coronach cried for her son, but had him laid in the silence o' midnight in his place o' rest, without either drinking the dirge, or crying the lament.
CATERAN, a Highland irregular soldier, a freebooter. CHAP, a customer. CLACHAN, a hamlet. CLAW FAVOUR, curry favour. CLAYMORE, a broad sword. CLEEK, a hook. CLEIK the cunzie, steal the silver. COB, beat. COBLE, a small fishing boat. COGS, wooden vessels. COGUE, a round wooden vessel. CONCUSSED, violently shaken, disturbed, forced. CORONACH, a dirge. CORRIE, a mountain hollow. COVE, a cave.
And now she'll pe playing you ta coronach of Clenco, which she was make herself for her own pipes." "I want to know first what Malcolm's real name is," persisted Lady Florimel. "Well, you see, my laty," returned Duncan, "some people has names and does not know them; and some people hasn't names, and will pe supposing they haf."
"Ah!" cried she, as she closed the dismal narrative; "though two lonely women were all they had left of the lately thronged household of Sir Ronald Crawford, to raise the last lament over his revered body, yet in that and midnight hour, our earthly voices were not alone; the wakeful spirits of his daughters, hovered in the air, and joined the deep coronach!"
But as the quaigh was active, and the whisky went its frequent round, the circle became more lively; until at last, to my utter astonishment, the bagpipes were introduced; and after a coronach or so just to quiet the spirit of their departed host up started a couple of dancers, and began jigging it over the floor with all the grace and agility peculiar to my Hebridean friends.
It rose above the ripple of the waves, above the screaming of the birds, finally stilling the coronach, and the air it gave an utterance to was the same that had often charmed the midnight bower, failing at the last abruptly as it had always done before. "By heavens! it is my Mary's favourite air, and that was all she knew of it," said Doom, and his face grew white with memory and a speculation.
The boat's prow fell off; the sail filled; she ran with a pleasant ripple through the waves, and there followed her a cry that only Doom of all the company knew was a coronach, followed by the music of Sim MacTaggart's flageolet.
The Jacobite farce, or tragedy, was speedily brought to a close by the battle of Culloden; there did Charlie wish himself back again o'er the water, exhibiting the most unmistakable signs of pusillanimity; there were the clans cut to pieces, at least those who could be brought to the charge, and there fell Giles Mac Bean, or as he was called in Gaelic, Giliosa Mac Beathan, a kind of giant, six feet four inches and a quarter high, "than whom," as his wife said in a coronach she made upon him, "no man who stood at Cuiloitr was taller" Giles Mac Bean the Major of the clan Cattan a great drinker a great fisher a great shooter, and the champion of the Highland host.
Word Of The Day