The Road To The Isles

"The Road to the Isles" is a famous Scottish traditional song. It is part of the Kennedy-Fraser collection and it appeared in a book entitled 'Songs of the Hebrides' published in 1917, with the eponymous title by the Celtic poet Kenneth Macleod. The poem is headed by the statement 'Written for the lads in France during the Great War'. The impression is given by the notes appended to the book that the author was Kenneth Macleod himself. Marjory Kennedy-Fraser toured the Western Isles of Scotland in the summer of 1917 and collected a group of local tunes. The tune associated with the Road to the Isles was an air played by Malcolm Johnson of Barra on a chanter and composed by Pipe Major John McLellan of Dunoon (originally titled "The Bens of Jura"). Kenneth Macleod then wrote the words for a voice and harp (or piano) arrangement of this air by Patuffa Kennedy-Fraser. It is said to have been played by Bill Millen, piper to Simon Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat, during the first day of the Normandy Landings on D-Day during World War II, during a daring Commando attack during Operation Roast in the Spring 1945 offensive in Italy, and also at the start of construction on Toronto's first subway line, under Yonge Street, in 1949.

The lyrics mention first the hills of the Isle of Skye (whose memory is calling the traveller west); then the successive locations he will pass on the way across the Western Highlands and Inner and Outer Hebrides. The locations mentioned are (in this order): the Cuillin Hills (on the Isle of Skye), Tummel (in Perthshire), Loch Rannoch (in Perth and Kinross), Lochaber (to the west of the Scottish Highlands), Shiel (near Fort William), Ailort (near the Sound of Arisaig), Morar (near Loch Morar), the Skerries (rocky islets - in this case, just off Skye), and the Lews (near Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis).

A cromach or cromack is a shepherd's crook or stick.