Owls and Orchids

Blood-soaked Culloden after the battle.

Proud and free they lived

Asking for nothing but a free life

In mountainous Highlands

And Lowlands valleys

Taking only their right to freedom

To breathe the sweet air of the north

Wild and free was their Spirit

Taming a land of wild extremes

In icy freshets they bathed

‘Parritch’ their staple fare

Living where no-one else dared

The English called them ‘heathen’

They also branded them ‘Jacobite’

For the want of a monarch

Bonnie Prince Charlie was he

To live a live they chose

At Culloden betrayed they were

By the pride of Laird and Prince

Their Prince’s money….. Vanished

In their hearts naught but cold and hunger

Nor weapons for their hands

Still they stood to face their foe

Only their pride held them stay

Only pride to fight the bloody affray

Keeping the hated Redcoats at bay

A hopeless cause from that start

Fighting fiercely their heart sore to burst

Swarmed by a moving tide of red

English Redcoats soon to come where Scottish bled

Scotland’s sons and daughters

Slaughtered without mercy

No mercy was asked nor given

The English goal to strip away life

Death held sway over the land

Their language, their kilt ripped away

Imprisoned and tortured for their pride

England saw only raw defiance

No independence, no reliance

Just death!

Her people now are gone

To newer lands to sing their song

To stand with pride once more

Their kilt, their mettle to show

Yet their hearts are still set

Part of Scotland still set

Midst heather, peat and mountain

Pride renewed, a glorious fountain

Neither redcoat nor foreign foe

Can keep Scotland’s children from her wild shores.

Whither thou goest

Wherever thou may roam

Til British rule expires and

Scotland stands free once more.

Memorial for the Highlanders who fell at Culloden and later.

Blessings, Susan, ♥

 ©  Susan Jamieson, 2014

 ©  Executive Sorceress, 2014

“For as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom — for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.”
From The Declaration of Arbroath 1320.

Images courtesy of www.scotchwhisky.de and www.mundo.cz

As these things often do, this came to me from out of the blue. It was not until I did the research that I found the dates for the Culloden Homecoming, a celebration of Highland culture to be commemorated on September 6^th and 7^th this year. Perhaps the old blood is calling. In their memory……