Page 125 - Art First: Helen MacAlister: At the Foot o’ Yon Excellin’ Brae
P. 125
No Lack of Lamentation The phrase, ironic and droll, comes from an alert to a
2
1
sand-blasted glass , 2009, A2, edition of 2 particular disposition – an aptness to romanticise. This
predilection can be host to a defiled factoring of things
Scottish or Highland, thereby Gaelic and can obscure
healthy questions of tradition and contemporaneity by dint
of acceptance. Properties of obvious sentiment and (false)
reverence can mar.
Language itself is agent and need not be
thirled. ‘Lamenting’ can be shunned.
The obligatory ‘Cha robh na duain so air
an tionndadh gu Beurla riamh roimhe – not previously
translated’ is rich and the ‘lamenting’ domain can alter.
3
1 The glass itself is English Muffle by type
2 Reference; Skye: The Island - James Hunter, p18
3 Highland Songs of the Forty-Five - John Lorne Campbell, p V111
125
