This one changes with the singing: I can't remember where I heard it. It was printed in Songs of the Hebrides, Volume I, by Marjory Kennedy-Fraser (London, 1909). She described it as "an old Skye air from Francis Tolmie, with words from Kenneth Macleod." In the published version, the accompanying sounds are slightly different, so we decided not to try to write them out. I've been told that there is a land to the Westward where the dead go; in this song the gull is the keeper of those who dwell there, and you'll have to ask him for the rest of it ...
Snow white seagull high ...
Tell to me
Where, ah, where thou rest them
Where our fair young lads are resting.
Grief within my heart is nesting ....
Heart to heart they lie,
Side by side,
Seafoam the sigh
From their cold lips coming;
Seawrack their shroud
And their harp the cold sea moaning.
Grief within my heart is nesting ....
Snow white seagull high ...
Tell to me
Where, ah, where thou rest them
Where our fair young lads are resting.
Seawrack their shroud
And their harps the cold sea moaning.
Grief within my heart is nesting ...