The Skye Boat Song✧
A gentle crossing in three beats. Let the dotted notes carry the melody.
Sheet music
Tap a staff note or finger tab to hear it.
A · over the water
B · a little lift
A · home again
D whistle · G major · 3/4 · 90 BPM · + upper octave
A · over the water
B · a little lift
A · home again
Lyrics
Harold Boulton · Songs of the North (1884)
Sing the chorus between verses. These are Boulton’s original words; other lyric versions also exist.
Chorus Speed bonnie boat like a bird on the wing, Onward, the sailors cry. Carry the lad that’s born to be king Over the sea to Skye.
Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar, Thunderclaps rend the air, Baffled, our foes stand by the shore, Follow they will not dare.
Many’s the lad fought on that day, Well the claymore could wield, When the night came, silently lay Dead in Culloden’s field.
Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep, Ocean’s a royal bed. Rock’d in the deep Flora will keep Watch o’er your weary head.
Burned are our homes, exile and death, Scattered the loyal men. Yet ere the sword cool in the sheath, Charlie will come again.
About this tune
The Skye Boat Song looks back to Charles Edward Stuart’s escape after the Jacobite defeat at Culloden in 1746. Flora MacDonald helped him travel to Skye in disguise; the song imagines a small boat crossing troubled water.
The familiar words are by Harold Boulton, published with Annie MacLeod in Songs of the North in 1884. The rocking three-beat melody draws on a Scottish air and gives the story the motion of a boat on the sea.
Performances
Watch musicians play this tune on tin whistle. Keys and arrangements may differ from the tabs above.
The Skye Boat Song
whistletutor
Sean Cunningham plays and teaches the melody on tin whistle
Watch on YouTube — The Skye Boat Song by whistletutor (opens in a new tab) ↗