Blair Collection > Songs and hymns of the Scottish Highlands

language contains no hymns that show the levity frequently found in popular
Englisji hymn-books.
The Sacred Music of the Highlands has a close affinity to the secular melodies,
and in some cases elegiac and other suitable tunes seem to have been adapted to
sacred words. But numbers of the hymns have their own proper tunes, many of
them sweet, expressive, and in every way worthy to be the exponents of religious
feeling. Besides the hymn tunes, there is another class of sacred melodies in the
Highlands which is very interesting — the Psalm tunes, which differ widely from those
familiar to the English-speaking world. This is specially true of the small number
of very long and elaborate tunes that have been used in the north for many genera-
tions, and which are known as the " old " tunes. Their origin is unknown, for
though there is a tradition that they were brought into Scotland by devout Highland
soldiers returning from -the Protestant wars of Gustavus Adolphus, they bear little
resemblance to the Psalm tunes of Sweden and Germany. If, indeed, any such
imported foreign music formed the basis of Gaelic psalmody, the superstructure has
probably been moulded by the chants used in Highland worship before the importa-
tion took place. In the Psalm tunes as we now have them the predominance of
local colouring is very marked, and it may be said that, even more than the un-
questionably native music of the hymns, these Psalm tunes express the deep serious-
ness of Highland religion.