Lmst

Hamish Henderson, Burns & Music
21 June, Dundee Central Library – free

Prof Fred Freeman of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland talks about two great songsters & poets, Hamish Henderson & Robert Burns – both of whom redefined Scottish culture & provided a national & international vision of the country

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hamish-henderson-burns-and-music-tickets-1374121928679

#Scottish #literature #poetry #song #HamishHenderson #RobertBurns #Scots #Scotslanguage #culture #identity #Dundee

INSPIRATION
a film about Hamish Henderson
3 April, Scottish Poetry Library, Edinburgh – £5

“Inspiration” explores the complex life of Hamish Henderson, from war hero to folk song, through the eyes of artist Charles Nasmyth

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/screening-of-inspiration-a-film-about-hamish-henderson-tickets-1261391669439

#Scottish #literature #HamishHenderson #20thcentury #folksong #poetry

Hamish, Burns, & Music
11 Feb, Mitchell Library, Glasgow – free (ticket required)

Hamish Henderson & Robert Burns recreated Scotland – especially through their song-writing. This is an Immortal Memory with a difference by Prof Fred Freeman of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

https://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/event/2/hamish-burns-and-music

#Scottish #literature #song #songwriting #RobertBurns #HamishHenderson

There’s a sang that stouns
wi the hert’s bluid
that only yersel can hear…

—Ellie McDonald, “For Hamish Henderson on his 80th Birthday”
published in A KIST O SKINKLAN THINGS (ASL, 2016)

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/a-kist-o-skinlan-things/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #HamishHenderson

Ellie McDonald
For Hamish Henderson on his 80th Birthday

There’s a sang that stouns
wi the hert’s bluid
that only yersel can hear.

It’s the souch o the tide
owre a shingle beach,
an the cry o the whaup on the air.

It’s a reishlin wind
through a stand o birks
at the weet back end o the year,

It’s the wild geese cry,
an a burn in spate
as it finerts its wey tae the sea.

Wis are traivellin the road
wi that sang.

Naethin’s connacht.

The fiddle, the pibroch,
the muckle sangs bide true,
as we hirsel oursels
tae a nation again.

So gaither, gaither the fowk
tae the stert o a new sang.

Our ain sang for the warld.

Here’s a glorious rendition of Hamish Henderson’s “Freedom Come-All-Ye”, sung by Karine Polwart in the Italian Chapel, Orkney. The chapel was built & decorated by Italian POWs during WW2 using scraps & reclaimed materials, & is still in use today

7/7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PhuH2K5yzw

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #culture #folksong #HamishHenderson #WW2

Roch the wind in the clear day’s dawin
Blaws the cloods heelster-gowdie ow’r the bay,
But there’s mair nor a roch wind blawin
Through the great glen o’ the warld the day…

—Hamish Henderson, “The Freedom Come-All-Ye
in The Golden Treasury of Scottish Verse, @canongatebooks

6/7

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #culture #folksong #HamishHenderson

The Freedom Come-All-Ye
Hamish Henderson

Roch the wind in the clear day’s dawin
Blaws the cloods heelster-gowdie ow’r the bay,
But there’s mair nor a roch wind blawin
Through the great glen o’ the warld the day.
It’s a thocht that will gar oor rottans
– A’ they rogues that gang gallus, fresh and gay –
Tak the road, and seek ither loanins
For their ill ploys, tae sport and play

Nae mair will the bonnie callants
Mairch tae war when oor braggarts crousely craw,
Nor wee weans frae pit-heid and clachan
Mourn the ships sailin’ doon the Broomielaw.
Broken faimlies in lands we’ve herriet,
Will curse Scotland the Brave nae mair, nae mair;
Black and white, ane til ither mairriet,
Mak the vile barracks o’ their maisters bare.

So come all ye at hame wi’ Freedom,
Never heed whit the hoodies croak for doom.
In your hoose a’ the bairns o’ Adam
Can find breid, barley-bree and painted room.
When MacLean meets wi’s freens in Springburn
A’ the roses and geans will turn tae bloom,
And a black boy frae yont Nyanga
Dings the fell gallows o’ the burghers doon.

Hamish Henderson reading four poems: “Glasclune & Drumlochy”; “The Cell 1”; “The Cell 2”; & his translation of “Chimaera” by Dino Campana. Recorded April 1986 by Alexander Hutchsion at Edinburgh University’s School of Scottish Studies

5/7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTGHuddIOag

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #culture #poem #poetry #HamishHenderson

“One of the beastly sins of modern Scotland [is] that it’s a bit ashamed of the rich, riotous, very bawdy but also high spirited kindly & generous past.”

—Sex, Whisky & Rock & Reel: Dr Sarah Leith on Hamish Henderson’s reimagining of Scottish identity

4/7

https://scottishcriticalheritage.wordpress.com/2019/11/11/sex-whisky-and-rock-and-reel-hamish-hendersons-reimagining-of-scottish-identity/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #culture #folksong #HamishHenderson

Quo life, the warld is mine.
The floo’ers and trees, they’re a’ my ain.
I am the day, and the sunshine.
Quo life, the warld is mine…

—Hamish Henderson’s “The Flyting o’ Life and Daith” – based on a 16th-century German folksong – is sung here by Alison McMorland

3/7

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAheJjneNV4

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #culture #folksong #HamishHenderson

The Flyting o’ Life and Daith
Hamish Henderson

Quo life, the warld is mine.
The floo’ers and trees, they’re a’ my ain.
I am the day, and the sunshine
Quo life, the warld is mine.

Quo daith, the warld is mine.
Your lugs are deef, your een are blin
Your floo’ers maun dwine in my bitter win’
Quo daith, the warld is mine.

Quo life, the warld is mine.
I hae saft win’s, an’ healin’ rain,
Aipples I hae, an’ breid an’ wine
Quo life, the warld is mine.

Quo daith, the warld is mine.
Whit sterts in dreid, gangs doon in pain
Bairns wintin’ breid are makin’ mane
Quo daith, the warld is mine.

Quo life, the warld is mine.
Your deidly wark, I ken it fine
There’s maet on earth for ilka wean
Quo life, the warld is mine.

Quo daith, the warld is mine.
Your silly sheaves crine in my fire
My worm keeks in your barn and byre
Quo daith, the warld is mine.

Quo life, the warld is mine.
Dule on your een! Ae galliard hert
Can ban tae hell your blackest airt
Quo life, the warld is mine.

Quo daith, the warld is mine.
Your rantin’ hert, in duddies braw,
He winna lowp my preeson wa’
Quo daith, the warld is mine.

Quo life, the warld is mine.
Though ye bigg preesons o’ marble stane
Hert’s luve ye cannae preeson in
Quo life, the warld is mine.

Quo daith, the warld is mine.
I hae dug a grave, I hae dug it deep,
For war an’ the pest will gar ye sleep.
Quo daith, the warld is mine.

Quo life, the warld is mine.
An open grave is a furrow syne.
Ye’ll no keep my seed frae fa’in in.
Quo life, the warld is mine.

“The revolutionary & insurrectionary spirit of radical love is very much present in Henderson, a wanderer at the creative edge, forever pushing back against the domineering discourses of officialdom”

—Mairi McFadyen, Hamish Henderson & the Liberated Life

2/7

https://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2019/08/16/hamish-henderson-and-the-liberated-life/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #culture #HamishHenderson

Hamish Henderson (1919–2002) – poet, soldier, intellectual, activist, songwriter – was born
#OTD, 11 Nov. A hugely important figure in Scottish culture, Henderson fought in North Africa & Italy in WW2. A 🎂🧵

There were no gods and precious few heroes…
—“Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica”

1/7

https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/

#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #culture #warpoetry #WW2 #HamishHenderson

Hamish Henderson
FIRST ELEGY
End of a Campaign

There are many dead in the brutish desert,
who lie uneasy
among the scrub in this landscape of half-wit
stunted ill-will. For the dead land is insatiate
and necrophilous. The sand is blowing about still.
Many who for various reasons, or because of mere unanswerable compulsion, came here
and fought among the clutching gravestones, shivered and sweated,
cried out, suffered thirst, were stoically silent, cursed
the spittering machine-guns, were homesick for Europe
and fast embedded in quicksand of Africa agonised and died.
And sleep now. Sleep here the sleep of the dust.

There were our own, there were the others.
Their deaths were like their lives, human and animal.
There were no gods and precious few heroes.
What they regretted when they died had nothing to do with race and leader, realm indivisible,
laboured Augustan speeches or vague imperial heritage.
(They saw through that guff before the axe fell.) Their longing turned to
the lost world glimpsed in the memory of letters:
an evening at the pictures in the friendly dark,
two knowing conspirators smiling and whispering secrets; or else
a family gathering in the homely kitchen
with Mum so proud of her boys in uniform: their thoughts trembled
between moments of estrangement, and ecstatic moments
of reconciliation: and their desire
crucified itself against the unutterable shadow of someone
whose photo was in their wallets.
Then death made his incision.

There were our own, there were the others.
Therefore, minding the great word of Glencoe’s
son, that we should not disfigure ourselves
with villainy of hatred; and seeing that all
have gone down like curs into anonymous silence,
I will bear witness for I knew the others.
Seeing that littoral and interior are alike indifferent
and the birds are drawn again to our welcoming north
why should I not sing them, the dead, the innocent?

Happy 105th birthday to Hamish Henderson - communist, folklorist, high heidyin of the Scottish Folk Revival.

Henderson's song Freedom Come All Ye rallies against imperialism, exploitation and injustice, and calls all who stand against oppression never to give in:

'So come all ye at hame wi Freedom,
Never heed whit the hoodies croak for doom'

Here he is gien it laldy - https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/60736?l=en

#FolkMusic #FolkSong #Folk #Trad #TradMusic #Folklore #HamishHenderson #ProtestSong #FolkRevival

A black-and-white photo of an older Hamish Henderson. He has white mid-length hair, and wears a tweed hat, coat and scarf. He is standing against a wooden door. The photo is from Tobar an Dulchais: https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/major-contributors/hamish-henderson?l=en

Here’s a glorious rendition of Hamish Henderson’s “Freedom Come-All-Ye”, sung by Karine Polwart in the Italian Chapel, Orkney

#Scottish #literature #poetry #song #folksong #HamishHenderson

https://vimeo.com/73406037

Roch the wind in the clear day’s dawin
Blaws the cloods heelster-gowdie ow’r the bay,
But there’s mair nor a roch wind blawin
Through the great glen o’ the warld the day…

—Hamish Henderson, “The Freedom Come-All-Ye”
in The Golden Treasury of Scottish Verse, @canongatebooks 2021

#Scottish #literature #poetry #song #folksong #HamishHenderson

Always like stopping at Hamish Henderson's childhood home in Glenshee, which backs right onto the kirkyard.

Henderson was a major organiser of the Scottish Folk Revival in the 1950s-70s. Some of his interest in folk culture came from his upbringing here and around Blairgowrie, where he heard his mother and their neighbours singing traditional songs.

#FolkMusic #ScottishMusic #Folklore #ScottishFolkRevival #Scotland #TraditionalMusic #TradMusic #Perthshire #HamishHenderson