The Blood is Strong * 33 Weeks

In Bryan Sykes book Blood of the Isles (the American title is Saxons, Vikings and Celts) he explores and discovers the genetic history of those who live, or whose ancestors lived, in Britain and Ireland. The science is fascinating, and reading the book makes you proud to hail from those parts. You realize that that mitochondrial DNA carries memories with it - so-to-speak. How else could you explain that emotional and almost physical tug my siblings and I have felt when we have gone back to Scotland?

Music brings these feelings to the fore almost better than anything else. Last week I bought the Corries Song "Peat Fire Flame" for my ipod, and when I put it on Heather and I just stood still, listening, feeling everything in that song. As Heather so aptly expressed it, it makes you want to sell everything you have and go live in a black house in the middle of nowhere. The blood is strong.

Peat-Fire Flame(K. MacLeod)
Far away and o'er the moor,
Morar waits for a boat that saileth,
Far away down Lowland way,
I dream the dream I learned, lad.

By the light o' the peat-fire flame,
Light for love, for lilt, for laughter,
By the light o' the peat-fire flame,
The light the hill-folk yearn for.

Far away, down Lowland way,
Grim's the toil, without tune or dream, lad,
All you need's a creel and love,
For the dream the heart can weave, lad.

Far away the tramp and tread,
Tune and laughter of all the heroes,
Pulls me onward o'er the trail
Of the dream my heart may weave, lad,