I’m a tactical steer.
Listening this morning to my favorite cut off of Bear McCreary’s magnificent Outlander soundtrack: “Charge of the Highland Cattle.” If that don’t get your blood pumping, you need to see a doctor. My daughter Ceili cues it up before tests and auditions and such, when she needs to feel the fire.
Turn it up to 11 and thump on your steering wheel. Drums and pipes, my friends. Them and a wee dram will make a hero out of ye, so they will!
No spoilers for those of you who haven’t yet watched Outlander (what are you waiting for?) Suffice it to say that them cute little critters have unexpected tactical value.
Season 3 of the STARZ show will air in September. I am quite looking forward to the progress of the tale from the Scottish Highlands to the Caribbean and thence to frontier North Carolina. It is historical fact that a large number of Highlanders ended up in North Carolina, where they pushed up the Cape Fear River and settled thickly. I have not read Diana Gabaldon’s books, but I am familiar enough with the tale to know that the Frasers — Jamie and Claire — end up settling in western North Carolina in the late 1760s, on Fraser’s Ridge, in the neighborhood of the Yadkin Valley where Daniel Boone was farming (well, mostly hunting) and dreaming of finding Caintuckee. I don’t know if the Frasers encounter Boone. Anybody?
That Carolina back country was a powder keg in the 1760s, with a low-intensity war going on among political/economic factions, known as the War of the Regulators, which fed into and prefigured the civil war in the Carolinas — a kind of war-within-the-war — during the American Revolution. Given the Frasers’ penchant for getting themselves into trouble, I expect they are involved…
Dammit, I’m tempting myself to read Voyager…
deuce says
Gotta love Highland coos!*
Not a misspelling.
Yeah, there were North Carolina Highlanders who marched to war for King George, claymores swingin’. They’d fought the Crown before and paid a terrible price. They weren’t going through that again, or so they thought. Typical Gaelic luck.
There were Scots Gaelic newspapers in NC at one point.
JimC says
Gaelic was common in NC deep into the 19th century and probably well into the 20th in some areas.
Black Tyrone says
Myself a piper with the MacLeods of Cornwall NY. Band wore Ancient Macleod of Harris tartan. Played from 1986 to 2014. Though Band dated back to 1959. Got as high as grade 3 in competition. Band was 1989 North East Champions grade 5. Had to play dance music back then in the “Circle” Enjoy a snappy 4 part 6/8 march and a good Strathspey. Fan of the late Great PM Donald Macleod he escaped the fall of France 1n 1940 walking across France speaking only Scots Gaelic when questioned. Germans probably thought he was some kind of Neutral citizen ie. Portugal Scots Guards Vol 1 and 2 are bibles for pipers. Best
JimC says
A noble endeavor!
Breaker Morant says
Rob Roy which is on my Top 5 list of movies also features Scotch Highland cattle and they come in handy for Liam Neeson.
I always thought “Breaker Morant” would be my forever favorite movie-but I have to put “Second-Hand Lions” and “Blood Diamond” on par with it.
“Rob Roy” is just below those 3 on my forever favorite list.
JimC says
Outstanding choices, all. Been too long since I’ve watched Rob Roy.
John Griffith says
I’ll drop the DVD by when I see you Thursday. We watch it a couple of time a year, as much for the music and atmosphere as the story. “Braveheart” is right up there too, as is “Last of the Mohicans”.
JimC says
Right on!
Matthew says
That’s a real epic soundtrack.
You know I love how you can hear just about any song on Youtube. You type in Alice Cooper you can get his songs on serial killers, necrophilia, school massacres, and interviews about how he found Jesus.
JimC says
Bear McCreary is truly outstanding.
Matthew says
I meant to put this is the last post but the sequel to the crossover anthology Face Off, Match Up has a story from the Outlander series in it.
john roberts says
When my wife and I went to live in Scotland in the early ’70s I was looking forward to seeing the highland cattle. Because of their shagginess they look like huge, prehistoric beasts in photos but I was surprised to learn that they are small animals. The thin, stingy Highland/Island soil encourages animals that can live on minimal forage, like the Shetland ponies.
JimC says
Yeah, they’re what? waist height?
Lane Batot says
Well I reckon that might just depend where they are raised–I took care of a couple in a zoo in Tennessee some years back that rivaled Bison in size! Despite that(and those formidable horns) these two girls were some of the shyest, gentlest critters at this zoo! I LOVE these cattle, and I’d have some myself, if I had the proper place to keep them. I settled for some realistic plastic toy ones to decorate a niche in my shack. And LOVE the movie Rob Roys, both the superb, more accurate Liam Neeson one, and the purely romantic old Disney one, too(which can still be got, but at an unfair Montrosial price!)
Mikhaela Burke says
When growing up my great grandmother and her daughter would play music from Scotland and Ireland (my grandmother’s family was from Scotland, and my grandfathers from Ireland). And once I hit college I became fast friends with students from Scotland and Ireland. So knowing that STARZ came out with outlander made my family and I really happy. Because it was like watching our heritage with fiction. We would always go to the Celtic fest here in Tennessee, until Nannie passed and then it was never the same. But listening to the outlander soundtracks while at work (real estate) I feels more like home and so relaxing. I do however catch myself listening to “Charge of the Highland Cattle” in my car when I’m driving to a closing, but again it’s such a great song with the bagpipes and drums.
JimC says
Outstanding.