Epic ballad of treachery, witchcraft, sea voyage, pirates, enchantment, love, loss and suicide from Scottish tradition.  Make yourself comfortable before embarking on this 13 minute journey into the mirky depths and listen as the drama unfolds.  A fragment of this ballad is known as "The Lass of Aughrim" and appears in James Joyce's story "The Dead", since recorded by Ewan McGregor and Beth Patterson, among others.  

This version is the final track on CD1 : Songs on the double album "Haunting".  Because it is so long, iTunes will not allow download of this track individually; it is available as a single track from CDBaby, though, and there's a link to the page on the christinastewart.com website.  

This track is mirrored on the second CD of "Haunting" by Andrew Mackintosh's spoken word track, "The Laggan Witch".

Find out more on the website www.christinastewart.com.

Annie of Lochroyan

Robert Burns' take on the thoughts of a young girl, smitten by the gorgeous Tam Glen, sung to accompaniment on cello by Jo Baird.  

This track appears on the double album "Haunting" as track 3 on the first CD : Songs.  This is mirrored by "Divining for Love" which appears as Track 3 on the second CD : Spoken Word, where Iain Campbell explains the references in "Tam Glen" to Scottish Hallowe'en customs.

Find out more on the website www.christinastewart.com 

Tam Glen

Classic tale of girl meets Devil... Our heroine ignores her parents' advice and goes walking outside the bounds of their estate.  Naturally, she immediately runs into the Devil.  Luckily, she is smart enough to talk her way out of his clutches.

For more, visit the website - www.christinastewart.com


Blow, ye Winds, Blow

Sister murders sister in this Scottish ballad, but the murderess gets her come-uppance when the miller retrieves the corspe and bizarrely decides to create a harp from the deceased's breast bone.  The hypnotic, driving narrative of the ballad leads inexorably through the grisly goings-on to the otherworldly climax of the fatal accusation.

This track appears on the "Haunting" album and is mirrored by Iain M Campbell's spoken word track, "The Brist-bane Harp".

Check out the website www.christinastewart.com for more.

Binnorie

Second sight, or premonition, of doom brings a Highland lord home from foreign parts, touchingly just too late to save his beloved.  The Lovat estates are just round the corner from where I live, but such is the power of this song, it has versions through other English speaking countries.

This track appears on the "Haunting" album and is mirrored by Iain M Campbell's spoken word track, "Echoes of the Future".

For more, visit www.christinastewart.com

Lord Lovat

Tragic tale of a young mother forced to take terrible action.   Until surprisingly recently, it was a capital offence in Scotland to conceal a pregnancy.  Although seldom acted on, the awful prospect casts its shadow over this song, with its dreadful consequences for the life of the infant and the mother's mental health.

This track appears on CD1 of the "Haunting" album and is mirrored on CD2 by Andrew Mackintosh's spoken word track, "The Accusing Ghost".

For more, visit www.christinastewart.com.


Fine Flowers in the Valley

A young Norwegian mother sings a lullaby to her baby, little knowing that the baby's father, a grey selkie, can hear her.  There are many Scottish stories of the selkie people who appear as seals in the sea and as people on land.  In this tale, there is a moral, too, as the selkie proposes to marry the mother, but she turns him down.  He comes back after seven years to take his son, richly dressed and with a coffer of money.  The mother suddenly changes her mind, but the offer of marriage is no longer open to her.  Her decision ultimately results in tragedy.

This track appears on CD1 of the "Haunting" album, mirrored on CD2 by Iain M Campbell's spoken word track, "Selkies and Grey Seals".

For more, visit www.christinastewart.com.

The Grey Selkie

Also known as "The Headless Corpse" in Scottish Gaelic, this song's gentle melody and homesick lyrics hide a tale of brutal violence.

This track appears on CD1 of the "Haunting" double album and is mirrored on CD2 by the spoken word track "The Headless Corpse" which explains its gruesome origins.

For more, visit www.christinastewart.com

Bonn Beinn Eadarra

The voice of a fairy woman sings "Chuala mi do glaodh ‘sa bhruthaich
 (I heard your cry on the brae)
Ged a chuala cha d’ chuir umhail
 (If I heard, I didn’t give it notice)
Gus an cualas guth an fhithich
 (Until was heard the voice of the raven)
Fuil do chuim ’sa fhraoch a’ sruthadh
 (Blood of your body in the heather, streaming)"

This track appears on CD1 of the "Haunting" double album with the spoken word track "The Fairy Lover" on CD2 explaining the story behind the song.

For more, visit www.christinastewart.com

Oran Leannain Sidhe

Iain M Campbell's personal recollection of fairies in the Western Isles of Scotland.  

This track appears on the second CD of the album "Haunting".  The album's first CD is made up of songs sung by Christina Stewart and the second CD is spoken word tracks which mirror the songs.

Iain passed away at the end of June, 2013, and will be sorely missed by many.  He had umpteen talents, as well as being a tremendous store of knowledge on life, traditions, lore and how to keep a double decker mobile arts venue on the road in all weathers.

Before we recorded this track, Iain told me about how deeply ingrained a sense of the existence of fairies could be (even while you didn't consciously acknowledge any belief).  As a young man, who had no truck with nonsense like fairies, Iain had worked as a gillie and was returning home one day with a stag draped across his shoulders.  He was following the gamekeeper across the moorland and with a combination of sweat and blood from the carcass obscuring his view, he momentarily lost sight of the man in front of him.  In that moment, the gamekeeper vanished.  The man had completely disappeared.  Iain's instinctive response was that the fairies must have taken him.   He surprised himelf with the thought.  They were out on open ground with no rocks or trees to hide a fully grown man.  It didn't take him long to find the gamekeeper, who had fallen down a crack in the heather, exactly deep enough to take his full height.  Over 50 years later, what Iain remembered was the reaction that he had had, much to his own surprise, that the fairies must have taken the man.

For more, visit www.christinastewart.com.

Encounters with Fairies

"Picture, if you will, warm, sweet, organic honey drizzling slowly from a honey wand... Stewart's voice is the aural equivalent. "  
(Susan Hartman in Dirty Linen magazine)
Christina is a traditional singer from the Scottish Highlands, equally at home singing in Scottish Gaelic or Scots dialect.  Her latest album "Haunting" is made up of 2 CDs - the first of 14 evocative songs from Scottish tradition and the second of 14 spoken word tracks, mirroring the songs, all belonging to the eerie otherworld supernatural belief and custom.

ChristinaStewart