There are few landscapes in the western world more bewitching than the mountain glens of the Scottish Highlands and the scattered islands of the Hebrides. The beauty of this region, its tumultuous history and the musical and poetic nature of its people has produced a remarkable oral heritage. There are verses composed by gentle scholar saints, incantations and stirring panegyrics by the Gaelic bards, Jacobite songs and satires, laments inspired by love and exile, and great poems from the recent renaissance in the Gidhealtachd, which address subjects that will resonate with anybody familiar with the region today.