This ditty about the name of city, tells a story that’s not so pretty. It’s a witty ditty, with shadow puppets and trumpets, mechanical beasts and other treats. It’s part hysterical, part historical, and thoroughly musical. Learn how Skildar lost an R, but it gained a dot.
The video by Dominic Hook features the artistic and puppeteering skills of St Kilda legend, James Cattell and a bunch of iconic St Kilda landmarks. Enjoy.
There’s Never Been a Saint Kilda
There’s never been a Saint Kilda
That suburb by the bay was named for a sailing ship named after a lady
Jailed on an island by her husband… way to the west of Scotland
And that St Kilda archipelago’s dodgy etymology may well well involve a two-tongue tautology
Doubly dubbed in Gaelic and Norse, Tobar Childa, is where Martin Martin sought the source
But the main island and another further afield translate as Deathly, Westerly, Shepherd or Shield
That’s Hirta and Skildar, which led, for sure, to a helter skelter of nomenclature
Through decades of maps, names morphed and swapped spots, Skildar lost an R, but it gained a dot
After the S and thence folks must’ve surmised that someone called Kilda had been canonised
Beatified with the power to bewilder
But there’s never been a Saint Kilda
That suburb by the bay was named for a sailing ship named after a lady
Jailed on an island by her husband… way to the west of Scotland
Rachel Chiesley was ten years old when she saw her father hung
Hanged, for the murder of the judge who has settled his divorce, thus Rachel, too, was highly strung
But she found a beau in James, Lord Grange, and their marriage produced nine kids
But as her looming gloom consumed her groom, their doomed union was soon on the skids
Yeah, but James was Jacobite rebel and Rachel had threatened to expose his sympathies
So he faked her death and had her forcibly transported westerly through the Hebrides
For eight years she’d languish, she didn’t speak the language, the arctic gales they chilled her
Then she was moved to Skye, again to falsely die, another three years mustn’t’ve thrilled her
’Til her third death sadly stilled her heart
But there’s never been a Saint Kilda
That suburb by the bay was named for a sailing ship named after a lady
Jailed on an island by her husband… way to the west of Scotland
Sir Thomas Acland’s wife was touched by Lady Grange’s tragic tale
So Thom named his schooner the Lady of St Kilda and soon for Melbourne it set sail
And there on the north-east Port Phillip shore, it was moored for more than a year
So, rather than Punk Town, Green Knoll or Fareham, the faux holy handle did indelibly adhere
Indeed, on the whim of the wife of a boat builder
There’s never been a Saint Kilda
That suburb by the bay was named for a sailing ship named after a lady
Jailed on an island by her husband… way to the west of Scotland
Hmmm, but was the lady, in truth, Hirta’s Female Warrior? And what of the monk and the spring?
Forsooth, the mystery history of the moniker donned upon this Hobson Bay foreshore’s a convoluted thing
And the city name blame game aim of this little ditty’s now pretty fairly fulfilled, aahh…
But if there were a Saint Kilda
Then maybe they’d be named the patron saint of hardy hot-headed women
Hard-done by cagey cold-hearted men
Of crazy etymology crossing geography and canonising cartography, but then again
There’s never been a Saint Kilda
That suburb by the bay was named for a sailing ship named after a lady
Jailed on an island by her husband… way to the west of Scotland
Sing it!
There’s never been a Saint Kilda
That suburb by the bay was named for a sailing ship named after a lady
Jailed on an island by her husband… way to the west of Scotland
©Mal Webb 2019
