The Princess' welcome to the Highlands = Failte na Ban-phrionnsa do'n Ghaidhealtachd

The Princess' welcome to the Highlands = by Archibald Farquharson. This is an occasional Scottish Gaelic ode (with a brief English religious commentary) from the Victorian era. It is a celebratory welcome song for a royal bride entering the Highlands, mixing courtly praise with Christian allegory.

The poem’s refrain invites the royal maiden to come and dwell among the Gaels, hailing her beauty, her mother the Queen’s benevolence, and her chosen match with the noble heir of Argyll, while promising bonfires, universal clan goodwill beyond the Campbells, and greetings delivered in the Gaelic tongue. It prays for her lasting happiness, health, fruitful descendants in Argyll, and ultimate heavenly peace. An appended note reinterprets the welcome as an allegory of the Church as the Bride of Christ: England as a wilderness, the Highlands as Zion, the Queen as a symbol of governments that grant religious liberty, Highlanders as the Bridegroom’s friends speaking the “language of Zion,” and the clans as Christian sects destined to unite. It culminates in the hope of worldwide Alleluias when the marriage of the Lamb is come.