For nearly half a century this gentle Scottish scholar [Alexander Carmichael] crisscrossed the meadows and moors, mountains and islands of northern Scotland, clad in full Highlands regalia, with kilt, sporran, and sgian dubh (dagger), a walking stick in his right hand and a notebook in his left, sleeping under the stars or in rude shepherds' huts, knocking at a cottage here and a manor house there, and courteously begging, when the door cracked open, for a chance to explain his quest. His mission was to seek out, collect, and preserve the vanishing Gaelic folklore—hymns and tales, incantations, and curses, and above all, prayers—of this remote Highlands region, where the corrosive culture of modernity had not yet won the day.

The images of reality become more and more hazed, more and more dim. Hibernation pulls him away. Floating, the nightmare returns.

With a big heavy bucket full of bottles of warm milk, she would call out, “Here, lamby, lamby, lamby.”

Her third release hit number one in record time — “number one with a bullet” as they said in the industry — and after that, there seemed to be no stopping her.