Last night, I popped into Cix with the intention of asking a question about touristy things to do in and around Quimper on the Brest peninsular.  (Anyone got any suggestions?)

Unfortunately, someone on the Francophile group had posted a request for a translation of O Flower of Scotland – with the very specific proviso that the French version had to fit the music so that French people could sing along with Scots.

Now, on French Wikipedia, there’s a literal translation which is rather nice, but is no way singable.  I particularly liked:

The Hills are bare now
And Autumn leaves lie thick and still

Les collines sont désertes à présent
Et gisent les feuilles d’automne en un manteau épais et silencieux

So, I settled down to work and produced something that more or less occasionally scans – and even uses the past historic tense, as I think a song like this would probably benefit from some literary class.

It’s by no means a perfect translation, and could certainly do with professional and/or native speaker help to knock it into shape. For starters, I got lost with whether the Flower of Scotland was singular or plural, so my translation moves on from verse to verse – with flower being tu in the first verse, “those who so dearly held” being plural, and moving onto Nous resisting proud Edward’s army by the final verse.

Oh, and it definitely gets lost in the middle of the second verse and doesn’t entirely make sense.

But see what you think. All improvements welcomed.