An Australian chicken breeder, Mr McFowler, fails to win competitions with his prized chicken, Hector, but he discovers Hector has another talent: dancing to Mr McFowler's old Scottish records. Mr McFowler sees an opportunity and has Hector form a highland dancing troupe which eventually woos audiences at the Edinburgh Tattoo.

Lady Mairi Macdonald, daughter of the Lord of the Isles, and blessed in ways other women of her time never even dream of, is the kingdom's most sought-after bride. But no man has touched her heart, least of all the prince everyone expects her to wed. Then Lachlan "The Wily" Maclean, a Highland warrior with a network of spies that keeps him the most well-informed man in the kingdom, joins the Court of the Isles. He passionately wants Mairi, and although she scorns his impudent ways, she gasps at his touch . . . Accustomed to fighting for what he wants, Lachlan forms a daring plan to win her, only to ignite the jealousy of a powerful, implacable enemy who expects to win not only Mairi but the entire Kingdom of the Isles.

Old and New World Highland Bagpiping provides a comprehensive biographical and genealogical account of pipers and piping in highland Scotland and Gaelic Cape Breton.The work is the result of over thirty years of oral fieldwork among the last Gaels in Cape Breton, for whom piping fitted unself-consciously into community life, as well as an exhaustive synthesis of Scottish archival and secondary sources. Reflecting the invaluable memories of now-deceased new world Gaelic lore-bearers, John Gibson shows that traditional community piping in both the old and new world Gàihealtachlan was, and for a long time remained, the same, exposing the distortions introduced by the tendency to interpret the written record from the perspective of modern, post-eighteenth-century bagpiping. Following up the argument in his previous book, Traditional Gaelic Bagpiping, 1745-1945, Gibson traces the shift from tradition to modernism in the old world through detailed genealogies, focusing on how the social function of the Scottish piper changed and step-dance piping progressively disappeared. Old and New World Highland Bagpiping will stir controversy and debate in the piping world while providing reminders of the value of oral history and the importance of describing cultural phenomena with great care and detail.

The step-dancing of the Scotch Gaels in Nova Scotia is the last living example of a form of dance that waned following the great emigrations to Canada that ended in 1845. The Scotch Gael has been reported as loving dance, but step-dancing in Scotland had all but disappeared by 1945. One must look to Gaelic Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and Antigonish County, to find this tradition. Gaelic Cape Breton Step-Dancing, the first study of its kind, gives this art form and the people and culture associated with it the prominence they have long deserved. Gaelic Scotland’s cultural record is by and large pre-literate, and references to dance have had to be sought in Gaelic songs, many of which were transcribed on paper by those who knew their culture might be lost with the decline of their language. The improved Scottish culture depended proudly on the teaching of dancing and the literate learning and transmission of music in accompaniment. Relying on fieldwork in Nova Scotia, and on mentions of dance in Gaelic song and verse in Scotland and Nova Scotia, John Gibson traces the historical roots of step-dancing, particularly the older forms of dancing originating in the Gaelic–speaking Scottish Highlands. He also places the current tradition as a development and part of the much larger British and European percussive dance tradition. With insight collected through written sources, tales, songs, manuscripts, book references, interviews, and conversations, Gaelic Cape Breton Step-Dancing brings an important aspect of Gaelic history to the forefront of cultural debate.