Scottish Blessings for Weddings
This page features three inspiring Scottish blessings, suitable for a wedding service or toasting the bride and groom at their wedding reception. The first blessing is presented in its original Gaelic form (with English translation). There is also the beautiful "May the blessing of light be on you", and "May the hills lie low". Finally there is a short traditional Irish blessing "May there always be work for your hands to do" appropriate for reading in the ceremony or sending as a message in a wedding card.
A blessing in Scottish Gaelic
Mi\le fa\ilte dhuit le d'bhre/id,
Fad do re/ gun robh thu sla\n.
Mo/ran la\ithean dhuit is si\th,
Le d'mhaitheas is le d'ni\ bhi fa\s.
Translated into English as:
"A thousand welcomes to you with your marriage kerchief,
May you be healthy all your days.
May you be blessed with long life and peace,
May you grow old with goodness, and with riches."
(This is thought to be the work of Rev. Donald MacLeod, minister at Duirinish, Skye, Scotland c. 1760)
resources on this page
May there always be work for your hands to do
May the hills lie low
May The Road Rise Up To Meet You
The words of this famous gaelic blessing set to music:-
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
May the blessing of light be on you
(Scottish Blessing Prayer)
May the blessing of light be on you, light without and light within. May the blessed sunlight shine on you like a great peat fire, so that stranger and friend may come and warm himself at it. And may light shine out of the two eyes of you, like a candle set in the window of a house, bidding the wanderer come in out of the storm. And may the blessing of the rain be on you, may it beat upon your Spirit and wash it fair and clean, and leave there a shining pool where the blue of Heaven shines, and sometimes a star. And may the blessing of the earth be on you, soft under your feet as you pass along the roads, soft under you as you lie out on it, tired at the end of day; and may it rest easy over you when, at last, you lie out under it. May it rest so lightly over you that your soul may be out from under it quickly; up and off and on its way to God. And now may the Lord bless you, and bless you kindly.
Another Scottish Blessing:-
May the hills lie low
May the hills lie low,
May the sloughs fill up,
In thy way.
May all evil sleep,
May all good awake,
In thy way.
(taken from "Mystery on the Isle of Skye")
A beautiful Irish blessing
(suitable to read at a wedding)
