Skye but the meaning of this Gaelic name is unclear. , which means "island of the mist" (a translation of the Norse name), is a poetic Gaelic name for the island. At , Skye is the second-largest island in Scotland after Lewis and Harris. The coastline of Skye is a series of peninsulas and bays radiating out from a centre dominated by the Cuillin hills (Gaelic: ). Malcolm Slesser suggested that its shape "sticks out of the west coast of northern Scotland like a lobster's claw ready to snap at the fish bone of Harris and Lewis" and W. H. Murray,
In the Faëry Hills second-hand language" at some points, derivative of Wagner and Debussy, although "there is still a great deal which is wholly individual". "The Musical Times" praised "a mystic glamour that could not fail to be felt by the listener" although the coherence of the piece "was not instantly discernible". The work has, at 2015, been recorded three times for CD, by the Ulster Orchestra conducted by Bryden Thomson (1985), the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and David Lloyd-Jones (1997), and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Vernon Handley (2006). In the Faëry Hills In the Faëry Hills, to which the composer gave the