What Martyn said about the poem Hallaig:

"I was absolutely overwhelmed when I first read this poem by the great Gaelic bard Sorley MacLean. His analogy of 'time' being the deer is a poignant one. Here the poet stands looking at the ruins of Hallaig on the Isle of Raasay, reflecting upon his people who, like the deer, were not aware of their passing. He refers to them as trees, 'their laughter a mist in my tears'. I feel that this poem expresses, more than any other, the sadness and wonder that I feel when I look upon abandoned communities in Scotland, cleared for nothing more than sheep and cheap English profit."

Communications between Neil Kempsell and Martyn regarding the film:

"I have always thought that Hallaig as a piece of music would certainly be lifted by some sort of film/animation. I am delighted that you would like to use it in your work."

"I have seen your work and I think it's really bonny. It must take such a lot of work!."

"Perhaps in the future I may also get some funding to commision more of your work to go with a couple of tracks for my new album Grit. Maybe you would be interested?."

What Seamus Heaney said about the poem Hallaig:

"In Sorley MacLean's poem 'Hallaig' the personal and social tragedy of irreparable loss come together, but something else begins to happen which chimes with that quality I mentioned possessed by the great tragedies: a remembering that accompanies the disintegration, a kind of re-imagining, a strange joy. In 'Hallaig', MacLean evokes the memories of a cleared township on his native Island of Raasay, in the Hebrides. Here is how Seamus Heaney introduces it: 'Hallaig' is a key poem, insofar as it's about haunting and loss and this theme is a constant one all through MacLean's work, as indeed is the theme of love and wounding. It's a magnificent epiphany, time, memory made palpable in these lucid, paradisal, melancholy, arbitrary images."

"The poem has a shimmer of the symbolist imagination about it. It's the same kind of poem, I think, in one way, as Eliot's '‘Marina'. But, as well as this skimmer of transcendence and the visionary, there is the firm foothold in history, there's the naming of people, places, the allusion to the clearances, and this makes it part also of the Gaelic tradition."

Other Statements about Hallaig and the music:

"Passing the memorial cairn to the Gaelic poet, Sorley MacLean, and stunning scenery, we came to the deserted township of Hallaig where they tethered children to pegs to stop them sliding over the cliff. Adding to the excitement of the coastal path were eagles soaring above and recent landslides necessitating diversions along the shore."

"Bennett pulls off a track like Hallaig - a tribute to the late Skye poet Sorley MacLean. The cut starts with a recording of the poet reading, with a percussive and semi-orchestral backing. It concludes with a quite beautiful tune written for the poet’s wife Rennie."