Julie Fowlis is the toast of Gaeldom. In the past few years the elfin singer has brought unprecedented mainstream attention to Scotland’s treasure-trove of Gaelic song by winning a string of music prizes in the U.K., including the much-coveted BBC Radio 2 Folk Music Award. The current revival of the Celtic sound owes much to artists such as Fowlis, who span the gap between the timeless traditional song and contemporary music.

Fowlis grew up on North Uist, a remote island in the Outer Hebrides with 1,200 inhabitants. There were just 12 kids at her school, and music and song were an integral part of their education. “We had only one teacher but were lucky to have a tutor visit for lessons on the pipes,” recalls the 29-year-old singer, on the line from the Scottish Highlands, where she now lives. “Also, we would learn a little Gaelic song or a wee poem or wee rhyme.”

The youngsters would participate and perform at community gatherings where family members and friends came to tell stories, sing, and while away the time. North Uist is one of the few places in the U.K. where the oral tradition of the Gaels has not been broken, a vast heritage of song written and passed on by generations of crofters and fishers, tweed-makers and peat-cutters.

“Looking back, these people had a really hard life,” says Fowlis. “They were on the edge of the world, and the weather was extreme. They were very expressive people, though rarely formally educated, and would always be singing and writing poetry. It could be something lighthearted, about the food on the table or the cow outside.…Or it could be something completely beautiful.”

Almost all of Fowlis’s songs come from North Uist. On her latest album, Cuilidh, a couple of them concern a scandalous event on the island that occurred a hundred years ago, when headstrong Jessie of Balranald eloped with her lover just before her marriage to another man. “She fled in the middle of the night and escaped by boat,” says Fowlis. “It was very natural for people to write about it—the songs were there as a way to pass on the stories. There are quite a few about Jessie. I had to whittle it down to two, but there’s another seven I could easily have put on.”

Fowlis, who also plays flute and whistle, recorded Cuilidh with a dream team of Celtic musicians, among them her husband Eamon Doorley from Irish band Danù. On her current tour she’s joined by Doorley on bouzouki and his fellow Dubliner Steve Byrne on guitar, plus Jenna Reid from the Shetland Isles on fiddle.

One non-Uist song that Fowlis will sing is a Gaelic version of the Beatles’ classic “Blackbird”. Her interpretation has gained legions of new fans, so she’s content to be singing words that hardly any of her listeners understand.

“It’s difficult to know whether the language barrier is a positive or negative thing,” Fowlis muses. “I’ve always seen it as positive, though it does seem to be becoming a big deal for everyone but me. I’m more than happy to sing in English, but Gaelic is what I know and love.”

Julie Fowlis plays St. James Hall next Friday (February 20).