Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

The Highland Bagpipe

“THE CORONACH”
(From the Painting by R. R. Mac Ian)

The Highland Bagpipe
Its History, Literature, and Music
WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE
Traditions, Superstitions, and Anecdotes
Relating to
The Instrument and Its Tunes

BY

W. L. MANSON

The tune with the river in it, the fast river and the courageous, that kens not stop nor tarry, that runs round rock and over fall with a good humour, yet no mood for anything but the way before it.—Neil Munro.

ALEXANDER GARDNER

Publisher to Her late Majesty Queen Victoria

PAISLEY; AND 26 PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON

1901

TO

A. DEWAR WILLOCK

EDITOR OF THE

Glasgow Weekly Herald

WHO JUDICIOUSLY BLUE-PENCILLED THE FIRST ISSUE OF THESE ARTICLES AND ENCOURAGED THE WRITER TO GIVE THEM TO THE PUBLIC IN THIS MORE PERMANENT FORM

Preface.

This book was not written on a preconceived plan, drawn up from the beginning of the work. It “growed.” It had its inception in a commission to write for the Weekly Herald half-a-dozen biographical articles on famous pipers. The necessary investigation produced a mass of material too interesting to be left unused, and the half-dozen articles of the original commission became twenty-seven, with very little of the biographical in them. These, after being finally recast, revised, and in several cases re-written, are now in the form of a book flung at an unoffending public. If the volume interests any one—well. If not—well. There is nothing more to be said on that point.

It were vain to attempt to acknowledge indebtedness to books or to men. Every available book bearing on the subject even in the most indirect way has been consulted, in many cases read. A great deal of the material used is of course common to all Highland literature, and one book cannot be quoted more than another. With men it is equally impracticable to give names. So many have helped, so many have written giving additional bits of information or suggesting improvements, so many have, in reply to requests, kindly supplied matter dealing with phases of the subject on which they have intimate knowledge, that one could not do justice to all without naming all. Still, while this may not be done, I cannot possibly refrain from saying that without the assistance given by Mr. Henry Whyte (“Fionn”) in matters of Highland history and questions connected with the Gaelic language, the book could hardly have been published; while Mr. John Mac Kay, editor of the Celtic Monthly, in throwing open to me his valuable library of Celtic literature, did very much to lighten my labours. This, I think, is all I can safely say. If I said more, I would have to say so very much.

W. L. M.

Glasgow, April 27, 1901.

Contents.

Illustrations.

The Highland Bagpipe.

CHAPTER I.
Tuning up.

“I have power, high power for freedom,

To wake the burning soul;

I have sonnets that through the ancient hills,

Like a torrent’s voice might roll;

I have pealing notes of victory,

That might welcome kings from war;

I have rich deep tones to send the wail,

For a hero’s death afar.”

“A Hundred Pipers”—Scotland becoming Cosmopolitan—The War spirit of the Pipes—Regiments, not Clans—Annual Gatherings—Adaptability of Pipes—Scotch folk from Home—An aged Enthusiast—Highlands an Extraordinary Study—Succession of Chiefs—Saxon introduced—Gaelic printed—Highlands in 1603—The Mac Neills of Barra—Highland hospitality.

“Wi’ a Hundred Pipers an’ a’ an’ a’” is a song that catches on with Highland people as well now as in the days when the piper was a power in the land. There is a never ending charm about the pipes, and there is a never ending swing about the song of the hundred pipers, that stirs the blood of the true-born Celt, and makes him applaud vigorously in rhythm with the swing of the chorus. But it is because the song harks back to the time when one good piper was a man to be revered, and a hundred in one place a gathering to be dreaded—if they were all there of one accord—that it continues to hold its own. It expresses something of the grandeur that was attached to the national music, when the clan piper was second only to the chief in importance, and the pibroch as much a part of the clan life as the fiery cross, so it is accepted as the one outstanding bit of song that helps to keep alive the traditional glory of the Great Highland Bagpipe. Not that there is any immediate danger of that glory fading. It is but changing in character. Scotland has become cosmopolitan, and the fastnesses of the Highlands are no longer the retreats of wild cateran clans, whose peculiar habits and primitive ideas of social life helped to bind them together with ties of family strength, and at the same time to keep them unspotted from the Lowland and outside world that knew not the Gaelic and the tartan and the pipes. The Piob Mohr is not now an agency to be reckoned with by any one who wishes to explore the hills and glens, neither are there any little wars in Lorn or elsewhere, in which it can have an opportunity of leading Mac against Mac, or clan against clan. As a Highland war spirit, its glory has departed, and he would be a bold man who would say he was sorry for it. True, the Highland regiments who fight Britain’s battles abroad still wear the tartan and march to the same old strains, but they are not now Highland clans. They are British battalions, whose empire, instead of being bounded by the horizon of a Scottish glen, is worldwide, and they march and wheel, and charge the enemy and storm the heights in strict accordance with the orders of a general who has his orders from Westminster. The only gathering of the clans we have nowadays are the gatherings in the halls of our big cities, where a thousand or two of people bearing a common name meet under the presidency of the next-of-kin of the chief of olden times, and drink, not mountain dew, but tea, and have Highland or Jacobite songs sung to them by people whose profession is singing, and applaud dancers and pipers who dance and pipe because it pays them to do so. This is very far removed from the time when the Piob Mohr was in the zenith of its power, though when one gets enthused with the atmosphere of such a meeting, and forgets the slushy streets outside, and the telegraph and the railway, and other nineteenth century things that have made the Highlands impossible, the song of the hundred pipers is quite sufficient to make the blood course quicker, and to translate one for a moment to other scenes and other times. But it is only for a moment. The prosaic present comes back with a reality that will not be denied, and one remembers with a sigh that the song is but a sentiment, and that never more will the gathering cries of the clans re-echo through the glens, the fiery cross pass from hand to hand, or the peal of the pibroch ring from clachan to clachan in a wild cry to arms.

As an inspiration to the clansmen the bagpipe is no more, but it remains an integral part of Scottish life and character. It is one of the peculiarities of the instrument that it adapts itself to circumstances. When that phase of life in which it was born and brought up, as it were, passed away, it quietly but firmly declined to be moved into the background. There is something of the stubbornness of the old reivers about it, and just as the Highlander in his times of greatest adversity stuck to his pipes, so the pipes seem determined to stick to the Highlanders in spite of the tendencies of latter-day civilisation. The love of the Highlander for his pipes is too deep-rooted to vanish simply because circumstances change. When Rob Roy lay a-dying, and when an old enemy came to see him, he had himself decked out in his plaid and claymore, and when the interview was over, “Now,” said he, “let the piper play Cha til ma tulidh,” and he died before the dirge was finished. That spirit has lived through the many changes that have taken place since Rob Roy’s day, and it lives in a modified form now. Nothing will make a Scottish audience, especially a Scottish audience far from home, cheer as the pipes will, and no sound is so welcome at an open-air gathering, or to the wandered Scotchman, as the wild notes of the national instrument. In the preface to one collection of Highland music we are told of a well-known Edinburgh man, discreetly referred to as “W—— B——, Esq.,” who was at the time the most exquisite violinist in Scotland. Even at the venerable age of eighty-three, whenever he heard the sound of the pipes he hastened to the place, and after giving the itinerant player a handsome reward, he withdrew to a passage or common stair near by and had what he called “a wee bit dance to himsel’.” This does not seem a very wonderful proceeding, though the story applies to about forty years ago, for even now many a Highlander if he is in anything like a private place, will begin to “Hooch” and dance if he should happen to hear the pipes. He would never think of dancing to any other music—other music is foolishness unto him. Many things may and will change, but it is hardly possible to imagine circumstances which could dislodge pipe music from its honoured place as the national music of Scotland.

The preservation of the Gaelic, the kilt, and the pipes is the most notable feature in Highland history. Without his tartan, his language, and his music, the Gael would be only “A naked Pict, meagre and pale, the ghost of what he was.” But he has kept these, his distinguishing characteristics, and the Scottish Highlands of to-day is one of the most extraordinary studies in Europe, retaining as it does a language the most ancient, and the customs and music which distinguished it in ages the most remote, in spite of circumstances which might have proved too much for any social system whatever. The nature of the country did much to perpetuate these things. It was hilly, and, in the old days, inaccessible; the wants of the people were supplied among themselves, their manners were simple and patriarchal, and they had little intercourse with strangers except through trading in cattle and an occasional foray into the low country. So a spirit of independence and jealous pride of ancestry was cultivated, and in tradition, song, and music, the exploits of their forbears were celebrated. All this went to make Celtic Scotland a nation by itself, and its people a peculiar people. There is nothing in the political history of any country so remarkable as the succession of the Highland chiefs and the long and uninterrupted sway they held over their followers.

Somewhere about 1066 Malcolm Canmore removed his court from Iona to Dunfermline and introduced the Saxon language, and about 1270 Gaelic was entirely superseded in the Lowlands. Latin was used in all publications, and there were not many who could read what few books there were. Gaelic was not printed till 1567, centuries after it had ceased to be the language of the court or of “society.” Then a book of John Knox’s was issued in Gaelic, but it was 1767 before the New Testament appeared in the Celtic tongue. When it did ten thousand copies were sold. There was, of course, a vast store of poetry and literature floating around in the minds of the people, passed down from generation to generation; but, with the exception of two small collections, one by Rev. John Farquharson of Strathglass in 1571, and the other by Alexander Mac Donald, Ardnamurchan, about eight years later, it had all to wait until 1759, when James Mac Pherson, the collector of Ossianic poetry, compiled or wrote (whether he compiled or wrote it is too delicate a matter to express a definite opinion about in this place) the classics of the Highlands. In spite of all these disadvantages, perhaps by reason of them, the Highlands remained the Highlands until the beginning of the present century. The many years of tribal warfare and of warfare with other peoples, did not destroy the individuality of the race, it was the slow civilising process of later ages that made the Highlands less a distinct nation than a province of the big British Empire.

Of the circumstances in the midst of which the pipes and pipe music first got a hold on the affections of the Highland people we know but little. There were harpers before there were pipers, and probably bards before there were harpers, but these did not record contemporary history or the traditions of their age with any degree of fulness or accuracy, if indeed they can be said to have recorded anything at all who only told the next generation what they had heard from the previous. Writing in 1603 a traveller says of the Highlanders:—

“They delight much in musicke, but chiefly in harps and clairschoes of their own fashion. The strings of the clairschoes are made of brass wire, and the strings of the harps of sinews, which strings they strike either with their nayles growing long, or else with an instrument appoynted for that use. They take great pleasure to deck their harps and clairschoes with silver and precious stones; the poore ones that cannot attayne hereunto decke them with christall. They sing verses prettily compound, containing (for the most part) prayses of valiant men. There is not almost any other argument whereof their rymes intreat. They speak the ancient French language, altered a little.”

As to the country itself, it was a mysterious, unknown land to all but the native. Ancient historians puzzled over its mystery, but could not fathom it. So they wrote under the shadow of the mysterious. Procopius, a Greek writer who flourished about A.D. 530, and wrote of the Roman Empire, speaking about the Highlands, says:—

“In the west, beyond the wall (Antoninus’ Wall), the air is infectious and mortal, the ground is covered with serpents, and this dreary solitude is the region of departed spirits, who are translated from the opposite shores in substantial boats, and by living rowers. Some families of fishermen are excused from tribute in consideration of the mysterious office which is performed by these Charons of the ocean. Each in his turn is summoned at the hour of midnight to hear the voices and even the names of the ghosts, he is sensible of their weight, and feels impelled by an unknown but irresistible power.”

Now we know how it was that the Romans could not conquer the Highlands. But we also know that the Highlanders were not, when the Romans came, the ignorant barbarians they are represented to have been, for Cæsar ascertained from them that the coast line of Britain was two thousand miles in length, an estimate not so very wide of the mark.

We are told by one fourteenth century historian that “In Scotland ye shall find no man lightly of honour or gentleness, they be like wyld and savage people;” and by another that “as to their faith and promise, they hold it with great constancie,” statements which are not at all contradictory. The once prevalent idea that a Highland chief was an ignorant and unprincipled tyrant who rewarded the abject submission of his followers with relentless cruelty and oppression was entirely erroneous. He might be naturally ferocious or naturally weak, but in either case the tribal system curbed excess, for the chief men of the clan were his advisers, and without their approval he seldom decided on extreme measures. But though the sway of the chiefs was thus mild in practice, it was arbitrary, and they themselves were proud of their lot, their lands, and their dependents. It is related of the lairds of Barra, who belonged to one of the oldest and least-mixed septs in the Highlands, that as soon as the family had dined it was customary for a herald to sound a horn from the battlements on the castle tower, proclaiming aloud in Gaelic, “Hear, oh! ye people! and listen, oh! ye nations! The great Mac Neill of Barra having finished his meal, the princes of the earth may dine.”

The peasantry of the Highlands were always noted for their hospitality. “I have wandered,” says Mr. J. F. Campbell of Islay, than whom none knew the Highlands better, “among the peasantry of many countries, and this trip through the Highlands has but confirmed my old impressions. The poorest Highlander is ever readiest to share the best he has with the stranger. A kind word is never thrown away, and whatever may be the faults of this people, I have never found a boor or a churl in a Highland bothy.” Besides, the ancient Gaels were very fond of music, whether in a merry or a sad humour. “It was,” says Bacon, “a sure sign of brewing mischief when a Caledonian warrior was heard to hum his surly song.” They accompanied most of their labours with music, either vocal or that of the harp, and it was among these chiefs and these people that the national music of Scotland took its rise. It is a matter of regret that its wild strains are now more frequently heard amid Canadian woods and on Australian plains than in the land where it was cradled.

CHAPTER II.
Harpers, Bards, and Pipers.

“O’er all this hazy realm is spread

A halo of sad memories of the dead,

Of mournful love tales, of old tragedies;

Filling the heart with pity, and the eyes

With tears at bare remembrance; and old songs

Of Love’s endurance, Love’s despair, Love’s wrongs

And triumphs o’er all obstacles at last,

And all the grief and passion of the past.”

Ancient musical instruments—Priestly harpers—Hereditary harpers—Irish versus Scottish harpers—Royal harpers—Use of harp universal—Welsh sarcasm—Mary Queen of Scots’ harp—The last of the harpers—“The Harper of Mull”—From harp to pipes—The Clarsach—Pipes supplanting bards—The last clan bard—Bardic customs—Bards’ jealousy of pipes—The bard in battle—Duncan Ban Mac Intyre—Two pipers scared—When the pipes became paramount—The fiery cross—The coronach.

The harp was the immediate predecessor of the pipes; but in ancient times, and also contemporary with the harp, there were other instruments. The Complaynt of Scotland, written in 1548, speaking of a company of musicians, says:—

“The fyrst hed ane drone bagpipe, the next hed ane pipe made of ane bleddir and of ane reid, the third playit on ane trump, the feyerd on ane cornepipe, the fyfth playit on ane pipe made of ane grait horne, the sext playit on ane recorder, the sevint plait on ane fiddil, and the last on ane quhissel.”

We cannot speak as to quality, but there was evidently no lack of quantity in these days.

HARPER: ON A STONE AT MONIFEITH
From Chalmers’ Sculptured Stones of Scotland.

The Horn of Battle was used by the ancient Caledonians to call their armies together. The cornu was blown by the Druids and their Christian successors, and St. Patrick is represented as carrying one. Ancient writers, indeed, lay particular stress on the musical ability of the Celtic priesthood, the members of which they describe as possessing extraordinary skill as harpers, taking prominent part with their instruments in religious ceremonies. The cornu in its rudest form was a cow’s horn, and could sometimes be heard at a distance of six miles. The Irish Celts had various other instruments, but the harp was the favourite, both in Scotland and Ireland. The Hyperboreans, who are believed to have been the aborigines of Britain, were celebrated performers on the harp, accompanying their hymns with its music; and harpers were hereditary attendants on the Scottish kings and the Highland chiefs, from whom they had certain lands and perquisites. The cultivation of harp music reached the highest level in Scotland, the players beating their masters, the Irish harpers, although the class were more honoured in Ireland than in Scotland. In Ireland none but a freeman was allowed to play the harp, and it was reckoned a disgrace for a gentleman not to have a harp and be able to play it. The Royal household of Scotland always had a harper, whose rank was much higher than that of the ordinary servant, and the kings even were not above playing. James I. of Scotland, who died in 1437, was a better player than any of the Scottish or Irish harpers. In Scotland, however, the use of the harp ceased with the pomp of the feudal system, while in Ireland the people retained for many generations an acknowledged superiority as harpers.

It has been claimed for the harp that it is, or at least was, the national instrument of Scotland. It is admitted that most of the Highland chiefs had harpers, as well as bards, and that their music was esteemed as of no small moment. In several old Highland castles the harper’s seat is still pointed out, harps are mentioned in Ossian, but not pipes; there is a field in Mull called “The Harper’s Field,” a window in Duntulm castle called “The Harper’s Window,” it is a matter of history that Donald, Lord of the Isles, was killed at Inverness by his own harper, after the misfortunes which followed his incursion into Atholl; and there are many other references which prove the universal use of the instrument. But we have very few traces of itinerant harpers in the Highlands resembling those of Ireland and Wales. In Wales it was the acknowledged national instrument. The pipes were known for some centuries, but the Britons never took kindly to them, a famous poet comparing their notes to

“The shrill screech of a lame goose caught in corn,”

or a

“Horrible, noisy, mad Irishman.”

Weakness in the use of metaphor was evidently not a characteristic of Welsh poetry at this date. In Wales they “esteemed skill in playing on the harp beyond any kind of learning,” but somehow the instrument never got the same hold on the national life of Scotland. If it had, it would not have been supplanted so easily as it was.

When the pipes actually superseded the harp in Scotland it is hardly possible to discover. We read that when Mary Queen of Scots made a hunting expedition into the wilds of Perthshire she carried a harp with her, and that that same harp is still in existence; that John Garve Mac Lean of Coll, who lived in the reign of James VI., was a good performer; and that once upon a time an English vessel was wrecked on the island and that the captain, seeing this venerable gentleman with his Bible in his hand and a harp by his side, exclaimed—“King David is restored to the earth”; and that the last of the harpers was Murdoch Mac Donald, harper to Mac Lean of Coll. Mac Donald received his learning from another celebrated harper, Ruaraidh Dall, or Blind Roderick, harper to the laird of Mac Leod, and afterwards in Ireland; and from accounts of payments made to him by Mac Lean, still extant, he seems to have remained in the family till the year 1734, when he went to Quinish, in Mull, where he died in 1739.

This Murdoch Mac Donald was the musician who was immortalised by Tannahill as “The Harper of Mull.” The story which inspired this song is quite romantic, and will bear repetition. The following abridgement is from Mr. P. A. Ramsay’s edition of Tannahill’s poems;—

“In the island of Mull there lived a harper who was distinguished for his professional skill, and was attached to Rosie, the fairest flower in the island, and soon made her his bride. Not long afterwards he set out on a visit to some low-country friends, accompanied by his Rosie, and carrying his harp, which had been his companion in all his journeys for many years. Overtaken by the shades of night, in a solitary part of the country, a cold faintness fell upon Rosie, and she sank, almost lifeless, into the harper’s arms. He hastily wrapped his plaid round her shivering frame, but to no purpose. Distracted, he hurried from place to place in search of fuel, to revive the dying embers of life. None could be found. His harp lay on the grass, its neglected strings vibrating to the blast. The harper loved it as his own life, but he loved his Rosie better than either. His nervous arm was applied to its sides, and ere long it lay crackling and blazing on the heath. Rosie soon revived under its genial influence, and resumed the journey when morning began to purple the east. Passing down the side of a hill, they were met by a hunter on horseback, who addressed Rosie in the style of an old and familiar friend. The harper, innocent himself, and unsuspicious of others, paced slowly along, leaving her in converse with the stranger. Wondering at her delay, he turned round and beheld the faithless fair seated behind the hunter on his steed, which speedily bore them out of sight. The unhappy harper, transfixed with astonishment, gazed at them. Then, slowly turning his steps homewards, he, sighing, exclaimed—‘Fool that I was to burn my harp for her!’”

It is said that Tannahill first heard this story at a convivial meeting, as an instance of the infidelity of the fair sex, whose fidelity he had been strenuously defending, notwithstanding that he himself was disappointed in the only love affair in which he was ever seriously engaged. The impression which the narrative made upon his mind led him to the composition of the song:—

“When Rosie was faithfu’ how happy was I!

Still gladsome as simmer the time glided by;

I played my harp cheery while proudly I sang

O’ the charms o’ my Rosie the winter nichts lang;

But now I’m as waefu’ as waefu’ can be,

Come simmer, come winter, it’s a’ ane to me,

For the dark gloom o’ falsehood sae clouds my sad soul,

That cheerless for aye is the Harper o’ Mull.

“I wander the glens and the wild woods alone,

In their deepest recesses I make my sad moan;

My harp’s mournfu’ melody joins in the strain,

While sadly I sing o’ the days that are gane.

Tho’ Rosie is faithless she’s no the less fair,

And the thocht o’ her beauty but feeds my despair,

Wi’ painfu’ remembrance my bosom is full,

An’ weary o’ life is the Harper o’ Mull.

“As slumbering I lay by the dark mountain stream,

My lovely young Rosie appeared in my dream;

I thocht her still kind, and I ne’er was sae blest

As in fancy I clasped the fair Nymph to my breast.

Thou fause, fleeting vision, too soon thou were o’er,

Thou wak’d’st me to tortures unequalled before,

But death’s silent slumbers my grief soon shall lull,

An’ the green grass wave o’er the Harper o’ Mull.”

The transition from the harp to the bagpipe was spread over about two centuries. In 1565 George Buchanan speaks of the Highlanders using both instruments, and during the seventeenth century the use of the harp declined to such an extent that the number of professional harpers was very small indeed. The civil wars largely accounted for this, as the fitness of the bagpipe for the tumult of battle gave it an easy superiority over the harp. Writing at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Alexander Macdonald, the Keppoch bard, said he preferred the pipes to the harp, which he called ceol nionag, maidens’ music. When the bards thus openly avowed their liking for the pipes, the transition period was over, for the harp was wont to be their favourite instrument. The harp still exists as the clarsach, which is being revived by Highland Associations, more especially in Glasgow, but, if the Irishism may be permitted, the bagpipe is now “the harp of the Gael.”

Besides supplanting the harp, the pipes also supplanted the bards themselves. The bards were in their day a more important body of men than the harpers, and naturally much more relating to them has come down to posterity. They existed from the remotest period of which there are any records, and it was only in 1726 that, with the death of Neil Mac Vuirich, the Clan Ranald bard, the race of distinctively clan bards became extinct. The race continued to exist—bards exist to this day for that matter—but not as clan bards, and after 1726 they were only public makers of verse.

The bards, like the harpers, though to a greater extent, wandered from house to house, keeping alive among the people the memories of their wrongs, celebrating the valour of their warriors, the beauty of their women, and the glory of their chiefs. The calling was held in such high esteem that after the fall of Druidism it was maintained at the expense of the State. The bards, however, became so numerous, overbearing, and extortionate that they lost favour, many of them were killed by their enemies, and those left, shorn of their pride, but retaining their skill, occupied honourable positions in the retinues of their chiefs. In the heyday of their glory the bards summoned the clans to battle, and they moved about among the men inciting them to deeds of valour, their own persons being held as inviolable by friend and foe. The leaders looked to them to inspire the warriors, just as at the present day pipers are expected to supply enthusiasm to the regiment when on the eve of battle. The bard exhorted the clans to emulate the glory of their forefathers, to hold their lives cheap in the defence of their country, and his appeals, delivered with considerable elocutionary power and earnestness, always produced a profound effect. When the pipes began to be used, they took the place of the bard when the din of battle drowned his voice, and after the battle was over the bard celebrated the praises of the brave who had fallen and the valour of the survivors, while the piper played plaintive laments for the slain. The bards themselves did not always fight—they thought they were of more value as bards than as fighters. At the battle of Inverlochy, Ian Lom, the Lochaber bard, and the most celebrated of the race, was asked to share in the fighting, but declined. “If I go along with thee to-day, Sir Alasdair,” said he, “and fall in battle, who will sing thy victory to-morrow?” “Thou art in the right, John,” said his chief, “Let the shoemaker stick to his last.” Ian Lom, however, is acknowledged to have been a brave man, and his attitude on this occasion is not considered a reflection on his character.

The bard, especially if he were also a musician, was always in great request at social functions, and in the absence of books he constituted the local library. The class had naturally exceptional memories, and they became walking chroniclers of past events and preservers of popular poetry and everyday history. They did not welcome the pipes with any degree of enthusiasm. Instead, some of them used all their arts to throw ridicule on the newer instrument. Ian Mac Codrum, the North Uist bard (1710–1796), composed a satire on the bagpipe of one, Domhnull Bhan, or Fair-haired Donald, which is exceedingly humorous and sarcastic, and in the course of which he says:—

“It withered with yelping

The seven Fenian battalions,”

whatever they were. Then, he continued, the Gael loved the pipes as Edinburgh people loved tea, although the pipes had weakened for the first time

“The strength of Diarmaid and of Goll.”

The last bard known to have acted officially in battle was Mac Mhuirich, or Mac Vuirich, the Clan Ranald bard of the day, who recited at the battle of Harlaw, in 1411. Mac Mhuirich was disgusted at the growing popularity of the pipes, and composed a set of verses descriptive of the bagpipe and its lineage, which are more graphic, humorous and forcible than elegant or gentlemanly. Duncan Ban Mac Intyre, the bard of Glenorchy, has a poem on “Hugh the Piper,” who, it seems, had insulted the bard in some way. Hugh is compared to a wicked dog barking at the passers-by, and intent on biting their heels. He is to be hurled out of the society of bards and pipers as a fruitless bough is cut away from a flourishing tree, it is hinted that if he would quit the country it would be a good riddance, he is made the impersonation of all sorts of defects, and his musical efforts are compared to the cries of ducks, geese, and pigs. It should be added, however, that the same bard composed Ben Dorain, the most famous of his poems, to a pipe tune, dividing it into eight parts corresponding to the variations of the pibroch, and moulding the language into all the variations of the wild rhythm, so his spite must have been more at Hugh himself than at his music.

The antipathy of the bards to the pipes is easily understood. They had all along been the acknowledged inspired leaders of the people, inciting the clans to battle with their wild verses. The pipes with all their war spirit could hardly match this, which is culled from a battle song supposed to have been written on the eve of the invasion of England that terminated so tragically at Flodden:—

“Burn their women, lean and ugly!

Burn their children great and small!

In the hut and in the palace,

Prince and peasant, burn them all!

Plunge them in the swelling rivers,

With their gear and with their goods;

Spare, while breath remains, no Saxon,

Drown them in the roaring floods.”

Neil Mac Mhuirich, the bard already mentioned, had been at a bards’ college in Ireland, and brought back to his father’s house not only stores of knowledge, but also the small-pox. Afflicted with the disease, he lay on a bed near the fire, where John and Donald Mac Arthur, two of the famous race of pipers, came in, and sitting down in front of his bed, began tuning their pipes. The discordant sounds raised the bard, and he, bursting with indignation, started railing at the pipes in a poetical and mock genealogy of the instrument. The poem itself is presentable in Gaelic, but in English it would be too much for the average reader. It emphasises strongly the bard’s aversion to the pipes, comparing them and their music to many ridiculous things in nature and art. The pipers, who had intended to make the house their quarters for the night, were startled by the fierce invective coming from behind them, and on looking round and seeing the swollen and marked face of Neil, worked up into extraordinary excitement, terror took hold of them and they fled in consternation. The bard’s father evidently sympathised with his son, for he waited patiently until the poem was ended, and then exclaimed “Well done, my son, your errand to Ireland has not been in vain.”

When the pipes became paramount is about as difficult to determine as when they first threatened the position of the harp. They seem to have existed alongside the harp and the coronach and the fiery cross for a considerable time, as we have references to all these in the literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. John Mac Leod of Dunvegan, who lived about 1650, had a bard, a harper, a piper, and a fool, all of whom were most liberally provided for. We have got a blind harper, Ruaraidh Dall, harper to Mac Leod of Glenelg, and a blind piper, Ian Dall, piper to Mac Kenzie of Gairloch, each of whom excelled in his own sphere, and both of whom flourished about 1650, while, as we have seen, the bards and the pipers were often at loggerheads. The pibroch did not supersede the fiery cross at all, for, so long as the chiefs found it necessary to call the clans together, the goat was killed with the chief’s own sword, the cross was dipped in the blood, and the clansman sent round.

The last battle at which a bard recited was fought in 1411, the last clan bard died in 1726, the last clan harper in 1739, when the hereditary pipers were in all their glory; the fiery cross was last used in 1745, when it travelled thirty-six miles through Breadalbane in three hours, and the coronach was superseded gradually by the lament of the pipes. The bards ceased to live as an order on the accession of the Kings of Scotland to the British throne, and there were no means provided at the Reformation for educating ministers or teachers for the Gaelic speaking part of the country. But all through the centuries covered by the dates given there were pipers. There are pipers still, not indeed clan pipers, but the class are recognised as peculiarly belonging to the Highlands, while harpers and bards have gone completely under in the great social revolution through which the Highlands have passed.

CHAPTER III.
The Tale of the Years.

“No stroke of art their texture bears,

No cadence wrought with learned skill,

And though long worn by rolling years,

Yet unimpaired they please us still;

While thousand strains of mystic lore

Have perished and are heard no more.”

The time of the Flood—Pipes in Scripture—In Persia—In Arabia—In Tarsus—Tradition of the Nativity—In Rome—In Greece—In Wales, Ireland, and Scotland—Melrose Abbey—In France—In England—At Bannockburn—Chaucer—In war—First authentic Scottish reference—Oldest authentic specimen—Became general—Rosslyn Chapel—Second drone added—At Flodden—“A maske of bagpypes”—Spenser—Shakespeare—James VI.—A poetical historian—Big drone added—The ’45—Native to Scotland—The evolution of the Highlands.

Gillidh Callum was (so goes the story) Noah’s piper, and (still according to the story) Noah danced to his music over two crossed vine plants when he had discovered and enjoyed the inspiring effects of his first distillation from the fruits of his newly planted vineyard. So the tune was named after the piper. This “yarn,” to give it the only appropriate name, can easily be spoiled by anyone who tries, but the dance alluded to does seem to have been originally practised over vine plants. Swords, however, came to be more numerous in Scotland than vines, and they were substituted. Some historians assert that the Celts are descended from Gomer, the eldest son of Japheth, son of Noah, a theory which would go far to support the Gillidh Callum story, for if there were Celts in the days of the ark, why should there not have been a piper? There is, however, just about as much to prove either story as there is to prove that

“Music first on earth was found

In Gaelic accents deep;

When Jubal in his oxter squeezed

The blether o’ a sheep,”

and that is little enough.

That the bagpipe is an instrument of great antiquity is an admitted fact, but whether it is one of those referred to in Scripture is another matter. The pipe without the bag is mentioned in I. Sam. x. 5, Isaiah v. 12, and Jer. xlviii. 36, but the pipe without the bag is not the bagpipe. There have been many attempts made to identify the instrument with one or other of those named in Scripture, and in histories of Scripture times, but these are all based on conjecture. An instrument is mentioned which was composed of two reeds perforated according to rule, and united to a leathern bag, called in Persian nie amban; and in Egypt a similar instrument is described as consisting of two flutes, partly of wood and partly of iron. Another traveller tells of an Arabian instrument which consisted of a double chanter with several apertures, and in 1818 ancient engravings were found in the northern states of Africa which seemed to prove that an instrument like the bagpipe had existed in Scripture times. The Chaldeans and Babylonians had two peculiar instruments, the Sambuka and the Symphonia, and some historians identify the latter as the sackbut, the alleged ancestor of the bagpipe. Others assert that a form of the bagpipe was used in the services of the Temple at Jerusalem, but this in any case, may be treated as the merest of conjecture.

The historical references to the instrument as having existed at all in these days are few and far between:—

385 B.C.—Theocritus, a writer who flourished about this date, mentions it incidentally in his pastorals, but not in such a way as to give any indication of what form it assumed.

200 B.C.—An ancient terra cotta excavated at Tarsus by Mr. W. Burchhardt, and supposed to date from 200 B.C., represents a piper with a wind instrument with vertical rows of reed pipes, firmly attached to him. The instrument has also been found sculptured in ancient Nineveh.

A.D. 1.—There is a singular tradition in the Roman Catholic Church to the effect that the shepherds who first saw the infant Messiah in the stable expressed their gladness by playing on the bagpipe. This is, of course, possible, but there is only the tradition and the likelihood that the shepherds would have musical instruments of some kind to support the theory. Albrecht Durer, a famous German artist of the 16th century, has perpetuated the idea in a woodcut of the Nativity, in which he represents one of the shepherds playing on the pipes, but his work is, naturally, founded on the tradition. The illuminator of a Dutch missal in the library of King’s College, Aberdeen, has taken liberties with the tradition and given the bagpipe to one of the appearing angels, who uses it for playing a salute.

REPRODUCED FROM A CONTORNIATE IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

A.D. 54.—The cruel Emperor Nero was an accomplished musician, and a contorniate of his time has given rise to many assertions connecting him with the pipes. It is generally referred to as a coin, but it is in reality a contorniate or medal, which was given away at public sports. The sketch here reproduced (full-size) is from a specimen in the British Museum, and very little study will show that it proves almost nothing relating to the bagpipe. The obverse bears the head of Nero and the usual inscription. On the reverse there seems to be the form of a wind organ with nine irregular pipes, all blown by a bellows and having underneath what is probably a bag. It is more closely related to the organ than to the bagpipe, and, as has been said, it proves nothing. Some writers call the instrument on which Nero played a flute with a bladder under the performer’s arm, a description which does more to identify it as the bagpipe. It cannot have been considered a very honourable thing in Nero’s day to play the pipes, for the emperor on hearing of the last revolt, that which cost him his throne and his life, vowed solemnly that if the gods would but extricate him from his troubles he would play in public on the bagpipe, as a sort of penance or thank offering probably. Perhaps history has made a mistake, and it may have been the pipes and not the fiddle Nero played on while Rome was burning. The medal, it may be added, is believed by the authorities at the British Museum to date from about A.D. 330, although it bears the impress of Nero.

That the instrument was in use among the Romans is indisputable. A historian, who wrote a history of the wars of the Persians, the Vandals, and the Goths, states that the Roman infantry used it for marching purposes, and he describes it as having both skin and wood extremely fine. The name it went by was pythaula, a word of Greek origin, which bears a striking resemblance to the Celtic piob-mhala, pronounced piovala. There is in Rome a fine Greek sculpture in basso relievo representing a piper playing on an instrument closely resembling the Highland bagpipe, the performer himself being dressed not unlike a modern Highlander. It is shown besides on several coins, but from the rudeness of the drawings or their decay the exact form cannot be ascertained. A small bronze figure found under Richborough Castle, Kent, represents a Roman soldier playing on the bagpipe, but his whole equipment is curious. The precise form of the instrument itself is questionable, and the manner of holding it, the helmet, the ancient purse on one side and the short Roman sword and dagger on the other, all furnish matter for debate. About 1870 a stone was dug from the ground near Bo’ness, on which was sculptured a party of Roman soldiers on the march. They were dressed in short kilts, and one was playing the bagpipe. The instrument was very similar to those of the present day except that the drones were shorter.

A.D. 100.—Aristides Quintilianus, who lived about this time, writes to the effect that the bagpipe was known in the Scottish Highlands in his day. This, however, may be set aside as a reference of no value seeing that the Highlands was then an unknown world to the Greeks. The Greeks of the same age knew the instrument as Tibia utricularis, and from the pipes, we are told, the Athenian shepherds drew the sweetest sounds. Other books again tell us that the Athenians rejected the pipes because they disturbed conversation and made hearing difficult. Still others—English be it noted—contain the sentence, “Arcadia in Greece: the bagpipe was first invented here,” but the statement is not substantiated in any way.

A.D. 500.—In the sixth century the bagpipe is mentioned by Procopius, a Greek historian, as the instrument of the Roman infantry, the trumpet being that of the cavalry.

A.D. 800.—There is a picture of a primitive instrument copied from a manuscript of the ninth century. It consists of a blow pipe on one side of a small bag, with a sort of chanter having three or four holes and a beast’s head instead of the usual bell-shaped end. The instrument was held extended from the mouth, and the bag, if any pressure was necessary, must have been elastic, as it could not be pressed in any way.

A.D. 1118.—Giraldus Cambrensis, the historian, mentions the pipes about this date as Welsh and Irish, but not as Scottish. But The Complaynt of Scotland, written in 1548, states that the instrument was a favourite with the Scottish peasantry “from the earliest periods.” Another trustworthy record says it was in use in Scotland and Wales about the end of the twelfth century. Besides, Pennant in his Tour was told that it was mentioned in the oldest northern songs as the “soeck-pipe.” There is little doubt it was cultivated to some extent in Scotland in the twelfth century.

A.D. 1136.—There are, or at least were, in Melrose Abbey, built in 1136, two carvings representing bagpipes, but they are not supposed to be of a date so early as the abbey itself. The first, that of an aged musician, is given in Sir John Graham Dalziel’s Musical Memoirs of Scotland, published in 1849, but it cannot now be found in the abbey. If it existed when the book was written, it has succumbed since then to the action of the elements or the vandalism of the ignorant. The second, sketched on the spot, is one of those grotesque carvings which artists of early days, in what must have been a sarcastic humour, delighted in affixing to sacred buildings. It is a gargoyle in the form of a pig carrying a rude bagpipe under its head with the drone, the only pipe now remaining, on its left shoulder, and its fore feet, what is left of them, clasped around the bag. The mouth is open and the rain water off the roof runs through it. There is a tradition that as James IV. was not agreeing very well with the Highlanders the pig playing their favourite instrument was placed in the abbey as a satire. The chapel, however, on the outside of the nave of which the carving is, was built before the time of James IV. It is curious that all, or nearly all, the carvings on the outside of the abbey are ugly, some of them gruesome, while the figures on the inside are beautiful. This, it is supposed, was meant to convey the idea of Heaven inside and earth outside. In the architecture of the middle ages the gargoyle, or waterspout, assumed a vast variety of forms, often frightful, fantastic or grotesque. So the carving in Melrose Abbey may be simply the product of the artist’s imagination. Besides, a French architect had a good deal to do with the abbey, so the designs may not all be emblematic of Scottish life of the date when they were made. In Musical Memoirs of Scotland it is stated that the instrument had two drones, one on each side of the animal’s head, and a chanter which hung beneath its feet, these latter being placed on the apertures. The figure seems to have been very much worn away since this book was written.

CARVINGS IN MELROSE ABBEY

A.D. 1200.—Coming down to ages of which we have better historical records, we find a drawing of the thirteenth century which shows a girl dancing on the shoulders of a jester to the music of the instrument in its simplest form, the chanter only.

A.D. 1300.—About the end of the thirteenth century the bagpipe in France was consigned to the lower orders, and only used by the blind and the wandering or mendicant classes. Polite society, however, resumed it in the time of Louis XIV. and Louis XV.

A.D. 1307.—Several payments to performers of the fourteenth and subsequent centuries are recorded. In the reign of Edward II. there is a payment to Jauno Chevretter (the latter word meant bagpiper) for playing before the king.

A.D. 1314.—The Clan Menzies are alleged to have had their pipes with them at Bannockburn, and they are supposed to have been played by one of the Mac Intyres, their hereditary pipers. The Clan Menzies claim that these pipes are still in existence, at least three portions of them—the chanter, which has the same number of finger holes as the modern chanter, but two additional holes on each side; the blowpipe, which is square, but graduates to round at the top; and the drone, of which the top half only remains. These relics, which are now preserved with great care, are supposed to be the remains of a set which were played to the clan when they mustered at Castle Menzies, and marched to join the main body of the Scottish army at Torwood, and in front of them on the field of battle. There are said to be Mac Donald pipes in existence, which consist of a chanter and blowpipe only, and which, it is alleged, were played before the Mac Donalds at Bannockburn. This, most likely, also refers to the Menzies pipes, as the Mac Intyres, who are credited with having been owners of each, were at different times pipers to the Menzies and to the Clan Ranald branch of the Mac Donalds. Bruce’s son, says another tradition, had pipes at Bannockburn. Sir Walter Scott represents the men of the Isles as charging to the sound of the bagpipe; and David Mac Donald, a Clan Mac Donald bard, who wrote about 1838, in a poem on the battle, says that when the bards began to encourage the clans, the pipers began to blow their pipes. There is, however, no historical proof that the instrument was used at the battle. Though horns and trumpets are mentioned by reliable historians, it is not till about two hundred years later that the bagpipe is referred to as having superseded the trumpet as an instrument of war.

A.D. 1327.—In the reign of Edward III. two pipers received permission to visit schools for minstrels beyond the seas, and from about that time till the sixteenth century the bagpipe was the favourite instrument of the Irish kerns.

A.D. 1362.—There is an entry in the Exchequer rolls of 1362 of forty shillings “paid to the King’s pipers,” which indicates the use of the pipes at that date.

A.D. 1370.—The arms of Winchester School, founded in 1370, show an angel playing a bagpipe, and a silver-mounted crosier, presented by the founder to the New College, Oxford, has among other figures that of an angel playing the bagpipe. Some enthusiast might surely have adduced the frequent connections of the instrument with angels as proof of its sacred origin.

A.D. 1377.—One “claryoner,” two trumpeters, and four pipers were attached to the fleet of Richard, Earl of Arundel (Richard II). The bagpipe often appears in the English sculpture of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and, of course, very frequently later.

A.D. 1380.—There are no English literary references to the pipes till the time of Chaucer, when the poet makes the miller in the Canterbury Tales play on the instrument:—

“A baggepipe wel cowde he blowe and sowne,

And therewithal he broughte us out of towne.”

So it seems that the company of pilgrims left London, accompanied by the strains of the bagpipe. It must have been in fairly general use, else the poet would not have worked it into his composition, but there are no means of discovering how long before this it had been in favour in England.

A.D. 1390.—At the battle between the clans Quhale and Chattan on the North Inch of Perth, Rev. James Mac Kenzie tells us in his History of Scotland, which is generally accepted as authoritative, the clans “stalked into the barriers to the sound of their own great war pipes.”

A.D. 1400.—The bagpipe is supposed to have been first used officially in war in Britain at the beginning of the fifteenth century, quickly superseding the war-song of the bards.

A.D. 1406–37.—James I. of Scotland played on the “chorus,” a word which some interpret as meaning the bagpipe. Besides we are also told that he played on “the tabour, the bagpipes, the organ, the flute, the harp, the trumpet, and the shepherd’s reed.” He must have been a versatile monarch. If he really wrote Peblis to the Play, the fact proves that if he did not play the pipes he was quite familiar with their existence, for he says:—

“With that Will Swane came smeitand out,

Ane meikle miller man,

Gif I sall dance have done, lat se

Blow up the bagpype than.”

And also in another place:—

“The bag pipe blew and they outhrew

Out of the townis untald.”

Except that he gives us the first really authentic historical Scottish reference to the pipes, King James and his connection with the music is rather a puzzling subject.

A.D. 1409.—What is believed to be the oldest authentic specimen of the bagpipe now existing is that in the possession of Messrs. J. & R. Glen, of Edinburgh, which bears the date 1409. Except that it wants the large drone, which was added at the beginning of the eighteenth century, it is very much the Highland pipe of the present day. The following is a description of the instrument:—

“Highland bagpipe, having two small drones and chanter, finely ornamented with Celtic patterns carved in circular bands. The drones are inserted in a stock apparently formed from a forked branch, the fork giving the drones their proper spread for the shoulder. In the centre of the stock are the letters ‘R. Mc D,’ below them a galley, and below the galley is the date in Roman numerals, M:CCCC:IX. The letters both in the initials above the galley and in the numeral inscription are of the Gothic form commonly used in the fifteenth century. On the reverse of the stock is a triplet of foliageous scroll work. Bands of interlaced work encircle the ends of the forked part, which are bound with brass ferrules. The lower joint of one of the drones is ornamented with a band of interlaced work in the centre. The corresponding joint of the other drone is not original. The upper joints of the drones are ornamented at both extremities with interlaced work and the finger holes, seven in number, are greatly worn. The nail heads placed round the lower part of the bell of the chanter are decorated with engraved ornament. The bag and blowpipe are modern.”

It should be added that very little is known of the story of this old bagpipe, and the date carved on the stock is all that justifies us in attributing it to the fifteenth century. Also that its claims to antiquity are disputed by an instrument in the possession of the Duke of Sutherland, which is said to have been played at the battle of Sheriffmuir.

A.D. 1411.—We have the statement of Rev. James Mac Kenzie that at the Battle of Harlaw the Highland host came down “with pibrochs deafening to hear.” Mr. Mac Kenzie, however, wrote at quite a recent date, and it would be interesting to know his authority. We do know, of course, that what is now a pipe tune was played at Harlaw, but that in itself proves nothing, since the earliest known copy of the music is not arranged for the pipes.

A.D. 1419.—An inventory of the instruments in St. James’s Palace, made in 1419, specifies “four bagpipes with pipes of ivorie,” and another “baggepipe with pipes of ivorie, the bagge covered with purple vellat.”

A.D. 1430.—From this time on till the Reformation the bagpipe was fairly popular in the Lowlands of Scotland, and it is most likely that its use became general in the Highlands about 1500.

A.D. 1431.—At the battle of Inverlochy in 1431, we are told the pipes were played. This may have been supposed from the fact that we have a pipe tune of that date, but it is probable enough.

THE OLDEST EXISTING PIPES
(By permission of Messrs. J. & R. Glen and the Scottish Society of Antiquaries.)

A.D. 1440.—In Rosslyn Chapel, Midlothian, built in 1440, there are two figures represented as playing the pipes. The first, an angelic piper, is of a class of which specimens are to be found in various sacred edifices throughout England. It is in the Lady Chapel, and is not therefore much noticed by visitors. The other figure is one of a pair which are carved as if they were supporting one end of one of the arches of the roof. What meaning they were supposed to convey it is impossible now to determine, but the representation of the piper is obvious enough.

A.D. 1485–1509.—In Henry VII.’s Chapel at Westminster there is a grotesque carving representing a bagpipe. Similar carvings appear at Hull, Great Yarmouth, Beverley, and Boston.

A.D. 1489.—In July, 1489, we find there was a payment of £8 8s. to “Inglis pyparis that com to the Castel (Edinburgh) and playit to the king;” and in 1505 another to “Inglis pipar with the drone.” So the instrument must have been as much English as Scottish at that time.

A.D. 1491.—Here again we find the “Inglis” piper to the front. In August of this year a party of them received seven unicorns, that is gold coins, at Linlithgow for playing to the king. Both of these payments are recorded in the accounts of the treasurer of the Royal household.

A.D. 1494.—In the ninth year of Henry VII. there was paid to “Pudsey, piper on the bagpipes,” 6s. 8d. Piping was not a short cut to fortune then more than it is now.

A.D. 1500.—At a sale of curios in London in the summer of 1899 a jug was disposed of on which there was a painting of a mule playing a bagpipe. The article fetched £200, but it cannot be proved that the painting dates from the sixteenth century, though that is the certified date of the jug. About this time the second drone was added.

CARVINGS IN ROSSLYN CHAPEL

A.D. 1506–1582.—George Buchanan is the first to mention the bagpipe in connection with Gaelic-speaking people, and when he does mention it, it is solely as a military instrument. The harp was still the domestic musical instrument.

A.D. 1509–1547.—We have a curious set of wood-cuts of the time of Henry VIII., one of which represents a piper dancing to the Dance of Death clothed according to the fashion of that time. He is dancing with a jester, who has the tonsure of a monk and wears a sort of kilt.[^[1]] We also know of a suit of armour made for Henry VIII. on which the figure of a piper is engraved.

[1]. See Chap. XV.

A.D. 1513.—It is on record that John Hastie, the celebrated hereditary piper of Jedburgh, played at the battle of Flodden. There is a painting of this date by the German artist, Albrecht Durer, which represents a shepherd boy playing to his sheep on the bagpipe, and another which shows a piper leaning against a tree with a naked dirk at the left side and a purse exactly like a sporran suspended in front. Olaus Magnus, a Swedish prelate of the same century, affirms that a double pipe, probably the bagpipe, was carried by the shepherds to the pastures that their flocks might feed better.

A.D. 1529.—At a procession in Brussels in 1529 in honour of the Virgin Mary, “many wild beasts danced round a cage containing two apes playing on the bagpipes.” This statement may be taken for what it is worth. It is difficult to construct a theory that will explain it.

A.D. 1536.—In this year the bagpipe was played at church service in Edinburgh.

GERMAN PIPER OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
From the Painting by Albrecht Durer.

A.D. 1547–1553.—Among the musicians of Edward VI. at the Court of England was “Richard Woodward, bagpiper,” who had a salary of £12 13s. 4d., not a princely sum. An entertainment was got up at court in this reign, part of which was a “maske of bagpypes.” An artist “covered six apes of paste and cement with grey coney skinnes, which were made to serve for a maske of bagpypes, to sit upon the top of them like mynstrells as though they did play.” The English of these ancient writers is often a bit obscure, but this seems to mean that there was an imitation of bagpipe playing by counterfeit apes. The Brussels incident of 1529 may probably be explained in the same way.

A.D. 1548.—Among the eight musical instruments mentioned in The Complaynt of Scotland, written in 1548, there are included “ane drone bagpipe” and “ane pipe made of ane bleddir and of ane reid.”[^[2]]

[2]. See page [18].

A.D. 1549.—A French officer describing warfare near Edinburgh in 1549, says “The wild Scots encouraged themselves to arms by the sounds of their bagpipes.”

A.D. 1556.—In 1556 the Queen Regent of Scotland headed a procession in honour of St. Giles, the patron saint of Edinburgh, and she was “accompanied by bagpipers and other musicians.”

A.D. 1570.—In 1570 three St. Andrews pipers were admonished not to play on Sundays or at nights.

A.D. 1579.—We next come across Spenser and Shakespeare. In the Shepherd’s Calendar, Spenser makes a shepherd ask a down-hearted comrade:—

“Or is thy bagpipe broke that sounds so sweet?”

And Shakespeare, whose genius touched on everything above the earth and under it, but who does not seem to have had a high opinion of the “sweetness” of the bagpipe, says of a character that he is as melancholy as a glib cat, or a lugged bear, or an old lion, or a lover’s lute, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe. In another place he speaks of men who “laugh, like parrots at a bagpiper,” and in yet another he infers that the instrument was more powerful than others then in use. “You would never,” he says, “dance again after a tabor or pipe; no, the bagpipe could not move you.” He seems, however, to have known the utility even of his English pipes for marching purposes, for he concludes Much ado about Nothing with “Strike up, Pipers.” This phrase, by the way, must surely have been taken from the play, for it is always held as referring more to the bagpipe than to any other instrument. Generally speaking, Shakespeare’s references are more in the way of sarcasm than of praise.

A.D. 1581.—In 1581 we find James VI. returning from church at Dalkeith one Sunday with two pipers playing before him; and, strangely enough, a little nearer the end of the century, we read, two pipers were prosecuted for playing on the Sunday. At various times between 1591 and 1596 pipers from the Water of Leith bound themselves strictly not to play on the Sundays. There was evidently one law for the king and another for the subject.

A.D. 1584.—A poetical historian describing a battle between the English and the Irish in 1584 says:—

“Now goe the foes to wracke,

The Karne apace do sweate,

And bagg pipe then instead of trompe

Doe lulle the backe retreate.

“Who hears the bagpipe now?

The pastyme is so hotte,

Our valiant captains will not cease

Till that the field be gotte.

“But still thei forward pearse,

Upon the glibbed route,

And with thar weapons meete for warre,

These vaunting foes they cloute.”

Then, when the battle was over, the piper having been killed:—

“The bagpipe cease to plaie,

The piper lyes on grounde;

And here a sort of glibbed theeves

Devoid of life are found.”

It is difficult to see how an instrument like the present Irish bagpipe could be of any use in war; but in 1601 a traveller, visiting the same country, confirms the statement that it belonged to the military.

In 1584 a man named Cockran “played on his bagpipe in a dramatic performance in Coventry.” An Irish bagpipe has been seen in London theatres on various occasions, and, of course, often enough in Scottish concert rooms. In 1798 a Mr. Courtney “played a solo on the union pipes in the quick movement of the overture with good effect” in a performance founded on Ossian’s poems.

A.D. 1594.—At the Battle of Balrinnes, a witch who accompanied the Earl of Argyll referred in a prediction to the bagpipe as the principal military instrument of the Scottish mountaineers.

A.D. 1597.—In a court case at Stirling in 1597 we are told that “W. Stewart brought into the kirkyard twa or three pyperis, and thereby drew in grit nowmer of people to dans befoir the kirk dur on tyme of prayeris, he being always the ringleader himself.” Mr. Stewart must have had peculiar ideas of the fitness of things.

A.D. 1598.—An unpublished poem by Rev. Alex. Hume, minister of Logie, about 1598, contains the lines:—

“Caus michtilie the warlie nottes brake

On Heiland pipes, Scottes and Hyberniche.”

So at this date there was a difference between the Highland pipes, the Lowland, and the Hibernian. The instrument was, in fact, becoming recognised as peculiar to the Highlands, in the one specific form at least.

A.D. 1601.—In 1601 Moryson, the traveller, visiting Ireland during a rebellion, says that “near Armagh a strong body of insurgents approached the camp of regulars with cries and sounds of drummers and bagpipes as if they would storm the camp. After that our men had given them a volley in their teeth, they drew away, and we heard no more of their drummers and bagpipes, but only mournful cries, for many of their best men were slain.”

A.D. 1617.—When James I. came to Scotland in 1617 and decorated Holyrood with images of many kinds, he did not clear out the bagpipes from the Palace, jokingly remarking that as they had some relation to the organ they might remain.

A.D. 1623.—Playing on the “great pipe” was a charge made against a piper at Perth in 1623. The term great pipe would seem to indicate that the instrument was evolved from a previous kind, and is an argument in favour of the theory that the pipes were not “introduced” into Scotland, but are of native origin, and have been gradually developed up to their present condition.

A.D. 1650.—“Almost every town hath bagpipes in it,” says a writer of the year 1650.

A.D. 1653.—In 1653 a woman pleaded for exemption from censure because “English soldiers brought over a piper with them and did dance in her house.” That, she thought, was sufficient excuse for any shortcomings in the management of her household.

A.D. 1662.—A Kirkcaldy man, who shot his father in 1662, sought liquor from an acquaintance to help to wile away his melancholy, and “there comes a piper, and this wretched man went and did dawnce.” The music evidently was enough to dispel all the terrors of the law.

A.D. 1700.—About the beginning of the nineteenth century the big drone was added to the bagpipe, distinguishing it henceforth from the Lowland and Northumbrian.

A.D. 1741.—On a political occasion in 1741 the Magistrates of Dingwall were welcomed home by the ringing of bells, “while young and old danced to the bagpipe, violin, and Jewish harp.” Rather a curious medley they would make.

A.D. 1745.—Prince Charlie had a large number of pipers with him in his rebellion of 1745. After the battle of Prestonpans his army marched into Edinburgh, a hundred pipers playing the Jacobite air, “The King shall enjoy his ain again:” and when he marched to Carlisle he had with him a hundred pipers. Perhaps it was because of its prominence in his rebellion that the bagpipe was afterwards classed by the ruling powers as an instrument of warfare, the carrying of which deserved punishment.

A.D. 1775.—In this year we find the first reference to a professional maker of bagpipes. In the Edinburgh Directory for 1775, a book that could be carried in the vest pocket, “Hugh Robertson” is entered as “pipe maker, Castle Hill, Edinburgh.” It was this same Hugh Robertson who made the prize pipes competed for at the meetings inaugurated by the Highland Society of London some time later, and an instrument of his make which took first prize at one of the competitions was recently in the possession of Mr. David Glen, Edinburgh. Where it now is cannot be discovered, as Mr. Glen parted with it to one of whose whereabouts he is not aware.

It is not necessary to trace the instrument farther down through the years. In Scotland, after it overcame the setback of the ’45, it became more popular year by year until at last in 1824, we find an English traveller saying that “the Scots are enthusiastic in their love for their national instrument. In Edinburgh the sound of the bagpipe is to be heard in every street.” The Lowland, the Northumberland and the Irish pipes lost favour, and the Lincolnshire—that referred to by Shakespeare—has been totally extinct since about 1850. The Great Highland Bagpipe is the only form that has held its own.

The early history of the Celts affords abundant room for controversy, and the origin of the pipes, their introduction into, or evolution in, the Highlands, will always be debateable matter. The weight of evidence, however, goes to show that the pipes and pipe music are far more likely to have been evolved out of the life of the Highland people than imported from any other country. The fact that the instrument is not mentioned in early Scottish history is no proof that it did not exist. Besides, we have now got away from the habit of trying to find the origin of things peculiarly Scottish outside of Scotland. It used to be the fashion to decry everything local to Scotland, and our clans, even, traced their origin to Norman and Norwegian sources. That time, however, is past, and now Highlanders pride themselves on an ancestry which, however far back it is traced, is still Scottish. So with the pipes. They have been in Scotland from all time, and it is in Scotland that they have been brought to the highest degree of perfection. The importation theory will not stand the test of inquiry. If the pipes came from Norway, or Rome, or any part of the Continent, or even England, how is it that in these places they have deteriorated almost to the point of disappearance, while in Scotland they have been continually developing? Ireland, indeed, can put forward a good claim—Christianity came from there, the peoples are the same, and the relations between the two countries in early days were very close—but there is less to uphold the claim than there is to show that the pipes are native to the Highlands. They are not mentioned in Ossianic poetry. In these times, however, the pipes would be so subordinate to the harp that their passing-by by the poet is a fact of little significance. If the Celts were the original inhabitants of the Highlands, and can be identified with the Picts—a theory for which there is very strong argument indeed—there is surely nothing more likely than that the pipes were always in existence among the people. Robertson, in his Historical Proofs of the Highlanders, shows clearly that there has never been a radical change of race or customs in the Highlands, that the music of the Great Highland Bagpipe has ever been peculiar to the Gael of Alban, and that the Irish Scots must have learned it from the Caledonian Picts. It is strong presumptive evidence in favour of his contention that in no other country has the instrument been developed in the same way, that it is one of the very few national musical instruments in Europe, and that in no other country is there such a quantity of peculiar music of such an age, composed solely for the instrument, and fitted only for interpretation by it.

There is nothing in the music that connects it with any part of the Continent, or that shows that it was borrowed from any particular place. The pibroch cannot possibly have come from the Tyrol or Italy, neither can the reels and other popular melodies. The importation theory grew out of the ideas entertained of the rude and uncivilised state of Scotland at an early period, which was considered altogether incompatible with the delicacy of taste and feeling its poetry and music displayed. But the student of Highland history soon discovers that, with all the rudeness, there existed among the people just that delicacy of taste and feeling which found expression in the music, and he at once concludes that the music is a real growth of the home soil. The race were always in the land: why not their language, their music, their customs, in a more or less rude form?

Passing from debateable ground, the result of our assorting of quotations seems to be that the first thoroughly authentic reference to the bagpipe in Scotland dates from 1406, that it was well known in Reformation times, that the second drone was added about 1500, that it was first mentioned in connection with the Gaelic in 1506, or a few years later, that it was classed in a list of Scottish musical instruments in 1548, that in 1549 and often afterwards it was used in war, that in 1650 every town had a piper, that in 1700 the big drone was added, and that in 1824 the Scots were enthusiastic about the pipes. There is not the slightest doubt, of course, that the instrument was used in Scotland for many years, probably for centuries, before we can trace it, but previous to the dates given we have only tradition and conjecture to go by.

From 1700 till 1750 was perhaps the most critical time in the story of the Great Highland Bagpipe. The disaster at Culloden nearly spelt ruin for the pipes as well as for the tartan. The Disarming Act was very stringent, and the pipes came in for almost as strict a banning as did the kilt. The Jacobites were outlawed, the tartan was pronounced a mark of extreme disloyalty to the House of Hanover, and the life of a professed piper was hardly worth living. The Celt was crushed by the severity of his defeat and broken by the inrush of innovation that followed. Clanship, as such, ceased, and the chiefs, from being the fathers of their people, became the landlords. The Highlander lost his reckless passions, but he also lost his rude chivalry and his absorbing love for the old customs. Traditional history and native poetry were neglected, and theological disputes of interminable duration occupied much of the time formerly devoted to poetic recitals and social meetings. Poverty and civilisation did their work; taste for music declined, and piping died away. Absentee landlordism took the place of resident chieftainism, and Gaelic seemed likely to become a dead language, for the people seemed willing to let it die. The destruction of the crofter system completed the work of ruin begun by the destruction of the clan system. What this meant for Highland feelings and customs is vividly shown by the following extract from the writings of the elder Dr. Norman Macleod, Caraid nan Gaidheal, as he was called. The speaker is “Finlay the Piper.”

“There, indeed, you are right; he was the man that had a kind heart. But this new man that has come in his place has a heart of remarkable hardness, and cares not a straw for the pipes or anything that belongs to the Highlands. He is a perfect fanatic in his passion for big sheep. It brings more enjoyment to him to look at a wether parading on green braes than to listen to all the pibrochs that ever were played. If I were to compose a pibroch for him, I would call it ‘Lament for the Big Wether,’ the wether that fell over the rock the other day, the loss of which almost drove him mad. It’s not I that would be caring to say this to everybody; but as you happen to be with me on the spot there can be no harm in telling you how he treated the poor people here. There is not now smoke coming out of single chimney or sheiling in the whole glen, where you used to see scores of decent people working at honest work. This man would as soon give lodgment to a fox as to a poor crofter or a widow woman. You never heard in your life what a mangling and maiming he has made of the population of this glen. Not even a shepherd would he have from the people of the country; he brought them all in from the south. Even his shepherd’s dog does not understand a word of Gaelic. Mactalla of the Crag has not sent back a single echo since good Donald went away. Everything must make way for the sheep. There is not a single brake now in which a bramble would grow; no tuft of brushwood on the slope where one could gather a nut; he has shaved the country as bare as the gable wall of a house, and as for sloes, where sloes used to be you may as well go and look for grapes. The birds, too, have left us; they have gone to the wood on the other side of the Sound; even the gay cuckoo cannot find a single stunted bush where it might hide. He has burnt all the wild wood that ran so prettily up the slope from end to end of this property. You won’t gather as many sticks from the brushwood as would serve to boil a pot of potatoes, or as many twigs as would make a fishing basket. But no more of this; it makes my heart sick to think of it. Better to be talking of something else.”

The new era dawned, however. The dawn came so slowly that it was hardly noticed. The rabid anti-Highland feeling died away, the powers that were took a sensible view of the situation, and in the reaction that followed the music of the pipes quickly regained its old position of pre-eminence. With this difference, however—it returned to popularity as a social instead of a military force, destined in the Highlands to be the pursuit of the enthusiast and the beloved of the common people, and in the British army only, the inspiration that leads men on to slay one another. In this respect the suppression of the rebellions of 1715 and 1745 marks a turning point in Scottish history, the importance of which has never been recognised. With Culloden ended the influence of old beliefs, and when, in 1782, the ban of the Disarming Act was removed, the people were ready for new ideas. A spirit of improvement and an enthusiasm for things Highland appeared, first modestly, then boldly, and under the auspices of a renovated society, without the environments of war and romance, a new order asserted itself. Competitions stirred up the more clever of the piping fraternity, and further popularised the music, books on Highland piping, written or compiled by leading pipers, began to appear, and with the publication broadcast of histories of the many tunes, the people began to take an intelligent and patriotic interest in the music. The Highlands is not now a barbarous and unknown land. It is classic ground, having been made so by the pens of clever writers, but the old instrument is still the emblem of the homeland to Highlanders all over the world, and, whatever dies out, many generations will not see the last of the pibroch.

CHAPTER IV.
The Make of the Pipes.

There’s meat and music here, as the fox said when he ate the bagpipe.—Gaelic Proverb.

The “Encyclopædia” definition—The simple reed—Early forms—Simple bagpipes—The chorus—The volynka—Continental pipes—British pipes—The Northumbrian—The Irish—The Highland—Tuning—Modern pipes—Prize pipes.

“A wind instrument whose fixed characteristic has always been two or more reed pipes attached to and sounded by a wind chest or bag, which bag has in turn been supplied either by the lungs of the performer or by a bellows.”

This is the encyclopædia definition, and generally speaking it is correct. But the bag is certainly an addition to the simple reed or shepherd’s pipe. And if we wish to go further back we can go to the time when a schoolboy on his way to school pulled a green straw from the cornfield, and biting off a bit, trimmed the end and made for himself a pipe. “Many a pipe,” says J. F. Campbell, “did boys make of straws in the days of my youth, and much discord did we produce in trying to play on the slender oaten pipe in emulation of John Piper.” Boys being still boys, they still pull the green straws in the passing by, and no doubt if the pipes were not already in existence they would again grow out of this primitive pipe, slowly but surely. Without the bag the pipe is the most ancient of all instruments. It was quite natural that people should try to form sounds by blowing through a tube, and afterwards to vary the sounds either by varying the size or shape of the tube or by fitting into it some special mechanism. The pipe was well known to the Trojans, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, who had different kinds for different measures, and from contemporary writings we learn that the strain of blowing these early pipes was so great that the player had to bandage his lips and cheeks with a leathern muzzle. One ancient picture represents a player blowing a triple pipe, that is, three pipes joined at the mouth-piece, but separate further down, a performance which must have made the need for some improved method of supplying wind very obvious. The name of the genius who first thought of having a reserve supply in a bag attached to the pipes, which would keep an equable current for the purposes of the music, while at the same time it would relieve the player’s mouth of the continued strain of blowing, is lost to posterity, but in all probability the idea was originated at different places and at different times by different people. Mac Lean, in his History of the Celtic Language, considers the bagpipe as originally consisting of a bladder with drones and chanter of reeds and bulrushes, and affirms that he himself made and played on such an instrument. The first real bagpipe would, however, be a skin, most likely that of a goat or kid, and the invention of the valve in the mouth-piece would follow as a matter of course—that is, if the man who thought of the bag did not also think of having a bellows. There were, no drones in the early pipes. St. Jerome, who lived in the fifth century, says that at the synagogue, in ancient times there was a simple species of bagpipe, consisting of a skin or leather bag, with two pipes, through one of which the bag was inflated, the other emitting the sound. This was the first real bagpipe and it was also, it may be added, the germ of the organ, for the bagpipe is but the organ reduced to its simplest expression.

OLD GERMAN WIND INSTRUMENTS—A.D. 1619.
(1) Large Bagpipe. (2) Dudey or Hornpipe. (3) Shepherd’s Pipe. (4) Bagpipe
with Bellows.

There was an ancient instrument, called the chorus, which seems to have been closely related to the bagpipe. The chorus was composed of the skin of an animal, which was inflated by a pipe in the back of the neck, and had another pipe issuing from the mouth. That it was not exactly the same as the bagpipe is evident from the fact that it was called alterum genus cori to distinguish it from the instrument composed of a bag specially manufactured with mouth-piece and pipe, which was known as unum genus cori. Giraldus Cambrensis, one of the most authoritative writers of the twelfth century, assigns the chorus to Scotland, but says nothing of its construction, although he credits the country with superior musical skill. Some ancient writers class the chorus with stringed instruments, and assert that it has no connection whatever with the bagpipe. Living as we do at the beginning of the twentieth century, we cannot possibly decide such a delicate point. And it does not matter much that we cannot.

Those who hold that the instrument was originally imported into Scotland believe that the parent of the Scottish bagpipe was an instrument known as the volynka, found in some provinces of the Russian Empire and ascribed more particularly to the Finns, who called it pilai. It was a rude instrument, consisting of two tubes and a mouth-piece, all apart, inserted in a raw, hairy goatskin. It was not held in high esteem, for when the Czar degraded the Archbishop of Novogorod in 1569 he alleged that the worthy father was “fitter for a bagpiper leading dancing bears than for a prelate.” But no less than five different kinds of bagpipes were known on the Continent in the seventeenth century, some of them with very high qualities as musical instruments. They were:—

I. The cornemuse, a simple instrument inflated by the mouth, with a chanter having eight apertures for notes, but without any drones.

II. The chalemie, or shepherd’s pipe, used by peasants at festivals, and also in country churches. It was inflated by the mouth, had a chanter with ten holes, and had also two drones.

III. The mussette, which was inflated by a bellows. It had a chanter with twelve notes, besides other apertures and valves opened by keys, and with four reeds for drones, enclosed in a barrel. It was a complicated instrument, and elaborately made. In one instance, we read, the bag of the mussette was made of velvet embroidered with fleurs de lis. It was, however, the “class” variety of the bagpipe, and was played before Royalty. The mussette was said to sound most sweetly, “especially in the hands of Destouches, the Royal Piper.” So they had a royal piper in those days and the pipes were honoured.

IV. The surdelina of Naples, an instrument with two drones, two chanters, and numerous keys.

V. The Italian peasant’s bagpipe, having two chanters, each with a single key, and one drone.

In Germany the instrument was known as the sackpfeife, in Italy as the cornamusa, in Rome as tibia utricularis, in Lower Brittany as bignou, and other Continental names for it were tiva, ciarmella, samponia or samphoneja and zampugna.

There was besides the simple combination of reed and bladder, so simple that it could be made by the shepherd boy himself, without the aid of tools and without any special aptitude for mechanics. From it spring all the others which demand the skill of the finished artisan and the help of turning laths and latter-day implements. The Italian bagpipe, which was made familiar in Britain through the wandering pifferari, was a very rude instrument, consisting of a goat’s skin, with an enormous drone, on which the player performed by means of a mouth tube, another player making the melody on a separate chanter. A visitor to Naples in 1824 describes a musician in a sheepskin coat, with the wool outwards, playing a bagpipe, of which the bag consisted of “the undressed skin of a goat inflated by one of the legs in its original shape.” How anything could be inflated by the leg of a goat he does not stop to inform us, but as the bagpipe now used in Italy is very agreeable and also presentable, though limited in power, it must have been improved considerably since 1824. That it did exist in a more finished condition is evident from the statement of another traveller, made in 1850, that he had heard the national music of Hungary played at Pesth on the dudelsack, “a genuine bagpipe, with a fine drone, adorned in front with a goat’s head, and covered with a goat’s skin.” It is not clear whether he means that the bag or the drone was adorned in front with the goat’s head, but most likely it was the bag, and the head would be in its original relation to the skin of the goat. The sackpfeife (bagpipe) and chalemie (shepherd’s pipe) seem to have been intimately associated with the wandering minstrels of Germany from time immemorial, and under the name of dudey or dudelsack, is still well known to the German peasant.

There are three recognised kinds of bagpipes in the British Islands:—

I. The Northumbrian bagpipe.

II. The Irish bagpipe.

III. The Great Highland Bagpipe.

The Northumbrian bagpipe is in two forms, one like the Highland, but of smaller dimensions and milder tone, and the other a miniature of this, and having the same relation to it as a fife has to a German band. The Lowland bagpipe of Scotland may be identified with the Northumbrian, but it is looked on rather contemptuously by the devotees of the Highland, because, in their opinion, it merely imitates other instruments, and is not fitted to perform what they consider the perfection of pipe music—the pibroch.

THE NORTHUMBRIAN BAGPIPE

The Northumbrian and the Lowland pipes were easily carried about, and were much gentler than the great Highland, but they did not resemble those used on the Continent. They had the same tone as the Highland, but were less sonorous, and were blown by a bellows put in motion by the arm opposite to that under which the bag was held. In this latter respect they were similar to the Irish, and like them they had the drones fixed in one stock and laid horizontally over the arm, not borne on the shoulder. The real Lowland bagpipe, however, never got farther than two drones. A new form of the Northumbrian was played until very lately, perhaps still is. It also was a bellows instrument, and had several keys on the chanter, which gave it a chromatic scale. A peculiarity of its fingering was that only one hole was uncovered at a time, the end of the chanter being kept shut. Although the Great Highland Bagpipe has now surpassed the Lowland, the latter is not quite extinct, and a few years ago there were, even in Aberdeenshire, at least two performers on it. In the Borders of Scotland there were probably many more. The Northumbrian pipes, it may be added, were often wholly formed of ivory, and richly ornamented with silver. The bag was covered with cloth or tartan, and fringed or otherwise adorned. The compass of the old Northumbrian small pipe chanter was only of eight notes (one less than that of the Highland); but with a few keys to produce semi-tones, all the old Northumbrian airs could be played. The modern chanter has been lengthened by the addition of keys until the scale extends from D below the treble clef to B above it.

IRISH BAGPIPE.

The Irish bagpipe is the instrument in its most elaborate form. It also is supplied with wind by a bellows. The drones are all fixed on one stock, and have keys which are played by the wrist of the right hand. The reeds are soft and the tones very sweet and melodious, and there is a harmonious bass which is very effective in the hands of a good player. Some of the drones are of great length, winding as many as three times the length of the apparent tube. The player is seated with one side of the bellows tied firmly to his body, the other to his right arm, the drones under his left leg, and the end of the chanter resting on a pad of leather on his knee, on which it is tipped for the purpose of articulating many of the notes. The bag is made of goat’s skin and is rendered pliable by means of bees’ wax and butter. Originally it, like that of the Highland pipe, was filled by the mouth, but it was changed so as to be filled by the bellows. In later instruments several finger keys were adapted to a fourth tube, whereby a perfect chord could be produced, and thus the instrument was rendered fit for private apartments, where as the Highland and the Lowland were only suitable for the open air. The sweetness of the sound, the result of the smallness and delicacy of the reeds and the prolongation of the pipes; the capacity of the instrument, the result of the many keys, and the capability of the chanter; have earned for the Irish pipes the title of the Irish organ. The compass of the instrument is two octaves. Like the Lowland, the Irish bagpipe is fast dying out, but there is in Glasgow at least one player, an old man, bent with years, but devoted to his pipes, who takes his stand near the top of the classic High Street, and can always depend on a small but select audience, to appreciate his rendering of Scotch and Irish airs on the bagpipe of Erin. Both the Irish and the Northumbrian pipes have, it may be added, been elaborated until they have almost ceased to be bagpipes.

And lastly, we have the “Great Highland Bagpipe.” In this instrument a valved tube leads from the mouth to an air-tight bag which has four other orifices, three large enough to contain the base of three fixed long tubes termed drones, and another smaller, to which is fitted the chanter. The three are thrown on the shoulder while the latter is held in the hands. All four pipes are fitted with reeds, but of different kinds. The drone reeds are made by splitting a round length of “cane” or reed backward from a cross cut near a knot or joint towards the open end. They thus somewhat resemble the reed in organ pipes, the loose flap of cane replacing the tongue, and the uncut part the tube or reed proper. They are set downward in a chamber at the base of the drone, so that the current of air issuing from the bag tends to set the tongue in vibration. The drone reeds are only intended to produce a single note, which can be tuned by a “slider” on the pipe itself, varying the length of the consonating air column.

The chanter reed is different in form, being made of two approximated edges of cane tied on to a metal tube. It is thus essentially a double reed, like that of the oboe or bassoon, while the drone reed roughly represents the single beating reed of the organ or clarionet. The drone reed is an exact reproduction of the “squeaker” which children in the fields fashion out of joints of tall grass, probably the oldest form of this reed in existence.

The drones are in length proportional to their note, the longest being about three feet high. The chanter is a conical wooden tube, about fourteen inches long, pierced with eight sounding holes, seven in front for the fingers and one at the top behind for the thumb of the right hand. Two additional holes bored across the tube below the lowest of these merely regulate the pitch, and are never stopped; were it not for them, however, the chanter would require to be some inches shorter, and would consequently have a less pleasing appearance.

THE GREAT HIGHLAND BAGPIPE

The two smaller drones produce a note in unison with the lowest A of the chanter, and the larger an octave lower. The indescribable thrill which the bagpipe is capable of imparting is produced by a sudden movement of the fingers on certain notes, which gives an expression peculiar to the pipes, and distinguishes the pibroch from all other music. The drones, as has been said, are tuned by means of “sliders” or movable joints, and this tuning, or preparation for playing, which generally occupies a few minutes of the piper’s time before he begins the tune proper, is heard with impatience by those not accustomed to the instrument. It gave rise to the saying, applied to those who waste time over small matters, “You are longer in tuning your pipes than playing your tune.” It cannot, however, be helped so long as this instrument remains exactly as it is. The piper’s warm breath goes almost directly on to the reeds, and the consequence is that no sooner does he get his pipes in tune than he starts to put them out of tune—by blowing into them. What is needed is some contrivance that will prevent this, by cooling the air before it reaches the chanter. There are several contrivances in use among leading players, each generally the invention of the man who uses it, but none has come into general favour. Highlanders are a conservative race, and they are not willing to make any changes on their much-loved instrument. It would, however, be well if they would take this matter into consideration, and do something to render unnecessary that preparatory tuning which many people find so unpleasant—that is if it is possible to prevent the reeds getting wet while wet breath is blown into the instrument. The bellows of course gets over the difficulty, but we hardly wish to see a bellows attached to the Highland Bagpipe. It would not then be Highland.

The Highland bagpipe is louder and more shrill than any other, probably because it was all along intended for use as an instrument of war, and pipe music is known to have been heard at a distance of six miles, and, under specially favourable circumstances, of ten miles. The Duke of Sutherland has a bagpipe which was played on in the ’45, and could be heard at a distance of eight miles.

Modern pipes are generally made of black ebony or cocoawood, the ferrules or rings being of ivory. Sometimes the pipes are half-mounted in silver, that is the high ferrules in ivory and the low in silver. The drones of the best makers have the inside lined with metal, where there is friction in the tuning slide. The bag is formed of sheepskin, in which are securely fastened five pieces of turned wood called stocks. These receive the ends of the chanter, the mouth-piece, and the drones. The chanter reed is formed of two pieces of Spanish cane, placed side by side. The tops of these are worked down to a fine edge, and the bottoms are tied with fine hemp to a small metal tube. The blowpipe has on its lower end a valve, which prevents the return of the wind to the mouth. The drones provide a background or additional volume of sound, which gives body to the music. The big drone is fitted with two, and the others with one tuning slide each. The drones are interchangeable, so that the big drone can be placed in the right or left stock to suit a right or left-handed player. When the bag is filled with wind the pressure of the player’s arm must be so regulated that there is always just sufficient force of air to bring out the notes clearly without interfering with the steady action of the drones. The bag is held well under the arm, the big drone rests on the shoulders, and the others are suspended from it by ribbons and silk cords. The bag is generally held slightly in front, so that the short drones rest on the shoulder. When on full-dress parade a banner flies from the big drone, with the arms of the regiment or chief as a motto. The drones are generally placed on the left shoulder, but many players place them on the right. The whole instrument is kept in position by the tension of the bag. The instruments used by present-day pipers are the full set, the halfset or reel pipes, and the practising chanter.

The bagpipe had originally but one drone. A second was added about 1500, and a third about 1800. Bagpipes with one drone are still used occasionally, and so late as the winter of 1899 an itinerant player might sometimes be seen, late at night, playing for coppers at Jamaica Street corner, Glasgow, on such an instrument. The two drone pipes were barred at competitions owing to some supposed advantage they gave to the player, and they appeared last in 1821.

The pipes awarded as prizes at competitions under the auspices of the Highland Society of London are almost always of cocoa wood, having armorial bearings and a silver plate inscribed with the name of the successful competitor. The bagpipe is the result of an evolution process, and if this process continues we may yet see it further improved, and the instrument made so that it will commend itself not only to Highlanders themselves, but to lovers of music generally. A great deal of the prejudice against the pipes is, however, caused by the ignorance of their critics, and perhaps if people criticised less and understood more we would not hear so much of the shortcomings of the instrument.

CHAPTER V.
With an Ear to the Drone.

“What needs there be sae great a fraise

Wi’ dringing, dull, Italian lays;

I wadna gie our ain strathspeys

For half a hunder score o’ them;

They’re dowf and dowie at the best,

Dowf and dowie, dowf and dowie,

Dowf and dowie at the best,

[Wi’ a’ their variorum;]

[They’re dowf and dowie at the best,]

Their allegros an’ a’ the rest.