In fairies’ hillocks—Stories with a common origin—Sutherlandshire version—Away for a year—Harris piper and the fairies—Seven years away—Fairies helping pipers—Helping the Mac Crimmons—A boy piper—How the music went from Islay to Skye—Faust-like bargains—A Caithness story—A fairy piper.

Pipers with a leaning towards the uncanny dealt largely with fairies, and in West Highland mythology piping is said to have been heard in fairies’ hillocks. “I know two sisters,” says a boy in a story of Skye—“one of them is a little deaf—and they heard a sound in a hill, and they followed the sound, and did they not sit and listen to the piping till they were seven times tired? There is no question about that.” We do not believe in those things now. Our forefathers did, however, and there seems to have been an idea that pipers were special favourites of the little harmless green-coated ones. It is, indeed, their association with fairies that provides the most interesting of all the stories about pipers. There are ever so many stories of their adventures in the fairies’ mounds and caves, and, like other classes of Celtic tales, they all run in one groove though they are located as far distant as Scotland is long. Like the story of Faust, where a man sells his soul for a period of worldly pleasure, so the story of the piper who goes to the fairies for a while, and sometimes comes back again, permeates all the literature of its class. It turns up all over Scotland, it has been heard often in Ireland, and even in the Scilly Isles it is known. It does not require much ingenuity to show that those legends have all been derived from one original story. The same remark, however, applies to the legendary lore of the entire Celtic race—Scottish, Irish and Continental. Divested of “trimmings” added by the passing of ages and the difference in circumstances, Celtic stories are found to have so much in common as to create strong presumptive evidence that the race must some time or other have lived together, a united people, a mighty scattering taking place afterwards, during which the Celts spread themselves over the world, carrying their folk-lore with them. That is one theory regarding the race, and this singular fact about its traditions is one of the strongest arguments in its favour.

Perhaps the most concise version of the fairy story comes from Sutherlandshire. A man whose wife had just been delivered of her first-born set off with a friend to the village of Lairg to have the child’s birth entered in the session books, and to buy a cask of whisky for the christening. As they returned, weary with the day’s walk, they sat down to rest at the foot of the hill of Durcha, on the estate of Rosehall, near a large hole, from which they were ere long astonished to hear the sounds of piping and dancing. The father, feeling very curious, entered the cavern, went in a few steps, and disappeared. The other man waited for a while, but had to go home without his friend. After a week or two had passed, and the christening was over, and still there was no sign of the father’s return, the friend was accused of murder. He denied the charge again and again, and repeated the tale of how the child’s father had disappeared into the cavern. At last he asked for a year and a day in which to clear himself of the charge. He repaired often at dusk to the fatal spot and called for his friend, and prayed, but the time allowed him was all spent except one day, and nothing had happened. In the gloaming of that day, as he sat by the hillside, he saw what seemed to be his friend’s shadow pass into the opening. He followed it, and, passing inside, heard tunes on the pipes, and saw the missing man tripping merrily with the fairies. He caught him by the sleeve and pulled him out. “Bless me, Sandy!” cried the father, “why could you not let me finish my reel.” “Bless me!” replied Sandy, “have you not had enough of reeling this last twelvemonth?” “Last twelvemonth!” cried the other in amazement, nor would he believe the truth concerning himself till he found his wife sitting by the door with a year-old child in her arms. The time passed quickly in the company of the good people.

Here, again, is perhaps the best of the long stories of pipers and fairies. It is from the Celtic Magazine, so ably conducted by the late Alexander Mac Kenzie:—

“Jamie Gow, a celebrated piper of many, many years ago, lived at Niskisher, in Harris. He had a croft, but neglected it for the pipes, which brought him his livelihood. His home was five miles from a famous fairy knoll, in which thousands of fairies were. Till Jamie’s time no one ever found the entrance. It was said that if a piper played a certain tune three times round the base of the knoll, going against the sun, he would discover the door, but this no hero of the chanter had previously attempted.

“Among a number of drouthy neighbours one day a debate got up as to the nature of the inside of the knoll. Jamie Gow declared that he would for a gallon of brandy play round the knoll in the proper way, and if he found the door he would enter and play the fairies a tune better than anything they had ever danced to. A score of voices cried “done,” and the bargain was made. About noon on the following day Jamie, after partaking of something to keep his courage up, proceeded to Tom-na-Sithichean, the Fairy Knoll. He was accompanied by scores of people, some cheering, some discouraging him. On reaching the knoll he emptied other two “coggies,” took up his position, and began to play. As soon as the first skirl of his pipes was heard all the people fled to the top of an adjoining hill to wait the result. With a slow but steady step Jamie marched round the Tom. Twice he completed his journey without mishap, and he had almost finished the third round. But when within two or three paces of the end he was seen to stand for a moment and then disappear. There was an opening in the side of the hill, which admitted him to a long dark passage, so rugged and uneven as to make it most inconvenient for a piper to keep marching and playing a particular tune, as Jamie was. The air, too, was chilly and disagreeable, drops of water continually trickling down the cold damp sides of the passage. Jamie, however, marched on fearlessly, and strange to say the farther he went the lighter grew his step and the livelier his tune. By and by the long passage became illuminated with a faint light, by which he saw that the roof and sides were very thickly covered with short and starry pendants, which shone white and radiant, like marble. Forward still, till he reached a door which opened of its own accord and led into a chamber of indescribable splendour. The floor seemed of solid silver, the walls of pure gold, and the furniture most costly. Around the table sat hundreds of lovely women and smiling men, all perfect in form and clothed in spotless green, brilliant and rich beyond description. They had apparently finished a sumptuous dinner, and were now quaffing the purple juice of the grape out of diamond-mounted cups of exquisite beauty.

“At the sight of such splendour, the piper for a moment was amazed, the drones fell powerless on his arm, for he stood with open mouth, ceasing to blow his bag. Noticing this, one of the green gentlemen rose from his seat, and, smiling coyly, handed him a cup of wine to drink, which Jamie loved too dearly to refuse. So, taking the proffered cup, with thanks, he said—‘I am a piper to my trade. I have travelled and played from one end of the island to the other, but such a pretty place and such lovely people I never saw.’ And he quaffed the cup at one draught.

“The gentleman in green then asked if he would favour the company with a tune called ‘The Fairy Dance,’ at which they knew he excelled all other performers. Nothing pleased Jamie better than a little puffing—this, probably, the inhabitants of the knoll knew—and he replied lustily, ‘And, by my faith, I will, and I will play it as true as ever any piper played a tune.’ In a moment the vast assembly was on its feet, swinging from side to side in a long country dance. Nothing that Jamie had ever seen compared to the graceful manner in which both ladies and gentlemen performed their evolutions, and this encouraged him to blow with might and main and stamp hastily with both feet, as if inspired, like the other performers.

“Meanwhile the people who had accompanied Jamie surrounded the knoll in search of him. They saw the spot where he disappeared, and some asserted that they saw the door itself, but when they came near the place there was no door. They continued the search for weeks, looking and listening in the hope of hearing the well-known notes of his chanter, but without success. Years passed, and Jamie did not return. The story of his disappearance at the knoll had spread far and wide, and his fate was the subject of conversation at many gatherings throughout the Western Isles. But though he was sadly missed at the balls and weddings, no one missed or pined for Jamie like his widowed mother and his sweetheart, Mairi Nighean Gilleam, to whom he was to have been married shortly after he left on his rash journey round the knoll.

“For several years Jamie continued to play ‘The Fairy Dance,’ and the dancers seemed as fresh as when he began. At long last the piper, wearied almost out of breath, cried ‘May God bless you, friends! my breath is almost gone.’ The mention of the Great Name produced a revolution. In a moment all lights were out, the beautifully clad assemblage and the gorgeous hall immediately disappeared, and Jamie found himself standing on the top of Tomnahurich, at Inverness. Until he inquired at a cottage in the vicinity he was entirely ignorant of his surroundings, but as soon as he found out where he was he made direct for Harris, reaching there after a journey of six weeks.

“Jamie was seven years with the fairies. When he got back to Harris he found his cottage deserted, for his mother had died a year before. No one in the place recognised him, he was so changed. His beard reached to his girdle, his cheeks were bulged out to a prodigious size by the continual blowing of his pipes, and his mouth was twice its original proportions. Mairi Nighean Uilleam knew him by his voice, and a few weeks after they became man and wife. Jamie never again visited Tom-na-Sithichean.”

I should think not. He had had quite enough of the fairies. They, however, seem to have had a soft side to pipers, at least we often read of them helping the musicians with their music. The first story which illustrates this comes from one of the Inner Hebrides, and is given in J. F. Campbell’s Tales of the West Highlands, the actual words of the narrator being used. It was told in a houseful of people, all of whom seemed to believe it:—

“There was a piper in this island and he had three sons. The two eldest learned the pipes, and they were coming on famously, but the youngest could not learn at all. At last, one day, he was going about in the evening very sorrowfully, when he saw bruth, a fairy hillock, laid open. (There was one close to the house, which was exactly like the rest of its class. It was afterwards levelled and human bones were found in it.) He went up to the door and stuck his knife into it, because he had heard from old people that if he did that the slaugh could not shut the door. Well, the fairies were very angry, and asked him what he wanted, but he was not a bit afraid. He told them he could not play the pipes a bit, and asked them to help him. They gave him feadan dubh, a black chanter, but he said: ‘That’s no use to me for I don’t know how to play it.’

“Then they came about him and showed him how to move his fingers; that he was to lift that one and lay down that, and when he had been with them a while he thanked them and took out his knife and went away, and the bruth closed after him.

“Now, that man became one of the most famous pipers, and his people were alive until very lately. I am sure you all know that.”

Chorus—“Oh yes, yes indeed. It is certain that there were such people whether they are now or not.”

If all tales be true, the fairies had something to do with the eminent genius of the Mac Crimmons themselves. Once upon a time, to use the proper phrase, there was a great gathering of the clans at Dunvegan Castle. Mac Leod was entertaining the chiefs, and each chief was accompanied by his piper. The chiefs were great and the pipers were great, and somehow it was agreed that there should be a trial of skill among the musicians present—twelve in all. Mac Leod himself directed the proceedings, and one by one the great instrumentalists stepped into the hall and made the rafters dirl with their well-known strains. But Mac Leod became anxious as he noticed that there was no sign of his own piper, the old piper who had served him so long. He sent a boy to search, and the boy returned with the sad news—the piper was hopelessly drunk. The brow of Mac Leod grew dark with anger, for he was not to be humbled in his own household and in the presence of his guests. The tenth piper was tuning up—there was but another, and then his disgrace would be public property. In the desperation of despair Mac Leod seized the boy by the hand and whispered: “You are the twelfth piper, remember your chief’s words.” The boy, Mac Crimmon by name, left the hall, while the feasting and fun went on as merrily as ever, and lay down on the hillside and bemoaned his fate. But his good fairy was not far away. She came right out of the ground, as pretty a little fairy as ever helped poor mortal in desperate plight. She knew his trouble, and did not waste words, but gave the distracted boy a curiously-shaped whistle, and bade him play on it. The youngster would do anything to oblige the kind lady, so he blew on the whistle, and lo! the hills and the rocks re-echoed with the finest music ever heard in Skye. The good fairy disappeared, and the boy ran back to the castle, where the eleventh piper was playing the last notes of his pibroch. The chiefs and the pipers laughed to see the boy step it out into the centre of the assembled company, but their scorn was turned to admiration as compositions played in faultless and brilliant manner poured from the boy’s “pipes.” Thenceforth Mac Crimmon was prince of pipers, and we do not read that ever the good fairy came back to claim any recompense for what she had done; neither have we any explanation of why she gave him a whistle (? a chanter) and not a set of pipes right off.

Another story of the Mac Crimmons, but one that has not many points of resemblance to the other, is told by Lord Archibald Campbell in Records of Argyll. It is from the lips of Hector Mac Lean, of Islay, and tells of how, when Mac Donald of the Isles resided in the palace on Finlagan Isle, in Loch Finlagan, he had a ploughman who, from his large stature, was called the Big Ploughman. This ploughman was out one day at his work, and he had a boy with him driving the horses, as was the custom in those times. The Big Ploughman was seized with hunger, and he said to the boy:

“My good fellow, were it to be got in the ordinary way, or magically, I would take food in the meantime, were I to have it.”

After he had said these words, he and the boy took another turn with the team, till they came to the side of Knockshainta. There was an old grey-haired man by the side of the hill, who had a table covered with all manner of eatables. He asked them to come and partake of what was on the table. The ploughman went, but the boy was frightened, and would not go. After the ploughman had eaten enough, the old man gave him a chanter to play. When he put his fingers to it, he, who had never played before, played as well as any piper that ever was in the island of Islay. A day or two after, Mac Donald heard, in his palace on Island Finlagan, the Big Ploughman playing the Black Chanter. He inquired who it was, and they told him it was the Big Ploughman. When he heard how well the ploughman played there was nothing for it but to get for him the bagpipe of the three drones, and he was Mac Donald’s piper as long as he lived.

Mac Donald went on a trip to the Isle of Skye. He took with him from thence a young man of the name of Mac Crimmon, who was fond of music, and was doing a little at it. He went to the Big Ploughman to learn more music from him than he had already. Mac Crimmon and the ploughman’s daughter began courting and in consequence of the fancy that the girl took to Mac Crimmon—believing that he would marry her—she took the Black Chanter unknown to her father out of the chest, and gave it to Mac Crimmon to try it. When Mac Crimmon tried it he could play as well as the Big Ploughman himself. The girl asked the chanter back, but he entreated her to let him have it for a few days until he should practise a little further on it. A short time after Mac Donald of the Isles went off to Skye, and Mac Crimmon went with him. He did not return the chanter, neither did he come back to marry the Big Ploughman’s daughter. The people of Islay say it was in this way that the music went from Islay to the Isle of Skye.

“The Powers” were not always so unselfishly inclined as the stories already given make them appear. They often drove a Faust-like bargain with the piper. They did with Peter Waters, a Caithness lad, who, when driving home his cattle one day over the common in the parish of Olrig, stopped to quench his thirst at a spring which flowed from the side of a well-known fairies’ hillock called Sysa. Peter was tired, the spot was quiet, and the air invited him to slumber. So he slept till near sunset, when he was awakened by a gentle shake of the shoulder. Starting up, he saw a most beautiful lady, dressed in green, with golden ringlets, blue eyes, and the sweetest countenance in the world, standing beside him. Peter was shy, and his first impulse was to run away, but the lady looked at him and he couldn’t.

“Don’t be afraid of me, Peter,” she said, with one of her most captivating smiles, and with a voice soft and clear as a silver bell. “I feel a great interest in you, and I am come to make a man of you.”

“I am much obliged to you, indeed,” stammered Peter. “The greatest nobleman in the land might be proud of your fair hand, but I have no desire to enter into the silken cord; and, besides, I would require to be better acquainted with you before I took such a step. People commonly court a little before they marry.”

The lady laughed.

“You mistake me altogether,” said she. “Though you appear a very nice young man, I make no offer of my hand. What I mean is that I will put you in the way of rising in the world and making your fortune. Here are two things—a Book and a pipe. Make your choice of the one or the other. If you take the Book you will become the most popular preacher in the north, and if you take the pipe you will be the best piper in Scotland. I shall give you five minutes to consider,” and she took from her bosom a golden time-piece about the size of a sovereign.

The book was a splendidly bound Bible, richly embossed with gold, and with a golden clasp; the pipe a beautiful instrument, with a green silk bag of gold and silver tissue, and superbly finished with a number of silver keys. Peter gazed in admiration on the articles, and was greatly puzzled. It would be a grand thing, he thought, to be a popular preacher, to have a manse and glebe, and be fit company for the laird and his lady. But he was an enthusiast for music, and he should like above all things to be able to play the bagpipe. So he said—

“Since you are so kind, I think I will choose the pipe; but as I have never fingered a chanter in my life, I fear it will be a long time before I learn to play such a difficult instrument.”

“No fear of that,” said the lady. “Blow up, and you’ll find that the pipe of its own accord will discourse the most eloquent music.”

Peter did as he was desired, and lo! he played “Maggie Lauder” in splendid style—so splendidly that the cattle near by began capering about in the most extraordinary manner.

“This is perfectly wonderful,” he said. “There must surely be some glamour about this instrument.”

He thanked the lady, and was about to take his departure, when she stopped him with—

“Stop a minute. There is a condition attached to the gift. This day seven years, at the very same hour in the evening, you must meet me by moonlight at the Well of Sysa. Swear by its enchanted spring that you will do so.”

Peter was elated over his new acquisition, and rashly swore as she desired. Then he went home to his father’s farm, the “Windy Ha’.” With an air of triumph he produced his pipes, which excited much curiosity, and were greatly admired. But when he told how he came by them, the old people were fearful.

“It’s no canny, Peter,” said his father, shaking his head, “and I would advise you to have nothing to do with it.”

“The Best protect us!” exclaimed his mother, “my bairn is lost. He must have got it from none other than the Queen of the Fairies.”

“Nonsense,” said Peter; “it was not the Queen of the Fairies, but a real lady—and a kind and beautiful lady she was—that gave me the pipes.”

“But of what use can they be to you,” said his father, “when you canna play them?”

“I’ll let you see that,” Peter replied, and, putting the wind pipe to his mouth, he played the “Fairy Dance” in a style that electrified the household. The whole family, including the grandmother, ninety years of age, started to their feet, and danced heartily, overturning stools and scattering the fire, which was in the middle of the floor, with their fantastic movements. The piper played as if he would never stop.

At length his father, panting for breath and with the perspiration running down his cheeks, cried out, “For mercy’s sake, Peter, gie ower, or you’ll be the death o’ me and yer mither, as well as poor old grannie.”

“I think,” said Peter, laying aside his pipes, “I think you’ll no longer say that I cannot play,” and from that time his fame as a piper spread rapidly, and he was sent for to perform at weddings and merrymakings all over the country, till he realised a small fortune. But the seven years soon rolled away, and the afternoon arrived when he must keep his appointment with the donor of the pipes. Rover, the house dog, attempted to follow him, and when he was sent back he gazed after his master as far as he could see him, and then howled long and piteously. The evening was just such another as that seven years before, and the hillock of Sysa seemed, in the yellow radiance of the setting sun, to glow with unearthly splendour. Peter went, but he never returned, and the general belief was that he was carried away to Fairyland. At any rate, he was never again seen at Windy Ha’.

Not only did the fairies take an interest in pipers, but they played the pipes themselves. In one case where, after a deal of trouble, a young man, Charlie Mac Lean by name, got nearly to the Fairies’ Palace in search of his beautiful young wife, who had been stolen to nurse the young prince of the fairies, he was met by a withered “atomy” of a man, finely dressed, with a cocked hat on his head and a magnificent set of pipes under his arm.

“A happy May eve to you, Charlie Mac Lean,” said the little man, coming up with a dignified bow.

“The same to you, sir, and many,” Charlie replied. “May I ask where this road leads?”

“Why, you goose, don’t you know? It leads to the Fairies’ Palace. Don’t you be trying your tricks on travellers, my fine fellow. However, come on. I’ll lead the way, no matter who plays the pipes.”

With that he tuned up his pipes and marched along, Charlie following. “What tune do you like?” said he, turning round suddenly.

“Oh! Cailleach Liath Rarsair,” answered Charlie, scarcely knowing what he said.

“It’s a capital tune,” said the “atomy,” and immediately striking it up, he played with such life and spirit that Charlie felt able to fight the whole fairy court for his wife.

“Now,” said the little piper, as he finished the tune, “I haven’t time to play more, else I’d give you the prettiest pibroch ever was battered through a chanter. I must be going. Look up, there is the palace before your eyes. One you know bade me tell you to stand in the porch till the company comes out to the green. Your wife will be among them. A word to a sensible man is enough. You have the purse of dust in your pocket: (Charlie had got this from a ‘wise man’ before setting out on the journey); use it, I say, use it, whenever you see your wife.” With that he struck up “Charlie is my darling,” and marched back the way he had come.

Charlie got his wife all right, by following the advice of the “wise man” and the “atomy,” but that part of the story has nought to do with pipers.