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.

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

or a

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:—

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:—

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 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:—

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.