PIPERS IN ENCHANTED CAVES.
“The Banshee’s wild voice sings the death dirge before me,
The pall of the dead for a mantle hangs o’er me;
But my heart shall not flag and my nerve shall not shiver,
Though devoted I go—to return again never!”
—_Scott._
Allied to fairy stories—Venturesome pipers—The Skye cave—The Mull
version—The Argyllshire—The Ghostly piper of Dunderave—“Wandering
Willie’s Tale”—A Sutherlandshire cave—A Caithness story—Underground
passages.
The story of a piper endeavouring to explore a mysterious cave is so
closely allied to the class dealt with in last chapter, that all might
quite fairly have been included under one heading. The only difference
often is that in the one case the piper enters a cave opening out to the
sea, whereas in the other he enters a knoll, which may be any distance
inland. There are always fairies in the knoll, but in the majority of
cases there are none in the cave. Their place is taken by wild beasts,
who take the life of the venturesome explorer. The piper generally has a
dog with him when he enters the cave, and the dog always returns, though
the last that is heard of his master is the sad wail of his pipes
playing a lament for his own terrible fate.
“Oh, that I had three hands—two for the pipes and one for the sword,” is
recorded as the tune played by a piper who entered a cavern and could
not get out again. The incident is located in several places—in Skye, in
Mull, and at a cave eight miles up the river Nevis, in Inverness-shire.
The Mull cave reached, it was believed, right across the island, and it
was inhabited by wolves and other wild animals. The Skye cave was called
_Uamh an Oir_, the Cave of Gold, and was situated about four miles from
Dunvegan, the other end opening out at Monkstad on Loch Snizort. It,
too, had wild animals for inhabitants. The inside of the cave in most
cases consisted of many confusing offshoots leading in different
directions, the want of knowledge of which prevented the people of the
neighbouring districts from exploring it. However, on one occasion a
piper (the Skye version makes him a Mac Crimmon) accompanied by a member
of the Clan Mac Leod (also the Skye version) made bold to enter the
cave. A crowd gathered outside to wait for the result. The piper, who of
course had his pipes, went first, playing his best. After a considerable
time had elapsed, the waiting people began to feel anxious as to their
safety. But by and by Mac Leod returned. He could give no account of Mac
Crimmon except that he had lost him in the labyrinths of the cave. He
considered himself extremely fortunate in finding his way out. Their
torches had been extinguished by the dim and foul atmosphere. Just when
Mac Leod was telling his story the wailing notes of Mac Crimmon’s pipes
were heard issuing from the cave. All listened, and as they listened the
pipes spoke, and the notes that came out of the darkness represented:—
“I will return, I will return, I will return no more;
Mac Leod may return, but Mac Crimmon shall never.”
And also:—
“The she wolf, the she wolf, the she wolf follows me;
Oh for three hands; two for the pipes and one for the sword.”
And so on the wailing notes continued, the piper bewailing his fate in
that he could not stop his playing for an instant, because if he did
this the wolf would attack him. So long as he played he was safe.
Ultimately he began to speak of how long his strength would last,
sometimes coming near to the mouth of the cave, but anon wandering away
again into its recesses till the music was scarcely audible. This went
on all that day and night, but in the early morning the listeners heard
the music cease, and they knew that exhaustion had overtaken the piper,
and that the wolf had conquered.
This is the story as I had it from an old lady still living in
Glenquoich, Inverness-shire. Another version has it that this Mac
Crimmon had twelve other men with him, that none of them ever returned,
having been met by an _uile bheisd_ or monster, and devoured. The last
despairing notes of the piper were heard by a person sitting at _Tobar
Tulach_ in the neighbourhood, who listened to the lament as it came up
from the bottom of a well.
The Mull story is told of two of a wedding party who entered the cave
and never came out, and also of twelve men of the Clan Mac Kinnon, who,
headed by a piper, attempted to explore the cave. In the latter case
another party walked along the top keeping pace with the music below.
When the party who travelled in the cave arrived at the end, the fact
was to be signalled to those outside by a certain bar of music, and they
were to mark the spot to indicate the termination of the cave. After the
explorers had travelled some distance they encountered a fairy woman,
who attacked the band and slew them one by one. She was, however, so
charmed with the music of the pipes that she offered no injury to the
person who played them. The poor piper made the best of his way back to
the mouth of the cave followed by the fairy, she meanwhile informing him
that if he ceased playing before he saw the light of day he too would be
killed. He staggered along in the dark, bravely playing out his life
breath, but at last, in spite of his struggles, the music ceased. The
charm was then broken and the piper shared the fate of his comrades.
Those outside knew that something had happened and with drawn swords
rushed into the cave. They found the dead piper and his comrades. The
last notes he played, says the tradition, were:—
“Alas! that I had not three hands—
Two for the pipes and one for the sword.”
This identifies the story as just a variation of the others, though how
it comes to be located in so many different places it is difficult to
explain. In connection with the Mac Kinnon exploring adventure, it may
be added, the tradition further tells of how a dog accompanied the
party, and emerged from the cave at some other place, but bereft of his
hair. He had been in a death struggle with some monster inside and had
escaped.
The dog, the same dog presumably, went into an Argyllshire cave with a
piper. There are many large caves on the Kintyre coast, one of the
biggest being at Keill. This cave was long the resort of smugglers, and
was said to possess a subterranean passage extending six miles from the
mouth of the cave to the hill of Kilellan. It was haunted, and whosoever
would penetrate beyond a certain distance would never again be heard of
(a very convenient tradition for smugglers). A piper, however, made up
his mind to explore its inmost recesses, and, accompanied by his dog, a
little terrier, he set out on the expedition, while his friends watched
and listened at the cavern’s mouth. The piper went in boldly, blowing
his pipes till the cave resounded. His friends heard his music becoming
gradually fainter and fainter until all at once, when, as they supposed,
he had passed the fatal boundary, his pipes were heard to give an
unearthly and tremendous skirl, while an eildrich laugh re-echoed
through the cave. The terrier shortly after came running out, but
without his skin. In process of time he obtained a fresh skin, but he
never tried to bark after that adventure. As for the piper, his fate was
purely a matter of conjecture, but he is supposed to have stumbled in
the subterranean passage, for about five miles from the cavern’s mouth
there was a farm house, and underneath its hearthstone the piper was, in
after years, often heard playing his favourite tune, and occasionally
stopping to ejaculate—
“I doubt, I doubt
I’ll ne’er get out.”
Then there is the tale of the ghostly piper of Dunderave. At certain
times his music was heard issuing from a cavern which faced the sea, and
into the recesses of which the waves swept. On winter nights the sounds
that came from that cavern were wild and unaccountable, and often the
fishermen in the vicinity were startled by fierce, bloodcurdling yells,
especially in the early morning. When the tide went out the children of
the village, unaware of its terrible mystery, strayed near the yawning
cavern, and occasionally sad hearts were made by the disappearance of
the little ones who wandered too far in. The legend of Dunderave was
that the seventh son of the seventh son of a Mac Gregor, who would play
the gathering of his clan in the cavern, would scatter for ever the evil
spirits who frequented it. A piper, who thought he had the necessary
qualifications, was got, and he had the courage to play in the cavern of
Dunderave. Whether he played the gathering of his clan satisfactorily or
not could never be known, but certainly he never came out of the cave,
the mouth of which fell in after him, blocking up the cavern for ever.
No more children were lost, but ever after there could be heard by
anyone standing over the cavern, the faint music of Mac Gregor’s pipes.
Wandering Willie’s tale in _Redgauntlet_ is much too long to quote
entire. In it Steenie the Piper, who has paid his rent to the dead Sir
Robert Redgauntlet, is threatened with eviction by the next laird
because he has not a receipt, and when riding home through the darkness
in great perplexity of mind, is accosted by a stranger, who guides him
to an unearthly place, where he finds Sir Robert and many people whom he
knew were dead gathered round the festal board. He demands his receipt
from Sir Robert, but the laird, or rather “the something that was like
him,” asks him to play up “Weel Hoddled, Luckie,” a tune he had learned
from a warlock, that heard it when they were worshipping Satan at their
meetings, and which he never played willingly. Now he grew cauld at the
name of it, and said, for excuse, he hadna his pipes wi’ him:—
“‘Mac Callum, ye limb of Beelzebub,’ said the fearfu’ Sir Robert,
‘bring Steenie pipes that I am keeping for him.’
“Mac Callum brought a pair of pipes that might have served the piper
of Donald of the Isles. But he gave my gudesire a nudge as he offered
them; and, looking secretly and closely, Steenie saw that the chanter
was of steel, and heated to a white heat, so he had fair warning not
to trust his fingers with it. So he excused himself again, and said he
was faint and frightened and had not wind aneugh to fill the bag.
“‘Then ye maun eat and drink, Steenie,’ said the figure, ‘for we do
little else here, and its ill speaking between a fu’ man and a
fasting.’
“But Steenie was not to be cajoled or threatened into any more
transactions with the ghostly crew than he could help, so he spoke up
like a man, and said he came neither to eat or drink or make
minstrelsy, but simply for his receipt, which in a rage ‘the
appearance’ gave him. Then, when Sir Robert stipulated that the piper
should return after a twelvemonth to pay homage, Steenie’s tongue
loosened yet more, and he exclaimed:—
“‘I refer mysel’ to God’s pleasure and not to yours.’”
Whereupon, as in all other tales of the kind, at the mention of the
sacred Name, “all was dark around him, and he sunk on the earth with
such a sudden shock that he lost both breath and sense.” When he came
round he was lying in the kailyard of Redgauntlet, and he would have
thought the whole experience but a dream, only he had the receipt in his
hand fairly written and signed by the auld laird, and dated “From my
appointed place, this twenty-fifth day of November,” the previous day,
in fact. This he carried to the new laird, who accepted it as evidence
of the rent having been paid, but made Steenie swear never to divulge
his adventure.
Away up in the north, too, we come across stories connected with caves
into which pipers went. At Durness, in Sutherlandshire, a piper went
into a cave and never returned. According to the version current in the
locality, the Devil himself got hold of the venturesome explorer and
kept him. From Caithness we get something better. A piper, in a spirit
of braggadocia, as is often the case in these stories, entered a cave
near Dunnet Head. Jock was “a stout, long-winded chap,”
“Who was a piper to his trade,
And by his trusty chanter earned his bread,”
and the fairies had often heard him play and wished to get him to take
the place of their own piper, who had died. Though they were immortal
themselves, they had not a piper of their own race, and when they got
one from among mankind they could not make him immortal. Jock lived near
a famous cave called Puddingoe, the inmost recesses of which no man had
ever explored, and one day he laid a wager that he would play up
Puddingoe and see how far it went.
“‘For,’ added Jock, ‘though Nick’s a roguish elf,
I canna think he’d harm a hair o’ me,
For he is just a piper like myself,
And dearly loves, I’m told, a funny spree—
Nae doot then he would treat me as a brither,
And we would play a merry jig together.’”
Then he “quaffed a cog of prime home-brewed” and hied him to the cave,
and entered, screwing up his drones and beginning a lively march that
startled the wild pigeons from their ledges and echoed among the
recesses of the walls. Farther and farther he went, past the dripping
sides of cold, damp stone and through the dark, chilly air till at last,
strange to say, the darkness was dispelled and the cave became
illuminated with a light like that of the moon. Jock was, he reckoned,
about two miles underground when all at once he came to a door, which
opened of its own accord and admitted him into a chamber of exceeding
beauty. The floor was inlaid with silver, the walls seemed burnished
gold, and a jovial party of ladies and gentlemen banquetted at a
splendidly spread table. The piper stood amazed for a moment, until one
of the company handed him a glass of wine.
“‘I am a piper to my trade,’ cried Jock,
Am I upon the earth, or where am I?
I never saw before such beauteous folk,
Or such a chamber with my naked eye;
Here’s a’ yir healths,’ and saying this he quaffed
The brimming cup and smacked his lips and laughed.”
Then, of course, the fairies asked him to play, which Jock did, and the
party danced, and danced, and danced, until Jock cried—
“Lord save’s, ohon!
Have mercy on my soul, my breath is gone.”
This had the inevitable result. The lights went out with a fiery hissing
sound, the party vanished, as well as the gorgeous hall, and when Jock
again came to himself he found that he was on the top of an elf-haunted
knowe in the vicinity. He had been a year and a day away from home, his
friends had given him up as dead, and his features were so changed that
they did not recognise him when he returned. With the long spell of
blowing his mouth was distended, which also helped to disguise him. But
he made himself known, and was duly received by his friends and his
sweetheart, and he married shortly after. But, as J. T. Calder, the
historian of Caithness, who tells the legend in rhyme, says—
“Never after was he seen to enter
The enchanted cave in quest of fresh adventure.”
A slight variation of the cave stories are the stories of underground
passages. There is, for instance, the passage that is supposed to exist
between Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace. The piper went in at the
Castle end, intending to play all the way to Holyrood. His pipes were
heard as far as the Tron Church, but then the music ceased. It did not
start again, and the piper was never more heard of.
A similar legend is referred to by Hugh Mac Donald in his ramble,
_Rutherglen and Cathkin_. It is to the effect that Glasgow Cathedral was
built by the “wee pechs (Picts) who had their domicile in Rutherglen.”
Instead, however, of making their journeys overland, they dug an
underground passage, through which they came and went. Even in Mac
Donald’s youth, those who doubted this story were silenced and awed by
the solemn assurance that a Highland piper, to put down the sceptics,
had volunteered to explore the dark road. He was accompanied by his dog,
and he entered playing a cheery tune, as if confident of a successful
result. But “he was never seen or heard tell o’ again.” Only the sound
of his pipes was heard as he passed underneath Dalmarnock, playing in a
mournful key, which suggested the words, “I doot, I doot, I’ll ne’er get
oot.” Another version tells, however, that his poor dog returned, but
without its skin. According to a Glasgow ballad, it was a dominie who
ventured to explore the secret path. He encountered the Deil and other
“friends,” who blew him up through the waters of the Clyde, and the
point at which he emerged is known to this day as “The Dominie’s Hole.”