Written down this seems a mere unintelligible jumble, but could we hear it, as sounded by the pipers, with due regard for the rhythmical value of notes, it would be a very different matter. Alexander Campbell[[10]] relates that a melody had to be taken down or translated "from the syllabic jargon of illiterate pipers into musical characters, which, when correctly done, he found to his astonishment to coincide exactly with musical notation."
Fig. 1.—(1) Cornemuse. (2) Irish bag-pipe. (3) Musette. (4) Highland bag-pipe, A.D. 1409. (5) Border bag-pipe.
(From Capt. C. R. Day's Descriptive Catalogue of Musical Instruments exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition, by permission of Eyre & Spottiswoode.)
A Highland bag-pipe of the 15th century, dated MCCCCIX., in the possession of Messrs J. & R. Glen of Edinburgh, was exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition in London in 1890[[11]] (see fig. 1 (4)). There were two drones, inserted in a single stock in the form of a wide-spread fork, and tuned to A in unison with the lowest note of the chaunter, which had seven finger-holes in front and a thumb-hole at the back.
The old Irish Bag-pipe.—Very little is known about this instrument. It is mentioned in the ancient Brehon Laws, said to date from the 5th century (they are cited in compilations of the 10th century), in describing the order of precedence of the king's bodyguard and household in the Crith Gabhlach: "Poets, harpers, pipers, horn-blowers and jugglers have their place in the south-east part of the house."[[12]] The word used for (bag-) pipers is Cuislennaïgh, a word associated with reed instruments (cuiscrigh = reeds; O'Reilly's Irish-English Dictionary, Dublin, 1864). The old Irish bag-pipe, of which we possess an illustration dated 1581,[[13]] had a long conical chaunter with a bell and apparently seven holes in front and a thumb-hole behind; there were two drones of different lengths—one very long—both set in the same stock. It is exceedingly difficult to procure any accurate information concerning the development of the bag-pipe in Ireland until it assumed the present form, known as the union-pipes, which belong to Class II.
