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!