“A winnock bunker in the east,
There sat Auld Nick in shape o’ beast;
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gi’e them music was his charge;
He screw’d the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a’ did dirl.”
—Burns.
Tam o’ Shanter—The Devil’s favourite instrument—“Sorcerers” burned—A bard’s satire—Glasgow Cathedral story—A Hebridean Tam o’ Shanter—Continental ideas—Reformation zeal—Ghostly pipers—A “changeling piper”—The Lost Pibroch—The Chisholm “enchanted pipes”—The Black Chanter of Clan Chattan.
It was not at all a new idea that of Burns, when he represented the arch-enemy of mankind playing the pipes to the revellers in Alloway’s “auld haunted kirk.” The ancients had it, and the sylvan divinity Pan, who can be identified with the Satan of Scottish superstition, is said to have appeared as a performer on the bagpipe. A flute with seven reeds was his favourite instrument, and this may be identified with the bagpipe of tradition. Popular belief in the seventeenth century labelled the pipes as the Devil’s favourite musical instrument. In 1679 some unhappy women were burned at Bo’ness for sorcery, and they were accused, among other things, “of meeting Satan and other witches at the cross of Murestane, above Kinneil, where they all danced, and the Devil acted as piper.” Satan is also alleged to have acted in the same capacity in the guise of a rough, tawny dog at a dance on the Pentland Hills. Mac Mhurich, the bard of Clan Ranald, composed a Gaelic satire on national music, in which the “coronach of women” and piob gleadhair, the pipe of clamour, are called “the two ear sweethearts of the black fiend—a noise fit to rouse the imps,” and there is a story connected with Glasgow Cathedral which shows further the prevalence of the idea. The gravestones round the Cathedral lie so close that one cannot walk across the ground without treading on them. This, however, has not always been able to prevent resurrections, as would appear from the legend. Somewhere about the year 1700 a citizen one morning threw the whole town into a state of inexpressible horror and consternation by giving out that in passing at midnight through the kirkyard he saw a neighbour of his own, lately buried, rise out of his grave and dance a jig with the devil, who played the air of “Whistle ower the lave o’t” on the bagpipe. The civic dignitaries and ministers were so scandalised at the intelligence that they sent the town drummer through the streets next morning forbidding any to whistle, sing or play the infernal tune in question.
A story curiously like that of Tam o’ Shanter, but of a much more pleasant nature, at least for the human participator, comes from the Hebrides—the particular isle is not stated. A gentleman innkeeper, who was taught by Angus Mac Kay, the late Queen’s piper, and could play the pipes as well as the violin, was sadly addicted to the drinking habit, and had frequent fits of delirium tremens, in which he had extraordinary experiences. Once when he had been indulging with his usual prodigality, the result found him in a large hall, laid out for dancing, and with a band of performers dressed in blue. The chief of the blue imps stood as if in front of the orchestra, grinning, capering, and gesticulating in the most fantastic manner. In the course of time, however, he became more amiable, and, drawing up his tail over his shoulder, he fingered it as if it were the chanter of the pipes, and there poured out a most inspiriting jig, the force of which neither demon nor man could resist, and the performance rivalled that in Alloway’s “auld haunted kirk.” But, and this is where Tam o’ Shanter failed and the innkeeper succeeded, “mine host” remembered the tune after his recovery, and played it, and the last teller of the story says he “heard it played by another party who had learned it from him.” But, unfortunately, he was too lazy to make a copy, so the “Lost Jig” went the way of the “Lost Pibroch,” and is now unknown to the World.