“At the house of Mac Kay am I.”
He played so well that all present knew him to be the great Donald Mòr Mac Crimmon, and as he made his pipes speak to them they understood his complaint, and he was then royally entertained.
The pibroch is also said to have been composed by Patrick Mòr Mac Crimmon on his being taken prisoner, along with many others, at the battle of Worcester, and being left in a pitiable state. It is also associated with the same piper and the battle of Sheriffmuir, where he was left stripped of all his clothing, but it is impossible to say which, if either, is right.
Want of hospitality towards a piper gave rise to another tune. It is called
“THE MISERLY, MISERABLE ONE’S HOUSE,”
and its origin, as told to the late “Nether Lochaber” by an old Loch Awe-side piper, was as follows:—
Some two or three hundred years ago, when the great Clan Campbell was at the height of its power, the estate of Barbreck was owned by a Campbell, who was brother or cousin or something of another Campbell, the neighbouring laird of Craignish. Craignish kept a piper, but Barbreck did not. Barbreck could afford to keep one, but he grudged the expense, and his stinginess in this respect is commemorated in an Argyllshire saying—“What I cannot afford I must do without, as Barbreck did without a piper.”
Barbreck one day was on a visit to Craignish, and as he was leaving he met the piper, and said to him—“The New Year is approaching. On New-Year’s Day morning, when you have played the proper salute to my cousin, your master, I wish you would come over to Barbreck and play a New-Year’s salute to me, for, as you know, I have no piper of my own to do it. Come and spend the day with us.” This the piper promised to do, and on New Year’s Day morning, after first playing his master into good humour, he went to Barbreck. He played and played until the laird was in raptures, but the piper became hungry and thirsty, and hinted as much to Barbreck. He got some food, but it was not satisfactory, either in quantity or quality. The drinkables were no better, and long before the sun set the piper was anxious to go home. “Give us one more tune before you go,” said Barbreck. “That I will,” said the piper, and there and then he struck up impromptu Tigh Bhroinein—the House of the Miserly One. The following are some of the lines attached to the tune from the very first, whether by the piper himself or by another is not known:—
“I was in the house of the miserly one to-day,
In the house of the miserly one was I;