Wives of wild Cona glen, wake from your slumbers.”
Iain du Beeroch du was a noted Highland cattle-lifter, and corresponds to Seumas-an-Tuim, of the Perthshire origin of the tune. Probably they were one and the same person under different names. The only theory on which the three stories can be reconciled is that the tune originally belonged to Perthshire, but was taken to Caithness and to Argyllshire by different pipers, accepted in each place as new, and given a new name. In those days, when communication between districts of Scotland which had nothing in common was very restricted, the tune could exist in one county as new for many years without the people knowing that it was familiar to those of another. And naturally they continued to associate with it the circumstances in which they themselves first heard it. It was this tune, by the way, that on the morning of Quatre Bras, was played through the streets of Brussels to wake the slumbering Highlanders.
“THE MAC GREGORS’ GATHERING.”
Although the Clan Mac Gregor was one of the most famous in Highland history, there is not very much even of reliable tradition concerning the music of the clan. There is—or, at least, was—enough of tradition; but as it does not seem to have been committed to paper, it is now probably lost. Of the origin of “The Mac Gregors’ Gathering” we know nothing beyond the fact that it was included in Captain Mac Leod of Gesto’s manuscript book of pibrochs as having been taken down in pipers’ language, that “syllabic jargon of illiterate pipers” referred to at length in a former article, from the performers, most likely from the Mac Crimmons. From the Gesto book it was translated in 1815 into ordinary notation by Alexander Campbell, editor of Albyn’s Anthology, and this gave it a place in published pipe music. The notation of Captain Mac Leod, says Mr. Campbell, he found, to his astonishment, to coincide exactly with regular notation, so it cannot have been such jargon after all. Scott thoroughly caught the spirit of his tune in the song:—
“The moon’s on the lake, and the mist’s on the brae,
And the Clan has a name that is nameless by day!
Then gather, gather, gather, Gregalich!
Gather, gather, gather, etc.
Our signal for fight, that from monarchs we drew,
Must be heard but by night in our vengeful haloo!