she concluded with expressions of her own sadness on account of their dangers. The enemies stopped outside her cottage and listened to the song, and believing it to be from the singer’s heart—as it was, but not in the way they supposed—they passed on without disturbing her, and her husband and sons were saved.
The Gaelic proverb, “The apprentice surpasses his master,” or
“THE APPRENTICE SURPASSES THE MAC CRIMMON,”
is associated with two tunes. There was to be a piping competition at Dunvegan at which pipers from all parts of the country were to be present. The leading Mac Crimmon of the day, the head of the college—“Professor” he would now be called—and a nephew of his had “entered,”—if that formality was necessary in these days—and Mac Crimmon had taught his nephew all he himself knew, with the exception of one tune, which he hoped would give him the lead in the competition. The two of them, man and boy, on their way to Dunvegan, slept one night at a wayside inn, sharing a bed. When the old man slept he dreamed of the morrow, and in his dreams he seized the boy’s arm and fingered on it the notes of the special tune he had reserved for himself. The youth was smart enough to realise that this meant something, and also smart enough to commit the notes to memory as his uncle fingered them on his arm. When the competition began he stepped out first and immediately played his uncle’s tune, and carried off the principal honours of the day. Then, the story goes, the people began to speak of An gille ‘toirt bàrr air Mac Crimmon—the lad that surpasses the Mac Crimmon.
But it is the other version of the story that is connected with the origin of a pipe tune. One of the Mac Crimmons, well known as Padruig Caogach or “Winking Peter,” owing to his inveterate habit of winking while playing, once endeavoured to compose a new pipe tune. He managed two measures, which in time became very popular, but he could not for the life of him complete it. Two years elapsed, and still Padruig’s muse had failed to come to his assistance, and the fragment began to be called Am port leathach—the half-completed tune. Then a young piper—Iain Dall it was—inspired with the music of the tune, set himself to complete it, naming it Lasan Phadruig Chaogaich, and renouncing all share in the honours of authorship. But Padruig did not like being outstripped in this way by Mac Kay, who was but a beardless boy, and, in his anger, he persuaded the other students at the college to make away with his rival. He succeeded the better in his scheme that Mac Kay had previously given great offence to his classmates by his proficiency, of which they were jealous, and with which the master piper taunted them. So one day as they were all walking together at Dun Bhorraraig, they came to a rock twenty-four feet in height, over which they pushed the blind “apprentice.” But he alighted on his feet without sustaining much injury, and the spot over which he was thrown was known for a long time after as Leum an doill—the leap of the blind. Iain Dall ultimately returned to Gairloch and succeeded his father as family piper to the Mac Kenzies of Gairloch, dying at the age of ninety-eight.
“MAC PHERSON’S LAMENT”
will always be associated with Burns’s song and with the noted Highland freebooter who in 1700, after holding the counties of Aberdeen, Banff, and Moray in fear for a long time, was captured, tried before the Sheriff of Banffshire, along with certain gipsies taken in his company, and executed on the Gallow Hill of Banff. But it is not generally known that Burns’s words can hardly be called original. As a matter of fact, Mac Pherson himself, tradition says, composed both the pibroch and a set of words wonderfully like those afterwards composed by Burns. The pibroch he composed long before his capture, and the words he gave to the world when he was executed, under the name of “Mac Pherson’s Farewell.” Here they are:—
“My father was a gentleman
Of fame and lineage high,
Oh! mother, would you ne’er had born