The Highland bagpipe

by W. L. Manson

To extirpate the vipers,

With four-and-twenty men

And five-and-thirty pipers.”

A Culloden incident—Ancient Celts in battle—The harper and bard superseded—First mention of pipes in battle—First regimental pipers—In the navy—Prince Charlie’s pipers—An “instrument of war”—A Mac Crimmon incident—Power of pipes in battle—A Magersfontein incident—Byron’s tribute—Position in actual battle.

Professor Aytoun in these cynically humorous lines, from the “Bon Gaultier Ballads,” would have us believe that the piper was more important in times of war than the actual fighting man. He was important, no doubt, but hardly in the proportion of thirty-five to twenty-four. The Duke of Cumberland, a man whom Highlanders, and more especially those with Jacobite leanings, do not hold in very high reverence, was making ready to meet Prince Charlie at Culloden, and when he saw the pipers of the clans who supported him preparing their musical instruments, he asked somewhat testily, “What are these men to do with such bundles of sticks. I can get far better implements of war than these.” “Your Royal Highness,” said an aide-de-camp, “cannot get them better weapons. They are the bagpipes, the Highlanders’ music in peace and war. Without these all other instruments are of no avail, and the Highland soldiers need not advance another step, for they will be of no service.” Then Cumberland, who was too good a tactician to underrate the value of anything, allowed the pipers to take their part in the fight. It is difficult to believe, although the story is given on good authority, that he was so ignorant, but we know that a general who did not understand the music of his different regiments would nowadays be considered very deficient indeed. Officers of our day not only understand about the music, they fully appreciate its value. This is particularly true of the officers of Highland regiments who, as a rule, do all they can to foster a love for the pipes, knowing quite well that

“Its martial sounds can fainting troops inspire

With strength unwonted and enthusiasm fire.”

The use by the Celts of the bagpipes in battle fits in beautifully with all we know of the ancient people. Their demeanour in the actual fight was always remarkable. In old times they did not fight as they do now, with weapons deadly at long distances from the enemy, and to use which in a uniform style they are disciplined. Each warrior fought for his own hand, with his own claymore, subject, after the fight began, to no system of rules. Before the battle a strange nervous excitement, called by ancient writers, crithgaisge, or “quiverings of valour,” came over him. This was followed by an overpowering feeling of exhilaration and delight, called mir-cath, or “the joyous frenzy of battle.” It was not a thirst for blood, but an absorbing idea that both his own life and fame and his country’s good depended on his efforts, and a determination to do all that could be done by a resolute will and undaunted spirit. The mir-cath has been seen in a modified form on several occasions in modern warfare, but only when the Highland soldier has a chance of charging with the bayonet. Then that shout which precedes an onset no foe can withstand is heard, and the Highlanders forget themselves and rush forward like an irresistible torrent.

The harp was originally the national musical instrument of the Highlands, but its strains were too soft and melting for the clash of arms, and the utmost efforts of the harper would fail to rouse the vengeful fervour of the Gaelic heroes. The pibroch’s shrill summons, telling the sad tale of devastated straths and homeless friends, with notes that had often led them to victory aforetime, was needed to gather them to the fray; it drowned with its piercing tones the wailings of the bereaved, and called in maddened ardour for revenge on the enemy. It was perhaps a descent when the pipes had to be substituted for the voice of the bard, and it was certainly a descent when the pipes as a domestic instrument superseded the soft and soothing harp. But the two changes were inevitable, and the first is not so great as it seems. The pipes almost spoke to the people, and their music was but another language in which their deeds and those of their ancestors were being preserved.

The bards, who preceded the pipers as an inspiring military force, seemed themselves not only susceptible to the influence of the mir-cath, but capable of imparting it to others. Before the battle they passed from clan to clan, giving exhortation and encouragement in wild recitative strains, and rousing the feelings of the warriors to the highest pitch of frenzy. When the noise of fighting drowned their voices, the pipes, after they became general as military instruments, kept the enthusiasm alive. Both bard and piper helped when the battle was over to celebrate the deeds of those who had survived and the honour of the brave who had fallen, the piper’s part of the work being more often the playing of laments for the departed. By these means, death was robbed of its terrors, for the honouring of the dead who died nobly naturally produced a magnanimous contempt for the last enemy. The pipes, from their first introduction, had no rival as an instrument of war. That they were used as such in ancient times we have historical proof. Among the Highlanders the bagpipe is supposed to have superseded the war-song of the bards about the beginning of the fifteenth century. We have the tradition of the Clan Menzies that it was used at Bannockburn, but though we grant that on many occasions