Blair Collection > Celtic monthly > Volume 5, 1897

THE CELTIC MONTHLY.
at York, for treason ia the year 174G, it was
observed that no regiment ever marched without
musical instruments, such as drums and trum-
pets and the like, and that a Highland regiment
never marched without a piper, therefore his
bagpipe in the eye of the law was an instrument
of war. The victim of this harsh decision
consequently sufi'ered capital punishment in
that city for having joined the rebel army,
while other two of his profession were acquitted
because they had been forced into the service.
At the battle of Quebec in April, 1760, the
bagpipe rallied the Highland troops, and when
beginning to yield at Cuddalore, in India, their
drooping spirits were reinvigorated by its wild
appeal leading them on to victory.
At the battle of Vimiera, in Portugal, in
181 o, after a courageous piper had fallen, and
lay bleeding on the ground, he boldly ]>layed on,
thus helping to turn the fortune of the day.
At Waterloo the pipers of the 7'Jth, including
those of the other regiments forming the High-
land brigade, played courageously, urging their
comrades by such inspiriting tunes as the
Cogadh na sit/t (peace or war). The bagpipe
was much in vogue in all Highland sports and
pastimes and at all "gatherings of clans."
From Highland hospitality, so predominant in
Scotland, the chief had frequent opportunity of
entertaining his guests with the music of his
pipers. When Dr. Johnson visited Coll, one of
the Western Isles, " the piper played regularly
when dinner was served, whose person and
dress made a good appearance." The bagpipe
has always been employed to heighten mirth
and lighten labour, and at a wedding in Scotland
it has been a custom for the " piper to have a
piece of the bride's garter tied about his pipes."
While the inhabitants of the Isle of Skye
were occupied making roads in the year 1786
each party had a bagpipe. Also when numbers
of men in the north of Scotland engaged in
works of strength and joint labour, as launching
a large boat, they required a piper to regulate
the time. Some, too, when occupied in the
Highland harvest were accustomed to keep time
together by several peculiar tones of the voice,
to stoop and rise together as regularly as a
rank of soldiers when they ground their arms.
Sometimes they were incited to their work by
the sound of the bagpipe. In funeral rights tlie
bagpipe has served to ''lament" the loss of the
brave and the honourable on those mournful
occasions, and that perhajjs from periods of
remote antiquity. The weeping of women for
the departed, and the funeral pipes preceding
the bier, are among the ancient customs of the
" Scottish mountaineers."
Lord Lovat of the '4-5 wished for " the
coronach of all the women of the country to
attend him to the grave." The piper preceded
the bier at all Highland funerals, playing a
" lament," such as "Lochaber no more," on his
bagpipe, which was hung with narrow streamers
of black crape.
In halls of joy and in scenes of mourning,
the Highland i)ipe prevailed. It has fired the
hardy sons of Caledonia in battle, it has
welcomed them back again after their toils, to
the longed-for homes of their love, and to the
hills and valleys of their birth. Its strains were
the first sounded in the ears of infancy, and
they are the Jast to be forgotten in the dreamy
wanderings of age. Even Highlanders will
allow that it is not the gentlest of instruments ;
but when far away from their heath - clad
mountain homes, what sounds, however sweet,
however meritorious, could thrill round their
warm heart, like one passionate burst of their
own wild native pipe ? In the words of Aytoun :
" Sound the fife and cry the slogan,
Let the pibroch shake the air
With its wild triumphant music,
Worthy of the freight we bear.
Let the ancient hills of Scotland
Hear once more the battle song
Swell within their glens and valleys,
As the clansmen march along."
Of the varieties of pipe music, the piobraohd
or pipe-theme (or tune) is usually the " Cruinn-
eachadh " or "gathering" of a clan, being a
long piece of music composed on the occasion of
some victory or other fortunate circumstance in
the history of a tribe, which, when played, is a
warning for the troops to turn out. There are,
however, other olas.ses of this sort of music,
which generally pass by the same name, but
which, in reality are, or ought to be, used for
particular purposes. Some of these had their
origin in similar events to the "cuairt piobrachd "
or " regular gathering," and are of the same
character, but are properly a " cumliadh,"
"coronach," or "lament," and a "fiilte," salute
or welcome. The coronach has been composed
on the death of some celebrated chief, and is
played at the funeral of his successors and others
of the clan. The '' ikilte " or " salute " has been
composed on the birth of a chief or gentleman
of a clan, his baptism, arrival at age, marriage,
or other happy event, and was played on like
occasions to his successors, and when the chief
or captain of a clan came on the field of muster.
Although their characters are much alike,
with the exception of the " Coronach," which is,
of course, particularly- slow, impressive, and
plaintive, very little attention is now paid to the
distinctions, and so much has propriety been
disregarded, that these pieces of music are
frequently called " marches."