Away up in the north, too, we come across stories connected with caves into which pipers went. At Durness, in Sutherlandshire, a piper went into a cave and never returned. According to the version current in the locality, the Devil himself got hold of the venturesome explorer and kept him. From Caithness we get something better. A piper, in a spirit of braggadocia, as is often the case in these stories, entered a cave near Dunnet Head. Jock was “a stout, long-winded chap,” “Who was a piper to his trade, And by his trusty chanter earned his bread,” and the fairies had often heard him play and wished to get him to take the place of their own piper, who had died. Though they were immortal themselves, they had not a piper of their own race, and when they got one from among mankind they could not make him immortal. Jock lived near a famous cave called Puddingoe, the inmost recesses of which no man had ever explored, and one day he laid a wager that he would play up Puddingoe and see how far it went. “‘For,’ added Jock, ‘though Nick’s a roguish elf, I canna think he’d harm a hair o’ me, For he is just a piper like myself, And dearly loves, I’m told, a funny spree— Nae doot then he would treat me as a brither, And we would play a merry jig together.’” Then he “quaffed a cog of prime home-brewed” and hied him to the cave, and entered, screwing up his drones and beginning a lively march that startled the wild pigeons from their ledges and echoed among the recesses of the walls. Farther and farther he went, past the dripping sides of cold, damp stone and through the dark, chilly air till at last, strange to say, the darkness was dispelled and the cave became illuminated with a light like that of the moon. Jock was, he reckoned, about two miles underground when all at once he came to a door, which opened of its own accord and admitted him into a chamber of exceeding beauty. The floor was inlaid with silver, the walls seemed burnished gold, and a jovial party of ladies and gentlemen banquetted at a splendidly spread table. The piper stood amazed for a moment, until one of the company handed him a glass of wine. “‘I am a piper to my trade,’ cried Jock, Am I upon the earth, or where am I? I never saw before such beauteous folk, Or such a chamber with my naked eye; Here’s a’ yir healths,’ and saying this he quaffed The brimming cup and smacked his lips and laughed.” Then, of course, the fairies asked him to play, which Jock did, and the party danced, and danced, and danced, until Jock cried— “Lord save’s, ohon! Have mercy on my soul, my breath is gone.”