The last battle at which a bard recited was fought in 1411, the last clan bard died in 1726, the last clan harper in 1739, when the hereditary pipers were in all their glory; the fiery cross was last used in 1745, when it travelled thirty-six miles through Breadalbane in three hours, and the coronach was superseded gradually by the lament of the pipes. The bards ceased to live as an order on the accession of the Kings of Scotland to the British throne, and there were no means provided at the Reformation for educating ministers or teachers for the Gaelic speaking part of the country. But all through the centuries covered by the dates given there were pipers. There are pipers still, not indeed clan pipers, but the class are recognised as peculiarly belonging to the Highlands, while harpers and bards have gone completely under in the great social revolution through which the Highlands have passed. [Illustration] CHAPTER III. THE TALE OF THE YEARS. “No stroke of art their texture bears, No cadence wrought with learned skill, And though long worn by rolling years, Yet unimpaired they please us still; While thousand strains of mystic lore Have perished and are heard no more.” The time of the Flood—Pipes in Scripture—In Persia—In Arabia—In Tarsus—Tradition of the Nativity—In Rome—In Greece—In Wales, Ireland, and Scotland—Melrose Abbey—In France—In England—At Bannockburn—Chaucer—In war—First authentic Scottish reference—Oldest authentic specimen—Became general—Rosslyn Chapel—Second drone added— At Flodden—“A maske of bagpypes”—Spenser—Shakespeare—James VI.—A poetical historian—Big drone added—The ’45—Native to Scotland—The evolution of the Highlands. _Gillidh Callum_ was (so goes the story) Noah’s piper, and (still according to the story) Noah danced to his music over two crossed vine plants when he had discovered and enjoyed the inspiring effects of his first distillation from the fruits of his newly planted vineyard. So the tune was named after the piper. This “yarn,” to give it the only appropriate name, can easily be spoiled by anyone who tries, but the dance alluded to does seem to have been originally practised over vine plants. Swords, however, came to be more numerous in Scotland than vines, and they were substituted. Some historians assert that the Celts are descended from Gomer, the eldest son of Japheth, son of Noah, a theory which would go far to support the _Gillidh Callum_ story, for if there were Celts in the days of the ark, why should there not have been a piper? There is, however, just about as much to prove either story as there is to prove that