The Highland bagpipe : $b its history, literature, and music: with some account of the traditions, superstitions, and anecdotes relating to the instrument and its tunesManson, W. L. (William Laird)
History
The Highland bagpipe : $b its history, literature, and music: with some account of the traditions, superstitions, and anecdotes relating to the instrument and its tunes
Manson, W. L. (William Laird)
Bagpipe
We made that morning start, morning start, morning start,
We made that morning start, when watching failed you.
Wives, mothers, in this glen, in this glen, in this glen,
Wives, mothers, in this glen, it’s time you were waking.
Carles in trewses clad, etc.”
Glenorchy, however, did not obtain a very firm hold in the county, and
the Sinclairs held the great bulk of the lands until within the lifetime
of the present generation, when it seems to be drifting into other hands
because of the want of heirs male in the direct line. Neither did the
contempt expressed by the piper do much to make the trews unpopular, for
the late Caithness Fencibles, raised and commanded by Sir John Sinclair,
were dressed pretty much as were their ancestors at Altimarlach.
Caithness, of course, was, and still is, not very Highland, except in
the matter of latitude, and it is very noticeable that the only pipe
tune associated with the county was played by a Perthshire piper on a
warlike excursion, fighting against the natives. Caithness has no pipe
music of its own.
Again, the tune is known in Argyllshire as “Wives of this Glen.”
Tradition says it was played by Breadalbane’s piper just previous to the
massacre of Glencoe, in 1692, in the hope of warning the Mac Ians of
their danger, and that one Mac Ian wife heeded the warning and fled to
the hills with her child, saving his life. Glencoe is one of the wildest
places in the Highlands, gloomy and desolate, ten miles from any other
inhabited district, and through it the Cona, a wild, rugged stream, on
the banks of which Ossian is believed to have first seen the light,
tumbles its way to the sea. Towards the north-west end the terrible
tragedy, which left an ineradicable stain on Scottish history, took
place, and there the piper is supposed to have stood when he played:—
“Wives of wild Cona glen, Cona glen, Cona glen,
Wives of wild Cona glen, wake from your slumbers,
Early I woke this morn, early I woke this morn,
Woke to alarm you with music’s wild numbers.
Slain is the cattle boy, cattle boy, cattle boy,
Slain is the cow-boy while you soundly slumbered;
Lifted your cattle are, lifted your cattle are,
Slain are your herdsmen, by foemen outnumbered.
_Iain du Beeroch du, Beeroch du, Beeroch du,
Iain du Beeroch du_ is off with the plunder.
Wives of wild Cona glen, Cona glen, Cona glen,
Wives of wild Cona glen, wake from your slumbers.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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