A touch of the romantic is found in the story of _Moladh Mairi_, a well- known Mac Lachlan tune. Angus Mac Kay, son of _Iain Dall_, the blind piper of Gairloch, attended a competition in Edinburgh on one occasion, and the other competitors were so jealous of him and afraid of his superior talents that they conspired together to destroy his chances, They obtained possession of his pipes and pierced the bag in several places. When Mac Kay began to practise on the day of the competition he discovered the injury, and was in despair. But he had a fair friend of the name of Mary who quickly procured for him a sheep’s skin, from which, undressed as it was, they between them formed a new bag. With this the piper carried off the first prize, and in gratitude to his helper Mac Kay composed _Moladh Mairi_. He afterwards married a Mary Fraser of Gairloch, but we have nothing to show that this was the same Mary. In a proper story it certainly would have been. Another, and a more probable, story is associated with this tune. A daughter of Mac Lachlan of Strathlachlan, chief of the clan, made a present of a wether’s skin to the family piper to make a bag for his pipes. He was delighted with the present, and composed the tune in her honour. This story is the more likely, inasmuch as it is well known that pipers always had a high sense of honour, as they still have, and would never think of treating a competitor in the way the first story says Mac Kay was treated. “_GILLE CALUM_,” or “The Sword Dance,” is one of the best known of pipe tunes. There is the jocular story to the effect that it made its first appearance in the world after the Deluge, when the Ark had landed on Ararat, and Noah expressed his joy by dancing over two crossed twigs. That the tune, or at anyrate the dance, is an heirloom from the ancients, is highly probable, as the sword dance in a modified form was the special antic of the priests of Mars. The real _Gille Calum_, however, is said to have been _Callum a’ chinn mhoir_—Malcolm Canmore, who incurred the displeasure of the Highlanders by removing the ancient Court from Dunstaffnage Castle, in Argyllshire, to Dunfermline, by marrying the Saxon Princess Margaret, which led to the change of Court language from Gaelic to English, and also by having added to the coinage a very small coin, the bodle, equal in value to one-third of our halfpenny, and so small as to be contemptible in the eyes of his Highland subjects. The translation, by “Fionn,” of the Gaelic associated with the name shows considerable wit and a pretty strain of sarcasm:— “Gillie-Callum, twa pennies, Gillie-Callum, twa pennies, Twa pennies, twa pennies, Gillie Callum, ae bawbee.