Cape Breton's Magazine

Stories Told about the Bagpipes Katherine MacNeil Patterson Dan Angus Beaton Joe Neil MacNeil Katherine MacNeil Patterson Benacadie Glen This is a true story; it happened to my grandfather. Now his father was a poor man, and when his wife died, leaving him with one son, he married a widow woman who was well-off, and she had two sons. She was mean to his son; she made him eat in the kitchen and made him set there and not come into the parlor with the rest. Her sons played the pipes fine. She brought them two sets of pipes, and she paid a lot for them, and all his son had was a little old chanter. He couldn't play very well. One day he was out in the hills herding the cows and trying to play on his little chanter when who should he see but one of the little fairy men, and this one said to him, "Do you want to play as well as your brothers?" And he said he did. "Well." said the little man, "put your fingers in my mouth, don't be afraid." He put his fingers in the little man's mouth, and then he picked up the chanter and played such marvellous music that he charmed the fishes out of the water and the little birds from their nests and milk from maidens' breasts. When he went home, he did not say anything about it, but sat in the kitchen as usual. The next day a man came there to hire one of the brothers to play the pipes on his steamer to entertain the people. He had heard that these two boys were good pip? ers. He asked them to play so he could choose. When they had finished, he said to the wife, "Who is that fellow I see out there in the kitchen?" "Oh, he's just the boy that tends the cows," she replied. "Well I see he has a chanter," man. "Let's hear him play." said the "Oh, you don't want to hear him. He can't play. All he makes is noises on his wretched chanter." "Let me hear him anyway," man. insisted the So the boy was called in and given the pipes, and he played so wonderfully that even the stepmother had to admit that he was better than her own sons. And he got the job, and became the piper on the steamer. STORIES AND TUNES CONTINUE ON PAGE 83 She Put Her Knee on the Old Man / Chuir I GlCin air a' Bhodach Paul Cranford: This reel in the Key of G Pentatonic is influenced by Johnny Wilmot's playing on his fourth LP. This fiddle setting adds a passing note (C natural) to the mel? ody. In The Skye Collection, a different passing tone is added (F sharp). The underlying pentatonic scale structure (5 notes: GABDE) is common to folk music throughout the world. Key G pentatonic