This is the ancient Celtic Legend of an Irish piper who travelled to the shores of the Scottish mainland to widen his experience and learn new things .He would play his pipes at weddings funerals, ceilidhs, dances and any other function where he could earn a shilling. He became known and quietly accepted for being careful with his money at all times and for using his faith and trust in the Lord to hold his impulses in check.
After some years he resolved to return home across the Irish Sea. He decided to leave in the dead of night because, he reasoned, should the locals find out how much silver he had accrued he could become a target for rogues thieves and vagabonds.
He set off, but as he sailed through the night he was accosted seven times by messengers from the devil himself, determined to take his silver. What he did not realise was that the messengers could not simply take his silver: they could only trick him into giving it away.
He sailed, guided by the stars, in a South Westerly direction: he had images of desperately poor wretches materialising before him in surreal play like episodes, begging him for some silver to buy a meal for themselves and their starving families. However, his inner knowingness told him if he gave a single coin, his hard earned fortune would be lost. He had bands of pirates materialise before his very eyes armed with cutlasses and muskets threatening to take his life and belongings in very life like situations, but through it all his faith in God helped him keep his fear in check and they would eventually vaporise cursing his faith and their bad luck. Smugglers arrived and left! He heard the cry of a young woman in the cold cruel sea. He pulled her aboard and she convinced him she had lost her family and all her worldly goods in the storm they were both experiencing. She tempted him with her mind and her body and he almost accepted. He touched her warm desirable flesh and almost succumbed to her youth but he steeled himself and she too vaporised.
Then, to his relief the bright warm light of the dawn lit up the sky around him. Suddenly, an angel emerged before him and gave congratulations from the Lord himself for keeping his faith in the face of adversity. The Angel guided him North - North West, the stars told him, to the Dark Island, the mystical, timeless but very significant portion of the Scottish Outer Hebrides. The Angel invited the piper ashore to rest after his ordeal. The location of the Dark Island was significant and had been a spiritual position much visited and used by the Celts over the centuries. It was difficult to ascertain if the Celts had been drawn to these locations because of their spiritual qualities or if they had eventually become spiritual places because of the practices of the Celts?
Here he was invited to play a lament on the pipes. Should it please the Lord, the piper would be invited to perform in the Kingdom of Heaven and would himself move physically and spiritually into a new dimension and would inherit all the intuition and wisdom of this and all other worlds.
He would be!
He blew into the bag while he breathed and the drone began. He caressed the chanter with a tenderness most men could not imagine giving to the woman of his dreams and as he became one with the sun moon and stars, his fingers were a blur of grace notes and the skirl o the pipes rose up to the heavens.
The following day when the sun came up, all that remained on the rocky beach was a solitary silver coin. The Piper, the Angel, the rest of the silver and the boat had vanished.
But had they gone to heaven or hell?
To this day when a storm blows and the rain lashes the rocky crags of the Dark Island, you can hear this lonely lament in the further reaches of the hilltops...

The Dark Island

The Gael

slow Air/Itchy Fingers

Jane Espie, The Phantom Piper, Inverkeithing, Scotland

Playing bagpipes since the age of 8, at the age of 18 experimenting with different ways and sounds of the bagpipes, at 21 broke away from the “traditional bagpiper” ways.
Early piping days: traditional pipe bands such as the “Inverkeithing High School Pipe Band”, “The City of Edinburgh Pipe Band” and “The Royal Burgh of Inverkeithing Pipe Band”, “Torrevieja Pipes And Drums” (based in Spain).

Previously a band member of  “Saor Patrol” and now currently playing with Celtica - Pipes Rock.

Jane Espie

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