The peat-fire flame : folk-tales and traditions of the Highlands & Islands

ONE
CHAPTER XIV
CAVE LORE
of the commonest of all the traditions current
in the Western Highlands and Islands is that
concerning the disappearance of a piper who
bravely marched into a cave, accompanied by his dog, but
who never returned. Almost every locality has its own
Piper's Cave ; and even in localities where there is no cave,
the tradition of the unreturning piper is a commonplace, and
is recited with local variations of a minor nature. In some
parts the cave is referred to as the Cave of Gold. To my
own knowledge, there is at least a score of caves thus
named, into which marched a piper, playing brawly the
while, never to return to tell of what he encountered within.
As widely spread as the tradition about the piper is the
tradition that, somewhere among the remote Highland hills,
there lies a Cave of Gold, so-called because it is believed
to contain untold wealth deposited in it long, long ago. But
the Cave of Gold is always difficult—if not impossible—to
locate
!
The Piper's Cave.
There is a cave near Borreraig, on Loch Dunvegan, known
as the Piper's Cave. It is associated with the disappearance
of one of the famous MacCrimmon pipers, who had their
piping-college near at hand. Some say, however, that no
piper was ever lost in this cave, but that it was used by
the pipers when practising their art.
Concerning the origin of the well-known MacCrimmon'
Lament, at least two folk-tales are widely circulated.
According to one, the MacCrimmon piper,
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whose tragic
s