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

folk-tales of the '15 and the '45
Clan Ranald's Faery Chanter.
In the house on the Isle of Shona Bheag, in Moidart, are
many rehcs associated with Prince Charhe and the '45 ; and
among them is the remnant of an ancient set of pipes said
to have been given long ago to MacDonald of Kinloch
Moidart by one of the last of the Maclntyres, who were
hereditary pipers to the Clan Ranald. Tradition maintains
that these pipes were played at the Battle of Bannockburn,
and also as the clans rallied to the Prince's banner at Glen-
finnan, more than four centuries later.
Now, the chanter of these pipes has a hole in it in addition
to the number requisite to the usual chanter scale. This
extra hole is known as the faery hole, since it is said to have
been made by a faery, the guardian spirit of the family, who
declared that it would enable the player to produce on his
pipes music the like of which had never been heard either
in Moidart or furth of it.
General Wade at Rothiemurchus.
When George Wade, the Hanoverian general, was
engaged in those road-making enterprises for which he
became so well known in the Highlands after " the Fifteen,"
he frequently made his way to the Doune of Rothiemurchus,
where Patrick Grant, the laird of the time, who went by the
name of MacAlpine, dispensed hospitality and geniality in
measure unbounded. But even the Laird of Rothiemurchus,
for all his generosity, came to the view that it was possible
to have too much even of a good thing—so constant and
insistent had Wade's visits become. And, so, despite his
strong Hanoverian sympathies, he resolved at length to give
his unsolicited guest a hint so broad as to ensure that not
merely would he see it, but that he would take it.
One night, as the General and MacAlpine sat late over the
dying embers, and the former exhibited no indication of his
departing, the Laird of Rothiemurchus gave a whimsical
thought to the exiled King James the Eighth. Having
assured himself that the entire household was abed, he
stealthily turned the key in the door, and announced to the
General from behind a pistol that he believed their friend-
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