The Smothered Piper of St Andrews

Many years ago, a young man named Jock lived in the Argyle just outside St Andrews' West Port with his wife and widowed mother.  He was a cheerful and well-liked young man, and never happier than when he was playing his bagpipes.  He was regarded as one of the best pipers in Fife.

Young Jock the Piper was fascinated by a cave in the West Cliffs.  It was a particularly creepy and gloomy cave which ran deep into the cliff face then divided into two passages, a carved cross decorating the point where the ways diverged.  The townspeople regarded this cave with a degree of terror, and it had never fully been explored, but Jock wagered his friends that one Hogmanay he would take his pipes into the cave and explore it as far as he could, playing all the time.



His wife and mother were appalled by this idea, and begged Jock not to go.  Many of his friends did likewise, but Jock was not to be dissuaded.  On that New Year's Eve he took his pipes and set off into the cave playing merrily.  The people of the town could hear him playing underground as far as Market Street, but then the noise of his pipes suddenly stopped; they were never heard again.

Attempts were made to find Jock, but the townspeople were too afraid to fully explore the cave.  His body was never found.  Jock's wife sat for hours every day at the entrance to the cave, bewailing her lost love and, finally, on the following New Year's Eve she took her shawl off its peg and announced to her mother-in -law that she was going to her Jock.



Go to her Jock she did.  She never returned to her home in the Argyle, but on moonlit nights her shadowy figure could be seen at the entrance to the cave and her shrieks would mingle with the sounds of the wind and the waves on stormy nights.  St Andreans claimed that the spirit of the smothered piper roamed the clifftops, still playing his pipes, and that anyone who saw him or heard his pipes was destined to die within the year.

I got a little curious tonight, and, although the cave was supposed to have been sealed up, I wandered along the base of the cliffs to see if I could find it.  These are pictures of the cave I did find.

 

 I didn't go too far into the cliff because there were signs of  fresh rockfall.

I hope you like these pictures.  They may not be technically brilliant, but I took them to accompany this story.  I didn't hear the smothered piper or see his poor wife, but I did slip on the rocks twice; the first time feet first into a rock pool, the second time I ended up sitting in a shallow rock pool.  Not a good look for the walk back through the town... but a good story is worth the effort.