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Cave of Gold
Cam MacRae

The piper enters the Cave of Gold (Uamh an Oir, in Gaelic), often
alone, but sometimes accompanied by his faithful dog, a troop of friends,
or even a wedding party. The cave might be on Skye, Uist, Barra,
Colonsay, or Mull, or in the adjacent highlands of Inverness, Argyll,
Kintyre, or Ross. Wherever the tale is told the piper's fate is the same.
From deep in the cave he is heard to exclaim, "Oh that I had three hands!
Two for the pipes and one for my sword!" The piper never returns but he
can sometimes be heard still playing bravely in the depths of the earth.

According to Alasdair Alpin MacGregor in "The Peat Fire Flame"
(Etrick Press, 1937), this story is one of the most widespread legends of
the Western Highlands and Islands (see chapter XIV Cave Lore), and as has
happened with many legends, this one has also entered the singing
tradition. Frances Tolmie, who collected and preserved so many Gaelic
songs, remembered "Uamh 》 Oir" as a lullabye from her nursery days in
Skye, and she published four versions of the tune in the "Journal of the
Folk Song Society" in 1911 (the Tolmie Collection). She had already
published the full Gaelic text of the song in the "Gesto Collection" and
"Puirt-a-Beul."

Another song often associated with the Cave of Gold legend is the
beautiful "MacCrimmon's Lament." The story told in Skye is that when
Donald MacCrimmon, piper to the MacLeod's, disappeared in 1745 it was
because he had entered the Cave of Gold near Dunvegan Castle. The words
to the lament, said to have been written by the piper's sister, (see
"Songs and Hymns of Scotland," Scotpress, Bruceton, WV; originally
published as "The Songs and Hymns of the Gaels" by Eneas Mackay, Stirling,
in 1900) mourn MacCrimmon "no more, no more, no more returning, for him
there's no returning." Despite the local legend that MacCrimmon
disappeared in the Cave of Gold, there is no mention of the cave in the
words to this song.

Alasdair Alpin MacGregor states that the Cave of Gold is "always
difficult - if not impossible - to locate," but I know that at least one
of the caves is real and if you look long enough for it you will find it.
My children and I were the spending the month of July in Badachro (near
Gairloch in Western Ross), and Caleb, who was then 15, was delighted to
read in a guide to local hiking trails that we had our very own uamh an
oir just down the road. After bribing 13 year-old Sarah with a trip to
the beach at Red Point after we found the cave, we set off, guidebook in
hand, looking for the place where the instructions suggested we park "at
the bottom of the hill after the road curves above Opinan." Well, that
wasn't too hard, but there were two other cars parked by the side of the
road! We hoped the cave wasn't going to be too crowded. Next we found
the gate, passed through and began to follow the path to the shore. The
path was not clearly defined but the directions mentioned specific
landmarks and we pushed on. We found the stile, crossed it and began
looking for the cairn. Oh oh. Were we supposed to go a mile and quarter
from the gate or the stile? Do you suppose maybe they really didn't want
us to find the cave?

Caleb and Sarah continued searching for the cairn while I sat on a
rock and admired the view of Skye some ten miles across the Minch and
Lewis and Harris farther off to the west. When rain clouds threatened and
no cairn had materialized, we returned to the car with plans to resume the
search the next day.

This time we began in an area where the coast was made up of large
rocky cliffs. Caleb scrambled up and down likely looking spots while I
sat on a rock with my back to the Minch and admired the view of Baosveinn
and Ben Alligin. I was listening carefully for the sounds of the piper
when I heard Caleb calling that he had found the cave. He led me over to
a spot where we could look down on a narrow inlet below. He then borrowed
my fanny pack to hold the flashlight, hung my camera around his neck and
disappeared over the side of the cliff. In a moment he reappeared at the
bottom and signaled to me that he had indeed found a cave. Twenty minutes
later I was beginning to wonder if he had met the piper and been lured to
whatever legendary fate the cave held in store, when he popped up from the
other direction with a grin on his face. "I couldn't make it back up the
way I went down, but it's the cave all right. Too bad the tide was coming
in so I couldn't get inside." He did take a couple of pictures of the
opening of the cave to put in our scrapbook of Scotland though.

Caleb plans to return to Scotland on his own in a few years to do
some hiking and to explore our uamh an oir. I'd like to return to
Scotland too, but first I'm going to learn to play Uamh an Oir on my harp
so I can play it to the piper should I meet him in the cave.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

K.N. MacDonald. "The Gesto Collection of Highland Music." Printed by
Oscar Brandstetter, Leipzig 1895.

K.N. MacDonald. "Puirt-a-Beul." Alexander MacLaren & Sons, Glasgow 1901.

Tolmie, Frances. "105 Songs of Occupation from the Western Isles of
Scotland with Notes and Reminiscences." Journal of the Folk Song Society,
No. 16, being 3rd part of Vol IV. 1911 (The Tolmie Collection) (This
journal is now published as "Journal of the English Folk Dance and Folk
Song Society.) This material was reprinted in a near-facsimile of the
original edition by Llanerch Publishers in 1997. ISBN 1 86143 038 8.