By Duncan Watson
A few weeks ago I attended a talk at Aberdeen University’s Storytelling Festival. It was given by Jamie MacDonald Reid with musical accompaniment by a cellist. The title was ‘The Desperate Battle of the Birds’ and that’s what sparked my interest.
I was not sure what to expect. I thought we would have the usual story backed up with extracts of the tune: the cock birds stalking each other, launching the odd attack, retreating, gathering their strength for the next bout of pecking, the expressive frenetic of the crunluath a mach, and then the tired birds represented by a return to the urlar at the end.
How naïve of me to think that the speaker might weave such a story; I am afraid it did not happen. Jamie MacDonald Reid (pictured) started as an old man taking a rest from harvesting and leaning against a dyke. He saw a wren atop the dyke and spoke to it. The wren returned the conversation offering to help with the harvest.
The story then went into the efforts of the wren; grains of barley were dropped on the ground and a mouse ate them, angering the wren and this was what sparked the desperate battle of the birds!
Eventually there were other beasts involved such as stoats and so on and the wren seemingly survived with fur and feathers flying around. Well the story developed into kings, princes, children and giants and indeed magpies and this went on quite a while and the thought of a bird fight escaped my imagination.
The cellist played a few interludes and there was one which was the theme of the tune we know as The Desperate Battle of the Birds. It was recognisable, the cello sound pleasant, and the playing enjoyable in a non-expressive way.
At the end I spoke to Jamie MacDonald Reid. He is a nice sort of mannie, dressed in his kilt etc. I told him that I had googled him and discovered that he knew Alex MacRae, Blair Atholl, (who taught him some piobaireachd). I told him that I had met Alex in Aultbay about 65 years ago and could recall the enjoyable meeting.
Reid is a Gaelic speaker, but in my brief chat with him, he is not likely to be a Gaelic scholar. My people in Edinburgh were leading Gaelic lecturers and in fact my great uncle was a mentor to poet Sorley MacLean. Sadly Gaelic left my family probably in the 1920s.
When one thinks of the oration delivered at the Piobaireachd Society by Roddy Ross* a few years back in regards to The Finger Lock, story telling can be an art, even if far-fetched.
Digressing slightly, there was a blacksmith who hailed from Lewis. One of his tales was that in the winter old men would come into the smiddy and hang around the forge for some heat. They would tell stories and there seemed to be a bit of a competition among them who would tell the best. Said the blacksmith, ‘of course the stories were all lies.’
There were no pipers at the Aberdeen University event save for one who was a friend of the cellist. He is looking for a tutor in Edinburgh and hopes to link into Alasdair Henderson.
- Go to the Society website, click here, and scroll down.
