Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.

Subject: European bagpipes: help with folktale illus.
From: CapriUni
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 11:08 AM

As some of you may know, I am working on a private collection of retold folktales, and am also doing illustrations (one key scene per story)...

The key scene for one of the stories, from the Brothers Grimm, is of a young shepard mounting his steed and riding off to find a princess to marry... His one valuable posession is a set of bagpipes, which he takes with him.

Now, we're not talking the Scottish Highland pipes here -- probably closer to the Bruegel or Shepards' pipes.

But here's my question: How would such a set of pipes be carried while riding? Can they have a shoulder/carrying strap like a guitar, and slung across the back, or would they be put in a saddle bag or pouch, or some such?

Thanks in Advance!

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: IanC
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 11:16 AM

There's quite a few of these illustrations in early English manuscripts ... I think there are a few on the web. Try a Google search for Early Bagpipe Images.

:-)
Ian

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: GUEST,greg stephens
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 11:20 AM

Terrible, noisy smelly things. Tow them behind on a really long rope.

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 11:22 AM

Look here. :)

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 11:26 AM

You've probably already seen some of these images, but this is still an interesting site: Historic bagpipe images.

Sounds like a neat project!

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 11:38 AM

Also, try here. Lots of old bagpipe pictures, though not many on horseback... Look in the lower left corner here. And this one's my favourite. :)

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 11:40 AM

Ugh. That last image is here. :P

---Lepus Rex

link fixed in the previous posting
one too many "html" at the end of the address:-)

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: CapriUni
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 12:48 PM

Thanks, Gang!

I had already done a Google search, and found many of these images already...

I particularly like the one of The Country Dance, by Bruegel (the first one on the page Kat posted) -- with the young mother holding the hands of her toddler-aged daughter, helping her dance, and the young man offering a jug of something or other to the piper (trying to get him to stop playing, perhaps? ;-)). Looks like music gathers have remained pretty much the same over the centuries, huh?

I guess what I'm really asking for is practical knowlege, from you pipers out there: How do you tote around your pipes when you're not playing them? Do they come with carrying cases? Or do you just tuck them under your arm? I could always just doodle an ancient looking version of modern technique...

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 12:54 PM

Modern pipers of most kinds that I'm familiar with generally use cases (wooden or plastic), but I suspect that in previous centuries they may have been carried in a haversack over the shoulder, with the drones sticking out the top. But this is pure surmise. Cue cod etymolgy: the French word "musette" refers to both a type of bagpipe and a shoulder bag...

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: 8_Pints
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 01:37 PM

I agree that most modern pipers have cases for transporting their pipes around.

In earlier times I suspect they rolled the bag around the drones and chanter and placed it inside a tube similar to an archer's quiver.

This could have a strap attached at top and bottom that enabled it to be carried across the back leaving the hands free.

Bob vG [Northumbrian Piper]

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: MMario
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 01:46 PM

retold folktale, right? Containing elements that may never have occurred or that are out and out fantasy?

I would try for something that shows the pipes to the best advantage...if that makes it a bit less historical - we ARE talking folktale here...

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: CapriUni
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 02:17 PM

Thanks, Guys! For visual effect, I'll probably do an over-the-shoulder bag, with the chanter and drones coming out of the top...

Just FYI: the story in question is "Hans my Hedgehog" -- the shepard (actually swineherd) in question is a tiny person -- hedgehog from the waist up, and human from the waist down, and his trusty steed is a rooster. Should make for an interesting picture... I may give him a human face...

Here is an e-text version of the tale...

A were-hedgehog may be bizarre, but even more strange, the music he plays is described as beautiful ;-)

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: CapriUni
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 02:21 PM

Sorry, I thought I'd turned off the hmtl after "here"... that's what you get for typing with a cat in your face.

I may do that, MMario-- especially since we do have documented illustrations of riders playing while riding...

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 04:55 PM

Not altogether out-and-out fantasy, MMario, because I do remember reading that Garret Barry carried his pipes (uilleann) in a cloth bag. And I do think my previous post contained enough Government Health Warnings!

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 05:52 PM

Found a good, serious French website on musettes. I've passed on your query and will let you know if I get anything.

The site contains an "iconography", i.e. inventory of artistic representations of bagpipes in France. Not all are illustrated, but if your French isn't up to it and you just want to view the photos, start here.

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: CapriUni
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 10:20 PM

Okay, well, on a hunch, I put the German title of the story (Hans Mein Igel) into Google's image search, and came up with this illustration, here.

For those of who who collect bagpipe iconography, I thought you might be interested...

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 12 Jul 02 - 04:11 AM

If you want the pipes to remain playable, I would suggest that your 'half-hedgehog' NOT carry them on his back. The spines will puncture the bag!

Nigel

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: CapriUni
Date: 12 Jul 02 - 08:06 AM

Nigel --

Of course they would! ;-) Unless he put them in a quiver...

But since I want this to be a clear illustration, and people probably don't know bagpipes as well as they think they do, I'll have him playing the pipes as he rides, a la the Miller in The Canterbury Tales, as MMario suggested.

I'm just glad the rooster knows the way (no need to steer with reigns).

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 12 Jul 02 - 07:14 PM

That's bordering on bestiality, CapriUni.

For what it's worth, the ginormous horses that carry the kettle drums during the British army ceremony of trooping the colour are trained to be steered without reins. So you have a precedent on your side.

Subject: RE: Bagpipes in folktale: help with illus.
From: CapriUni
Date: 13 Jul 02 - 07:40 PM

That's bordering on bestiality, CapriUni.

Um.... huh?

I must be very naive, 'cause I don't see how... unless (maybe) it has something to do with my misspelling "rein" as "reign"...

Or is it the story itself, where half-hedgehog boy climbs into bed with his new bride?

Or the scene where he removes the clothes of the first, "false", princess (though why she should be shamed for the dishonesty of her father is beyond me...)?And I really don't think it's very realistic that she would let Hans Mein Igel take off her clothes, so in my retelling, I just have him pierce her clothing with his quills, and scratch her skin underneath... (at least, he's not a porcupine -- those quills actually come loose, and work their way deeper into your flesh as you move).

Though, with the second bride, he does remove his hedgehog skin before he gets into bed with her.

Personally, I think of his skin of quills as symbolic of his father's resentment of him -- he's only able to shed it once he is accepted and respected on his own terms.

Not sure what symbolism, in any, the bagpipes have... unless they just underline his low class/outcast status...

I think he made a good call when he chose the highest tree in the deepest part of the forest as his place to practice... ;-)

Oh, and you want beastiality? This story is nothing compared to The Singing, Springing Lark (note the time that they sleep).