Once upon a time there lived in Dunmore, in County Galway, a stupid guy. He loved music so passionately, but he never managed to learn more than one song. This song was called “Black Tramp”. Various gentlemen often invited him for entertainment, and he received considerable money for this.
One day, late in the evening, this piper was returning from the house where the dancing was taking place. He was pretty tipsy. Having reached the bridge, from which it was a stone's throw to his mother's house, he pressed his bagpipes and played "The Black Tramp."
Then a pack crept up behind him and threw him onto his back. The pack had long horns, and the piper grabbed them tightly.
- Get lost, you vile brute! - he shouted. - Let me go home! I have a tenpence in my pocket for my mother. She needs snuff.
“I don’t give a damn about your mother,” said the pack. - Better hold on! If you fall, you'll break your neck and ruin your bagpipes. - And then he added: - Play “Shang Van Vocht” for me!
“But I don’t know how,” answered the bagpiper.
“It doesn’t matter whether you know how or not,” says Pak, “start, and I’ll teach you.”
The bagpiper blew his bagpipes, and he produced such a melody that he himself was surprised:
- By God, you are a wonderful music teacher! Well, where are you taking me, tell me?
“Tonight there’s a big celebration at the top of Patrick’s Rock in the banshee’s house,” says the pack. “So I’m taking you there so you can play for us.” And take my word for it, you will be well paid for your efforts!
[A banshee is a spirit in Irish mythology whose moans foretell death.]
- That's great! “Then you will spare me the journey,” said the piper. “And then, you see, Father William imposed a penance on me: he ordered me to make a pilgrimage to Patrick’s Rock, because on the last Martin’s day I stole a white gander from him.”
Puck carried him like an arrow over hills, swamps and ravines until he reached the top of Patrick's Rock. Then he stamped his foot three times, the huge door immediately opened, and together they walked into a magnificent room.
In the middle of the room, the bagpiper saw a golden table, around which sat almost a hundred old banshees. They all stood up at once and said:
— One hundred thousand greetings to the November Pack! Who did you bring with you?
“The best piper in all of Ireland,” answered the pack.
One banshee stamped her foot, immediately a door opened in the side wall, and the bagpiper saw... Who do you think? Yes, the same white gander that he stole from William's father.
“But by God,” exclaimed the bagpiper, “my mother and I gnawed this goose to the last bone!” I only gave one wing to Red Mary. It was she who told the pastor that it was I who stole the goose.
Gusak cleared the table, and Pak said:
- Play for these ladies!
The bagpiper began to play and the banshees began to dance. They danced until their legs gave way. Then the pack said that the musician needed to be paid, and each banshee pulled out a gold piece and handed it to the piper.
“I swear by the tooth of St. Patrick,” said the bagpiper, “now I am rich, like the son of a lord!”
“Follow me,” said the pack, “I’ll take you home.”
And they immediately left. Just as the bagpiper was preparing to sit astride the pack, a white gander approached him and handed him a new bagpipe.
Puck quickly carried the bagpiper to Dunmore and dropped him near the bridge. He told him to go home immediately and said goodbye:
“Now you have two things that you didn’t have before: intelligence and music.”
The bagpiper reached his mother’s house and knocked on the door with the words:
- Come on, let me in! I am now rich like a lord and the best piper in all of Ireland!
“You’re just drunk,” said the mother.
“No,” says the bagpiper, “there wasn’t even a drop in my mouth!” When his mother let him in, he gave her all the gold coins and said:
- Wait a little longer! Listen to how I play now.
And he blew into a new bagpipe, but instead of music it sounded as if all the geese and ganders of Ireland began to cackle at once. He woke up the neighbors, and they began to make fun of him until he took up his old bagpipes and played them a melodious song. And then he told them what happened to him that night.
The next morning, the mother went to admire the gold coins, but in their place she saw only dry leaves and nothing more.
The bagpiper went to the pastor and told him the whole story, but the pastor did not want to believe a single word until he took up a new bagpipe, from which the cackling of ganders and geese poured out.
- Get out of my sight, thief! - the pastor cried.
But the bagpiper did not move from his place. He put his old bagpipes to his lips to prove to the pastor that he had told him the honest truth.
From then on he always took only an old bagpipe and played melodious songs on it, and until his death there was no better piper in the whole county of Galway than he.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru