Folklore & legend

The Piper Who Never Returned from the Cave

Cave at Bornesketaig, Trotternish

1703 account

After entering he began to play on his pipe, but never returned to give an account of his progress. Martin gives it without comment, as one of the stories he was told about the caves of the island, alongside accounts of caves with dripping petrified twigs and a well within a cave that made an impregnable fort.

Martin's is an early printed version of the widespread legend of a piper lost underground.

Evidence
Long-standing local tradition
Access
Access unrecorded
Location
57.651, -6.398 (Sited to the village)

Sources: Martin Martin, A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (1703), Internet Archive [public-domain]

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