Regional legend · 2 min read · Set in The Callum Valley ·
The Bridge Pipers of Callum Valley
The drovers of Callum Valley say that a pair of pipers play on the old stone bridge each dusk for cattle crossing to the high pastures, and that a herd which has never heard the tune will not cross until the pipers have been paid.
- status: folklore
The stone bridge over the Callum at the head of the valley is older than any road in the district. It has three arches, a low parapet and a hump in its back that the horses took badly. The drovers who brought their cattle up from the lowland markets in the old days used to cross it at dusk, because the herd would not go over the bridge in daylight. They say the water below made a noise like a crowd talking, and the cattle would not put a hoof on the stone until the talking stopped.
The custom was to pay the bridge pipers. Nobody could say who they were. Two men, dressed in grey plaid, who stood on the parapet at the top of the bridge and played a slow air on the pipes as the herd came up from the ford. The drovers said the tune was the only thing that would quiet the water and make the cattle walk. If you did not hear it, you did not cross, and you spent the night on the far bank with the herd milling and bawling and the water roaring below.
The drovers left a coin on the parapet for the pipers, an old penny or a bit of silver, and in the morning the coin was always gone. Some years the drovers complained it was a waste, that the pipers were only grifters. Others said the coin was the price of the tune, and that a man who grudged it would find his beasts would not cross the next year.
A drover called Jim Tarrant was the one who finally asked the pipers to play in the daylight. He had been caught on the bridge at noon, when the sun was high and the water was loud, and his herd had panicked and scattered over the moor. He stood on the parapet at the top of the bridge, shouting for the pipers, and at last a single voice answered from the far side of the valley. The air was thin and very sad, and the cattle came back to the ford one by one and walked over the stone without a sound.
Jim always paid the pipers after that, the drovers say, and always kept a coin in his waistcoat for the purpose. His grandson still does. The bridge is closed to heavy traffic now, and no herds cross it at dusk any more. But on the first warm evening of the year, the valley folk walk up to the top of the bridge with a coin in their pockets, and wait for the sound, and when they hear the two pipes start up from the far bank, they drop the coin on the parapet, and go home, and sleep easy.