History of bagpipe in Scotland

The Scottish identity is incomplete without the mention of the great Highland bagpipe as tartan and Robert Burns. If we take a round of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile we will hear that familiar wail and the pipers gather each year from local shows to the famous Edinburgh Tattoo to showcase their skills. Though the pipes are not the invention of Scottish but English were blowing the pipes hundreds of years before the Scots started to play them.

The first indisputable presence of the bagpipe in Scotland is not found until the 15th century when an angel-piper and a pig-piper were found in carvings in Rosslyn Chapel and Melrose Abbey. It is reasonable to consider that the ritual came into Scotland from the South before it developed its own traits. It was military and public events instrument of Scotland by the 16 th century.