Fiddle

The words are Macpherson's Lament, written by him while in jail awaiting his death. His career as a free-booter; the events around his capture, rescued by friends only to be recaptured again have only added to the myth and the legend.

He had been born the son of an Invershie Macpherson and a beautiful Gypsy and following the death of his father while pursuing a body of hostile clansmen cattle-lifting in Badenoch. The family took in the son and his mother. James when older became the captain of a band of Gipsies who traveled the northern counties of Scotland helping themselves to the property of the many well-to-do but never perpetrating acts of cruelty or willful murder and never condescending to harm the helpless and distressed.

The eventual trial at Banff, allegations of political bias, the severity of the sentence and the belief that by fraud or violence a messenger with a missive of pardon had been delayed between Turriff and Banff have been the source of inspiration for writers of history and myth. One story has it that the town clock was set ahead 15 minutes to insure the execution would take place before a pardon on the was would arrive. Robert Burns found his story the cause for writing his Macpherson's Farewell, now sung to the tune of Macphersons Rant.

The story is told that Jamie played the fiddle up to the moment of his execution, When he offered it to members of the crowd and found no one with the courage to take it from him, he therefore broke it over his knee and threw it amongst the crowd with the remark, "No one else shall play Jamie Macpherson's fiddle," It was picked up by Donald Macpherson and taken by him to Cluny. This was the last capital sentence executed in Scotland under Heritable Jurisdiction.