Target Audience

This is for 8 - 12 year olds.

Setting and Plot

It takes place on Scotland's wild West Coast where Archie discovers an ancient and supernatural set of bagpipes. The magical bagpipes do impossible things. The music it makes is powerful. Through its music, history begins to change.

The Supernatural Chanter

It’s not the bagpipes but the chanter that is supernatural (the part of the bagpipe that the piper uses to make music). The chanter is probably more than 1,500 years old and yet looks brand new. The name ''chanter'' comes from the word ''enchanter'' - and ''enchant'' is what it does. The origins of the enchanter are shrouded in mystery. It disappeared before the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745. Perhaps the Young Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie, would have won through if the Enchanter had been around.

The Hero and Themes

Then our hero, a scruffy little boy called Archie, found it, and this book is about what happened next. There are two lessons: music is more important than money (poor people have no money but in music they have a source of joy) and Scotland still has some unfinished business as an independent nation.