Pibgorn

The pibgorn is a wind instrument: a kind of primitive clarinet with a sound not unlike the Breton bombarde. If the pibgorn is taken apart, it will have four separate parts – the wooden pipe with six holes in the front and one in the back, the reed that fits onto one end of the pipe, and the two horns (cow horns) that fit onto each end. The instrument has a range of an octave.

In all probability the pibgorn was primarily an open air instrument. According to Robert Griffiths, author of Llyfr Cerdd Dannau, another common name for it was pib y bugail, and it seems that it was popular amongst farmworkers in particular.

Clwydfardd (David Griffith) states that his father had told him "that playing the Pibgorn was a common thing in those days (the end of the 18th century) in the South and that farmers' servant men were in the habit of carrying them with them when driving cattle to the fairs." But it is fair to assume that the pibgorn was used also for dancing – fast tunes can be played on it and its piercing sound is an obvious advantage in the open air.