Folk Tales of Scotland Read online

  THE FOLK TALES OF SCOTLAND

  This eBook edition published in 2013 by

  Birlinn Limited

  West Newington House

  Newington Road

  Edinburgh

  EH9 1QS

  www.birlinn.co.uk

  First published by the Bodley Head in 1975

  This edition (with illustrations by Norah Montgomerie from the 1956 Hogarth Press edition) published in 2005 by Mercat Press, reprinted in 2008 and 2013 by Birlinn Ltd

  © Dian Montgomerie Elvin, representing the Montgomerie Literary Estate

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-1-84158-694-6

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-85790-595-6

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ‘I have told you all the tales I can

  remember, and I am glad that they have

  been written. I hope they shorten the

  night for those who read them or hear

  them being read, and let them not forget

  me in their prayers, nor the old people

  from whom I myself learned them.’

  Sean O Conaill, the great storyteller, to J. H. Delargy

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO THE 1975 EDITION

  All modern collections of folk tales rely on the work of a small band of nineteenth-century folklorists who, without typewriters, tape recorders or any other modern aids, listened to traditional storytellers and patiently wrote down, word for word, the stories they told and the songs they sang, with no thought of personal fame or reward. In Scotland, we all owe a special debt to such enthusiasts as J. F. Campbell, Lord Archibald Campbell and the Reverend J. Macdougall, who collected and translated folk tales from the Gaelic into English, and also to Robert Chambers who collected rhymes as well as stories in Lowland Scots. Their work might have been confined to the archives of the Scottish National Library, were it not for the farsighted publishers of the day, like Alexander Gardner of Paisley, David Nutt of London and Robert Chambers of Edinburgh. We are indebted to them all. We would have liked to thank by name all the kind folk and children who have encouraged us in one way and another. The first friend to reassure us was the poet, Edwin Muir, and the most recent encouragement has come from our friend, Kathleen Lines, who has edited so many fine children’s books. Again, we too have been lucky enough to find discerning and helpful publishers, The Hogarth Press (who issued the earlier edition of The Well at the World’s End in 1956) and now The Bodley Head. We thank them all.

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  THE WELL AT THE WORLD’S END (Islay)

  RASHIE COAT (Dumfriesshire)

  PRINCE IAIN (Argyllshire)

  THE FLEA AND THE LOUSE (Shetland)

  WHUPPITY STOORIE (Dumfriesshire)

  THE FAIRY-WIFE AND THE COOKING-POT (Barra)

  THE MAIDEN FAIR AND THE FOUNTAIN FAIRY (Dumfriesshire)

  THE TALE OF THE SOLDIER (Inveraray)

  THE FECKLESS ONES (Ross-shire)

  PIPPETY PEW (Lowlands)

  THE BLACK BULL OF NORROWAY (Lowlands)

  ROBIN REIDBREIST AND THE WRAN (Ayrshire)

  THE BATTLE OF THE BIRDS (Argyllshire)

  THE GOOD HOUSEWIFE (Argyllshire)

  THE KING OF LOCHLIN’S THREE DAUGHTERS (Inveraray)

  THE WIFE AND HER BUSH OF BERRIES (Lowlands)

  BROWNIE THE COW (Aberdeenshire)

  HOW THE COCK GOT THE BETTER OF THE FOX (Barra)

  THE SMITH AND THE FAIRIES (Islay)

  THE GAEL AND THE LONDON BAILLIE’S DAUGHTER (Benbecula)

  THE WEE BANNOCK (Ayrshire)

  THE BROWN BEAR OF THE GREEN GLEN (West Highlands)

  FATHER WREN AND HIS TWELVE SONS (Argyllshire)

  MALLY WHUPPIE (Aberdeenshire)

  THE WHITE PET (Islay)

  BIG FOX AND LITTLE FOX (Wester Ross)

  THE TALE OF THE HOODIE (Islay)

  THE STOOR WORM (Orkney)

  THE MERMAID (Argyllshire)

  THE WINNING OF HYN-HALLOW (Orkney)

  THE GOODMAN OF WASTNESS (Orkney)

  TAM SCOTT AND THE FIN-MAN (Orkney)

  FARQUHAR THE HEALER (Sutherland and Banffshire)

  JOHNNIE CROY AND THE MERMAID (Orkney)

  THE WIDOW’S SON (South Uist, Outer Hebrides)

  OSCAR AND THE GIANT (Sutherland)

  FINN AND THE YOUNG HERO’S CHILDREN (Argyllshire)

  FINN AND THE GREY DOG (Argyllshire)

  FINN IN THE HOUSE OF THE YELLOW FIELD (Argyllshire)

  GREEN KIRTLE (Barra)

  THE LAST OF THE PICTS (Lowlands)

  MURCHAG AND MIONACHAG (West Highlands)

  PEERIE FOOL (Orkney)

  THE HEN (Barra)

  THE YOUNG KING (Islay)

  THE RED ETIN (Fife)

  THE EAGLE AND THE WREN (Argyllshire)

  IAIN THE SOLDIER’S SON (Islay)

  THE LEGEND OF LOCH MAREE (Wester Ross)

  DIARMID AND GRAINNE (Barra)

  CHILDE ROWLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME (Morayshire)

  CUCHULAINN AND THE TWO GIANTS (Argyllshire)

  DAUGHTER OF THE KING UNDER THE WAVES (Barra)

  Glossary

  Story Sources

  Index

  INTRODUCTION TO THE 1975 EDITION

  NCE, walking in Wester Ross, we came to Loch Maree, one of the grandest of Scottish lochs, dominated by Ben Sleoch. It has twenty-seven islands, most of them in the middle where the water is more than two miles broad. That evening we heard of a holy well on one of the islands and next morning, borrowing the forester’s boat, we rowed out into the loch. On the second day we found a round island with many oaks—trees famous in mythology and legend—but there was no well, only a small dead tree scaled with copper coins knocked into the wood with stones. We paid our tribute to the spirit of the place and rowed back to the shore.

  Many years later we read the legend of the Princess Thyra of Ulster (see The Legend of Loch Maree, p. 224), written down by the Reverend J. G. Campbell of Tiree at the end of last century from the lips of an anonymous storyteller. The tree he describes, beside a well, with a hollow in its side into which gifts were dropped, may have been the mother of the little tree we saw. There were no ruins of monastery or chapel, but this well and another are in the title of this book.

  We have sat with the travellers, once called tinkers, listening till long after midnight to their Lowland tales, driving home in the dark through an Angus mist so thick the trees by the roadside were invisible. We have listened to, and recorded, Jeannie Robertson in Aberdeen singing the traditional ballads and songs which had come to her from her mother, and not from books.

  The stories in this book, all of them, came originally out of that world of storytellers and singers. For many years they were passed on from one storyteller to another. For a very long time they were not written down, nor printed, but there are a few references to some of them. James IV of Scotland (1488-1513) encouraged tale-tellers, minstrels, stage-players, singers, fools or privileged buffoons, and jesters, who might contribute to the amusement of the court.’ Sir David Lindsay, Scottish poet and tutor to the King’s son, tells us some of the things he taught the young Prince (later James V):

  The Propheceis of Rymour, Beid and Marlyng,

  And of mony uther plesand starye,

  Of the Reid Etin, and the Gyir Carlyng,

  Confortand thee, quhen that I saw thee sorye.

  The Red Etin (p. 206) is one of the stories in this book.

  Some of these stories have appeared
over and over again. Childe Rowland to the Dark Tower Came (p. 231) was used by George Peele, the Elizabethan dramatist, in his Old Wives’ Tale (1595); Shakespeare quoted the title in King Lear (III, iv, 197), and Robert Browning based a poem on the title.

  The song of Pippety Pew (p. 42) also has many variants. A woman in Forfar told us her mother had composed it, but Goethe adapted the same song—Margarete sings it in prison at the end of the first part of Faust. The Juniper Tree, in Grimm, is a variant of the Pippety Pew story.

  What we now call Scotland was Celtic in language and culture before the Scots from Ireland invaded from the west, bringing with them their Gaelic songs and stories. This happened around 500 A.D., and many of their tales are still told in the Hebrides and Highlands. Some of them, translated into English, are in this book.

  About the same time, Teutonic Angles from the south penetrated into what is now Scotland. They spoke a form of English, which became the Scottish language, and has now broken up into the Lowland dialects of the southern Uplands, the central Lowlands and the north-east, ringing the Highlands and pressing in on the Gaelic speakers of the West Highlands and Islands. Most of the tales told in Scots are retold in this book in English. We have included one story, Robin Reidbreist and the Wran, in the original Scots, to give some idea of the folk qualities of the Scottish version.

  Orkney and Shetland tales are a small third group. They have some Scandinavian overtones.

  The Gaelic tales posed particular problems of adaptation. Professor Delargy, in his fascinating Rhys Memorial Lecture of 1945, said: ‘To read these tales is for many of us today a dreary duty, as we strip apart the story imprisoned in the tangled net of this beloved verbiage.’ To ourselves we described the process of adaptation to modern taste as chipping away the barnacles and sea-tangle, aiming at conciseness and clarification of obscurities where necessary; but we have tried not to lose the oral flavour of the original.

  The Hogarth Press, who published our collections of Scottish nursery rhymes, first issued The Well at the World’s End in 1956. The publication of this new edition by the Bodley Head has given us the opportunity to add twenty new tales. There are, of course, many more in the great nineteenth-century collections, and more are being collected and published even now. The list of sources at the back of this book will be a guide for those who wish to read further.

  THE WELL AT THE WORLD’S END

  NCE upon a time there was a King and a Queen. The King had a daughter and the Queen had a daughter. The King’s daughter was good-natured and everybody liked her. The Queen’s daughter was bad-tempered and nobody liked her. Now, the Queen was jealous of the King’s daughter, and wished her away. So she sent her to the Well at the World’s End to fetch a bottle of water, thinking she would never return.

  The King’s daughter took a bottle, and away she went. Far and far she went, till she came to a pony tethered to a tree, and the pony said to her:

  ‘Free me, free me,

  My bonny maiden,

  For I’ve not been free

  Seven years and a day!’

  ‘Yes, I’ll free you,’ said the King’s daughter, and she did.

  ‘Jump on my back,’ said the pony, ‘and I’ll carry you over the moor of sharp thorns.’

  So she jumped on his back, and the pony carried her over the moor of sharp thorns, then they parted. The King’s daughter went on far, and far, and farther than I can tell, till she came to the Well at the World’s End.

  She found the Well was very deep and she couldn’t dip her bottle. As she was looking down into the dark Well, wondering what to do, she saw three scaly men’s heads. They looked up at her and said:

  ‘Wash me, wash me,

  My bonny maiden,

  And dry me with

  Your clean linen apron!’

  ‘Yes, I’ll wash you,’ said the King’s daughter.

  She washed the three scaly heads, and dried them with her clean linen apron. They took her bottle, dipped it and filled it with well water.

  Then the three scaly men’s heads said one to the other:

  ‘Wish, Brother, wish! What will you wish?’

  ‘I wish if she was bonny before, she’ll be ten times bonnier now,’ said the first.

  ‘I wish that every time she speaks there will drop a ruby, a diamond and a pearl from her mouth,’ said the second.

  ‘I wish that every time she combs her hair she’ll comb a peck of gold and a peck of silver from it,’ said the third.

  The King’s daughter went home, and if she was bonny before, she was ten times bonnier now. Each time she spoke, a ruby, a diamond, and a pearl dropped from her mouth. Each time she combed her hair she combed a peck of gold and a peck of silver out of it.

  The Queen was so angry she didn’t know what to do. She thought she would send her own daughter to the Well at the World’s End to see if she would have the same luck. She gave her a bottle and sent her to fill it with water from the Well.

  The Queen’s daughter went, and went, till she came to the tethered pony, and the pony said:

  ‘Free me, free me,

  My bonny maiden,

  For I’ve not been free

  Seven years and a day!’

  ‘Oh, you stupid creature, do you think I’ll free you?’ said she. ‘I am the Queen’s daughter.’

  ‘Then I’ll not carry you over the moor of sharp thorns,’ said the pony.

  So the Queen’s daughter had to go on her bare feet, and the thorns cut them. She could scarcely walk at all.

  She went far, and far, and farther than I can tell, till she came to the Well at the World’s End. But the Well was so deep that she couldn’t reach the water to fill her bottle. As she sat there, wondering what to do, three scaly men’s heads looked up at her, and said:

  ‘Wash me, wash me,

  My bonny maiden,

  And dry me with

  Your clean linen apron!’

  ‘Oh, you horrid creatures, do you think I am going to wash you?’ she said. ‘I am the Queen’s daughter.’

  She did not wash their heads and so they did not dip her bottle and fill it for her. They said one to the other:

  ‘Wish, brother, wish! What will you wish?’

  ‘I wish that if she was ugly before, she’ll be ten times uglier now,’ said the first.

  ‘I wish that every time she speaks there will drop a frog and a toad from her mouth,’ said the second.

  ‘I wish that every time she combs her hair she’ll comb a peck of lice and a peck of fleas out of it,’ said the third.

  So the Queen’s daughter went home with an empty bottle. The Queen was mad with rage, for if her daughter had been ugly before, she was ten times uglier now, and each time she spoke a frog and a toad dropped from her mouth. Each time she combed her hair, she combed a peck of lice and fleas out of it. So they had to send her away from the Court.

  A young Prince came and married the King’s daughter, but the Queen’s daughter had to put up with an ill-natured cobbler, who beat her every day.

  RASHIE COAT

  ASHIE Coat was a King’s daughter, and her father wanted her to marry, but she did not like the man he had chosen. Her father said she must marry this man, so she went to a hen-wife to ask her advice.

  ‘Say you won’t take him,’ said the hen-wife, ‘unless you’re given a coat of beaten gold.’

  Her father gave her a coat of beaten gold, but she didn’t want the man for all that. So she went to the hen-wife again.

  ‘Say you won’t take the man unless you are given a coat made of feathers from all the birds of the air,’ said the hen-wife.

  So the King sent a man with a large basket of oats, who called to the birds of the air:

  ‘Each bird take up a grain and put down a feather! Each bird take up a grain and put down a feather!’

  So each bird took up a grain and put down a feather, and all the feathers were made into a coat and given to Rashie Coat. But she didn’t want the man for all that.

&nb
sp; She went to the hen-wife and asked her what she should do.

  ‘Say you won’t take him unless you’re given a coat and slippers made of rushes,’ said the hen-wife.

  The King gave her a coat and slippers made of rushes, but she did not like the man for all that. So she went to the hen-wife again.

  ‘I can’t help you any more,’ said the hen-wife.

  So Rashie Coat left her father’s house and went far, and far, and farther than I can tell, till she came to another King’s house.

  ‘What do you want?’ said the servants, when she went to the door.

  ‘I would like to work in this house,’ said Rashie Coat.

  So they put her in the kitchen to wash the dishes, and take out the ashes.

  When the Sabbath Day came, everyone went to the Kirk, but Rashie Coat was left at home to cook the dinner. While she was alone a fairy came to her, and told her to put on the coat of beaten gold, and go to the Kirk.

  ‘I can’t do that,’ she said. ‘I have to cook the dinner.’ The fairy told her to go and she would cook the dinner. So Rashie Coat said:

  ‘One peat make another peat burn,

  One spit make another spit turn,

  One pot make another pot play,

  Let Rashie Coat go to the Kirk today.’

  Then she put on her coat of beaten gold, and went to the Kirk. There the King’s son saw her and fell in love with her, but she left before everyone else, and he couldn’t find out who she was. When she reached home, she found the dinner cooked, and nobody knew she had been out of the house.

  The next Sabbath Day the fairy came again, and told her to put on the coat of feathers from all the birds of the air, and go to the Kirk, for she would cook the dinner for her. So Rashie Coat said:

  ‘One peat make another peat burn,

  One spit make another spit turn,

  One pot make another pot play,

  Let Rashie Coat go to the Kirk today.’

  Then she put on her coat of feathers, and went to the Kirk. Again she left before anyone else, and when the King’s son saw her go out, he followed her. But she had already vanished, and he could not find out who she was. When she reached the kitchen, she took off the coat of feathers, and found the dinner cooked. Nobody knew she had been out at all.