Celtic Myths

by Flame Tree Studio

  “Return him to me, to his own land,” bawled the blacksmith, but the fairies began to smirk, and they slowly crept around him in a circle, taunting him, poking at him with blades of honed green grass. They began to dance, a slow and wiry gyration, moving to a weird song that tugged at the mind of the black-smith, that threatened to overcome him. He struggled to stay upright, and as he stabbed his arms out in front of him, he dropped his cock, who woke with a howl and gave one mighty crow that sent the little fairies shrieking from the doorway to the other side, sent them howling away from the cock and the blacksmith and his son, who they pushed now towards him, sending them all slipping towards the threshold of their world. For daylight was the curfew of the fairies, and it was with true fear that the crow of the red-combed cock was heard, for little people may never see the light of day per chance they turn at once to stone.

  They struggled now, prodding the mortals from their world, and begging in an awkward chant for Alasdair MacEachern to release his dirk from their door. And as he drew it from the threshold, and stood once more in the land of mortals with his son, a small and crafty fairy thrust his face from the hill-side, and called out a curse that fell upon the son of the hapless blacksmith like the mist of a foggy night.

  “May your son not speak until the day he breaks the curse.” The head popped back, and the fairy was gone, never to be seen again.

  And so it was that Alasdair MacEachern and his son Neil went to live again in their familiar, cosy cottage next to the forge, and took up their work, their habits and their routines in place once more. Neil’s tongue was frozen by the curse of the fairies, but his manner was unchanged, and this father and his son lived contentedly, for speech is not always necessary to those who live simply, with things and people to which they have grown accustomed.

  One day, a year and a week from the fairy’s fateful full moon, Alasdair set his son the task of forging the new claymore for the Chief of his clan. As his silent son held the metal to the fire, he started, and looked for one instant as wild as he had in the Land of the Light, for suddenly Neil had remembered, and in that flash of memory he recalled the intricate forging of the fairies’ swords, how he’d learned to temper the blades of their glowing weapons with words of wisdom and charms, with magic and spells as well as with fire. Now he leapt into action, and worked with a ferocity and speed that set his father, Alasdair of the Strong Arm, reeling with shock and with fear.

  And then the motion stopped, and holding up a sword that gleamed like the light of the full moon, he said quietly, “There is a sword that will never fail the man who grasps it by the hilt.”

  From that time onwards Neil spoke again, for unwittingly he had removed the curse of the fairies by fashioning a fairy sword to sever a fairy spell. Never again did he remember his days in the fairy kingdom, never again could he forge a fairy sword, but the Chief of his clan never lost a battle from that day, and the sword remained the greatest of his possessions.

  Neil and his father, Alasdair MacEachern, returned to their cottage, the finest blacksmiths in all the land, their forge casting a glow that could be seen from hills all round, almost as far as the Land of Light, where the fairies kick up their heels in fury at the thought of that blacksmith and his clever son.

  The Fairy Changeling

  There once was a woman who lived on the sea, where the winds blew cold and damp. By day she combed the sands for seaweed, and by night she lay alone in her bed, weak and lonely, for her husband was a fisherman and by the light of the moon he trawled the rocky coasts, eking a cruel living, but one which kept them fed and warm in a cosy cottage.

  The woman longed for a child, but it was many years before she was granted her wish, and when her baby finally came he was small and feeble. Her neighbours said he would die, or worse, be snatched by the fairies who loved a child so fair of complexion, so slight of build. He would be taken, they said, to the Land of Light where the fairies danced and sang and played all day, where they set traps and tricks for mortal folk who crossed their merry paths.

  The fisherman’s poor wife could not help but think that a life of laughter would bring roses to the cheeks of her white child, and she wished with all her being that he would be stolen by the fairies, and taken to a land where he could become strong. And so it was that the fisherman’s wife set her child out on the rocks, on the edge of her land, and watched and waited. She slept for a few moments, but otherwise moved not, and still her baby lay there, swad-dled and spiritless, an invitation to the little folk which was not accepted.

  At length she berated herself for the foolhardy actions, and brought her baby into the cottage once more. And there he surprised her by pulling himself up and demanding food, attaching himself to her teat with such relish that she drew back. He suckled the woman dry, and then demanded porridge, but still he lay small and wizened, more yellow than before, but so hungry that she could not feed him.

  So the fisherman’s wife placed her baby at her breast, and went to see the wiseman in the village, anxious about her small but starving baby, frightened by his curious change.

  The wiseman listened carefully to her story, silently shaking his head.

  “You have not your own bairn, but a fairy changeling,” he said finally.

  The wife of the fisherman balked, for there in front of her was the very shape and likeness of her baby, and the cry was as shrill as ever. She refused to believe him.

  “Take him, then, to your cottage, and leave him in his cradle. Shut the door, but do not go. Spy upon him there and you will be sure.”

  And so the fisherman’s wife returned to her cottage, and laid the baby upon his bed, shutting the door firmly behind her, but skulking back to peer in the window. And suddenly her baby sat up and drew from under the mattress a chanter, which he began to play. And instead of her baby there was an old fairy bodach.

  She fairly flew back to the wiseman, and implored him to help her get rid of the changeling, sickened at the thought of having suckled that gnarled old creature. Calmly the wiseman told her what to do.

  The very next day, the wife of the fisherman took her changeling baby and laid him on a rock by the sea, busying herself by collecting seaweed as she did on every day that passed, and comforted by this routine, the baby, or the fairy bodach as she now knew he was, fell asleep. As he slept the tide drew in, licking at the rock on which he slept, until the waters began to dampen his wrappings, and he woke with a start. When he realized that he could not reach the fisherman’s wife without swimming he rose to his full height, and a little fairy man once more he began to stamp his feet and howl, shaking his fist at the fisherman’s wife who stood entranced as the waters threatened to engulf the fierce fairy.

  And so it was that ten or twelve small fairies appeared to rescue their kin, but since fairies cannot swim, they danced helplessly on the shore while the water grew higher and higher about the rock. The fisherman’s wife was smug, and she said, “I shall leave him there, until you return my baby.”

  And the fairies disappeared and returned with her baby, who had grown in his time away from his mother, and whose cheeks were roses, whose white skin held the bloom of good health. And she thanked the fairies, and returned their bodach to them.

  So the fisherman’s wife, flushed with her good fortune, went back to her cosy cottage, protected from the winds which blew cold and damp from the sea. She lived there with her blossoming baby, by day combing the sands for sea-weed, and at night nestling warm in her bed with her son, silently thanking the little people who had made him strong.

  The Thirsty Ploughman

  It was in Berneray that two men from Brusda walked along a hot and sun-burnt field, parched from the fiery sun, from a long day of ploughing. Sweat glistened on their brows and they talked little, saving words for a time when their tongues were moister. Their feet were bare and despite the great heat they moved quickly, thirsting for a drink, for cool refreshment.
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br />   They passed across a rocky knoll and then they heard a woman, working at a churn. They looked at one another with relief.

  “Ah, Donald,” said Ewan, the slighter of the two men, “if the milkmaid had my thirst, what a drink of buttermilk she would drink.”

  Donald was not sure. “Ah, it’s not buttermilk I would care for,” he said.

  As they carried on over the dry brush that lined the hillock, the sound of the fresh milk splashing in the churn grew louder, more enticing, and both men licked their lips at the thought of it. There before them stood a fair maiden, her apron starched crisp white, holding a jug that foamed with pure butter-milk. She offered it to them then, Ewan first because he was the smaller of the two.

  Ewan refused to drink because he knew neither the maiden nor the source of the buttermilk. He was afraid of what he did not know and though he thirsted for the cool milk, he would allow none to pass his lips.

  Donald, who cared not for buttermilk, drank deeply from the jug, and wiping the frosting of white lather from his lip, he declared it the best he had ever tasted.

  “Ah,” said the bonny maiden, whose face was cool with contempt, “you who asked for the drink and did not accept it will have a short life. And you,” she gestured to Donald, “you who took the drink, but did not ask for it, a long life and good living.”

  She turned on her heel, and apron bright in the sunlight, left the men, one thirsty and one sated.

  And so it was that Ewan returned home that night and took to his bed, never to waken, for the fear of God had been put into him that day by the maiden on the hill, who could be none other than a witch. And Donald lived a long and prosperous life, ploughing his field alone, but reaping better crops, and amassing great riches. He looked always across the knoll, listened intently for the sound of milk in the churn, but never again did he see the witch, or fairy, though he blessed her often.

  Wee Johnnie in the Cradle

  There once was a man and his wife who lived on a farm on the edge of a wood where fairies were known to lay their small hats. They were a young man and wife and they had not been married long before a child was born to them, a child they called Johnnie. Now wee Johnnie was an unhappy baby, and from the beginning he cried so loudly that the birds ceased their flight over the farmer’s cottage, and the creatures of the woodland kept a surly distance. The man’s wife longed for the days when she could tend the fields with her husband, and chat to him of things which those who are newly wed have to chat of, and to go to market, where they would share a dram and have a carry-on like they had in the days before wee Johnnie was born.

  But Johnnie was there now, and their cosy cottage became messy and damp, and some days the hearth was not lit because the man and his wife were so intent on silencing the squalling boy, and some days they could not even look one another in the eye, so unhappy and disillusioned they had become.

  And then, perchance, a kindly neighbour, a tailor by trade, took pity on the man and his wife, who grew ever thinner and ever more hostile as the cries of wee Johnnie grew wilder and lustier as he grew larger and stronger.

  “I’ll take yer bairn and ye can take yer wife to market,” he said to the farmer one day, and the man and his wife eagerly agreed and set off for the day.

  They had not been gone longer than a minute or two, when the kindly tailor, who had placed himself beside the fire and was bracing himself for an afternoon of wailing, was startled from his reverie by a deep voice.

  “Fetch me a glass o’ that whiskey, there, in the press,” it said. And the tailor looked about him in amazement, the room empty but for the wee Johnnie in the cradle who was mercifully silent.

  “I said to ye, fetch me a glass,” and up from the cradle of wee Johnnie popped wee Johnnie’s head, and from the mouth on that head came that deep and bossy voice.

  The tailor rose and did as he was bidden, and when the baby had drained the glass, and then another, and let out a belch that was very unbabyish indeed, he said to the wee bairn, “You aren’t Johnnie, are ye, ye are a fairy without a doubt.”

  “And if I am,” said the fairy changeling, “what will ye say to them, me mam and da?”

  “I, I dunna know,” said the tailor carefully, settling himself back into his chair to watch the fairy more carefully.

  “Get me some pipes,” said Johnnie the fairy, “I like a bit of music with me drink.”

  “I haven’t any ... and I dunna play,” said the tailor, crossing himself and moving further from the loathsome baby.

  “Fetch me a straw then,” he replied. And when the tailor complied, the fairy Johnnie played a song which was so exquisite, so effortlessly beautiful that the tailor was quite calmed. Never before had he heard music so haunting, and he would remember that melody until his dying day, although he could never repeat it himself or pass it on. But he was broken from his reverie, for wee Johnnie was speaking.

  “Me mam and da, when will they be back?” he whispered.

  The tailor looked startled, for the day had been pulled from under him, and it was time indeed for the farmer and his wife to return. He looked anxiously from the window and as they drew up he heard wee Johnnie begin to howl with all the vigour of a slaughtered beast, and he watched as a deep frown furrowed the brow of the farmer’s wife, and a dull shadow cast itself across the face of her husband.

  He must tell them, for the cruel fairy was manipulating them, taunting them with his tortuous cries. And their own wee bairn was somewhere lost to them.

  He pulled the farmer aside as his wife went to tend to the wailing bairn, and told him of the fairy. A bemused look crossed his face and he struggled to keep his composure. “My wife, she’ll not believe it,” he said finally.

  But the tailor had a plan. He told the farmer to pretend to leave for market the following day, and he, the tailor, would step in to look after the bairn once again. But the farmer and his wife were not really to leave, they should hide themselves outside the cottage walls and watch when the wee Johnnie thought them gone.

  And so it happened that the next day the man and his wife set out for market again, but drove their horses only round the grassy bend, returning stealthily to look through the windows of their cottage. And there was wee Johnnie, sipping on a glass of their best whiskey, puffing idly on a straw pipe that played a song which was so exquisite, so effortlessly beautiful that they were quite calmed. Never before had they heard music so haunting, and they would remember that melody until their dying day, although they could never repeat it.

  But when they heard that wee Johnnie’s coarse voice demanding more drink, they were snapped from their reverie, and they flew into the cottage and thrust the changeling intruder on the burning griddle which the tailor had prepared for that purpose.

  And the scream that ensued was not that of their own baby, and the puff of sickening smoke which burst from the fairy as he disappeared renewed their determination.

  And then there was silence, an empty peace that caused the man and his wife to look at one another in dismay, for what had they done to cause their baby to be stolen from them, and where was their own wee Johnnie now?

  Then a gurgle burst forth, and there was a movement in the corner of the room where the tiny cradle lay. They rushed to its side, and there lay Johnnie, brought back from his fairy confinement, smiling and waving tiny fat arms, with cheeks like pink buttons, and a smile so merry that the cottage of the man and his wife was warmed once again.

  The tailor left them then, a grin on his face as he whistled to himself a tune which was so exquisite, so effortlessly beautiful that he was quite calmed.

  The Fairy Dancers

  It was Christmas Eve and by the Loch Etive sat two farmers, longing for a drink but with an empty barrel between them. And so it was decided, on that icy Christmas Eve, that these two farmers would walk the road to Kingshouse, their nearest inn, and they would buy a barrel of the best
whiskey there, a three-gallon jar that would warm them through the frosty months to come.

  So they set off along the winding road, and over the hills that glistened with snow, all frosted with ice, and came to the warm wooded inn at Kingshouse. It was there that a cup of tea was shared, and a wee dram or two, and so the two men were quite merry as they set off home again, the three-gallon jar heavy on the back of the youngest man, for they would take turns carrying its weight on the long journey down the winding road and over the hills.

  And over the hills they went but they were stopped there, by the need for a taste of that whiskey, and for a smoke. Then the sound of a fantastic reel grew louder and louder, and a light shone brighter over the hills, towards the north.

  “Och, it’s just a wee star,” said one man, ready for his smoke and his tipple.

  “Nah, it’s a light, and there’s a party there to be sure,” said the other, who was a great dancer and loved a reel more than any other.

  So they crossed the brae to the north, towards the light, and the sound of pipes, which played a fine tune. There in front of them were dancers, women in silk dresses, bowing and twirling, and men in highland dress, with pipes playing an enchanted, fine tune that drew them towards the hill.

  The younger man, who carried the jar, went first, and as he entered the great door in the hillside, and joined the merry throng, the door was closed. When the other farmer, slower than the first, reached the site, there was nothing to be found. For his friend had disappeared and there was no trace of him.

  It was a cold and lonely walk home, and the farmer puzzled over what had occurred on that moonlit hill, with a magical reel playing from a light that shone in the darkness. He went first to the farm of the other man, and he told his wife what had happened, but as he talked, faces closed, and brows became furrowed, and it was clear that he was not believed, that no man could lose his friend on a hill just a few miles from home.