The little man came and took away the wool and everything and he was making the tweed. The woman was searching everywhere to discover what his name was, or who he was, but no one knew anything about him.
However, one day . . . Now there were, apparently, two groups of fairies. One group of them were good fairies and the other evil and seemingly he was of the evil group, the one who was making the tweed. But one of the group of good fairies, he was passing . . . the place where they were – those fairies – staying, one day, and he heard them singing and singing a song and working, and this one dancing around reciting:
‘Tease, card and spin.
Little does the black tweed wife know
That Ceann Suic is my name.’
This was the mouth-music he had for them, and the others dancing as they worked. And this one came. I do not remember his name, if he had a name I do not remember it, or if I heard it. But the good fairy, anyway, he came . . . he went to where the woman was and told her the situation, and when the other one came with the tweed in a month’s time, the woman had the name.
Ceann Suic said to her then, ‘It was not any natural man that told you that, but when I find out, and I have a good suspicion who it was, it will not remain at that, there will be a battle.’
And the poor woman heard no more about it, but the child was not taken from her, for the two groups of fairies – the good and the evil – had a battle and the good ones defeated the evil ones. They caught Ceann Suic and killed him and ate him, and as poor Ceit Tharmoid herself said, ‘They nibbled him and they nibbled him and they picked him,’ and they destroyed the whole lot of them.
14 Angus John MacPhail
THE CAPTAIN OF THE BLACK SHIP
WELL, THIS BLACK SHIP, you know, it was out at the herring fishing, and they were fishing far out at sea, anyway, for herring and they got a good catch. But a dense mist fell around them and they lost their course. But, anyway, they kept on till they came in sight of land – and what land should they come in sight of but the land of the Turks – Turkey.
Well, anyway, they headed in for this land and they found a place where ships came to land and they came alongside there and got the ship safely moored. And the first thing they came across after they had landed, on the shore, was the body of a white man lying drowned on the shore. And the captain told one of the crew to go back on board, get one of the herring boxes and bring it ashore, and a shirt he would find in his cabin. And he did – and he was to bring one of the herring shovels too – and they laid this body in the herring box, wrapped in the shirt, and they buried it with . . . They dug a hole with the herring shovel and buried the man.
Then they went on up through the town to see what sort of place it was, and they came to a big hotel there – himself and the crew. I can’t remember how many of a crew there were, but there was a good squad of them anyway, and the skipper asked for food for them . . . They were put into a room where this meal was to be served, and one single herring was set down on a plate in front of them and they were amazed that one herring should be set before all those people, and what they said to themselves was that they would taste the herring to see if it was any better than the herring they had themselves.
And they started to eat their meal, and when they had finished, in came the girl who was serving them, and she began to scream that the herring had been eaten. And what then but the innkeeper himself came – the hotel proprietor – and the upshot was that every man of them was to be hanged for eating the herring – the only herring they had ever seen in Turkey, and it was preserved, you know, and just set on the table. There was a notice on the table with it too, but they hadn’t read it – they couldn’t: it wasn’t in their language – that no-one was to eat it.
Well, since he was so angry, this man, anyway, the captain began to talk to him and reason with him, and he asked him to let one member of the crew out and that they would bring him plenty of herring – that they had plenty of it on board. He kept on at him . . . He didn’t want to let any of them go, but to keep them there till they were hanged or something done to them. Anyway he kept on at him and said he thought he could let at least one man go and that the others . . . all who were left, that they were good value for one herring. Anyway, he kept on at him, and at last he let one man go and this man came back as fast as he could with the herring in case the crew should be put to death. He brought a basketful of herring. Oh, then they were the finest gentlemen this man had ever seen, and they would make their fortune there with the herring. And they did.
He and the innkeeper – the hotel proprietor – were going around the town every day, while he was getting ready to sail again. But this day they were out walking and every man they met around the town had a bundle of wood on his back – a load of sticks or a load of some kind of stuff anyway. He turned to the man and asked him what was the meaning of this, people going about carrying these bundles, every single one of them.
‘Oh, you see,’ said he, ‘a girl came ashore here, herself and her brother,’ said he, ‘in a boat; they had been blown off course when they were out in a small boat . . . and her brother was drowned getting ashore here,’ said he, ‘but the girl, she’s so beautiful,’ said he, ‘that our king wants to marry her, but she won’t marry him. And they’re going to burn her. That’s why everyone around here is going about with sticks – to build the fire.’
‘Well,’ said he, ‘that’s terrible. I wonder,’ said he – the captain of the Black Ship, ‘if there’s any way of getting the girl out of the place where they’re holding her?’
They had her in prison. ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said he, ‘that I might not be able to make some sort of shift at getting that for you too.’
Anyway, he told him how he could get round the man who was in charge of the prison, and how he might be able to give him the key of the room where that girl was kept . . . that he might be able to get her out. ‘And,’ said he, ‘they’re going to burn her tomorrow, or the day after . . . tomorrow,’ said he.
And, anyway, he got hold of this man who had the key of the castle where she was imprisoned: he got hold of him and managed to get it out of him that he could get the girl out at such and such a time that night. And he went and got the crew and told them to get the ship ready to sail as soon as possible and to have everything in as good order as they could – they were to have her ready and he was going to come aboard with this woman and they would put to sea immediately. The crew did this: they had the ship perfectly ready.
He came. He got the girl out and got away with her and went on board and it was just a case of casting off and away out to sea. Anyway, what girl should this be but the king of Norway’s daughter. She and her brother had been out in a boat and they had been blown off course and it was in Turkey they had come ashore, and that was what had happened to them.
Anyway, in the morning . . . He held out to sea and they drove the ship on as hard as she could go all night, but in the morning they had not gone far when all the ships appeared in pursuit . . . The sea was black with ships coming after them to try and catch them, but they kept driving the ship on as hard as she could go and by nightfall they were drawing away from them, try as they might, and by next morning there were very few of the ships in sight. She had left them all behind – the Black Ship. By nightfall that evening there was not a single one of them in sight: they had lost them.
They kept on and they got home with the ship, anyway, to their own place where they had been heading. And she told the skipper – the captain of the Black Ship – she told him who she was and where she had come from, the whole story, and if he would be so good – when they had been a little while at home, if he would be so good as to go with his ship to her home so that she would see her mother and father.
This was fine. He set sail . . . She didn’t go with him, but she sent him with his ship, and they got to the place and told her mother and father – she was the king of Norway’s daughter – that she was alive and well in that place and the
whole story.
And, oh, when the news spread around the city, the best ship in the place, the best one belonging to their country, would have to go with them to fetch the girl and her father was to go with them. There was such a stir throughout the country as there had never been before; the girl was alive. They had given them up for dead, herself and her brother.
It was on a Sunday that he arrived there and he stayed there till Monday. But the ship that was to fetch the girl, the best they had, it set sail on the morning of the very day [he came]. He stayed on till Monday morning and then he set sail and made for home with the Black Ship. And the Black Ship wasn’t long at sea on her way home when she passed their ship and he was home before the ship that was sent for the girl arrived, and he went home and told her that she had not done too well by him: that there was a ship, the best they had, coming to fetch her and she would have to go with them.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said she, ‘who comes or what ship comes,’ said she. ‘I’m not moving from here.’
Well, the ship arrived and they came up. Her father tried to persuade her to come with them. No, she wouldn’t budge from there! And, anyway, she wouldn’t move unless the captain of the Black Ship came with her, wherever she might go from now on. Well, they went on at the captain of the Black Ship then to get him to come with her. They persuaded him to come along with her and they both went on board this other man’s ship.
They hadn’t been terribly long out at sea when they got caught in a storm. It was all sailing ships in those days and they were toiling away with this ship in the storm and at last the captain of the Black Ship had to go aloft to reef the sails or something. And when they got him aloft they hove the ship to, you know, and the sails began to lash back and forth and at last the captain of the Black Ship was hurled overboard by the lashing of the sails and then it was just a case of making off. Away they went without a look in his direction – he would be drowned, anyway.
However, they were not too far from land and he got . . . He was swimming there as strongly as he could, and he found that there was an island fairly near him, and he made for this island. And he managed to get ashore on the island, to get to land, but he was almost finished. And he dragged himself up as best he could, he dragged himself up till he got up beyond high water mark and he managed to roll some sort of stone and lay it at his head and another at his feet, and he was exhausted. He fell asleep there and he was never going to wake up again.
Well, when daylight came, you know, the sun got so hot, it was beginning to dry him – the side of him facing the sun, and he was . . . just lying there half-dead. Some time later he felt someone shaking him and telling him to get up.
‘Oh, I’m not going to move from here,’ said he, ‘ever. I’m not going to live anyway,’ said he, ‘and I’m never going to move from here.’
‘Oh yes you are,’ said he. ‘Get up. You must get up and you’re coming with me.’
And he managed to get him on his feet, anyway, and he had a little boat down there in the shallows, a slim boat, and:
‘Come on down with me,’ said he, ‘to the boat and I’ll take you off the island.’
‘All right then,’ said he.
He brought him down and put him sitting in the stern of this little boat he had there. He turned . . . He got in himself and turned her round and put her out to sea. And the man was rowing her and he [the captain] had never seen a boat on the surface of the sea as fast as her, though he was just rowing, and where should he bring her to land but in Norway, where the ship had been going that had taken the girl away, and where they had landed.
Well, he was pretty . . . When he set him ashore there, he asked the man what he owed him.
‘You don’t owe me anything,’ said he, ‘but you’ll let me have . . . The only thing I’m asking of you,’ said he, ‘is that you give me the first son who is born to you. Will you give him to me?’
‘Oh, I will indeed,’ said he, ‘but I’ll never have a son – ever. But if I do, you can have him. You’ll get him.’
‘All right, then.’ And he said goodbye to him and went away.
And he [the captain] went and kept on up the road, and there was a little house beside the road there, and he went into this house beside the road and he found a little old woman inside there, and she gave the man quite a welcome since he was a shipwrecked sailor and she said . . . A son of her own had been a sailor and he had been drowned not very long before and she was very sorry for him [the captain] and what had happened to him. And he had not been very long in the house – she gave him food and dry clothes to put on – when he asked what was happening in the city there and she told him.
‘Why,’ said she, ‘we’ve got tremendous news,’ said she. ‘Who came here last night,’ said she, ‘but the king’s daughter who everyone thought was dead long ago. She came home alive, hale and hearty and she’s to be married,’ said she, ‘to a great general who belongs to the place. She’s to be married to this general,’ said she, ‘and . . .’
‘I wonder,’ said he, ‘if we can see them?’
‘Yes,’ said the old woman. ‘They’ll be passing here in the carriage on the way to the wedding. They’ll be passing by on the high road beside us here and we can see them going past.’
And he was looking round the house and what should he see on top of a dresser over there but a musical instrument that he and the princess had had on board the ship and he got up and went over and picked it up.
‘Oh!’ said she . . . She was over to him right away: ‘Oh, leave that where it is,’ said she. ‘That,’ said she, ‘is the only thing the princess has said since she came ashore: she gave me that and told me to keep it till she came back for it, and no-one has got another word out of her but that since she came home.’
This was fine:
‘Oh,’ said he, ‘I’m quite used to these instruments,’ said he, ‘and I won’t do it any harm. I’m just going to have a look at it.’
Anyway, she was keeping a look-out to see if she could see the wedding carriage coming and at last it came in sight. Well, just as it was coming up to the house, he started to play this instrument and he was playing it pretty well too – as well as ever he could, I’m sure. Anyway, they heard it in the carriage and she called to the driver of the carriage to stop. He reined in the horses – it was horses in those days – he reined in the horses and she jumped down from the carriage and went into the house as fast as she could go and they went after her thinking she had gone out of her mind. But when they got through the door, there she was with her arms round this man’s neck, and he was holding the instrument, and when they saw who it was . . . When this great man who was to marry her saw who it was, he went back out and climbed aboard the carriage and dashed on down to the quay in it and out over the quay and drowned himself – and the horses and the carriage.
She told her father then that there wasn’t a man in the world she would marry but that man there: it was he who had saved her life. And she told them everything he had done for her. And they got married and they lived happily ever after for the rest of their lives . . .
Anyway they got married and they had not been very long married – as long as they ought to I suppose . . .! – when they had a son, and they were quite happy and getting on fine, but this day they were out for a walk and they had the little boy – in a pram I suppose, or in a barrow or something or other! Anyway they were out walking through the city with the boy when they met this handsome man on the road and he spoke to them. And when he had been talking to them for a little while:
‘Well,’ said he, ‘now are you going to give me what you promised me? Are you going to give me your son?’
Well, he hesitated and he said he didn’t know . . . And then the woman asked her husband:
‘Why,’ said she, ‘is he asking for the boy?’
He told her then that this was the man who had taken him off this island in this boat, and that this was the only thing he had asked him for after he had bro
ught him here and rescued him and . . .
‘Yes,’ said she, ‘You’ll get the boy then,’ said she.
‘Yes, you will . . .’ said he. ‘You can have the boy and take him away with you.’
‘Well,’ said he, ‘since you are so good and reasonable,’ said he, ‘and willing to give me the boy, I’ll not take him away at all,’ said he. ‘All I did for you,’ said he, ‘was in return for what you did for me when you took me from the beach and buried me in that place after I had been drowned,’ said he, ‘and I’m going away now and you’ll never see me again.’
I think that was all there was to it.
15 Andrew Stewart
THE THREE GOOD ADVICES
ONCET UPON A TIME there was a man and a wumman lived in a wee cottage, away up aboot in the north of Scotland somewhere, ye see, and this mannie was a baker to trade, but the place – the village he was stayin in, the old man o the baker’s shop died and this man was throwed oot o a job – there were no baker’s shop there. But he stuck his place for aboot two year, and things was gettin very hard wi him, ye see. So one day he says to the wife, he says, ‘I think,’ he says, ‘I’ll go and look for a job,’ he says. ‘Things is gettin very tight,’ he says – ‘nae work comin into the hoose,’ he says, ‘an the two lassies at school,’ he says – ‘I’ve got to get some money.’ See?
So his wife says, ‘Where are ye goin a go?’
‘I don’t know,’ he says; ‘if ye jist make me up a piece,’ he says, ‘an gie me a blanket wi me,’ he says, ‘I’ll march the road, and I’ll try and get a job in some toon,’ he says; ‘I’ll surely get a job somewhere, ye see. Doesnae maitter what it is.’
So anyway, in the mornin she gies him a piece an gies him a blanket – made her man as comfortable as she could for the long journey. And he bid his – waved his kiddies farewell, and kissed his wife, an off he went – sets off, ye see. So anyway, on he goes – oh, he marched on tae he was aboot six weeks on the road, tae he comes marchin intae a village. An the village – there was . . . four cross-roads in this village in the street, a cross-roads. An he comes in, an he looks up the one street and he looks doon the other street, and he’s stan’in at the corner – it was kin’ o well on in the night. An across the street was a baker’s shop; it was shut. In the front of the baker’s shop there was a stoot man stan’in, like the man o – the boss o the shop, was stan’in: an this man o the shop was watchin this other man across the street – the baker – stan’in watchin the man that was lookin for the job, ye see.
Scottish Traditional Tales Page 13
