‘Now, John,’ said he, ‘when you speak to me what will you call me?’
‘Why, sir,’ said John, ‘I’ll call you Master, or Your Honour or anything else you like!’
‘No, John, that won’t do, you must call me “Master above all Masters.” And what will you call my house?’
‘I’ll call it your house, your mansion, or what you please.’
‘You must call it Mount Aupris. And now what will you call my wife?’
‘I’ll call her my Mistress, or Your Lady, or anything else you please, sir,’ said John, who was a most obliging man.
‘No,’ said his master, ‘you must call her Dumbalibus. And what then will you call the fire?’
‘Ah, just the fire, I suppose,’ said John.
‘No,’ said the gentleman, ‘you must call it “the great flame of light”. And now what will you call my trousers?’
‘Well, sir, I’ll call them your trousers, your breeches, or what you like.’
‘You must call them my strunty pokes,’ said the master, ‘and then what will you call the cat?’
‘Oh, just Pussy or Kitty or anything you choose’, was the answer.
‘No, you must call it the “Great Man of Crayantis”. And what will you call the water?’
‘Oh, just water,’ said John who could not think of any other name for it.
‘No,’ said the master, ‘you must call it Gillipontis.’
Well, the servant did his best to remember these names to please his strange master, and he soon became so used to them that he could say them quite as easily as the old names.
So one night when the man and the cat were sitting at the kitchen fire, a cinder fell out and, as luck would have it, it fell upon the cat’s tail and set it on fire. Then what a to-do there was, as it ran squealing up the stairs in a terrible fright, setting fire to everything on its way. The master was by this time in bed, so the servant rushed to his room and beat upon the door crying out: ‘Wake up Master above all Masters, waken Dumbalibus, put on your strunty pokes. For the Great Man of Crayantis has gone up to the top of Mount Aupris [with the Great Flame of Light] and if we don’t get some help from Gillipontis we shall all be devoured!’
38 Tom Tulloch
THE FLAYED HORSE
THIS STORY WAS telled aboot the men here in North Yell ’at hed a . . . a big croft or a small fairm, and they hed a . . . a horse an a geeg. An they were north wan day at Greenbank licensed premises, and they güd into the shop and – most likely gettin aerands – in all probabeelity hed a dram an spent a good bit o time. And they left the horse tied to somthing ootside o the shop, an they were saeveral kigs or baarels o poarter there. And the horse got very impaetient wi waetin, an he wis stampin wi his feet an he brook in the heid o wan o this kigs o poarter; and the horse no doot was likely thristy and hungry boath and he drank this keg o poarter.
And when the men was raedy they cam oot o the shop and they got i the geeg, but they werena gone very far when they saa ’at they were somthing, ir t’owt at they were somthing serious ’at ail’t the horse. But they proceeded on their wey fir horn, an gie’t the horse his time; but efter a while the horse collapsed completely an entirely. An they unbuckled him oot o the geeg an they cam to the conclusion ’at the horse wis deid. An to mak the best o a bad job they turn’t to an they flay’t the horse an güd hom cairryin his skeen.
An efter they were been horn for a while, the – it might til ha’ even ha’ been the following moarning, they heard some commotion aboot the hoose an they lookit forth what this wis, and then this wis the flay’t horse strampin aroont the doors; but he appear’t to be very cowld. An very short afore this they were been killin saeveral sheep to saut by fir winter flesh, and they turned oot to the bright idea ’at they would tak this sheep skeens an pit it to the horse in place o his own hide. And they güd an they pat on the skeens ipae the horse and they grew on and . . . the same as if it been his owen skeen. But it wis a more profitable horse then as ever, fir they roo’d him every year and they got the equivalent o five or six fleeshes aff o him. An they were very disappointit when the horse died be owld age!
39 David Work
KEEP A COOL HEAD!
HE WAS A GRAET LAD for tellin stories, he had a graet lot o stories, and there was a New Year’s Day, ice cam on the loch, you see, an all the young fellows cam there skatin. They were aal oot there wan New Year’s Day, ice on the loch, an they were skatin an there were wan of this boys ’at geed a bit too far oot, and in the middle o the loch the ice was soft, you ken, an it broake wi him an he geed doon, doon in a hoale, and the other edge o the ice just catched him onder his chin. He slid away under the ice till he came to another hoale, and his head did the same on top o the ice, an when they cam there his heid just stuck on again . . . the frost was that strong, you ken, till it just froze his heid on again!
In the evenin then they were sittin aroond the haerth tellin stories, and this boy was there too, and he was gotten some o the cowld wi his dip in the cowld watter, you know, and he start to sneeze. An he was gan to blow his nose – they just blow their nose wi their fingers then, you ken – an he was gan to blow his nose, an wi the haet, it was kind o thaaed the ice aboot his neck, you ken: he aimed his heid in the fier!
FATE, MORALS AND RELIGION
40 Peter Morrison
THE SKIPPER WHO MAROONED A GIRL
. . . THIS WAS AN OLD woman’s house (an old wife’s house, as we call it) and the young folk used to get plenty of storytelling and larking about there. This night a boy came in after all the rest, and he asked, ‘Why is there a light on in both rooms of the house over there?’ This was the crofter’s house next door.
‘Well,’ said the woman, ‘if you really want to know,’ said she, ‘a wife for you is being born in that house tonight.’
The young boy took great offence at this, and everyone started to laugh and make fun of him. And when he was a few years older than that, he went to sea, and he got on so well that he became master . . . at any rate he was an officer on a ship.
After a few years he came home to the place he belonged to to see his friends, and he saw this good-looking young girl there. This was the child who had been born the night he was so offended. He took her with him: he asked her parents if he could take her to send her to a good school and give her a good education. Well, in those days parents were pretty poorly off . . . and her parents agreed that he should take her with him, since he was going to leave her with relatives of his own who would educate her well.
He took her with him, and when the boat was a day or two out from port . . . he made some of the crew lower a boat, and put food and drink in the boat, and go to a skerry close by them and put the girl on the skerry with this food and drink and leave her there. This was done. They had to obey him, and the girl was left on the skerry. It seems that, according to the story, the skerry would be covered [by the tide] and the girl would have been drowned, but they would not have been in sight to see this happening to her. A short while after another ship appeared, following the same course, and they saw someone on the skerry. They stopped and lowered a boat, and a crew went into the boat and they went over to the skerry. They took off the girl.
This man took her with him overseas, and she was well cared for after that overseas. He saw to it himself that she lacked nothing every time he came into port. The girl told him what had happened, that she had been marooned on the skerry and left to die.
When two or three years had passed, the man who had marooned her on the skerry brought his ship into the very port where this girl was being kept. And at a meal they had in the house he took a great fancy to this girl. He started to talk to her and she talked to him and made up to him as much as she could. The girl knew him, but he did not recognise the girl.
The upshot was that he asked her finally, when the ship was ready to sail, if she would be willing to marry him, saying that he was captain of a ship. She said she would, she had no relations in that place, and she would b
e willing enough.
‘All right,’ said he, ‘when I get back here from the next voyage, we will be married here.’
That was what happened. When they got back from the next voyage preparations were made for the wedding and the wedding took place. When the marriage service was over, the girl turned round to the minister and the people who were by – the congregation. She told them every bit of it, how the prophecy which had been made for this man had been fulfilled.
‘And I am the woman,’ said she, ‘that he took with him as a young girl and landed on a reef in the sea, but another ship saved me. I am finished with him now,’ said she. ‘I have married him, but I will have nothing more to do with him.’
And with that I parted with the story.
41 James Henderson
THE HERDIE BOY
THEY USED TO GO in to the kiln and throw a ball of worsted into the kiln, an then start pulling it out; an after a bit . . . if it caught on anything or that it stopped, it wouldn’t come any further, the girl used to say, ‘An wha hadds in me clew-end?’ An then a voice would answer with the name o the future spouse.
Weel the story I’ve heard is that – it’s quite a big farm, there was a poor wee herdie boy at it, of course of very little repute in these days – and the daughter slipped in to the kiln tae find out her fortune: threw the ball in an start pulling out, and it stuck. An she says, ‘Wha hadds in me clew-end?’ An a voice says, ‘Whar but the poor herdieboy sittin at your faither’s fireside?’ An of coorse she was very angry, she thought the boy had gone out an hidden an playing a trick on her. She’d a big iron key in her hand for the barn; she rushed into the house an there he was sitting, an she walloped him over the head with the key an cut his head!
So he left the house, of course, went somewhere else; and in the course of time – I don’t know whether he went to sea or what happened to him, but he made good, anyway, made his way in the world, and he came home an courted an married the girl. And in these days they wore their hair – well, much like now, shoulder-length – and she was combing an brushing his hair one day an she found this mark on his head. And she says, ‘My goodness . . . what have ye done tae yir head? Who did that tae ye?’
He says, ‘Do you not remember when you did it wi the key o the barn?’
She had even forgotten that he was the boy that was at the father’s house.
42 Tom Moncrieff
TURNING THE SARK
I REMEMBER MY mother and an old lady who was born in the year 1830 described to me most of the rites which were performed at Hallowe’en time, when the girls tried to find out. . . what their future fortune would be. Well, there was one of these rites – it’s described in Burns’s poem Hallowe’en – where a girl was supposed, if she wanted to see the wraith or apparition of her future husband, to go to a place where three lairds’ lands met by a burn, and dip her left sark sleeve in the burn, and then . . . turn it inside out and hang it up before the fire, and then hide away, either in the bed or in a corner, and the apparition of her future husband would appear, and he would turn the sleeve of the sark or chemmy and hang it back.
I remember hearing that a girl nearly brought misfortune, according to the story, . . . on her future husband. She had dipped the sark sleeve in the burn and hung it up, turned it inside out, and then she hid away in the corner, and the apparition came in, a young man in sailor’s clothing, and he turned the sleeve around and hung it back. And she was so curious to see him again that she went and turned the sleeve outside in and hung it back, and he came back and he turned it again. And not content even with the second appearance, she invoked a third appearance, and that time he left a sheath knife.
And years later, when she was married to him – she’d hidden the knife in an old chest – he came across it and recognised it. He asked her how on earth she got that knife, and she told him about this ploy that they played at Hallowe’en.
And he said: ‘Well, if I’d known that, you should never have been married to me, for I was at sea that night, and I was three times overboard, and,’ he said, ‘the last time I lost my knife and I nearly lost my life!’
43 Jack Cockburn
THE STOLEN BLANKETS
MY GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHER, Peter Aitchison, farmed Harehead and Greenwood at the same time and was very good to all tramps and vagrants who came, especially in the hill places – he fed them and looked after them and put them on their way.
During one autumn at a time when it was very foggy, a man and his wife knocked on the door very late one night and asked where they were and he told them. They asked for shelter and he said yes, he would put them up for the night as he always did, and he got a stable-lantern and blankets for them, gave them some tea, and then he took them along to the straw-barn and saw that they made up straw for a bed – gave them the blankets and said, ‘Now come along at six o’clock in the morning and you will get your breakfast and you will bring the blankets back into the house. Whatever you do, don’t run away early in the morning and steal the blankets. You must bring the blankets back, and you’ll get your breakfast.’
The man swore, he said, ‘You may take God to witness, we’ll bring back the blankets whatever else happens.’
When six o’clock came next morning there was no sign of them, and seven o’clock. So, not appearing for their breakfast, my great-great-grandfather went to the barn and found there was no-one there at all and the blankets had gone. He just thought this was too bad, and thought no more about it.
It was a lovely day, but by night-time the mist set down thicker even than the night before, and about the same time of night there was a knock on the door, and when he went, this man asked him could he tell him where he’d got to, for he was completely lost – and this was the same tramp and his wife, and he had the blankets all rolled up. He was completely lost – he had no intention of bringing back the blankets, but the blankets were brought back.
44a Willie Ritch
THE SANDAY MAN’S DROWNING
THAT’S THE STORY aboot the owld Sanday man. They were gan to go to the sea the next day, to the fishin, an the wife thowt it was gan to be a storm, an she didna want the man to go. So she blinded aal the windows so as he wouldna ken when it was daylight. And the graith-tub, ye ken, was standin on the floor, to get a run of water in for washin the blankets. And . . . ah, eventually the owld man thowt it was winder that it was never gaan daylight, he thowt he’d get up to see whit wey it wisna, for he was sure, ye ken, that it was piece o the day. So he got up and in the darkness he geed heid stoup into the graith-cog and wis droonded.
44b Tom Stevenson
THE STRONSAY MAN’S DROWNING
I DON’T KNOW if it wad been a Sanday story, I couldno say, for thu sees, this was a boat gyaan for peats tae Eday, and it was said to be afore the time that they were gettin peats oot o Rowsholm Heid. The wife dreamed the night afore that it cam on coorse and they were aa droonded. And she was that fearful o her man . . . she wouldna let him go, and he had to bide home to watch the bairns, and she geed oot to dö ony oot wark there wis. But when she was been oot, he was been thirsty and he geed to tak a drink oot o this butter- or kirn-milk, and he was geen heid stoup in the kirn and he was droonded.
45 Roderick MacKenzie
HAM AND EGGS
THE FARMER? With the cuttin of the crop? . . . He wis . . . They wis all cuttin, swingin their scyes to the tune of ‘Porridge and brose, three times a day’. An the master wis comin along an he haerd them, an he went out of sight an listen’t, an they wis goin very slow. An he went home an he told the wife that he would have to change their diet, ether they wouldn’t get their crop cut this summer.
So the wife made fried ham an eggs an just gev them a good tuck-in. They went back to their wark at one o’clock again, an after they’d gotten under wey to their wark, the master thoyt he would go an see what they wis doin. An they wis all swingin the scye: ‘Ham an eggs! Take care o yir legs! Ham an eggs! Take care o yir legs!’ and they soon got their crop cut
.
46 Ethel Findlater
PARING CHEESE
THERE’S A FINE STORY aboot a man that was lookin for a wife wance, and he watched how she ate cheese. So win woman cut a great chunk of this skin and thro wed it away: so he thought she was too extravagant, he wouldn’t have anything to do with her. And then the second one ate it all: so he thought there was something wrong with her, she was too mean, she ate the skin and all. So the third one gave the skin a bit scrape, you see, and then she ate it: and he married her. Shö was the most successful wife, he thought.
47 Roderick MacDonald
CHRIST AND THE HENS AND DUCKS
YOU HAVE HEARD about the old wives’ tales and here is one of them for you. The Roman soldiers were in pursuit of Christ at this time and every place they used to come to there was nothing but – ‘Did you see the likeness of the Son of God passing here?’ There wasn’t anyone who would tell them the truth and the greater part used to say that they didn’t or, perhaps, that they did a week ago, though He would have been there yesterday.
This day Christ came on men who were winnowing grain and He told them that the Roman soldiers were pursuing him and that they weren’t far behind him.
‘O, but they certainly won’t find You this time,’ said they, and they put Him lying face down and they started winnowing grain over Him.
There was a large conical heap of grain on top of Him when the soldiers came, and they asked, ‘Did you see the Son of God passing here?’
‘Yes,’ said they.‘The Son of God passed three Thursdays ago.’
Scottish Traditional Tales Page 27
