Scottish Traditional Tales

by A. J. Bruford

  Well, that’s how it was. He spent that night in the house of the King of Halifax and, anyway, next day he got ready and got it [the dog] and he and the dog set off. The dog took him along. And they came to the other world, and the first person he saw, anyway, it was the Son of God that he saw and he came to Him.

  ‘Well,’ said He, ‘you have come.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the lad.

  ‘Oh,’ said He, ‘your father did a very foolish thing,’ said He.

  ‘Oh well,’ said the lad, said he, ‘it can’t be helped now.’

  ‘But,’ said He, ‘we shall try to get you set free from him [the Devil]. He has no right to you in a way. You did no wrong at all that he should get you into his power, but it was your father who gave you away, and because of that we shall try to get you set free. We shall go with you to him, to see what he will do about you.’

  And the Son of God went and took him with Him and went to see the Devil.

  ‘Well,’ said the Son of God, said He, ‘here is a lad you got hold of and you have no right to him at all. The lad never did anything that you should get him in your power in any way and it was his father who gave him to you, and the lad is not at all responsible for that, so release this lad.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said he. ‘I won’t release him at all. This lad was mine, promised to me before he was conceived in his mother’s womb.’

  ‘Oh, I know he was,’ said the Son of God, ‘but you release the lad or I shall put such a number of other chains on you.’

  ‘Though you put on me every chain you could,’ said he, ‘I will not release the lad.’

  ‘Well, unless you release the lad,’ said the Son of God, said He, ‘I shall put you in the bed of the King of Halifax.’

  ‘Well,’ said he, ‘I’ll do anything, but don’t put me there. I’ll do anything you ask as long as you don’t put me there.’

  ‘Well,’ said He, I’ am asking nothing of you but to release this lad – that you shall have nothing at all to do with him in this way.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said he, ‘I shall do that. He is free of me,’ said he.

  And: ‘Well, now,’ said the Son of God, said He, ‘you are all right now. You are free to go now.’

  Well, anyway, the dog came, the dog that belonged to the King of Halifax, and he and the fisherman’s son set off. And they came to the house of the King of Halifax and the old man was there lying in bed.

  ‘Well,’ said he, ‘and how did you get on?’

  The lad told him word for word what had passed between the Son of God and the Destroyer and everything, until at last he came to the point where He threatened to put him in the bed of the King of Halifax, and that it was then that he had set him free.

  ‘Alas, alas,’ said he, the King of Halifax, ‘I shall die tonight.’

  And: ‘Oh, no,’ said the lad.

  ‘Oh yes, I shall,’ said he, ‘and you must stay here tonight. Don’t be afraid at all,’ said he, ‘and tomorrow, when you are ready, kindle a good fire, a good strong fire, and you must throw me in it, into the fire, and you must wait till I am burnt to ashes and you must keep the fire going till there is nothing left but a heap of ashes so that no bone or any part of me is left. And you must keep a look-out,’ said he, ‘and three ravens will come from the north and three doves will come from the south, and if it is the ravens that get to me first, before the doves, have nothing to do with me. Leave the ashes where they are. But if the doves get to me first, before the ravens, you are to gather up my ashes and you are to bury them.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said the lad, said he, ‘I shall do that.’

  Well, anyway, that’s how it was. Whether he went to sleep or not, the day came, anyway. And the King of Halifax was dead. He went and started to build a fire. And he built a fire outside, a good fire too, and when he had built the fire he managed to drag him outside and put him in the fire – and he was there burning and melting, and wasting away with the fire until at last there was nothing but a little heap of ashes. And the fire had gone out.

  Well, now he began – he was looking far and near in the sky to see if it would happen as the man had said.

  And, here, suddenly it seemed to him, in the north, that he saw three black things there, coming, and he kept watching them like that, and then he made out that they were birds.

  And he kept looking south and there was no sign of anything appearing and it – what was coming in the north – was coming fast. But now he took a look to the south and he saw three other things coming from the south and if the ones coming from the north were moving fast, these were really moving, until at last they came, the three doves there, and they clapped themselves down around the ashes. And the ravens came after them.

  ‘Go on,’ said the ravens, said he [sic], ‘get out of there. This belongs to us.’

  ‘Oh no it doesn’t. There is no doubt,’ said the doves, said he, ‘that he belonged to you before, but it is not to you he belongs today.’

  ‘Oh, it was for us,’ said he, ‘that he was working all his life,’ said the ravens.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the doves, ‘but it was for us that he did his last deed, and so,’ said they, ‘you get away out of here.’

  Well, the ravens went away and the doves went away too, and when they had gone, he got ready and I do not know where he put the ashes but he buried the ashes of the King of Halifax, anyway, and he said goodbye to the dog and went away.

  He kept going now and made straight for the house of the hermit with whom he had been last.

  ‘Oh well,’ said the hermit, ‘you have come.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the lad.

  ‘Well, how did you get on?’

  The lad told him how it had been from start to finish, and how at last it had been threatened that he [the Devil] would be put in the bed of the King of Halifax and that that was how he had set him free at last.

  And: ‘Oh yes,’ said the hermit. And now they were there talking away and it was getting on for supper-time. And no supper came. And, anyway, it was late at night before the doves arrived.

  ‘Man, man,’ said the hermit, said he, ‘what went wrong tonight that you are so late in coming to people with their supper?’

  ‘Oh,’ said the doves, said they, ‘we had great rejoicing in Heaven

  ‘How was that?’ said the hermit.

  ‘We had the King of Halifax in Heaven today,’ said he, ‘and he was greeted with great rejoicing because he got there.’

  The hermit fell down dead on the spot.

  ‘Away, away!’ said the doves, said he. ‘You get away from here. Do not stay. Have your supper and be off. Do not stay here at all.’

  Well, the lad had his supper and set off. He came to the house of the other hermit, whatever hour of the night or morning it may have been when he got there. He got there anyway and got in and this one gave him a great welcome, and he asked him how he had got on.

  He told him and he told him about the King of Halifax, and how he had come last night to the house of this hermit and when this hermit had heard that the King of Halifax was in Heaven, he had fallen down dead on the spot, and that the doves had told him to go, not to stay there at all.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the hermit, ‘they did very well,’ said he. ‘You did quite right. It is envy,’ said he, ‘that had put him down, but he will be in the bed of the King of Halifax and the King of Halifax will be in Heaven. He was so envious,’ said he, ‘that the King of Halifax, poor man, had got into Heaven.’

  And he was well cared for there, in the house of that hermit and he went off then next day and came to the other one and spent that night there. He told the story to that one too, how it had all turned out, and he spent that night along with that one.

  And he went then and made for home and when he got home his father and mother were blind and deaf. And they recognised him but they could hear nothing. But he began to talk to them and with every word that came out of his mouth, part of their hearing and part of their sight came back to them un
til at last they were as well as they had ever been; and I came away from there and headed for home, and I left them like that. I don’t know what happened afterwards.

  51 Duncan Matheson

  ST FILLAN AND THE WHITE SNAKE

  WELL, WE KNOW HE was born in the ninth century and he did a great deal of preaching in Perthshire and there is a place there called after him, just as there is here – St Fillans. Anyway, apparently he came to Kintail and he did a great deal of preaching in Kintail, and Lochalsh too, and he was a famous healer.

  But it seems that one time he made a journey to France and, while he was there, he called on a famous French physician and stayed with him there for a while. But the thing that interested the French physician most was the hazel staff he carried – Faolan’s hazel stick. This was a stick he had cut beside Loch Long before he set out on his journey and the Frenchman kept on asking about this hazel staff and where he had cut it – and he said that he had cut it in a wood beside Loch Long.

  ‘Well,’ said this man to him, ‘if you go back to the spot where you cut that hazel staff, you will find a poisonous snake there, and it is white, and if you bring it back to me you will never want for anything, because I shall give you a fortune for it.’ And he told him how he could catch the snake.

  Faolan came back to Kintail and he went back to exactly the same spot where he had cut the hazel staff. And he took with him a pot full of honey. And when he reached the place where he had cut the hazel staff he built a big fire there and he placed the pot of honey beside the fire. In a short time the snakes began to appear, [attracted] by the heat of the fire and the smell of the honey. The snakes all gathered round it, and a little later what should appear but this white snake, and this was the king of the snakes. And he managed to get it into the pot of honey, and as soon as he had got it into the pot of honey he clapped the lid on it and made off.

  He knew very well that the other snakes would be after him as soon as they saw that their king had been captured. He also knew that if he jumped seven running streams that he would be safe enough. And he did this and the River Elchaig, the river down near my house, was the last river he had to leap. He leapt over it and the snakes who were trying to rescue their king stopped.

  Anyway, he had the snake in the pot and he took it back to France to this French physician, and he handed it over to him in the pot just as he had caught it, in the honey.

  The French physician set the pot on top of a stove and he lit a great fire under it, and when he had done that he said to Faolan: ‘You look after that. I’ve got to go out for a little while, but be careful not to put a hand near it.’

  And he went away, and Faolan was feeding the fire with sticks and it . . . the pot began to boil with bubbles coming to the surface, and it so happened that he put his finger – without thinking of what the man had said to him, since he’d told him to be sure not to put his finger near it – he put his finger through one of these bubbles and he burnt his finger, and then he did just what anyone else would do if he burnt his finger, he stuck it in his mouth.

  As soon as he put his finger in his mouth he felt a change coming over him, and he knew by the way he felt that something very wonderful had happened to him, and what had happened to him was that he had got this gift for healing that no-one else had, and it seems that this is what the French physician wanted for himself. He had known about it and that was why he had told the other to have nothing to do with the pot. And a little while after the French physician came back and he knew as soon as he got back that he had lost the thing he had been after and I’m sure he was really furious because of that. But anyway, the gift he had been seeking, it was Faolan who had got it as soon as he put his finger in his mouth.

  And he went back to Kintail then and he stood on that knoll there in front of my house that we call Tulach nan Deur [The Knoll of Tears], and he was very tired and sick at heart after the journey from France, and he made a verse. And the verse went like this:

  I am sitting here on the Knoll of Tears

  Without skin on toe or sole

  Alas! King of all the airts

  France is far from the head of Loch Long.

  And he began to preach here in Kintail and in Lochalsh and a church was built at Kilillan [Cill Fhaolain], opposite us there, and it was called after him, and besides preaching round about here he was a famous healer and because of that and because he was looking after the people in the glens here and they were not afflicted by diseases or anything else, they got to be as strong as anyone you could find anywhere in Scotland and that is the reason why the people of Kintail are particularly strong.

  But anyway, he is buried in Kilillan. That is the place that is called after him – but that was not where he died. He died in Iona but before he died he asked that his body should be brought back to Kilillan, the place he loved so much, and a galley came up Loch Long with his body and a sod of turf from Iona to be laid over him. And he was buried in Kilillan there and his grave is still there and I could show it to you if we were over there. But the one unusual thing about his grave, different from any other grave – and there are many people buried there – is that it lies in a different direction. He is the only one lying one way and all the others another way, as you might say. . . . How does his grave lie now? His grave lies north and south and all the other graves lie east and west. . . It is marked by two stones . . . just two flag-stones . . . not big stones either . . . just two natural flags as they were hewn out of the rock, without any writing or anything else on them.

  . . . There was more to it than that too. As I have said he was a wonderful healer and there was a spring over in Kilillan and this spring rose through a birch tree that was hollow inside, you know, an old tree, and the spring came up in the middle of it. And the water from this spring, it had the power of healing too, you know. Fillan had blessed it . . .

  All anyone had to do was take a drink from it and whatever was the matter with them it was said that it would cure it, and they believed that it had this power . . . If you believe the tales of the old folk it did this . . .

  And that spring was there, yes, for hundreds and hundreds of years till not so very long ago, and it seems that a tinker-woman came along and she washed her children’s clothes in the spring and as soon as she had done that, the spring dried up. It lost its power of healing as soon as she did that . . . as soon as she misused it in that way the spring lost all its powers.

  ORIGIN AND DIDACTIC LEGENDS

  52 Mrs J. J. Leith

  THE HUGBOY

  THE HUGBOY WAS A GIANT who lived doon in Caithness or somewhere. At any rate he an his wife fell oot aboot something, an he was chasin her in a north direction, an it must have been before the Pentland Firth was made. When he came in sight o her she was goin up Ireland Brae, so he thought . . . he couldna catch her: he threw a stone at her, but missed, and the stone lies in a field above Ramsquoy. It must have been some soft stane, this, the finger-marks are in it still. She must have rinned a long way, for there’s another stone he threw at her in the Lylie Banks at Skaill in Sandwick.

  [Peter Leith jr:]* He was supposed to be tall enough to wade across the Pentland Firth.

  Oh, that’s another story.

  The Hugboy wanted some faels [turf] to do some buildin wi. So north he came with his caisie [straw basket], scooped up wan handfu – made the Loch o Harray – scooped up another – and made the Loch o Stenness. Gaenin back he stubbed his toe and a divot dropped aff – and that is Graemsay. Then the fettle (that’s the rope that hads the caisie) broke, and the whole thing fell oot, and with disgust he left it where it wes – and it remains there as the hills of Hoy.

  * Mrs Leith’s son.

  53 Ann Munro

  DUBH A’ GHIUBHAIS

  THIS IS A STORY I heard from my grandmother before I ever went to school. If I came to her not very clean she would say, smiling: ‘Here’s Dubh a’ Ghiubhais’ and I had to find out who Dubh a’ Ghiubhais was. As everybody knows the peat bogs in this re
gion are full of fir. We see the stumps of the trees in the ground, with the roots running to and fro around them. We can sometimes see the tree lying in the bog as it fell, and I have sometimes seen these trees look as if part of them had been burnt. So it must be that this region was covered with a great forest many hundreds of years ago.

  Now the king of Lochlann was very envious of the fine wood with which Scotland was covered, and he wanted to destroy it. One day he was so gloomy and worried that his daughter asked him what was troubling him. He answered that he wished he could find a way to destroy this Scottish forest.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ said the princess, ‘if you get a witch to put me in the shape of a bird.’ Without further delay the king sent for a famous witch, and she turned the princess into a beautiful great white bird. She flew away, and she was not long in reaching the west coast of Scotland. She came down here and there, and when she struck a tree with a wand she had under her wing the tree would catch fire. It was not long until the beautiful white bird had become an ugly black bird with the smoke of the pinewood, and the people of this country gave her the name of Dubh a’ Ghiubhais [Fir Black].

  It was not easy to catch her, and she was doing a lot of damage. But word got out that Dubh a’ Ghiubhais had a tender heart, especially for animals. A man at Loch Broom hit on a scheme to get hold of her. The young were taken away from all the farm animals – the calves from the cows, the lambs from the sheep, and the foals from the mares, the kids from the goats, the piglets from the sows, the puppies from the dogs, and even the little chickens from the hens. The mothers were put in one fold and their young in another. When evening came, there was the most dismal bleating, lowing, whinnying, barking and screeching that human ear had ever heard. Dubh a’ Ghiubhais was passing on her course of destruction, and her heart was so sore for the poor creatures that she had to come down to earth. No sooner was she on the ground than one of the local people sent an arrow through her heart, and she fell dead.