The waking he got was the cellarman showering him with kicks. There was no sign of the old women.
‘You bloody rogue, you’ve been coming here long enough till you’ve ruined me and finished me – but it’s caught you out at last!’
He shouted for the police. The poor old man was seized and dragged off and thrown into prison. And then he was taken to court. The old man kept telling them what had happened to him and how he had come to be there.
Hoots! Who was going to believe that! It was no use trotting out all his lies here. Who on earth would believe that! The man had been missing stuff for ages and every policeman in London and every detective had failed to catch the thief till he caught him himself. And it wasn’t so much what was being drunk as what was being spilt!
The result was that he was sentenced to be hanged. And on the day he was to be hanged a great crowd of people gathered to watch the execution: they used to hang them in the open air in these days, in full view of everyone.
The old man was led out and the hangman led him up to the scaffold, and he told him that he had ten minutes now to say anything he wanted to say before he was hanged.
Oh, he said he had nothing to say that he had not said already but that they were hanging an innocent man.
‘Hah! You’re anything but innocent!’
He put his hand in his pocket: what should he find but the cap. ‘Can I wear this on my head,’ said he, ‘while you’re hanging me?’
‘Oh, you can wear anything you like on your head,’ said the hangman.
He took the cap and tied it on his head:
‘Kintail Again!’ said the old man.
Away went the old man and the gallows and the hangman into the sky and on the way home he threw the hangman off the gallows and he was drowned.
He and the gallows got back to Kintail and he had a fine smooth piece of timber to make a keel for the boat.
And that was what happened to him.
81 Peter Morrison
THE TAILOR AND THE FISHING WIVES
WE ALWAYS USED to hear it said that tailors, they were extraordinarily ‘tathainte’ – that’s the word we have anyway, whether they use it in many other places or not. They were witty and they were eloquent, they were quick to pick up anything and good at telling things. And I don’t think what was said about them was right:
‘A tailor is no man, nor yet a man two
A raven could push over a cliff two score and two.’
I don’t believe those words at all, that they were appropriate for tailors.
But anyway, this particular tailor was like the rest of his kind: he had sharp eyes and open ears for everything that might be going on in the houses where he was working. And the custom in those days was that the tailor went from household to household, as we put it, and from township to township, and he made all the clothes for the family he went to before he left for the next house or the next township, wherever he was needed.
This one was most particularly fond, according to the story, of fresh herring. And when he came to this parish, a long way from his own home, what should be the first breakfast he got but fresh herring. He praised the herring and said that that was his favourite dish.
His hostess said to him, ‘In that case,’ said she, ‘you can have it, tailor, every morning as long as you stay here.’
When he’d finished the clothes for that household he went to the next house where he was wanted, and began to work on the clothes of that household too. And he got the same thing; whether word had gone ahead of him or not he didn’t know, but it was fresh herring he got for his breakfast. He enjoyed this, and he praised it to his hostess, and she said, ‘Oh, you can get that all right here. We have it every day,’ said she. ‘You can have it every morning, tailor, if you like.’
To shorten the tale now a good part of the night has passed, we need only say that: when he left the second house and went to the third in the same parish, what was his astonishment to get fresh herring in the morning in the third house too. This puzzled him: he couldn’t see anyone going fishing and he didn’t hear of anyone coming round to sell herring, and where the herring came from he didn’t know, but he enjoyed it all the same.
He made up his mind, as men of his trade were inclined to do – they had to get to the bottom of anything that intrigued them, and find the meaning of it – and the tailor decided, once the end of his work in this household was in sight, that he wouldn’t go to bed this night at all. They always used to say to him, ‘It’s time you went to bed, tailor. You’re tired,’ his hostess would say, when everyone in the house but her was in bed already. He told her this time, ‘I won’t go to bed at all tonight, mistress. I’ll have finished my work by the small hours of the morning, and I’m heading for the hills tomorrow, as there isn’t another family in this parish needing me.’
‘Tut, tut,’ said she. ‘That will never do, tailor, staying up all night with a long day in front of you tomorrow.’
‘Oh, it’ll never do otherwise,’ said he. ‘Then I’d be crossing the hills after dark,’ said he, ‘and I’m not so good at walking the hills in the dark as I used to be. But anything you have to do, mistress, you go ahead and don’t bother hiding it from me. I’ll keep right on sewing.’
‘Well,’ said she, ‘since you’ve decided to stay up, I’ll tell you what’s happening, and you mustn’t breathe a word about it.’
‘I won’t, I won’t,’ said the tailor. ‘I’m not accustomed,’ said he, ‘to carry tales from house to house. I keep my ears open for what I can hear and my eyes take note of what I see,’ said he, ‘but I don’t bear tales from house to house,’ said he. ‘I keep them to myself.’
‘Very well,’ said she, ‘I won’t keep anything from you, tailor. I have two women friends,’ said she, ‘round here. We go out,’ said she, ‘two or three nights a week to fish for herring, and that’s the fresh herring you get in the mornings.’
And: ‘Oh gracious,’ said he, ‘couldn’t I go with you?’
‘If you like,’ said the woman, . . . said his hostess, ‘when the other two come,’ said she, ‘I’ll put it to them. And I’m quite sure they’ll agree, since you know so much already.’
Her friends came, but they weren’t at all pleased when they saw that the tailor was at the fireside.
‘Don’t keep anything from me, ladies,’ said the tailor. ‘Whatever you have to do, do it. I know well enough how to hold my tongue travelling about.’
So they just had to set about their business, and the tailor was taught a spell. They had to go down to the seashore where there was a rocky stretch, and each of them had a sieve hidden there, and one or two spare in case someone else joined the company that was going for a night’s fishing. The tailor could have one of these. Each of the three had a coil of heather rope, the three women, and these were tied – the ends of them tied to the tailor’s sieve and the tailor’s sieve moored by a heather rope to a big rock on the shore. The women would put out [in the sieves] after repeating the spell – the whole lot of them – and the tailor with them nearest the shore; and when the heather ropes had been paid out to the end the fishing would be over: there would be a herring on every heather tip that stuck out of the rope. And then they would . . . the tailor was to start and haul in the ropes towards the shore.
And that was what happened. Everything went well with them and the tailor had memorised the spell without any mistakes. They boarded their sieves, each of them, and the tailor sailed out a bit beyond the seaweed of the shore in his own sieve, with the end of the three ropes made fast to it. He paid them out . . . and when they were fully paid out the tailor shouted, ‘The ropes are fully paid out. With the Lord’s blessing fish well.’
Down went the tailor’s sieve, down went the women’s sieves, and the screaming started and the swimming started. But the tailor didn’t look to see what was happening to the fishers – he just grabbed for the heather rope to pull himself to land, and as soon as his sieve touched the shore he leapt
out of it and headed for the hills. He thought they were all drowned. He didn’t stop to think of the scissors or needles he had left behind, just of covering the miles ahead. Wet as he was, he got to his own house as dawn was breaking in the morning.
And he was most surprised when he heard the news, a few days later, that the women were alive and well as ever. Because their sieves had been made fast to the tailor’s sieve, they had managed to pull themselves to the shore.
And I wouldn’t much have cared to eat that sort of herring, but all the same the tailor enjoyed it. That’s a little story for you tonight.
82 Nan MacKinnon
DUART’S DAUGHTER
ONCE UPON A TIME MacLean of Duart sent his daughter to be educated, and oh, she was away for a good while. I Don’t know how long she was away: anyway she was a good while away, and she came home then. And just on the Sunday after she came home, she and her father went for a walk in the hills. And her father said to her, ‘How much have you learned now?’ said he.
Now there was a ship out at sea. She said, ‘I have learned enough,’ said she, ‘to bring that ship in,’ said she, ‘to the shore.’
‘Right, then,’ said he, ‘why don’t you bring it in?’
The ship began to come and it kept coming in and kept coming in until at last it was on the point of going on the rocks. And it went on the rocks. And her father said to her, ‘Will you not save them now?’ said he.
‘Oh,’ said she, ‘I don’t know how to do that!’
‘Well, if that,’ said he, ‘is the sort of education you have had, I would rather your room,’ said he, ‘than your company, and I will never have your sort in the same place as myself.’ And when he got home, it was said that he built a great fire, and he put her in a basket and cast her on top of it, and burned her. It was the Black Art that she had been learning.
83a Donald MacLellan
THE THREE KNOTS
IT happened once upon a time when the autumn work was over and the people had got the harvest gathered in safely in the island of Heisker in Uist, they thought they would go to Lewis to visit their friends there. They took a big strong boat with a capable crew and set off.
They had fine weather and they got to Lewis. They knew a lot of people in Lewis – they had relatives there. A certain man among them went to a house and greeted the woman of the house and she was very glad to see him. He had not been in the house for long when a tall black-haired girl came in, and he was on such familiar terms with the woman of the house, that he said to her when the girl had gone, ‘To whom,’ said he, ‘does that black ugly girl belong?’
‘Is that what you say?’ said the woman of the house. ‘I don’t know but that you may fall deep enough in love with her before you leave Lewis.’
‘Indeed,’ said he, ‘I won’t fall in love with her: whoever else may fall in love with her, I won’t.’
But this is how it turned out: they went home from their visit that night, and there he was, longing for the night to come again, so that he could get back again to visit that house. And the girl came to the house as usual and he hated her more than the Devil, yet he was longing just as much for the next night to come so that he could go there.
So it went on but when it came to the end of the week, one said to another: ‘We’ve had a good long visit now and it’s time for us to be making for Heisker.’
And they agreed that it was.
‘Well, I think we’ll be off tomorrow.’
And they got everything ready for going. They got up next morning and, oh, it was blowing a gale: they could not possibly get away. There was nothing for it but [to go] back to where they had been before. Next day again they got up. They went down to the boat and got her ready and just as they were starting to get the masts up, it blew up a gale. There was nothing for it but to give up. They could not get away.
They were walking up from the harbour, going back to the houses where they had been staying, and they met a little creature of an old woman and: ‘Well, my good lads,’ said she, ‘I’m sure you’re wearying at the delay in this place.’
‘Oh indeed,’ said they, ‘we are.’
‘Oh,’ said she, ‘it is no wonder, seeing what sort of place you kept going to. What will you give me if you get fine weather to go tomorrow?’
‘Oh indeed, anything at all you want we’ll give it to you.’
‘Well,’ said she, ‘all I want is a pound of snuff.’ And: ‘Which of you is skipper of the boat?’
The man told her who was skipper of the boat.
‘Well,’ said she, ‘send one of your lads to my house tonight and I’ll give you something which will help you on your way.’
That’s how it was. One of the lads went to her house and she gave him a thread with three knots on it.
‘Here you are now,’ said she, ‘and you give that to the master of the boat and you’ll have a good day tomorrow, and you’ll get away. And if you . . . if the skipper does not have enough wind, he can untie one knot. And if that is not enough for him and he would like more wind, he can untie the second. But whatever you do, don’t untie the third one.’
They went off, and what the old woman had said turned out to be true. It was a fine day and they went and hoisted the sails and set off with a nice little breeze of wind, and, oh, they could be doing with more wind if the old woman really had such powers – to get more wind, for they were in a hurry to get back home since they had been away so long – and they untied a knot. The wind came up a good deal better, but, ah, they would like more, they would like more! And then they untied the second knot. Then it was . . . it was just as much as the boat could take. She was at full stretch.
Now they were getting close to Heisker and they had had a fine voyage, and one of them said to the other: ‘We ought to try the third knot to see what powers the old woman had.’
And: ‘Well, we’re close in to land: we’re safe now anyway, no matter what happens.’
They untied the third knot and the man at the helm turned and looked behind him and he just had time to say: ‘Oh!, oh!’ he said. And three huge seas came and swept the boat up and left her high and dry on land. And all they had to do was jump out on dry land at a place they call Port Eilein na Culaigh (Port of the Island of the Boat) in Heisker.
83b Andrew Hunter
THE THREE KNOTS
NOW YE KNOW AAL THE boats ’at came to Shetland in wän time – ’course that’s a long time ago – they took them across from Norroway, and they wir aal put together with wooden pins, the boats. An when they got them across to Shetland, they re-fästen’t them wi galvanise naels. An some men went across to Norroway to bring acroass a boat fir theirselfs. An they säid they wir aaful weel treat’. An before they left, the old lady o the house gev them a bit o string (or a bit o rop maybe; I couldna say whit it wis) wi three knots on it.
‘Now,’ she säid, ‘if you wänt a fair wind an a fine passage, take off the first knot. An if you think that ye’re not maekin a quick enough passage, take off the second one. But,’ she said, ‘fir God’s sake doan’t take off the third one!’
So when they wir gettin horn, pretty near their destination, the one säid to the other, ‘Well, the two knots is off, an I non think that thir any harm o takin off the third one.’ So they took off the third one, an afore they got the boat landit he wis a proper gale! He wis a flyin gale . . . But they got the boat; they landit the boat, but I suppose they had a bad time gettin her landit. Yes!
84 William Matheson
DARK LACHLAN AND THE WITCHES
WHEN I WAS IN SOUTH UIST I used to ask about the MacMhuirichs [hereditary bards to Clanranald], and in South Uist they were best remembered as having the Black Art, and here’s a story I heard in this connection:
Alasdair, laird of Boisdale, wanted to marry MacLeod of Dunvegan’s daughter, and he left Loch Boisdale with a ship’s crew to ask MacLeod for her. He took Dark-Haired Lachlan son of Donald MacMhuirich with him. MacLeod’s daughter had two maids-in-waiting and the
y were afraid that if the laird of Boisdale got their mistress they would not be needed any longer. One of them was a witch, and what did they do but set off, the pair of them, to meet the Uist ship in the form of two ravens. When they reached it, the witch settled on the masthead and the other one flew round her crying to her: ‘Drown Alasdair of the Cows! Drown Alasdair of the Cows!’
But her reply was always: ‘How can I drown Alasdair of the Cows with Dark Lachlan son of Donald MacMhuirich hunched over the tiller?’
In the end Lachlan reached for his gun and loaded it with a silver coin. He shot at one of the ravens and knocked out a shower of her feathers. They fled at that.
The laird of Boisdale kept on his course, and when they got to Dunvegan the whole household was in confusion because one of MacLeod’s daughter’s maids was ill. ‘I’ll cure her,’ said MacMhuirich. He went into her room:
‘You imp of Hell!’ said he, ‘if you had stayed in your own place this wouldn’t have happened to you!’
He rubbed the muzzle of the gun three times round the wound and it healed. However, the story doesn’t tell whether the laird of Boisdale got the hand of MacLeod’s daughter or not.
85 Donald Sinclair
JOHN MACLACHLAN AND THE GIRL
DOTAIR RATHUAITH – I think it was John was his name, John MacLachlan, as far as I can remember. The sweet singer of Rahoy . . .
Yes, the Rahoy Doctor knew Tiree pretty well, because he was always there, especially around Balephetrish . . . But it was about Mull, that’s where he spent most of his time. And there were no cars then, nor bicycles either, just horses.
Scottish Traditional Tales Page 37
