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Authors: William Montgomerie

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BOOK: Folk Tales of Scotland
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We have sat with the travellers, once called tinkers, listening till long after midnight to their Lowland tales, driving home in the dark through an Angus mist so thick the trees by the roadside
were invisible. We have listened to, and recorded, Jeannie Robertson in Aberdeen singing the traditional ballads and songs which had come to her from her mother, and not from books.

The stories in this book, all of them, came originally out of that world of storytellers and singers. For many years they were passed on from one storyteller to another. For a very long time
they were not written down, nor printed, but there are a few references to some of them. James IV of Scotland (1488-1513) encouraged tale-tellers, minstrels, stage-players, singers, fools or
privileged buffoons, and jesters, who might contribute to the amusement of the court.’ Sir David Lindsay, Scottish poet and tutor to the King’s son, tells us some of the things he
taught the young Prince (later James V):

The Propheceis of Rymour, Beid and Marlyng,

And of mony uther plesand starye,

Of the Reid Etin, and the Gyir Carlyng,

Confortand
thee, quhen that I saw thee sorye.

The Red Etin
(p. 206) is one of the stories in this book.

Some of these stories have appeared over and over again.
Childe Rowland to the Dark Tower Came
(p. 231) was used by George Peele, the Elizabethan dramatist, in his
Old Wives’
Tale
(1595); Shakespeare quoted the title in
King Lear
(III, iv, 197), and Robert Browning based a poem on the title.

The song of
Pippety
Pew
(p. 42) also has many variants. A woman in Forfar told us her mother had composed it, but Goethe adapted the same song—Margarete sings it in
prison at the end of the first part of
Faust. The Juniper Tree,
in Grimm, is a variant of the Pippety Pew story.

What we now call Scotland was Celtic in language and culture before the Scots from Ireland invaded from the west, bringing with them their Gaelic songs and stories. This happened around 500
A.D., and many of their tales are still told in the Hebrides and Highlands. Some of them, translated into English, are in this book.

About the same time, Teutonic Angles from the south penetrated into what is now Scotland. They spoke a form of English, which became the Scottish language, and has now broken up into the Lowland
dialects of the southern Uplands, the central Lowlands and the north-east, ringing the Highlands and pressing in on the Gaelic speakers of the West Highlands and Islands. Most of the tales told in
Scots are retold in this book in English. We have included one story,
Robin Reidbreist and the Wran,
in the original Scots, to give some idea of the folk qualities of the Scottish
version.

Orkney and Shetland tales are a small third group. They have some Scandinavian overtones.

The Gaelic tales posed particular problems of adaptation. Professor Delargy, in his fascinating Rhys Memorial Lecture of 1945, said: ‘To read these tales is for many of us today a dreary
duty, as we strip apart the story imprisoned in the tangled net of this beloved verbiage.’ To ourselves we described the process of adaptation to modern taste as chipping away the barnacles
and sea-tangle, aiming at conciseness and clarification of obscurities where necessary; but we have tried not to lose the oral flavour of the original.

The Hogarth Press, who published our collections of Scottish nursery rhymes, first issued
The Well at the World’s End
in 1956. The publication of this new edition by the Bodley
Head has given us the opportunity to add twenty new tales. There are, of course, many more in the great nineteenth-century collections, and more are being collected and published even now. The list
of sources at the back of this book will be a guide for those who wish to read further.

T
HE
W
ELL AT THE
W
ORLD

S
E
ND

NCE
upon a time there was a King and a Queen. The King had a daughter and the Queen had a
daughter. The King’s daughter was good-natured and everybody liked her. The Queen’s daughter was bad-tempered and nobody liked her. Now, the Queen was jealous of the King’s
daughter, and wished her away. So she sent her to the Well at the World’s End to fetch a bottle of water, thinking she would never return.

The King’s daughter took a bottle, and away she went. Far and far she went, till she came to a pony tethered to a tree, and the pony said to her:

‘Free me, free me,

My bonny maiden,

For I’ve not been free

Seven years and a day!’

‘Yes, I’ll free you,’ said the King’s daughter, and she did.

‘Jump on my back,’ said the pony, ‘and I’ll carry you over the moor of sharp thorns.’

So she jumped on his back, and the pony carried her over the moor of sharp thorns, then they parted. The King’s daughter went on far, and far, and farther than I can tell, till she came to
the Well at the World’s End.

She found the Well was very deep and she couldn’t dip her bottle. As she was looking down into the dark Well, wondering what to do, she saw three scaly men’s heads. They looked up at
her and said:

‘Wash me, wash me,

My bonny maiden,

And dry me with

Your clean linen apron!’

‘Yes, I’ll wash you,’ said the King’s daughter.

She washed the three scaly heads, and dried them with her clean linen apron. They took her bottle, dipped it and filled it with well water.

Then the three scaly men’s heads said one to the other:

‘Wish, Brother, wish! What will you wish?’

‘I wish if she was bonny before, she’ll be ten times bonnier now,’ said the first.

‘I wish that every time she speaks there will drop a ruby, a diamond and a pearl from her mouth,’ said the second.

‘I wish that every time she combs her hair she’ll comb a peck of gold and a peck of silver from it,’ said the third.

The King’s daughter went home, and if she was bonny before, she was ten times bonnier now. Each time she spoke, a ruby, a diamond, and a pearl dropped from her mouth. Each time she combed
her hair she combed a peck of gold and a peck of silver out of it.

The Queen was so angry she didn’t know what to do. She thought she would send her own daughter to the Well at the World’s End to see if she would have the same luck. She gave her a
bottle and sent her to fill it with water from the Well.

The Queen’s daughter went, and went, till she came to the tethered pony, and the pony said:

‘Free me, free me,

My bonny maiden,

For I’ve not been free

Seven years and a day!’

‘Oh, you stupid creature, do you think I’ll free you?’ said she. ‘I am the Queen’s daughter.’

‘Then I’ll not carry you over the moor of sharp thorns,’ said the pony.

So the Queen’s daughter had to go on her bare feet, and the thorns cut them. She could scarcely walk at all.

She went far, and far, and farther than I can tell, till she came to the Well at the World’s End. But the Well was so deep that she couldn’t reach the water to fill her bottle. As
she sat there, wondering what to do, three scaly men’s heads looked up at her, and said:

‘Wash me, wash me,

My bonny maiden,

And dry me with

Your clean linen apron!’

‘Oh, you horrid creatures, do you think I am going to wash you?’ she said. ‘I am the Queen’s daughter.’

She did not wash their heads and so they did not dip her bottle and fill it for her. They said one to the other:

‘Wish, brother, wish! What will you wish?’

‘I wish that if she was ugly before, she’ll be ten times uglier now,’ said the first.

‘I wish that every time she speaks there will drop a frog and a toad from her mouth,’ said the second.

‘I wish that every time she combs her hair she’ll comb a peck of lice and a peck of fleas out of it,’ said the third.

So the Queen’s daughter went home with an empty bottle. The Queen was mad with rage, for if her daughter had been ugly before, she was ten times uglier now, and each time she spoke a frog
and a toad dropped from her mouth. Each time she combed her hair, she combed a peck of lice and fleas out of it. So they had to send her away from the Court.

A young Prince came and married the King’s daughter, but the Queen’s daughter had to put up with an ill-natured cobbler, who beat her every day.

R
ASHIE
C
OAT

ASHIE
Coat was a King’s daughter, and her father wanted her to marry, but she did
not like the man he had chosen. Her father said she must marry this man, so she went to a hen-wife to ask her advice.

‘Say you won’t take him,’ said the hen-wife, ‘unless you’re given a coat of beaten gold.’

Her father gave her a coat of beaten gold, but she didn’t want the man for all that. So she went to the hen-wife again.

‘Say you won’t take the man unless you are given a coat made of feathers from all the birds of the air,’ said the hen-wife.

So the King sent a man with a large basket of oats, who called to the birds of the air:

‘Each bird take up a grain and put down a feather! Each bird take up a grain and put down a feather!’

So each bird took up a grain and put down a feather, and all the feathers were made into a coat and given to Rashie Coat. But she didn’t want the man for all that.

She went to the hen-wife and asked her what she should do.

‘Say you won’t take him unless you’re given a coat and slippers made of rushes,’ said the hen-wife.

The King gave her a coat and slippers made of rushes, but she did not like the man for all that. So she went to the hen-wife again.

BOOK: Folk Tales of Scotland
7.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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