Folk Tales of Scotland (20 page)

And that was the last the goodman of Wastness ever saw or heard of his Selkie wife.

AM
Scott was at the Lammas Fair in Kirkwall, where he had taken a number of folk from
Sanday in his parley boat. He was going up and down through the Fair when he met a tall, dark-faced man.

‘The top of the day to you,’ says the stranger.

‘As much to you,’ says Tam, ‘but who are you?’

‘Never heed,’ says the man. ‘Will you take a cow of mine to one of the north isles? I’ll pay you double freight for taking you so soon from the Fair.’

‘I’ll do it,’ says Tam, for he was not the boy to stick at a bargain when he thought the butter was on his side of the bread.

By the time he had got the boat ready, he saw the dark-faced man leading his cow. When he came to the edge of the water, the stranger lifted the cow in his arms, as if she’d been a sheep,
and set her down in the boat.

‘Where are we to steer for?’ said Tam when they got under way.

‘East of Shapinshay,’ said the man.

‘Where now?’ said Tam when they reached Shapinshay.

‘East of Stronsay,’ said the man.

Then they reached the Mill Bay of Stronsay.

‘You’ll be for landing here?’ asked Tam.

‘No, east of Sanday,’ said the man.

Now, Tam liked a gossip, and as they sailed along he tried to chat to his passenger in a friendly way, but at every remark the stranger only replied gruffly:

‘A close tongue keeps a safe head.’

At last it began to dawn on Tam’s mind that he had an uncanny passenger on board. As they sailed on through the east sea, Tam saw, rising ahead, a dense bank of mist. Soon the bank of mist
began to shine like a cloud lit by the setting sun. Then the mist began to rise, and Tam saw lying under it a most beautiful island. On it men and women were walking, cattle were feeding and yellow
cornfields were ripe for the harvest. While Tam was staring with wide open eyes at this braw land, the stranger sprang aft.

‘I must blindfold you now for a while. If you do what you are told, no ill shall befall you,’ he said.

Tam thought it would only end badly for him if he refused, so he allowed himself to be blindfolded with his own handkerchief. In a few minutes Tam felt the boat grind on a pebbly beach. He heard
voices of many men speaking to his passenger, and he also heard the loveliest sound he had ever heard in his life. It was the sweet voices of mermaids singing on the shore. Tam saw them through one
corner of his right eye that came below the handkerchief. The braw sight and the bonny sound nearly put him out of his wits for joy. Then he heard a man’s voice call:

‘You idle creatures, don’t think you’ll win this man with your singing! He has a wife and bairns of his own on Sanday Isle.’

And with that the music changed to a most mournful song. The sound of it made Tam’s heart sad indeed.

Well, the cow was soon lifted out of the boat, a bag of money was laid at Tam’s feet in the stern sheets, and the boat shoved off. And what do you think? Those graceless wretches of
Fin-men turned his boat against the sun! As they pushed off the boat, one of them cried:

‘Keep the starboard end of the fore thraft bearing on the braes of Warsater, and you’ll soon make land.’

When Tam felt his boat under way, he tore off the handkerchief which blindfolded him. He could see nothing save a thick mist. But he soon sailed out of the mist, and saw it lying astern like a
great cloud. Then he saw
what pleased him better, the Braes of Warsater bearing on his starboard bow. As he sailed home, he opened his bag of money. He had been well paid, but
all in coppers. The Fin-folk like the white money too well to part with silver.

Well, in a year Tam went to the Lammas Fair as usual. Many a time afterwards he wished he had lain in his bed that day, but what is to be must be, and cannot be helped.

It happened on the third day of the market, as Tam was walking up and down, speaking to his friends. Whom should he see but the same dark-faced stranger who had given him the freight the year
before. In his friendly way Tam went up to the man and said:

‘How is it with you, good man? I’m glad to see you this day! Come and take a cog of ale with me.’

‘Did you ever see me before?’ said the man with an ugly look on his face.

‘I took you and your cow to east of Sanday,’ said Tam.

‘Is that so,’ said the man. As he spoke, he took out of his pocket what Tam thought was a snuff-box. Then he blew some powder from it into Tam’s eyes, and said:

‘Now you’ll never be able to say you saw me before!’

And from that minute, poor Tam never saw again a blink of sweet light in his two eyes.

N
the Reay country there was once a drover called Farquhar. He went to England from Glen
Gollich to sell cattle, with a hazel staff in his hand. One day he met a doctor, who said:

‘What’s that in your hand?’

‘A hazel branch,’ replied Farquhar.

‘Where did you cut it?’

‘In Glen Gollich, north in Lord Reay’s country.’

‘Do you remember the exact place?’

‘I do.’

‘Could you find the tree again?’ asked the doctor.

‘I could,’ replied Farquhar.

‘Well, I’ll give you more gold than you can lift if you’ll go back there and bring me a branch from that very tree.’

‘I’ll do that,’ said Farquhar.

‘I want you to bring me something more,’ said the doctor. ‘Take this bottle. Watch at the hole at the foot of the tree, with the bottle ready. Let go the first six serpents
that come out of the hole, but put the seventh into the bottle. Tell no one what you’ve done, but come back here with the hazel branch and the serpent in the bottle, and I’ll give you
as much gold again.’

So Farquhar returned to Scotland and Glen Gollich, the hazel glen. When he had cut some branches, he looked for the hole at the foot of the
hazel tree. He found it, and,
sure enough, out came six serpents, brown and barred like adders. He let them go. Then he put the bottle to the hole. By and by a white snake came crawling through. Farquhar caught it in the
bottle, and hurried back to England with it.

The doctor gave him enough gold to buy the Reay country, but he said:

‘Before you return to Scotland, you must stay and help me prepare the white snake.’

‘I’ll do that,’ said Farquhar.

Then they lit a fire with the hazel sticks, and put the white snake in a pot to boil. The doctor had to leave, so he asked Farquhar to watch the pot. He was not to allow the snake to escape, and
he was not to let anyone near the pot, for fear it might be known what they were doing.

Farquhar promised to be careful. He wrapped paper round the pot lid, but before he had finished doing this, the water began to boil, and steam came out at one place. He pushed the paper down,
and put his finger to the place to stem the steam. Then he put his finger, wet with snake bree, into his mouth.

At once a strange thing happened. Farquhar knew all things. Like a blind man suddenly able to see, Farquhar suddenly knew and understood everything. But he decided to tell no one about this new
knowledge.

When the doctor returned, he took the pot from the fire, lifted the lid, dipped his finger into the bree, and sucked it. But it was no more than water to him.

‘Who has done this?’ he cried. And he knew by the look on Farquhar’s face, that it was he.

‘You’ve taken the magic from the bree!’ cried the doctor in anger. And, throwing the pot at Farquhar, he turned and left.

And this is how Farquhar became all-wise. He returned to Scotland and set up as a physician. There was nothing he did not know, and no
disease he could not cure. He went
from place to place, healing the sick, and soon he was known far and wide as Farquhar the Healer. One day Farquhar heard that the King was sick, and he went to find out what was wrong with him.

‘It is his knee,’ he was told. ‘He has had many doctors, he pays them well, and sometimes they give him relief, but not for long. You can hear him cry out with the pain in his
leg.’

Farquhar walked up and down before the King’s house, crying:

‘The black beetle to the white bone!’

The people stared at him. They said the strange man from Reay must be daft, but this did not stop Farquhar, and next day, he stood at the castle gate and cried:

‘The black beetle to the white bone!’

The King asked who was crying outside and what it was he wanted. He was told it was a stranger from the Reay country, called Farquhar the Healer.

‘Then bring him here,’ ordered the King. ‘Perhaps he can heal me.’

So Farquhar was brought and he stood before the King, and said:

‘The black beetle to the white bone!’

And so it was. When Farquhar examined the King’s knee, he found a small black beetle deep in a wound, close to the knee-cap. Farquhar removed the beetle and put a dressing on the wound.
The doctors, in order to keep the King ill and to get their fees, had at times put a beetle in his wound, making him cry out in agony. All this Farquhar knew by his serpent’s wisdom when he
put his finger under his wisdom tooth, and under his care the King was soon cured, and the doctors were punished.

The King offered Farquhar whatever he asked, be it land or gold. Farquhar asked for the King’s daughter, and all the Isles that the sea runs round, from the point of Stoer to Stromness in
the Orkneys. So the King gave him his daughter, and a grant of all the Isles.

NE
day, Johnnie Croy went to the shore to look for driftwood. The tide was out, and he
walked under the crags on the west side of Sanday. From the boulders there came the sound of singing. He peeped over the rocks. A mermaid was sitting on a rock, combing her hair.