The Coming of the Unicorn

Title Page

Dedication

Introduction

Fox and the Two Cat Fishers

The Cobblestone Maker

The Dog and the Fox

Jack and the Silver Keys

The Three Presents

The Miser’s Gold

Jack Goes Back to School

Mary Rushiecoats and the Wee Black Bull

The Tramp and the Boots

Johnny McGill and the Frog

Thomas the Thatcher

Legend of the White Heather

House of the Seven Boulders

The Broonie on Cara

The Broonie’s Farewell

The Coming of the Unicorn

The Kings’ Gardens

The Tailor and the Button

Glossary of Scottish Words

Copyright

When I was young we were very, very poor, and I stayed away home in Argyll, near Inveraray. I was born in 1928 in one of these great big tents we call a barrikit – a
dome-shaped
structure with bow tents on either side. There
were sixteen of us; I was the seventh. On a cold winter’s night when you had no radio, no television, nothing, and these old paraffin cruisies (open lamps with rush wicks) hanging from the ceiling of the tent, and the fire just on the earthen floor – it was kind of smoky – what could you do with a large family? How could you keep them quiet? You had to tell them stories. My mother could not read, neither could my father. So, they told us these stories that were passed down from tradition which they had learned as children themselves.

So, we were lucky! We had our old grandmother
staying
with us and she was a great storyteller. She was a wonderful old woman, had travelled far and wide in her young time and collected a lot of tales. We used to do little errands for her and she would tell us stories. My mother’s brother Duncan was also a good storyteller. He was a piper, played the bagpipes for pennies and used to travel round the country. He collected many stories. My father told us really old tales. Some were very long, and he would tell us one bit one night and then maybe he’d tell us the next bit the next night, and so on. He wouldn’t tell us it all at once! But we had to work for it – we had to get sticks for the fire, get water, run messages and do everything before we got a bit o’ our story! This was mostly on the winter nights when it was dark, dark early, and he’d gather us all round about him and tell us a story.

My father worked in a stone quarry with the Duke of Argyll back in the 1930s and he got forty pence a day for breaking stones from six o’clock in the morning till six at night. And there were nine of us going to school at the same time. I went from the age of four till I was thirteen. And we had no school meals, no dinners, nothing. Times were very hard, nothing to spend. I saw me sitting in
the school class and I was so hungry I used to say to the teacher, “Please, Miss, can I leave the room?” And she would say, “Yes,” and I left and never came back.

I went to the shoreside and kindled a fire and cooked myself some shellfish, mussels and cockles and limpets and whelks to keep myself alive. That was the only source of survival we had. So, we were glad when we came thirteen or fourteen. We left home and took off on our own, left room for the rest of the little ones to grow up. And then we found jobs, used to go to the berry picking and travelled round the country. We would meet up with the rest of the Travelling community, tell stories and collect songs around the campfires.

Oh, the cracks and tales they used to tell round the campfires long ago, you’ve no idea, hundreds and thousands of them! And there was no such thing as “the children’s place” – everybody’s place was round the campfire. But they kept it clean and tidy… to attract the children we tellt wir animal stories to keep them entertained till they fell asleep. Everybody had their turn round about the fire telling a crack or telling a tale, telling a wee story or telling something.

“Come on, it’s your turn!” Suppose it was only your past experience or something that happened to you in your life – there’s so many different types of stories. Travellers never went in for storybook stories, because none of them could hardly read. So, naturally, the stories had to be passed down through the family. There were stories of elves and goblins, and stories o’ burkers (body snatchers); there were stories of magic and stories of the devil, stories about wizards and about the Broonie (the spirit of regeneration who often came in the form of a tramp); there were Traveller’s stories, stories of all description, homemade stories Travellers made up themselves and stories they
heard bits o’ and finished off themselves. There were Simple Jack stories, Daft Sandy stories about the village fool, stories about farms and Travellers getting jobs and “near getting burkit” on farms.

Stories about animals were the ones Travellers really liked. Because according to the Travellers in their stories animals can all speak. And some are cleverer and more
superior
to others. There were holy stories, for the Travellers had their own beliefs, set before the coming of Jesus, and how God created the world. Stories among the Travellers run into countless hundreds; it would take you weeks and months to explain or even tell you some of them.

But all these stories were told not only to weans, you remember! They didn’t tell them just for kids. I’ve seen myself around a campfire in the summertime on an evening, and Traveller men, big men, married men, some grandfathers and old men, and young men as well – all gathered round this fire as interested in somebody telling a story as the day when they were five or six years old! The oldest one maybe seventy, and the youngest one maybe in his thirties, all sitting round a fire telling stories. If children were present the stories came in a line: as the children fell asleep the tales got a wee bit bolder – we’d move from animal tales to witches, or witchcraft attached to the
henwife
– who was very generous and giving and worked the cures. Then came stories about ghosts and haunted
graveyards
and haunted wells, and haunted roads. Stories about knights and dragons and enchantment, and water kelpies (sinister creatures who could change their shape), ghost ships, ghost horsemen, warriors and all kinds of things.

With a Traveller who had the name of a good storyteller, as long as he wanted to tell a story, maybe every night for a month, nobody would interrupt him. But when he
got fed up and tired, and he wanted to have a smoke and have his tea or go and do something; well, somebody else would tell a story. I’ve seen men with big lumps o’ laddies fourteen and fifteen years of age, young teenagers, drawing their hand across their son’s lug and saying, “Be quiet! Don’t say a word when the old man’s speaking. If you canna listen, go away and play yourself!” These men were interested in stories, big grown men. Why should they no be? Because the stories were really good.

Now you see why stories were so important to the Travelling People. Stories were told to you as a matter of teaching. Because every particular story had its own lesson. Oh, there were many wonderful tales, tales of everything that would teach you to grow up naturally in your own environment in life.

Around Christmas time my father would say, “Well, thank God, this is Christmas Eve. Come doon beside me and I’ll tell you a story. Now remember, children, any toy I could buy – what’s the sense of buying you a toy when you’ll only break it – it’ll be destroyed in a couple of days. Even if I had the money to afford it. But, this story will last you the entire time of your life.”

My father told me a story when I was only five years old. Now that was seventy years ago! And I can remember that tale the way he told it to me, just the very way. I can visualise him sitting there by the fireside, a young man putting coals in his pipe, you know, smoking his pipe, and all the little kids gathered round the fire; he sitting there telling them a beautiful Christmas tale. Which was far better to us now when I look back than anything he could have bought for us.

Because we were very poor people, we had not only to listen to stories; we had to learn by them. When my father
told us his tales, he knew he was going to get through to us. Because after all, it was not maybe telling us how to read and how to write, but my father’s knowledge told us how to live in this world as natural human beings – not to be greedy, not to be foolish, not to be daft or selfish – by stories. And by listening, by learning and listening to the old people, you had a better knowledge of the world you had to live in. Stories are something you carry with you, something to last for your entire life to be passed on to your children, and their children for evermore. Telling a child a story implants a seed in their mind, and you know when you are gone from this world that that child is going to tell the tale you told them, and remember you.

When we walked on the roads on the cold winter’s day we were wet and tired and hungry, you know, travelling on, each of us carrying a part of our little bundle on our way to help us when we got to a camping place at night. We were miserable and tired. But once the tents were up, the fires were kindling, we had a little to eat, got ourselves dried, then it was story time. The thought of everything else, the day’s torture was gone till the next time again. After a good storytelling session everybody was happy. You know, it was great, magical! I’ve got many wonderful memories of my childhood. Life was really hard. Life was rough and we were very poor. But we were very happy, really happy as children.

I think the happiness comes from the love and respect from parents to children and children for parents. That’s the most important thing in all, what really makes life happy for anyone I would say. And that’s what our stories were told us for in the first beginning.