Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales from Burns to Buchan
Page 19
This was her story, and Randal did not know what to believe. But so many strange things had happened to him, that one more did not seem impossible. So he and Jean took the old nurse home, and made her comfortable in her room, and Jean put her to bed, and got her a little wine and an oatcake.
Then Randal very quietly locked the door outside, and put the key in his pocket. It would have been of no use to tell the old nurse to be quiet about what she thought she had seen.
By this time it was late and growing dark. But that night there would be a moon.
After supper, of which there was very little, Lady Ker went to bed. But Randal and Jean slipped out into the moonlight. They took a sack with them, and Randal carried a pickaxe and a spade. They walked quickly to the three great stones, and waited for a while to hear if all was quiet. Then Jean threw a white cloak around her, and stole about the edges of the camp and the wood. She knew that if any wandering man came by, he would not stay long where such a figure was walking. The night was cool, the dew lay on the deep fern; there was a sweet smell from the grass and from the pine-wood.
In the mean time, Randal was digging a long trench with his pickaxe, above the place where the old woman had knelt, as far as he could remember it.
He worked very hard, and when he was in the trench up to his knees, his pickaxe struck against a stone. He dug around it with the spade, and came to a layer of black burnt ashes of bones. Beneath these, which he scraped away, was the large flat stone on which his pick had struck. It was a wide slab of red sandstone, and Randal soon saw that it was the lid of a great stone coffin, such as the ploughshare sometimes strikes against when men are ploughing the fields in the Border country.
Randal had seen these before, when he was a boy, and he knew that there was never much in them, except ashes and one or two rough pots of burnt clay.
He was much disappointed.
It had seemed as if he was really coming to something, and, behold, it was only an old stone coffin!
However, he worked on until he had cleared the whole of the stone coffin-lid. It was a very large stone chest, and must have been made, Randal thought, for the body of a very big man.
With the point of his pickaxe he raised the lid.
In the moonlight he saw something of a strange shape.
He put down his hand, and pulled it out.
It was an image, in metal, about a foot high, and represented a beautiful woman, with wings on her shoulders, sitting on a wheel.
Randal had never seen an image like this; but in an old book, which belonged to the monks of Melrose, he had seen, when he was a boy, a picture of such a woman.
The monks had told him that she was Dame Fortune, with her swift wings that carry her from one person to another, as luck changes, and with her wheel that she turns with the turning of chance in the world.
The image was very heavy. Randal rubbed some of the dirt and red clay off, and found that the metal was yellow. He cut it with his knife; it was soft. He cleaned a piece, which shone bright and unrusted in the moonlight, and touched it with his tongue. Then he had no doubt any more. The image was gold!
Randal now knew that the old nurse had not been mistaken. With the help of the fairy water she had seen the gold of Fairnilee. He called very softly to Jeanie, who came glimmering in her white robes through the wood, looking herself like a fairy. He put the image in her hand, and set his finger on his lips to show that she must not speak.
Then he went back to the great stone coffin, and began to grope in it with his hands. There was much earth in it that had slowly sifted through during the many years that it had been buried. But there was also a great round bowl of metal and a square box.
Randal got out the bowl first. It was covered with a green rust, and had a lid; in short, it was a large ancient kettle, such as soldiers use in camp. Randal got the lid off, and, behold, it was all full of very ancient gold coins, not Greek, nor Roman, but like those used in Britain before Julius Caesar came.
The square box was of iron, and was rusted red. On the lid, in the moonlight, Jeanie could read the letters SPQR, but she did not know what they meant. The box had been locked, and chained, and clamped with iron bars. But all was so rusty that the bars were easily broken, and the lid torn off.
Then the moon shone on bars of gold, and on great plates and dishes of gold and silver, marked with letters, and with what Randal thought were crests. Many of the cups were studded with red and green and blue stones. And there were beautiful plates and dishes, purple, gold, and green; and one of these fell, and broke into a thousand pieces, for it was of some strange kind of glass. There were three gold sword-hilts, carved wonderfully into the figures of strange beasts with wings, and heads like lions.
Randal and Jean looked at it and marvelled, and Jean sang in a low, sweet voice:
‘Between the Camp o’ Rink
And Tweed-water clear,
Lie nine kings’ ransoms
For nine hundred year!’
Nobody ever saw so much treasure in all broad Scotland.
Jean and Randal passed the rest of the night in hiding what they had found. Part they hid in the secret chamber of Fairnilee, of which only Jean and Lady Ker and Randal knew. The rest they stowed away in various places. Then Randal filled the earth into the trench, and cast wood on the place, and set fire to the wood, so that next day there was nothing there but ashes and charred earth.
You will not need to be told what Randal did, now that he had treasure in plenty. Some he sold in France, to the king, Henry II, and some in Rome, to the Pope; and with the money which they gave him he bought corn and cattle in England, enough to feed all his neighbours, and stock the farms, and sow the fields for next year. And Fairnilee became a very rich and fortunate house, for Randal married Jean, and soon their children were playing on the banks of the Tweed, and rolling down the grassy slope to the river, to bathe on hot days. And the old nurse lived long and happy among her new bairns, and often she told them how it was she who really found the gold of Fairnilee.
You may wonder what the gold was, and how it came there? Probably Father Francis, the good Melrose monk, was right. He said that the iron box and the gold image of Fortune, and the kettle full of coins, had belonged to some regiment of the Roman army: the kettle and the coins they must have taken from the Britons; the box and all the plate were their own, and brought from Italy. Then they, in their turn, must have been defeated by some of the fierce tribes beyond the Roman wall, and must have lost all their treasure. That must have been buried by the victorious enemy; and they, again, must have been driven from their strong camp at Rink, either by some foes from the north, or by a new Roman army from the south. So all the gold lay at Fairnilee for many hundred years, never quite forgotten, as the old rhyme showed, but never found until it was discovered, in their sore need, by the old nurse and Randal and Jean.
As for Randal and Jean, they lived to be old, and died on one day, and they are buried at Dryburgh in one tomb, and a green tree grows over them; and the Tweed goes murmuring past their grave, and past the grave of Sir Walter Scott.
PART FIVE:
LETTING GO?
THE KELPIE
Violet Jacob
I’m feared o’ the road ayont the glen,
I’m sweir to pass the place
Whaur the water’s rinnin’, for aa fowk ken all
There’s a kelpie sits at the fit
o’ the den,
And there’s them that’s seen his face.
But whiles he watches and whiles he hides
And whiles, gin na wind manes,
Ye can hear him roarin’ frae whaur he bides
An’ the soond o’ him splashin’ agin the sides
O’ the rocks an’ the muckle stanes.
When the mune gaes doon at the arn-tree’s
back
In a wee, wee weary licht,
My bed claes up to my lugs I tak’,
For I mind the swirl o’ the water black
An’ lang an’ fell is yon road to me
As I come frae the schule;
I daurna think what I’m like to see
When dark fa’s early on buss an’ tree
At Martinmas and Yule.
Aside the crusie my mither reads,
‘My bairn,’ says she, ‘ye’ve heard
The Lord is mindful of aa oor needs
An’ his shield an’ buckler’s abune the heids
O’ them that keeps His word.’
But I’m a laddie that’s no that douce,
An fechtin’s a bonnie game.
The dominie’s pawmies are
little use,
An’ mony’s the Sawbath I’m
rinnin’ loose
When a’body thinks I’m hame!
Dod, noo we’re nearin’ the shorter days,
It’s canny I’ll hae to gang,
An’ keep frae fechtin’ an sic-like ways
And no be tearin’ my Sawbath claes
Afore the nichts grow lang.
Richt guid an’ couthie
I’ll need to be
(But it’s leein’ to say I’m glad),
I ken there’s troubles that
fowk maun dree,
An’ the kelpie’s no like to shift
for me,
Sae, gin thae warlocks are fear’t o’ Thee,
Lord, mak’ me a better lad!
THE ROWAN
Violet Jacob
When the days were still as deith
And ye couldna see the kye
Though ye’d maybe hear their breith
I’ the mist oot-by;
When I mind the lang
grey een
O’ the warlock by the hill
And sit fleggit like a wean
Gin a whaup cried shrill;
Tho’ the hert wad dee in me
At a fitstep on the floor,
There was aye the rowan tree
Wi’ its airm across the door.
But that is far, far past
And a’thing’s just the same,
There’s a whisper up the blast
O’ a dreid I daurna name;
And the shilpit sun is thin,
Like an auld man deein’ slow
And a shade comes creepin’ in
When the fire is fa’in’ low;
Then I feel thae lang een set thae lang een, those long eyes
Like a doom upon ma heid,
For the warlock’s livin’ yet –
But the rowan’s deid!
THE MAN IN THE LOCHAN
Eona MacNicol
My mother’s girlhood home was a croft above Clachanree proper, over its skyline, in the middle of the moor. A solitary place; I doubt if there were any other houses within view. Only the smoke from the houses of Tallurach and perhaps the school-house behind the Planting gave hint of neighbours at all. We looked on to a sheer hill face called the Leitir, which overshadowed Loch Laide, famous for its trout and for the waterfowl that lived secretly among its reeds.
A solitary place. When once I spent a whole summer there I found it too solitary. When I grew tired of watching women’s ploys about the house I had to go about with my grandfather, tending his fields or rounding up his sheep. It must have been on an expedition with him that I discovered behind the Leitir a habitation I had never known about before.
It was a tiny croft, an islet of cultivation in the middle of the heather. There were only three fields, one of hay, one of turnips, one of potatoes, with a little grassland heavily encroached upon by tufts of bulrushes, even starred here and there by bog-cotton flowers. But in my eyes the smallness was its charm. On the greensward around the little house some half-dozen hens daintily strutted. A cow and her calf munched nearby, and a pony lay taking his ease in shelter of the single tutelary rowan tree. An old woman could be seen busy on one of the fields, singling turnips.
I do not think it was the custom in Clachanree for women to
croft, upland smallholding, found especially in the Highlands and islands.
single tutelary rowan tree, a rowan often guarded a house or cottage door. It was supposed to keep evil spirits away, and protect the occupants of the house.
singling, thinning out.
work much in the fields. True, they would help out at harvest or lambing time. Here was a woman who every time I passed that way with my grandfather was at man’s work. I admired her greatly. She was only of average height, but stalwart and strong. How nonchalantly would she swing a hammer down upon a post in her fence; how confidently catch and harness her pony; with what careless ease cut rushes for his bed. Her clothes were the dark long-sleeved blouse and the full skirt that all elderly women wore, but she had man’s boots, stout hobnailed affairs, and I thought her worthy of them.
I persuaded my grandfather one day to pass near enough the house to hail her. ‘Well, well then, Oonagh, and how are you the day?’ She dropped her hoe and came silent, though smiling, to meet us. She wore her hair, of a silvery gold colour, in a pile on the top of her head, as the fashion then was or had been. Her face was brown with the sun, the corners of her eyes wrinkled from squinting against it.
I got into the habit of giving my grandfather the slip and spending with Oonagh the time I was supposed to be under his care. I made advances to her, and she accepted my presence in her silent way. I had the privilege of assisting her out of doors: gathering her cut hay, or making a mixture of milk and meal for her calf. Soon I was permitted entry into her house. Its thatch was adorned by a plume of heather sprouting all joco from it. Inside it consisted of only one room – well, one and a half, for the box-bed was virtually a room in itself. Everything was as spick-and-span as if Oonagh expected company. The coverlet of patchwork, though frayed, was immaculately clean; the table was covered in a shiny, bright-coloured stuff called, I think, baize; the bowls and jugs upon the dresser made as brave a display, proportionately to the size of the dwelling, as did ours in the croft house of Druim. Even the rag rug before the hearth was clean – clean, I began to realize, because few feet trod on it. There was no plant on the window sill; instead there was a brown jam-jar of pink-spotted flowers with a heavy clinging scent which vied with the usual smells of damp and peat-reek.
I had not at that time seen orchids. Oonagh in a few words explained to me that she found them away out on the moor, among the peat bogs. I resolved I would go myself and find some.
Only one thing seemed to me to spoil the charm of the little dwelling; for joined on to the one room, like an envious poor neighbour, was the other half of the original house, now in a ruinous state. When I asked Oonagh why she did not have the old walls carried away, she laughed, colour rose in her face, and she said in a rare burst of talk, ‘Who knows, m’eudail, but some day there will be need of them?’
She was not only silent, but strange. Yet I found it pleasanter to be with her than in jollier homes where there was always the likelihood of tedious talk, likening one’s face to this and that past member of the family. Oonagh did not tease me with talk at all. In friendly silence we worked together, or rested; for sometimes she would fetch me out a glass of milk and a hunk of oatcake, and would herself sit down, her legs in the dark skirt spread comfortably upon the grass. She might hum to herself, or sing, more often in Gaelic but sometimes in English learnt at school. One song was a ballad of great length the chorus of which I picked up:
‘I wish I were,
But I wish in vain,
I wish I were
A young lass again.
But such a thing
Can never be
Till an Aipple grows
On an Oarange tree.’
Other times she might bring out of her pocket a clay pipe, and light up and puff away as good as any man.
One day, as I was making my way to Oonagh’s, I heard a creaking sound, as of wheels on a rough rocky road. It was Oonagh going up on the high moor to
turn her peats. And the sound was like a fairy pipe to me. I longed to be up on the heights in the sea of heather. Maybe too I should find those exotic pink-spotted flowers. The cart had got a start on me, yet it was going slowly, the pony straining with the effort of pulling, Oonagh walking beside.
I took short cuts and made up on them. I called a greeting to Oonagh, who said nothing in reply but looked as if she were not averse to my presence. She was smoking her clay pipe, curls of grey smoke floating backwards in the wind. We plodded uphill behind the pony, who kept nodding his head, poor thing, as if endorsing our unspoken complaints about the steepness of our way. At last we gained the peat moor, and Oonagh got busy turning, puffing the while at her pipe, saying nothing.
I for my part was content; there was so much to see. Among the heather grew blaeberry bushes with their vivid green, and staghorn moss paved that hidden world which is inhabited by lizards and beetles. But I found no flowers. And after a while I came back to Oonagh where she was turning the wet sides of the peat to the wind. The wind had teased out strands of her grey-gold hair, and she squinted against sun and smoke. An old woman, with little power to amuse. I began to think it was time for getting home.
But Oonagh took her pipe out of her mouth and said, ‘Sheep.’ I gathered she was uneasy about their whereabouts and wanted to scan the hill grazing ground. We left the pony patiently switching from his flanks the flies that settled whenever the wind dropped. We went around a hillock. I gasped with delight.
There lay a lochan, sleek, still, its dark surface sprinkled around the rim with water lilies of purest white. As fast as I could through the deep heather, I made my way to it, and threw myself down on my stomach, stretching out a greedy hand for the nearest of the exquisite flowers. I secured one, but it had a long rubbery stem which seemed endless asitcame up out of the water. I broke off the flower head. But so far from feeling satisfied,