So the Hook wig-wagged, and Louse she wept.
The Chair saw the Hook wig-wagging.
‘Hook! Hook! Why are you wig-wagging?’
‘Oh! The Flea and the Louse were shaking their sheets:
The Flea she fell in the fire and burned,
So the Louse she weeps, and I wig-wag.’
‘Oh, then,’ said the Chair,
‘I’ll jump over the floor.’
So the Chair he jumped; and the Hook wig-wagged; and the Louse she wept.
The Door he saw the Chair jumping.
‘Chair! Chair! Why are you jumping on the floor?’
’Oh! The Flea and the Louse were shaking their sheets;
The Flea she falls in the fire, and the Louse she weeps;
The Hook wig-wags, and so I jump.’
‘Oh, then,’ said the Door,
I’ll jingle-jangle on my hinges.’
So the Door jingle-jangled; the Chair he jumped; the Hook wigwagged; and the Louse she wept.
The Midden he saw the Door jingle-jangling.
‘Door! Door! Why are you jingle-jangling on your hinges?’
‘Oh! The Flea and the Louse were shaking their sheets;
The Flea she fell in the fire, and the Louse she weeps;
The Hook wig-wags; the Chair he jumps,
And I jingle-jangle on my hinges.’
‘Oh, then,’ said the Midden,
I’ll swarm over with maggots.’
So the Midden he swarmed; the Door jingle-jangled; the Chair he jumped; the Hook wig-wagged; and the Louse she wept.
The Burn he saw the Midden swarming.
‘Midden! Midden! Why are you swarming over with maggots?’
‘Oh! The Flea and the Louse were shaking their sheets;
The Flea she fell in the fire, and the Louse she weeps;
The Hook wig-wags; the Chair he jumps;
The Door jingle-jangles; and I swarm over with maggots.’
‘Oh, then,’ said the Burn,
‘I’ll run wimple-wample.’
So the Burn ran wimple-wample; the Midden he swarmed; the Door jingle-jangled; the Chair he jumped; the Hook wig-wagged; and the Louse she wept.
The Loch he saw the Burn running wimple-wample.
‘Burn! Burn! Why are you running wimple-wample?’
‘Oh! The Flea and the Louse were shaking their sheets;
The Flea she fell in the fire, and the Louse she weeps;
The Hook wig-wags; the Chair he jumps;
The Door jingle-jangles; the Midden swarms over with maggots,
And I run wimple-wample.’
‘Oh, then,’ said the Loch,
I’ll swell over my brim.’
So the Loch he swelled and he swelled; the Burn ran wimple-wample; the Midden he swarmed; the Door jingle-jangled; the Chair he jumped; the Hook wig-wagged; and the Louse she wept.
Then down came the flood and swept away the house and the Louse, the Hook and the Chair, the Door and the Midden with the maggots—all down the meadow where the Burn ran wimple-wample.
So ends the story of the Flea and the Louse.
WHUPPITY STOORIE
HE Goodman of Kittlerumpit was a bit of a vagabond. He went to the fair one day and was never heard of again.
When the Goodman had gone, the Goodwife was left with little to live on. Few belongings she had, and a wee son. Everybody was sorry for her, but nobody helped her. However she had a sow, that was her consolation, for the sow was soon to farrow, and she hoped for a fine litter of piglets.
But one day, when the Wife went to the sty to fill the sow’s trough, what did she find but the sow lying on her back, grunting and groaning, and ready to die.
This was a blow to the Goodwife, so she sat down on the flat knocking stone, with her bairn on her knee, and wept more sorely than she did for the loss of her Goodman.
Now, the cottage of Kittlerumpit was built on a brae, with a fir-wood behind it. So, as the Goodwife was wiping her eyes, what did she see but a strange little old woman coming up the brae. She was dressed in green, all but a white apron, a black velvet hood, and a steeple-crowned hat on her head. She had a walking-stick as long as herself in her hand. As the Green Lady drew near, the Goodwife rose and made a curtsey.
‘Madam,’ said she, ‘I’m the most unlucky woman alive.’
‘I don’t want to hear piper’s news and fiddler’s tales,’ said the Green Lady. ‘I know you’ve lost your Goodman, and your sow is sick. Now, what will you give me if I cure her?’
‘Any thing you like,’ said the stupid Goodwife, not guessing who she had to deal with.
‘Let’s wet thumbs on that bargain,’ said the Green Lady.
So thumbs were wet, and into the sty she marched.
The Green Lady looked at the sow with a frown, and then began to mutter to herself words the Goodwife couldn’t understand. They sounded like:
‘Pitter patter,
Haly watter.’
Then she took out of her pocket a wee bottle with some kind of oil in it, and rubbed the sow with it above the snout, behind the ears and on top of the tail.
‘Get up, beast,’ said the Green Lady. Up got the sow with a grunt, and away to her trough for her dinner.
The Goodwife of Kittlerumpit was overjoyed when she saw that,
‘Now that I’ve cured your sick beast, let us carry out our bargain,’ said the Green Lady. ‘You’ll not find me unreasonable. I always like to do a turn for small reward. All I ask, and will have, is that wee son in your arms.’
The Goodwife gave a shriek like a stuck pig, for she now knew that the Green Lady was a fairy. So she wept, and she begged, but it was no use.
‘You can spare your row,’ said the fairy, ‘shrieking as if I was as deaf as a door nail; but I can’t, by the law we live by, take your bairn till the third day after this; and not then, if you can tell me my name.’
With that the fairy went away down the brae and out of sight.
The Goodwife of Kittlerumpit could not sleep that night for weeping, holding her bairn so tight that she nearly squeezed the breath out of him.
The next day she went for a walk in the wood behind her cottage. Her bairn in her arms, she went far among the trees till she came to an old quarry overgrown with grass, and a bonny spring well in the middle of it. As she drew near, she heard the whirring of a spinning-wheel, and a voice singing a song. So the Wife crept quietly among the bushes, and peeped over the side of the quarry. And what did she see but the Green Lady at her spinning-wheel singing:
‘Little kens our goodwife at hame
That WHUPPITY STOORIE is my name!’
‘Ah, ah!’ thought the Goodwife, ‘I’ve got the secret word at last!’
So she went home with a lighter heart than when she came out, and she laughed at the thought of tricking the fairy.
Now, this Goodwife was a merry woman, so she decided to have some sport with the fairy. At the appointed time she put her bairn behind the knocking stone, and sat down on it herself. She pulled her bonnet over her left ear, twisted her mouth on the other side as if she were weeping. She looked the picture of misery. Well, she hadn’t long to wait, for up the brae came the fairy, neither lame nor lazy, and long before she reached the knocking stone, she skirled out:
‘Goodwife of Kittlerumpit! You well know what I have come for!’
The Goodwife pretended to weep more bitterly than before, wringing her hands and falling on her knees.
‘Och, dear mistress,’ said she, ‘spare my only bairn and take my sow!’
‘The deil take the sow for my share,’ said the fairy. ‘I didn’t come here for swine’s flesh. Don’t be contrary, Goodwife, but give me your child instantly!’
‘Ochon, dear lady,’ said the weeping Goodwife, ‘leave my bairn and take me!’
‘The deil’s in the daft woman,’ said the fairy, looking like the far end of a fiddle. ‘I’m sure she’s clean demented. Who in all the earthly world, with half an eye i
n their head, would be bothered with the likes of you?’
This made the Goodwife of Kittlerumpit bristle, for though she had two bleary eyes, and a long red nose besides, she thought herself as bonny as the best of them. She soon got up off her knees, set her bonnet straight, and with her hands folded before her, made a curtsey to the ground.
‘I might have known,’ said she, ‘that the likes of me isn’t fit to tie the shoe-strings of the high and mighty fairy WHUPPITY STOORIE!’
The name made the fairy leap high. Down she came again, dump on her heels, and whirling round, she ran down the hill like an owlet chased by witches.
The Goodwife of Kittlerumpit laughed till she nearly burst. Then she took up her bairn and went into her house, singing to him all the way:
‘Coo and gurgle, my bonny wee tyke,
You’ll now have your four-houries
Since we’ve gien Nick a bone to pick,
With his wheels and his WHUPPITY STOORIE.’
THE FAIRY-WIFE AND THE COOKING-POT
CROFTER’S wife had a black iron cooking-pot, and every day a fairy-wife borrowed it. The fairy said nothing, just seized the pot. Each time she made off with it, the goodwife of the croft called after her:
‘A smith can make cold iron hot with coal.
A cooking-pot needs meat and bones,
So bring it back well-filled and whole!’
The fairy always returned the pot filled with meat and bones.
Now, one day, the goodwife had to go by ferry to the town on the mainland, and before she went, she said to her husband:
‘Promise you’ll say my rhyme to the fairy-wife when she comes for the pot today, then I’ll go to town with a quiet mind.’
‘I’ll do that,’ said he. ‘I’ll do whatever you tell me.’
So the goodwife left her husband busy twisting heather ropes. But when he saw the fairy-wife coming up the hill, he noticed she had no shadow and glided over the ground, unlike any mortal. Terrified, he fled into the house and slammed the door.
The fairy-wife came to the door but the goodman didn’t open it. He was too frightened and forgot what his wife had told him to say. So the fairy climbed on to the thatched roof of the croft and stood beside the smoke-hole. The cooking-pot was on the fire, underneath the smoke-hole, and suddenly it gave a leap right through the smoke-hole. The fairy-wife caught it and carried it off, and the goodman was pleased to see the back of her.
Night came but the fairy-wife did not. Only the goodwife came home, and the first thing she looked for was her cooking-pot. She looked high and low but it was nowhere to be seen.
‘Where’s my cooking-pot?’ she cried.
‘I don’t know,’ said her husband, ‘and I don’t care. When I saw that fairy-wife, I was so scared I shut the door tight. The fairy climbed on to the roof and stood by the smoke-hole. Then the cooking-pot leapt up right through the smoke-hole. She seized it, took it away, and didn’t bring it back.’
‘You good-for-nothing wretch, what have you done? There’ll be no supper for us this night.’
‘She’ll bring it back tomorrow, you’ll see.’
‘She will not.’
Next day, the goodwife climbed the hill behind the cottage. At the top was an entrance to the fairies’ cave. The goodwife went in, and there, asleep either side of the fire, were two little old men with long white beards, dressed in green. On the hearth was the cooking-pot, half-filled with food. The fairies had eaten their supper and gone off to sleep.
The goodwife crept over to the pot. Very quietly, she took hold of the handle and carried it off, without a word or a blessing for the two old fairy-men, still asleep by the fire.
The pot was very awkward and heavy to carry, and as the goodwife was going out, it knocked against the entrance. There was a terrible shriek. The two old men woke up, sprang to their feet and, when they saw the goodwife carrying off the pot, they screamed:
‘Silent wife! Silent wife!
Who came here from the land of chase.
You, man who guards the fairy hill,
Let loose the Black Hound, slip the Fierce!’
The goodwife ran so fast the old men couldn’t catch her, but the two great dogs were faster. She heard them getting nearer and nearer, so she threw them pieces of food from the pot. The dogs stopped to eat, but soon they had finished and were close at her heels again. She threw them another piece from the pot and ran on, knowing that the hounds were not far behind. She wondered how much meat was left in the pot and if it would last till she reached home.
It was getting dark, but the goodwife could see the lamp shining in the cottage window. She knew she hadn’t far to go, but the fairy hounds were closing in on her and she could hear them panting. Then she turned the pot upside-down, threw them every scrap of meat that was left, and reached home safely.
The farm dogs came running to meet her. When they heard the bark of the fairy hounds, they barked even louder. The black hounds stopped in their tracks, stared at the farm dogs and were too frightened to go any nearer. Then they turned and ran off up the hill.
The crofter was very pleased to see his wife and she was glad to be home. The fairy-wife never came to borrow the cooking-pot again and it was never empty.
THE MAIDEN FAIR AND THE FOUNTAIN FAIR
ONG, long ago a drover courted and married the Miller of Cuthilldorie’s only daughter. The drover learned how to grind the corn, and so he set up with his young wife as the Miller of Cuthilldorie when the old miller died. They did not have very much money to begin with, but an old Highlander lent them some silver, and soon they did well.
By and by the young miller and his wife had a daughter, but on the very night she was born the fairies stole her away. The wee thing was carried far away from the house into the wood of Cuthilldorie, where she was found on the very lip of the Black Well. In the air was heard a lilting:
‘O we’ll come back again, my honey, my hert,
We’ll come back again, my ain kind dearie;
And you will mind upon a time
When we met in the wood at the Well so wearie!’
The lassie grew up to be by far the bonniest lass in all the countryside. Everything went well at the mill.
One dark night there came a woodcock with a glowing tinder in its beak, and set fire to the mill. Everything was burnt and the miller and his wife were left without a thing in the world. To make matters worse, who should come along next day but the old Highlander who had lent them the silver, demanding payment.
Now, there was a wee old man in the wood of Cuthilldorie beside the Black Well, who would never stay in a house if he could help it. In the winter he went away, nobody knew where. He was an ugly bogle, not more than two and a half feet high.
He had been seen only three times in fifteen years since he came to the place, for he always flew up out of sight when anybody came near him. But if you crept cannily through the wood after dark, you might have heard him playing with the water, and singing the same song:
‘O when will you come, my honey, my hert,
O when will you come, my ain kind dearie;
For don’t you mind upon the time
We met in the wood at the Well so wearie?’
Well, the night after the firing of the mill, the miller’s daughter wandered into the wood alone, and wandered and wandered till she came to the Black Well. Then the wee bogle gripped her and jumped about singing:
‘O come with me, my honey, my hert,
O come with me, my ain kind dearie;
For don’t you mind upon the time
We met in the wood at the Well so wearie?’
With that he made her drink three double handfuls of witched water, and away they flew on a flash of lightning. When the poor lass opened her eyes, she was in a palace, all gold and silver and diamonds, and full of fairies.
The King and Queen of the Fairies invited her to stay, and said she would be well looked after. But if she wanted to go home again, she must never tell an
ybody where she had been or what she had seen.
She said she wanted to go home, and promised to do as she was told. Then the King said:
‘The first stranger you meet, give him brose.’
‘Give him bannocks,’ said the Queen.
‘Give him butter,’ said her King.
‘Give him a drink of the Black Well water,’ they both said.
Then they gave her twelve drops of liquid in a wee green bottle, three drops for the brose, three for the bannocks, three for the butter and three for the Black Well water.
She took the green bottle in her hand, and suddenly it was dark. She was flying through the air, and when she opened her eyes she was at her own doorstep. She slipped away to bed, glad to be home again, and said nothing about where she had been or what she had seen.
Next morning, before the sun was up, there came a rap, rap, rap, three times at the door. The sleepy lass looked out and saw an old beggar-man, who began to sing:
‘O open, the door, my honey, my hert,
O open the door, my ain kind dearie;
For don’t you mind upon the time
We met in the wood at the Well so wearie?’
When she heard that, she said nothing, and opened the door. The old beggar came in singing:
‘O gie me my brose, my honey, my hert,
O gie me my brose, my ain kind dearie;
For don’t you mind upon the time
We met in the wood at the Well so wearie?’
The lassie made a bicker of brose for the beggar, not forgetting the three drops of water from the green bottle. As he was supping the brose the old beggar vanished, and there in his place was the big Highlander who had lent silver to her father, the miller, and he was singing:
Folk Tales of Scotland Page 3