Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales from Burns to Buchan (Penguin Classics) Read Free Page B

water.
    No sooner had the words passed her lips than the beastie jumped down the mouth of the well, and in another moment it was full to the brim with water.
    The lassie filled her jug and carried it home, without troubling any more about the matter. But late that night, just as her mother and she were going to bed, something came with a faint ‘thud, thud’ against the cottage door, and then they heard a tiny little wee voice singing:
    ‘Oh, open the door, my hinnie, my heart,
Oh, open the door, my ain true love;
Remember the promise that you and I made
Down i’ the meadow, where we two met.’
    ‘Wheesht,’ said the old woman, raising her head. ‘What noise is that at the door?’
    ‘Oh,’ said her daughter, who was feeling rather frightened, ‘it’s only a yellow puddock.’
    ‘Poor bit beastie,’ said the kind-hearted old mother. ‘Open the door and let him in. It’s cold work sitting on the doorstep.’
    So the lassie, very unwillingly, opened the door, and the puddock came jump-jump-jumping across the kitchen, and sat down at the fireside.
    And while he sat there he began to sing this song:
    ‘Oh, gie me my supper, my hinnie, my heart,
Oh, gie me my supper, my ain true love;
Remember the promise that you and I made
Down i’ the meadow, where we two met.’
    ‘Gie the poor beast his supper,’ said the old woman. ‘He’s an uncommon puddock that can sing like that.’
    ‘Tut,’ replied her daughter crossly, for she was growing more and more frightened as she saw the creature’s bright black eyes fixed on her face. ‘I’m not going to be so silly as to feed a wet, sticky puddock.’
    ‘Don’t be ill-natured and cruel,’ said her mother. ‘Who knows how far the little beastie has travelled? And I warrant that it would like a saucerful of milk.’
    Now, the lassie could have told her that the puddock had travelled from the Well o’ the World’s End; but she held her tongue, and went into the pantry, and brought back a saucerful of milk, which she set down before the strange little visitor.
    ‘Now chap off my head, my hinnie, my heart,
Now chap off my head, my ain true love,
Remember the promise that you and I made
Down i’ the meadow, where we two met.’
    ‘Hout, havers, pay no heed, the creature’s daft,’ exclaimed the old woman, running forward to stop her daughter, who was raising the axe to chop off the puddock’s head. But she was too late; down came the axe, off went the head; and, lo and behold! on the spot where the little creature had sat, stood the handsomest young Prince that had ever been seen.
    He wore such a noble air, and was so richly dressed, that the astonished girl and her mother would have fallen on their knees before him had he not prevented them by a movement of his hand.
    ‘It is I that should kneel to you, Sweetheart,’ he said, turning to the blushing girl, ‘for you have delivered me from a fearful spell, which was cast over me in my infancy by a wicked fairy, who at the same time slew my father. For long years I have lived in that well, the Well o’ the World’s End, waiting for a maiden to appear, who should take pity on me, even in my loathsomedisguise, and promise to be my wife – a maiden who would also have the kindness to let me into her house, and the courage, at my bidding, to cut off my head.
    ‘Now I can return and claim my father’s kingdom, and you, most gracious maiden, will go with me, and be my bride, if you will have me.’
    And this was how the lassie who went to fetch water from the Well o’ the World’s End became a princess.

THE SEAL CATCHER AND THE MERMAN
Elizabeth Grierson
    Once upon a time there was a man who lived not very far from John-o’-Groat’s House, which, as everyone knows, is in the far north of Scotland. He lived in a little cottage by the sea-shore, and made his living by catching seals and selling their fur, which in those days was very valuable.
    He earned a good deal of money in this way, for these creatures