Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales from Burns to Buchan (Penguin Classics) (15 page)
Read Scottish Folk and Fairy Tales from Burns to Buchan (Penguin Classics) Online
Authors: Gordon Jarvie
And this was what happened next.
The poor, distressed creature – for it was now to be pitied, even although it was a great, cruel, awful Mester Stoorworm – tossed itself to and fro, twisting and writhing.
And as it tossed its awful head out of the water its tongue fell out, and struck the earth with such force that it made a great dent in it, into which the sea rushed. And that dent formed the crooked Straits which now divide Denmark from Norway and Sweden.
Then some of its teeth fell out and rested in the sea, and became the islands that we now call the Shetland Isles; and a little afterwards some more teeth dropped out, and they became what we now call the Faeroe Isles.
After that the creature twisted itself into a great lump and died; and this lump became the island of Iceland; and the fire which Assipattle had kindled with his live peat still burns on underneath it, and that is why there are mountains which throw out fire in that chilly land.
When at last it was plainly seen that the Mester Stoorworm was dead, the King could scarce contain himself with joy. He put his arms around Assipattle’s neck, and kissed him, and called him his son. And he took off his own royal mantle and put it on the lad, and girded his good sword Sickersnapper around his waist. And he called his daughter, the Princess Gemdelovely, to him, and put her hand in his, and declared that when the right time came she should be his wife, and that he should be ruler over all the Kingdom of Orkney.
Then the whole company mounted their horses again, and Assipattle rode on Go-swift by the Princess’s side; and so they returned, with great joy, to the King’s Palace.
But as they were nearing the gate Assipattle’s sister, she who was the Princess’s maid, ran out to meet him, and signed to the Princess to lean down, and whispered something in her ear.
The Princess’s face grew dark, and she turned her horse’s head and rode back to where her father was, with his nobles. She told him the words that the maiden had spoken; and when he heard them his face, too, grew as black as thunder.
For the matter was this: the cruel Queen, full of joy at the thought that she was to be rid, once and for all, of her stepdaughter, had been making love to the wicked Sorcerer all the morning in the old King’s absence.
‘He shall be killed at once,’ cried the monarch. ‘Such behaviour cannot be overlooked.’
‘You will have much ado to find him, your Majesty,’ said the girl, ‘for more than an hour since he and the Queen fled together on the fleetest horses that they could find in the stables.’
‘But I can find him,’ cried Assipattle; and he went off like the wind on his good horse Go-swift.
It was not long before he came within sight of the fugitives, and he drew his sword and shouted to them to stop.
They heard the shout and turned around, and they both laughed aloud in derision when they saw that it was only the boy who grovelled in the ashes who pursued them.
‘The insolent brat! I will cut off his head for him! I will teach him a lesson!’ cried the Sorcerer; and he rode boldly back to meet Assipattle. For although he was no fighter, he knew that no ordinary weapon could harm his enchanted body; therefore he was not afraid.
But he did not count on Assipattle having the sword of the great god Odin, with which he had slain all his enemies; and before this magic weapon the Sorcerer was powerless. And, at one thrust, the young lad ran it through his body as easily as if he had been any ordinary man, and he fell from his horse, dead.
Then the courtiers of the King, who had also set off in pursuit, but whose steeds were less fleet of foot than Go-swift, came up, and seized the bridle of the Queen’s horse, and led it and its rider back to the Palace.
She was brought before the Council, and judged, and condemned to be shut up in a high tower for the remainder of her life. Which thing surely came to pass.
As for Assipattle, when the proper time came he was married to the Princess Gemdelovely, with great feasting and rejoicing. And when the old King died they ruled the kingdom for many a long year.
WANCHANCY APPARITIONS, SECOND SIGHT, WITCHES
TAM O’ SHANTER: A TALE
Robert Burns
‘Of Brownyis and of Bogillis full is this Buke.’
(Gavin Douglas)
When
chapman billies
leave
the street,
And
drouthy
neebors neebors meet;
As market days are wearing late,
An’ folk begin to tak the
gate
;
While we sit bousing at the
nappy
,
An’ gettin
fou
and
unco
happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters,
slaps
, and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Whare sits our sulky sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
This truth
fand
honest Tam o’ Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae nicht did canter:
(Auld Ayr, wham ne’er a town surpasses
For honest men and bonny lasses).
O Tam! hads’t thou but been sae wise
As taen thy ain wife Kate’s advice!
She tauld thee weel thou wast a
skellum
A blethering, blustering, drunken
blellum
;
That frae November till October
Ae market day thou was na sober,
That
ilka melder
wi’ the miller
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That every
naig
was
ca’d
a shoe on
The smith and thee gat roaring
fou
on;
That at the Lord’s house, ev’n on Sunday,
Thou drank wi’ Kirkton Jean till Monday.
She prophesy’d that, late or soon,
Thou wad be found deep drown’d in Doon;
Or catch’d wi’
warlocks
in the
mirk
By Alloway’s auld haunted kirk.
Ah, gentle dames! it
gars
me
greet
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthen’d, sage advices
The husband from the wife despises!
But to our tale: – Ae market night,
Tam had got planted unco right;
Fast by an ingle,
bleezing
finely,
Wi’
reaming swats
, that drank
divinely;
And at his elbow,
Souter
Johnny,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony;
Tam lo’ed him like a very brither;
They had been fou for weeks
thegither
.
The night drave on wi’ sangs and clatter;
And ay the ale was growing better;
The landlady and Tam grew gracious
Wi favours secret, sweet and precious:
The Souter tauld his queerest stories;
The landlord’s laugh was ready chorus:
The storm without might
rair
and rustle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.
Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E’en drown’d himself amang the nappy;
As bees flee hame wi’
lades
o’ treasure,
The minutes wing’d their way wi’ pleasure:
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious!
But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white – then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis race
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow’s lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.
Nae man can tether time or tide;
The hour approaches, Tam
maun
ride;
That hour, o’ night’s
black arch
the
key-stane
,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;
And
sic
a night he taks the road in
As ne’er poor sinner was abroad in.
The wind blew as
’twad
blawn its last
The rattling show’rs rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow’d;
Loud, deep and lang the thunder bellow’d:
That night a child might understand
The
Deil
had business on his hand.
Weel mounted on his grey mare, Meg,
A better never lifted leg,
Tam
skelpit
on thro’
dub
and mire,
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;
Whiles
holding fast his guid blue bonnet;
Whiles crooning o’er some auld Scots sonnet;
Whiles glow’ring round wi’ prudent cares
Lest
bogles
catch him unawares:
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh
Where ghaists and
houlets
nightly cry.
By this time he was ’cross the ford,
Where in the snaw the chapman
smoor’d
;
And past the
birks
and
meikle stane
Where drunken Charlie
brak’s
neck-bane;
And thro’ the whins, and by the cairn
Where hunters fand the murder’d
bairn
;
And near the thorn
abune
the well
Where Mungo’s mither hanged hersel.
Before him Doon pours all his floods,
The doubling storm roars thro’ the woods;
The lightnings flash frae pole to pole;
Near and more near the thunders roll:
When, glimmering thro’ the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seem’d in a bleeze
Thro’
ilka bore
the beams were glancing,
And loud resounded mirth and dancing.
Inspiring bold
John Barleycorn
!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi’
tippenny
we fear nae evil,
Wi’
usquabae
we’ll face the Devil!
The
swats sae ream’d
in Tammie’s
noddle
,
Fair play, he
car’d
na deils a boddle.
But Maggie stood right sair astonish’d
Till, by the heel and hand admonish’d,
She ventur’d forward on the light;
And
vow
, Tam saw an
unco
sight!
Warlocks and witches in a dance;
Nae cotillion
brent new frae
France;
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock-bunker
in the
east,
There sat Auld Nick, in shape o’ beast;
A
towzie tyke
, black, grim and
large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screw’d the pipes and gart them
skirl
Till roof and rafters a’ did
dirl
.
Coffins stood round, like open
presses
That
shaw’d
the dead in their last dresses;
And, by some devilish
cantraip
sleight,
Each in its cauld hand held a licht –
By which heroic Tam was able
To note upon the
haly
table
A murderer’s banes, in gibbet-
airns
;
Twa
span-lang
, wee unchristened bairns;
A thief, new-cutted frae a
rape
,
Wi’ his last gasp his gab did gape;
Five tomahawks wi’ blude red-rusted;
Five scymitars wi’ murder crusted;
A garter which a babe had strangled;
A knife a father’s throat had mangled –
Whom his ain son o’ life bereft –
The grey hairs yet
stack
to the
heft
;
Wi’ mair o’ horrible and awefu’
Which ev’n to name wad be unlawfu’.
As Tammie glowr’d, amaz’d and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious:
The piper loud and louder blew,
The dancers quick and quicker flew.
They reel’d, they set, they cross’d, they
cleekit
,
Till ilka
carlin
swat and
reekit
,
And
coost
her
duddies
to the
wark
,
And
linket
at it in her
sark
!
Now Tam, O Tam! had they been
queans
,
A’ plump and strapping in their teens!
Their sarks, instead o’ creeshie
flannen
,
Been snaw-white
seventeen-hunder
linen!–
Thir
breeks
o’ mine, my only pair,
That aince were plush, o’ gude blue hair,
I wad hae gi’en them off my
hurdies
For ae blink o’ the bonnie burdies!
But wither’d beldams, auld and droll,
Rigwoodie
hags
wad
spean
a foal,
Lowping
and flinging on a
crummock
,
I wonder didna turn thy stomach.
But Tam kend what was what
fu’ brawlie
:
There was ae
winsome
wench an’
wawlie
,
That night enlisted in the
core
(Lang after
kend
on Carrick shore,
For mony a beast to
dead
she shot,
And perish’d mony a bonny boat,
And shook both
meikle
corn and
bere
,
And held the countryside in fear).
Her
cutty sark
, o’
Paisley harn
That while a lassie she had worn,
In longitude tho’ sorely scanty,
It was her best and she was
vauntie
.
Ah! little
ken’d
thy reverend grannie,
That sark she
coft
for her wee Nannie,
Wi’ twa pund Scots (’twas a’ her riches),
Wad ever grac’d a dance of witches!
But here my Muse her wing
maun cour
,
Sic flights are far beyond her power;
To sing how Nannie
lap
and
flang
(A souple jade she was and strang),
And how Tam stood like ane bewitch’d
And thought his very een enrich’d;
Even Satan glowr’d, and fidg’d fu’ fain,
And
hotch’d
and blew wi’ might and main
Till first ae caper,
syne
anither,
Tam
tint
his reason a’
thegither
And roars out ‘Weel done, Cutty-sark!’
And in an instant all was dark.
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied
When out the hellish legion sallied.
