The Flight of the Golden Bird

Research and writing of
The Flight of the Golden Bird
has been supported by an investment from Creative Scotland for professional development. Margaret Hubbard of Craigroyston Community High School first published the introductory text by Duncan Williamson in “Listen and Learn”,
The Media Education Journal
, Winter (XIII, 1992). Maurice Fleming’s article “Christmas with the Travellers”, in
The Scots Magazine
(December 1983), inspired this collection of seasonal tales. Flight

Duncan Williamson (1928–2007) was one of Scotland’s Travelling People, born on the shores of Loch Fyne. He has been celebrated as the bearer of Scotland’s greatest national treasure, the richest trove of story and song in Europe. How Duncan came to be the custodian of such a valuable oral tradition is in itself a fascinating story. He explained:

The stories chosen for the present collection follow the solar year and mark the progress of its seasons according to Traveller tradition. Ancestral storytellers of the Travelling People knew the foundation for behaviour, their work and their love for family was a natural order. Again, Duncan explains:

The stories in this collection show a world that is drawn from the natural order of the seasons. But more than a simple alignment of subjects and events to periods of the year, the natural order in traditional story is seen to endorse and uphold the ethical foundation of human life; what it is to be a good person.

“The Twelve Seasons” begins in winter darkness, the forest bereft of fruit and nuts and food. Survival is only possible by a moral imperative which will not tolerate greed or wickedness. The woodland elves control the twelve seasons, but they do more than that; they sustain virtue. Sweet and helpful Mary triumphs over unnatural adversity and lives happily ever after.

In the stories that follow, light lengthens as bright mornings and a full moon herald spring, wakening wild animals to new life; rabbits, hares and hedgehogs become naturally active, finding a balance of wholesome diversity. Wit is rewarded while the proud fall.

Then summer brings its fullness. Swallows arrive with their messages, the first nightingale sings, our dispirited golden bird is freed to join his mate. Strawberries, spiders and flies take over the gardens. Still, with the height of summer comes frightening reality; old age and cunning demand the death of weaker creatures in “Lion and the Four Bulls”. At the sun’s zenith man
makes his gravest mistake: a child is sacrificed. “The Boy and the Snake” is a story with roots that stretch as far back as anything we can imagine in writing, to the Sanskrit
Panchatantra
. As part of this warm season’s ripening, humans acquire knowledge; young ones learn to add, collect and sift information through experience. Here are the well-loved stories of Jack, bringing the maturity of true love and nature home to the listener like no other. “Princess and the Glass Hill” is an excellent example of Mother’s youngest son, who may be lazy, a misfit, unruly and untidy, but always – by stamina and proper values – Jack comes out on top. Only a young man of moral worth can solve the problems and settle the disputes. Even Death must take a blow from the young son in “Death in a Nut”, when Jack decides to intervene, and save his mother from the old man with the scythe on his back.

The back-end of the year, autumn, is represented by a story of major change in society. “The Steed and the Bell” describes clearly how law and order get established, how unforgivable wrong is punished. Following the humbled knight and his faithful steed, finally stabled, we face the winter again.

Days cold and short, nights long and frigid put an end to life’s fullness, with the old and infirm at risk of dying. It is time for the coming of Spirit, and the Travelling People know well the meaning of this season. While the wealth of stories told by the Travelling People of Scotland are undoubtedly pagan and pre-Christian in form and content, a good many tales owe their depth and breadth of understanding to ancient Christian beliefs. Three stories in this collection pertain to Christmas: the deeply compassionate “Cripple John”; the birth of Christ through the eyes of the old collie in “Dog and the Manger”; and the joyous “The Hare and the Scarecrow”, a tribute to the poor, inanimate scarecrow, who makes all productive life possible on the farm. Leading us into the most important of all celebrations for the
Travelling People of Scotland, the New Year, is “The Henwife and Old Father Time”. This story gives the assurance of life eternal, for Time – which makes you older – itself never dies. And as Duncan says, “Everyone looks forward to the New Year coming in. It is a new beginning.” Finally, “Death in a Nut” brings us back to the first month of the year, and affirms the cycle of seasonal life, in this very popular and most meaningful of all Traveller tales.

Seven of the eighteen stories are published for the first time in this collection. Eleven others have been previously published: “The Twelve Seasons”, “The Boy and the Snake” and “Lion and the Four Bulls” from
The Genie and the Fisherman
(Cambridge University Press Schoolbooks, 1991); “Rabbit’s Tail” was a reading level two schoolbook from Cambridge University Press (1996); “The Hedgehog’s Race” first appeared in Mary Medlicott’s anthology
Time for Telling
(Kingfisher, 1991); “Dog and the Manger” and “The Hare and the Scarecrow” were published by Canongate in
Tell Me a Story for Christmas
(1987); Penguin published “Death in a Nut”, “The Twelve White Swans” and “The Henwife and Old Father Time” in A
Thorn in the King’s Foot
(1987); “The Steed and the Bell” is from Central Regional Council’s reading project for local Traveller children (1984).

Linda Williamson

My father told me this story years and years ago when I was wee. I never saw it in a book or heard anyone before him telling it. Where he’d heard it, I don’t know.

Many, many years ago, there was a woodcutter and his wife. They lived in the forest and they had one little girl. But by sheer bad luck the woodcutter’s wife took ill and she died, left the woodcutter to look after the small girl himself. He tried his best, took her with him everywhere he went, taught her whatever he knew and reared her up the best way he could till she was about eight or nine years old. Then he went and married again. And the woman he married had a daughter o’ her own. And he’d fetched her back with him to stay in the house.

But the wee girl’s stepmother hated her, ye know, hated her terribly, and so did her stepsister. They made her, Mary was her name, do everything – all the work, everything. They really despised her. If there were a bad or a dirty chore to be done, miles to go for a message or milk or anything, Mary got the job o’ doing it. And she was a lovely little girl. And her stepsister was jealous o’ her.

But the older Mary began to get the more beautiful she got, and her father really adored her. Her stepmother was jealous of this, thought that her father wasn’t paying enough attention to his stepdaughter. So, both o’ them, the stepmother and the stepsister, made a plan that the sooner they got rid of Mary the better.

So one night her father had been away in the forest. And the
next morning he told them, “I’ll not be home tonight because I’ve too far to walk to cut wood. I’ll stay in the forest for the night and I’ll be home tomorrow.”

It was in the month of January, the wintertime, and he says, “The dark, it’s too dark for me coming home from the forest. So there’s a little hut and I’ll stay there tonight. But look after Mary and see that she disna wander too far away.”

“We’ll do that,” says his wife.

But about four o’clock on that winter’s evening the stepmother and stepdaughter made a plan to send Mary out into the forest, to see would she get lost.

Stepmother took a basket and she said, “Here, Mary, I’ve a job for ye. Get yer coat and go out in the forest. Get me some strawberries because I want to make a strawberry pie. And don’t come back till ye get them!”

So Mary, being so kind and so tender, so nice-hearted and such a gentle little girl, she just naturally takes the basket, puts on her cape and walks out into the forest. Away she goes wandering through the forest. Anything to please her stepmother. So she walks on and walks on; it’s getting darker and darker. She wanders here and wanders there. She sits down on a log and she starts to cry. She knows within herself that it is a hopeless case looking for strawberries in the middle o’ winter.

But she looks up and sees a fire, a great big fire, a bonfire blazing in the middle o’ the forest. And, feeling cold, she says to herself, “It disna matter who it is... it might be some nice kind person. And at least they would give me a heat at their fire. I’m awfae cold.”

So she walks up, she gets near the fire. She looks... and there are twelve little men sitting round, twelve woodland elves all sitting round the fire, this great big fire.

And this one jumps up to his feet, he looks round. “Come on, Mary,” he says, “ye’re welcome here! We’ve been expecting ye.”

They took her in, put her sitting down beside the fire, tellt her to heat herself. They dried her cape, put it back on her.

So this one he introduces all the rest: “Mary,” he says, “we are the twelve months of the year, and we are woodland elves. We stay in the forest and we’ve been watching ye since you were very, very small. But we never came near ye or never interfered. But now we see what yer stepmother’s trying to do on ye, it’s time we took a hand.”

“Well,” said Mary, “my stepmother sent me into the forest to find strawberries, and I know it’s hopeless searching for strawberries in the middle o’ winter.”

And this one standing up, he says, “July, this is something for you to do!”

So this wee one by the fire – he stands up, says, “I’m July!”

So January says, “Here, take Mary’s basket and get her some strawberries. You’re July; you can get strawberries.”

“Sure,” says July, “I can get strawberries!” Away goes July. Within seconds he’s back with a lovely basket of strawberries.

“Now,” says January, “take a coal from the fire and guide Mary back through the forest.”

And all the twelve seasons, the twelve months o’ the year, bade her goodnight. July led her through the forest safely back to near her house, shaking this coal, making a light on the path the whole way. He bade goodnight to Mary and told her if she ever needed anything always come back again.

So Mary goes, back she goes to the door. In she comes, shakes the snow off her cape. Her stepmother and her stepsister are surprised to see her. They thought she was lost and etten in the forest wi’ wild animals. So the stepmother walks and looks in the basket. She sees the lovely basket of strawberries.

She snaps them out of Mary’s hand, says, “Ye got the strawberries?”

“Yes,” says Mary, “I got the strawberries.”

So she took the strawberries and said nothing, see!

That fared very well... Home came Mary’s daddy the next night. Mary never said anything about it.

So the next night he said, “Look, I’ve a lot o’ work to do in the forest, and I’m going to stay away for three nights. It’ll be three nights before I come back the next time.” So early in the morning he kissed wee Mary goodbye. “Now,” he said, “be a good girl till I come home.”

“I’ll be a good girl, Daddy,” she said.

“And do everything,” he said, “yer mummy tells ye to do.”

Away he went to his work. But Mary didna like her stepmother, because her stepmother and her stepsister didna like her.

That night, just about as it was getting dark, the stepmother calls for Mary again. “Mary, I want you!”

“What is it now, Mummy?” she said.

“I want a basket of brambles, and you shall go and get them. And don’t come back till ye get them!”

“Well,” says Mary, “I’ll go and try.”

So away goes Mary with the basket through the forest. Now this time she knows where she’s going. So she wanders on and on and on, keeps to the same path and remembers the way that July took her, right down through the forest to this hollow. She sees the fire again. Up she goes. And like the first time, there sitting round the fire are the twelve months, the seasons.

So up jumps January again. “Welcome to the fire, Mary!” he says. “We knew you were coming. What is it this time?”

“Well,” says Mary, “it’s my stepmother again.”

“And what does she want?”

“She wants a basket of brambles.”

“Ha-ha, brambles!” says January. He says, “October, this is a job for you.”

So this wee elf that was sitting round the fire with a long white beard jumps up to his feet. “Yes, January,” he says, “what is it?”

He says, “Take Mary’s basket and find her a basket o’ brambles!”

October comes round, catches the basket. Within seconds he’s back with it full of beautiful brambles, gives them to Mary.

“Now,” January says, “take a coal from the fire and guide Mary back. Guide Mary back the way she came.”

But before she left, all the seasons bade her goodbye and told her, “Mary, we won’t be seeing you again, ever. But don’t be afraid or don’t worry because from ever after this night you will be very happy.”

And Mary bade the wee seasons, the months, goodbye.

So October takes a blazing coal from the fire as a light and guides Mary back the same way as she came, back to near her house, and bids her goodbye.

So she goes into her house, walks in the door, and the first thing she meets is her stepmother.

Stepmother looks at her, wonders why she has come back. “Did ye get yer brambles?” she says.

“Yes, Mummy,” she says, “I got the brambles.”

Stepmother looks in the basket – oh, beautiful brambles! But she begins to get suspicious. Where could Mary get brambles and strawberries in the middle o’ winter?

“Mary,” she says (now she begins to talk nice to her), “where did ye get the beautiful brambles? Tell yer mother. And where did ye get the beautiful strawberries the last night?”

“Well,” Mary thought a wee while. “Mother,” she said, “when I went into the forest I wandered searching for brambles. And I saw twelve little men, woodland elves with a fire. And they were the twelve months of the year. July asked me what I would like and I told him I would like strawberries. Then this night October asked me what I would like and I asked for brambles. I got brambles.”

“Oh, ye foolish, foolish, foolish girl!” says the stepmother. “I’ve heard of these many, many years ago but never been lucky
to see them. Only once in a lifetime that ever a person ever sees the twelve woodland elves! Ye should have asked for gold and diamonds; ye would have got them!” She says, “Daughter, get yer coat! We might be in time. Get yer coat, daughter! Now,” she says, “Mary, you stay in the house and yer sister and I will go. We’ll no get berries; we’ll get something better than brambles. And don’t leave the house till we come back!”

So away goes the stepmother and the stepsister. They put on their capes and they’re away through the forest. They go back the path that Mary tellt them to take, and they see the fire. They go straight to the fire. There sitting round are the twelve woodland elves.

Up steps January. “Welcome to the fire!” he says to the wicked mother and sister. “What can we do for ye?”

She says, “I want ye to give me anything I want!”

“Oh,” he says, “we’ll give ye anything ye want... What would ye like?”

She says, “We want diamonds and pearls and gold.”

“Well,” he says, “ye shall have it!” He says, “March, that’s something in your line, that’s your job.
There are diamonds and pearls and gold – you take them where they find them!”

And March got up. Then the wind rose: a real March hurricane, whistling wind. And a whirlwind, round and round and round both o’ them, whirled them right up in the sky! Where the diamonds are the stars, and the pearls and gold of evening are, they disappeared in the distance and were never heard of again – in a whirlwind!

And Mary lived on with her daddy in the wee house happy ever after. And that’s the last o’ the story.