Orkney Folk Tales Page 10
Little for one and less for two,
And never a grain have I for you.
When she tried to work the wool she found that nothing would go right and so when the giant returned that night he found the wool still lying where it was. He took the princess and tore a strip of skin from the crown of her head, down her back and over her heels and he threw her over the rafters with the hens. She could neither move nor speak.
The next night the middle princess wrapped a blanket around herself and sat out in the kale yard to see who was stealing the kale and who had taken her sister. The giant arrived and started to cut the kale. The princess scolded him but he picked her up by the arm and the leg, tossed her in the basket and took her home. Everything happened the same as with the eldest sister, she milked the cow and put it out to the pasture on the high hill and then put on the pot to make porridge. The tiny yellow-haired people came crowding around and asked for a bite to eat, but the princess said:
Little for one and less for two,
And never a grain have I for you.
If the wool didn’t work for her sister it went even worse for her. The giant came home and found the wool untouched and he tore a strip of skin from the crown of her head, down her back and over her heels. Then he threw her over the rafters alongside her sister and the hens.
On the third night the youngest princess sat out in the kale yard, wrapped in a blanket. The giant came and started to cut the kale and the princess begged him to leave the little food that they had, but he just snorted and said that if she wasn’t quiet he’d take her too. When he had filled his basket he grabbed her by the arm and leg, threw her on top of the kale and carried her off to his home. He gave her the same orders as her sisters; to milk the cow and put her out to the pasture on the high hill and then to take the big pile of wool and wash it, comb it, card it, spin it and weave it into cloth. All of this had to be done before he returned. So the youngest princess milked the cow and put her out to the pasture on the high hill and then she put on the pot to make porridge for her breakfast. Suddenly the room was full of tiny little people with yellow hair all begging for a bite to eat. The youngest princess was very kind and soft-hearted, so she said, ‘Find yourself something to sup with and you can share my porridge.’
They all ran out and then returned with spoons made from heather stems and pieces of broken dishes and they all supped the porridge with her until it was all gone. They all left, except for one tiny little boy with yellow hair, who said, ‘Do you have any work that you need doing? I can do any work with wool.’
‘Why, yes I do,’ said the princess, ‘I have to wash, comb, card, spin and weave that big pile of wool into cloth before the giant comes home, or I dread to think what he will do to me.’
‘I can do that for you,’ said the tiny yellow-haired boy.
‘I can’t pay you for the work though,’ said the princess.
‘All I ask for payment is that you tell me my name when I am finished.’
The princess thought that this was a good deal and the boy took all the wool away.
Later in the day an old woman came knocking at the door looking for a place to stay for the night. The princess had to turn her away, saying that this was not her house but that of a giant. She asked the old woman what news she had, but the old woman said that she had nothing to tell and left the house. The old woman saw a large mound nearby the house and she lay down under the sheltered side of it. It felt strangely warm to her and she started to crawl up the slope towards the top, where it was warmest. She saw a light coming from within the mound and she peeped through a crack in the top and saw a whole lot of tiny yellow-headed people all working wool, while a tiny yellow-haired boy ran around, singing:
Tease, teasers, tease;
Card, carders, card;
Spin, spinners, spin;
For Peerie Fool,
Peerie fool is my name.
The old woman returned to the house in the hope of getting lodgings and she told the princess what she had seen. The princess kept saying over and over to herself, ‘Peerie Fool. Peerie Fool. Peerie Fool.’
Later that evening the tiny yellow-haired boy came in with the woven cloth and asked the princess to tell him his name. She pretended not to know, giving him the wrong answer, which set him dancing around the floor with delight, saying, ‘No, no, no!’
Then she looked him in the eyes and said, ‘Peedie Fool is your name!’
The little boy threw the cloth onto the floor with rage and ran out of the house. Just then the giant came home and saw a whole lot of tiny yellow-haired people staggering around, some had their eyes hanging out on their cheeks, some had their tongues hanging down on their breasts; they were a terrible sight to see. The giant asked them what had happened to them and they said that they were exhausted from working wool and weaving it so fine. The giant thought of the princess and said that if she was all right then he would never make her work again. He was relieved to find her sitting happily by the fire with all the wool woven into fine cloth. After that he treated her better and gave her no more tasks to perform.
The next day the youngest princess was cleaning the house when she found her two sisters hanging over the rafters among the hens. She took them down and pulled their skin back over their heels, up their backs and right up to the crown of their heads and they were as right as rain again. Then she hid the eldest princess in the big straw basket and filled it with a lot of the giant’s treasure, which he had stolen over the years. Once it was nearly full she covered her sister over with grass to hide her. When the giant came home she asked him to take the basket of grass to her mother, for her cow to eat. The giant agreed and took the basket back to her mother’s house. The next day she filled another basket with treasure and put her middle sister on top of it and covered her over with grass too. She got the giant to take this grass to her mother’s house for her cow. The next day she told the giant that she had to go away and so would be home late, but could he take a final basket of grass to her mother’s house, for her cow. He agreed and left as usual. The youngest princess filled up the basket with the last of the treasure and got on top of it, covering herself over with grass. When the giant took the last basket to the queen’s house she had prepared a big pot of boiling water and when the giant arrived they poured it over his head from an upstairs window and that was the end of the giant.
The next story is a Scottish Travellers’ tale that was told by an old Orkney Traveller. I am indebted to my friend Jess Smith for giving me this tale and for her kindness in allowing me to write it down here for the first time. Jess is a well-known bestselling writer, singer and storyteller. I would love to say that I heard this story from her as we had a dram by a roaring fire on the seashore under a blanket of stars, but it was actually via a conversation on Facebook! She asked if I knew this story, which I didn’t, so she gave me the bones of it to flesh out. She heard it as a little girl by the fireside of a Travellers’ camp from an old piper from Orkney called Newlands. It has all the hallmarks of a Traveller story and is different from the usual Orkney folk tales, having a more West Highlands feel about it. But the Travellers were very active in Orkney, trading goods and working on farms, and they carried with them a huge wealth of stories that are now sadly lost; as Jess said, what remains are only ‘the tip of the iceberg’. The magical properties of the seaweed in this story have a remarkable similarity to the dulse that grows at Geo Odin in Stronsay, which, when taken with water from the Well of Kildinguie, was said to cure every illness except the Black Death.
THE KELPIE’S SEAWEED
A mermaid had a child with a human lover, but to her great distress she found that the child could not breathe under water. She carried her little baby boy to a geo30 where a cave had been cut into the cliffs by the sea and which had a bit of beach in front of it so it was safe and dry. There she placed her son and, with many bitter tears, she left him to live in the realm of mortal men and women. To protect him and look after him she brought a
great, black horse, a kelpie, from the depths of the sea. The kelpie, as they are called, had the appearance of a beautiful, sleek horse with a coat as black as jet. This fine, strong horse loved the boy and took great care of him until he was grown into a handsome young man.
His mermaid mother also brought a special, magical seaweed from deep under the ocean and she sprinkled it in a secret place that only the young man and his horse knew. The seaweed thrived and grew there and was gathered by the young man and his kelpie horse. They then took it around the island, selling it to the local farmers who soon discovered that this seaweed had magical properties. Notwithstanding the fact that it tasted delicious the seaweed could cure all ills. It restored the sight to blind eyes and brought the sweet sound of a loved one’s voice to ears that had long been deaf. Bald men rubbed it on their shiny domes and soon had a fine, thick crop of hair. Ladies who wanted to lose a few pounds ate it and in no time the fat had disappeared. It was hailed as a miracle and the man and his horse was welcome wherever he went. In fact, people now flocked to him in the hope of curing whatever troubled them.
The years passed by and the young man grew old and grey, but the horse remained the same as it had ever been. No one knew where he came from or where he lived and no one knew where the wonderful seaweed grew, although many had tried to find it. The one thing that never changed was the great bond of love that existed between the man and his horse. People often commented that the two seemed inseparable; you would never see the one without the other. Wherever they went the horse had baskets of seaweed fastened to its side and the people always welcomed them both with gratitude and friendly hospitality.
One day two thieves followed the old man back to his secret home. They were cunning and wicked men who wanted to know where the source of the magical seaweed was. They were careful to keep out of sight and eventually they saw him climb down the cliffs towards the geo where he lived. They lay there for the rest of the day until it was dark and then they headed for the cliff edge. The path that led to the geo was narrow and slippery so that the men were in fear of their lives, but greed drove them on. When they reached the bottom they found the cave and saw that the old man was alone. They seized him and beat him, demanding to know where he got the seaweed from. The old man stood up to this torture for a while until, with a knife pressed hard against his throat, he told them that he didn’t know the answer to their question; it was only the horse who knew the secret place where the magical seaweed grew. They told him to call his horse and he made a loud, piercing whistle. In no time at all the beautiful black horse appeared in the cave mouth and calmly trotted in. The old man whispered into the horse’s ear, ‘Take the visitors home.’
The two thieves climbed up onto the back of the black horse, triumphant that they would now find the source of the seaweed and be rich men. But this was no ordinary horse; it was a kelpie, a water horse with supernatural powers. The horse galloped out of the cave and over the waves at such speed that the men screamed with terror. It rose up into the night sky, higher and higher it went and the men screamed louder and louder. When the kelpie was so high that they seemed to be able to touch the stars the kelpie gave a flick of its hind legs and the two thieves were tossed from its back and fell to their deaths in the ocean, far below them. The kelpie then returned to the old man to treat his injuries. But it was too late. The old man had suffered so much terror at the hands of the cruel and evil men that his heart was broken in two. He died as the sun rose the following morning.
An old fisherman who had moored his boat near to the hidden cave that day told of a strange sight that he had seen. A great black horse with a mane and tail of greenie-brown kelp stood at the shore and on its back there sat a beautiful woman holding the body of an old man in her arms. The horse then walked slowly into the sea until there was no sight of it or the rider to be seen. People laughed at him when he told them what he saw, but he swore on the Bible that he had seen this remarkable sight. He would later add that he sometimes saw, in the same place, a beautiful black horse walking from the sea and an old man walking on the waves beside it.
Children were told this story with the warning, ‘Never take what is not yours to take, or else he’ll come for you; the Kelpie Horse!’
8
WITCHES
Orkney had a reputation among sailors as a dangerous place to voyage because of the number of witches who made a living by luring ships onto the rocks. The folk tale collector, Walter Traill Dennison (born in 1825), recalled a strange incident when he was on a visit to Leith as a small boy. An old sailor took him on his knee and told him wonderful tales about the sea, but when he heard that the boy was from Orkney he recoiled, saying, ‘O, my lad, you hail from that lubber land where so many cursed witches dwell.’
When he was grown up he had in his collection of antiquities part of the staff of a Sanday witch called ‘Ship Maggie’. Here are a couple of stories that he recorded about her.
SHIP MAGGIE
Ship Maggie was a notorious witch in eighteenth-century Sanday. She always carried a long staff with her and wore on her feet a pair of rivlins, which was the usual mode of shoes in those days. But what made Ship Maggie’s rivlins different was that they were not the usual brown colour of untanned hide, for the left one was white and the right one was black. She got her nickname ‘Ship Maggie’ from her power to raise storms and cast ships ashore at her will.
On Tuesday, 22 April 1788 the large whaling ship, Earl of Chatham, on her way to Greenland from London, was hit by a raging storm. Captain Peterson and his crew battled to save their lives as the ship pitched and tossed on the foaming seas, but they had no control over her. She went ashore on the Sands of Erraby; a thin spit of sand that juts out into the Bay of Newark in Sanday. The following morning the ship’s mate saw Maggie with her white rivlin standing on the shore. He called for a gun, saying, ‘I’ll shoot that damned hag! I saw her and her white shoe on the foretop before the ship struck.’
One night the tenant of Newark gave Ship Maggie a good present as she went around the houses begging for food. She was very much surprised by the generosity of the farmer and smiled, saying to him, ‘You’ll be well paid by this time tomorrow.’
That night the winds rose to a howling gale and before the evening of the following day there were three ships wrecked on the sands of the Bay of Newark.
When Ship Maggie’s life was drawing to a close she instructed her family that she was to be buried with her staff. The staff was longer than Maggie was and it wouldn’t fit in the coffin, so the end was cut off it to make it fit. This piece was later given to Walter Traill Dennison as a memento of this storm-raising witch.
THE STORM WITCH
One beautiful July day in 1627 Benjamin Garrioch and his three friends were preparing their boat for sea. They were young Westray men and Westray always had a reputation for producing the finest sailors. They were going fishing and conditions could not have been better for them. Then Benjamin saw his girlfriend, Janet Forsyth, coming along the beach towards them. She drew Benjamin aside and said to him, ‘Don’t go to the fishing today Benjie.’
‘Why ever not?’ he asked.
‘I can’t tell you, just please don’t go.’
The more he questioned her, the more upset she got until she said, ‘Last night I had a dream that if you go to sea today then I’ll never see you again.’
The young man laughed and, waving his arm towards the sea and sky said, ‘Look at it! Not a ripple on the sea and not a cloud in the sky. What could possibly go wrong?’
The tears were streaming down her face as she said, ‘Don’t leave me Benjie!’
And with that she turned around and ran away along the beach. Benjamin stood and looked confused; Janet had blown hot and cold with him for some time and he never knew where he stood, but he had never seen her like this before. He turned to his friends, shrugged his shoulders and then pushed the boat down to the sea and sailed away. They were never seen again in the island of Westray.
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br /> For what can go wrong at sea on a beautiful summer’s day? Fog! It rolled in, swallowing up everything in its path and the young men were lost in it too. If that wasn’t bad enough, Janet’s father died soon after, leaving her alone in the world. All he left was a small tumbled-down cottage and a boat in a noust by the shore. Janet became withdrawn and shunned people’s company, sometimes siting in her house for days on end without ever crossing the threshold. Some boys became curious and climbed onto the roof of her house to peep inside. There were no windows in Janet’s house and the only light that got in was through the smoke hole in the roof. The boys saw Janet sitting by the fire, her arms wrapped around herself, rocking gently back and fore and singing a lament to herself. People started to whisper about the strange, lonely girl. They became suspicious.
One night the wind started to rise and soon it howled around the houses like a hungry animal. Janet Forsyth was seen leaving her home and heading towards her father’s boat. She managed to drag it down to the sea and launched it into the waves. Soon the frail little boat was seen battling its way through the savage seas. It looked like suicide to the folk of Westray; there was no way that a boat could survive such mountainous waves. But it did, and Janet returned home, pulled the boat back to the noust and returned to her lonely home. After that, whenever there was a storm, Janet would set off in her father’s little boat and be at sea when it was at its height.