The Coming of the Unicorn, page 1
To my wee Evie
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
Fox and the Two Cat Fishers
The Cobblestone Maker
The Dog and the Fox
Jack and the Silver Keys
The Three Presents
The Miser’s Gold
Jack Goes Back to School
Mary Rushiecoats and the Wee Black Bull
The Tramp and the Boots
Johnny McGill and the Frog
Thomas the Thatcher
Legend of the White Heather
House of the Seven Boulders
The Broonie on Cara
The Broonie’s Farewell
The Coming of the Unicorn
The Kings’ Gardens
The Tailor and the Button
Glossary of Scottish Words
Copyright
Introduction
This collection of folk and fairy tales has been written down from the storytelling tradition of the Travelling People of Scotland. The author Duncan Williamson was a Traveller who spent a lifetime of seventy years gleaning the lore of Scotland, becoming the country’s greatest storyteller of our time (Guardian, 22 November 2007).
For over sixty years Duncan Williamson travelled on the roads of Scotland doing jobs here and there in metals, willow, heather crafts and finding employment on farms. He never used a caravan but just built the traditional “bow tent”, made of tree saplings and covered with waterproof materials, and travelled on foot, then in the early 1950s with a horse and cart. When the roads got too busy for horses, he sold the horse and bought an old van. And still he travelled on. As he worked his way gradually all round Scotland through Aberdeenshire and Forfarshire, down into Dumfries, all through Inverness-shire, through the West Coast and the Western Isles, Duncan collected all these wonderful stories and tales. The stories are not only traditional tales from the Travelling People, but are also from the crofting people, farmers and shepherds and all kinds of folk.
About his childhood he said:
When I was young we were very, very poor, and I stayed away home in Argyll, near Inveraray. I was born in 1928 in one of these great big tents we call a barrikit – a dome-shaped structure with bow tents on either side. There were sixteen of us; I was the seventh. On a cold winter’s night when you had no radio, no television, nothing, and these old paraffin cruisies (open lamps with rush wicks) hanging from the ceiling of the tent, and the fire just on the earthen floor – it was kind of smoky – what could you do with a large family? How could you keep them quiet? You had to tell them stories. My mother could not read, neither could my father. So, they told us these stories that were passed down from tradition which they had learned as children themselves.
So, we were lucky! We had our old grandmother staying with us and she was a great storyteller. She was a wonderful old woman, had travelled far and wide in her young time and collected a lot of tales. We used to do little errands for her and she would tell us stories. My mother’s brother Duncan was also a good storyteller. He was a piper, played the bagpipes for pennies and used to travel round the country. He collected many stories. My father told us really old tales. Some were very long, and he would tell us one bit one night and then maybe he’d tell us the next bit the next night, and so on. He wouldn’t tell us it all at once! But we had to work for it – we had to get sticks for the fire, get water, run messages and do everything before we got a bit o’ our story! This was mostly on the winter nights when it was dark, dark early, and he’d gather us all round about him and tell us a story.
My father worked in a stone quarry with the Duke of Argyll back in the 1930s and he got forty pence a day for breaking stones from six o’clock in the morning till six at night. And there were nine of us going to school at the same time. I went from the age of four till I was thirteen. And we had no school meals, no dinners, nothing. Times were very hard, nothing to spend. I saw me sitting in the school class and I was so hungry I used to say to the teacher, “Please, Miss, can I leave the room?” And she would say, “Yes,” and I left and never came back.
I went to the shoreside and kindled a fire and cooked myself some shellfish, mussels and cockles and limpets and whelks to keep myself alive. That was the only source of survival we had. So, we were glad when we came thirteen or fourteen. We left home and took off on our own, left room for the rest of the little ones to grow up. And then we found jobs, used to go to the berry picking and travelled round the country. We would meet up with the rest of the Travelling community, tell stories and collect songs around the campfires.
Oh, the cracks and tales they used to tell round the campfires long ago, you’ve no idea, hundreds and thousands of them! And there was no such thing as “the children’s place” – everybody’s place was round the campfire. But they kept it clean and tidy… to attract the children we tellt wir animal stories to keep them entertained till they fell asleep. Everybody had their turn round about the fire telling a crack or telling a tale, telling a wee story or telling something.
“Come on, it’s your turn!” Suppose it was only your past experience or something that happened to you in your life – there’s so many different types of stories. Travellers never went in for storybook stories, because none of them could hardly read. So, naturally, the stories had to be passed down through the family. There were stories of elves and goblins, and stories o’ burkers (body snatchers); there were stories of magic and stories of the devil, stories about wizards and about the Broonie (the spirit of regeneration who often came in the form of a tramp); there were Traveller’s stories, stories of all description, homemade stories Travellers made up themselves and stories they heard bits o’ and finished off themselves. There were Simple Jack stories, Daft Sandy stories about the village fool, stories about farms and Travellers getting jobs and “near getting burkit” on farms.
Stories about animals were the ones Travellers really liked. Because according to the Travellers in their stories animals can all speak. And some are cleverer and more superior to others. There were holy stories, for the Travellers had their own beliefs, set before the coming of Jesus, and how God created the world. Stories among the Travellers run into countless hundreds; it would take you weeks and months to explain or even tell you some of them.
But all these stories were told not only to weans, you remember! They didn’t tell them just for kids. I’ve seen myself around a campfire in the summertime on an evening, and Traveller men, big men, married men, some grandfathers and old men, and young men as well – all gathered round this fire as interested in somebody telling a story as the day when they were five or six years old! The oldest one maybe seventy, and the youngest one maybe in his thirties, all sitting round a fire telling stories. If children were present the stories came in a line: as the children fell asleep the tales got a wee bit bolder – we’d move from animal tales to witches, or witchcraft attached to the henwife – who was very generous and giving and worked the cures. Then came stories about ghosts and haunted graveyards and haunted wells, and haunted roads. Stories about knights and dragons and enchantment, and water kelpies (sinister creatures who could change their shape), ghost ships, ghost horsemen, warriors and all kinds of things.
With a Traveller who had the name of a good storyteller, as long as he wanted to tell a story, maybe every night for a month, nobody would interrupt him. But when he got fed up and tired, and he wanted to have a smoke and have his tea or go and do something; well, somebody else would tell a story. I’ve seen men with big lumps o’ laddies fourteen and fifteen years of age, young teenagers, drawing their hand across their son’s lug and saying, “Be quiet! Don’t say a word when the old man’s speaking. If you canna listen, go away and play yourself!” These men were interested in stories, big grown men. Why should they no be? Because the stories were really good.
Now you see why stories were so important to the Travelling People. Stories were told to you as a matter of teaching. Because every particular story had its own lesson. Oh, there were many wonderful tales, tales of everything that would teach you to grow up naturally in your own environment in life.
Around Christmas time my father would say, “Well, thank God, this is Christmas Eve. Come doon beside me and I’ll tell you a story. Now remember, children, any toy I could buy – what’s the sense of buying you a toy when you’ll only break it – it’ll be destroyed in a couple of days. Even if I had the money to afford it. But, this story will last you the entire time of your life.”
My father told me a story when I was only five years old. Now that was seventy years ago! And I can remember that tale the way he told it to me, just the very way. I can visualise him sitting there by the fireside, a young man putting coals in his pipe, you know, smoking his pipe, and all the little kids gathered round the fire; he sitting there telling them a beautiful Christmas tale. Which was far better to us now when I look back than anything he could have bought for us.
Because we were very poor people, we had not only to listen to stories; we had to learn by them. When my father told us his tales, he knew he was going to get through to us. Because after all, it was not maybe telling us how to read and how to write, but my father’s knowledge told us how to live in this world as natural human beings – not to be greedy, not to be foolish, not to be daft or selfish – by stories. And by listening, by learning and listening to the old people, you had a better knowledge of the world you had to live in. Stories are somethin
When we walked on the roads on the cold winter’s day we were wet and tired and hungry, you know, travelling on, each of us carrying a part of our little bundle on our way to help us when we got to a camping place at night. We were miserable and tired. But once the tents were up, the fires were kindling, we had a little to eat, got ourselves dried, then it was story time. The thought of everything else, the day’s torture was gone till the next time again. After a good storytelling session everybody was happy. You know, it was great, magical! I’ve got many wonderful memories of my childhood. Life was really hard. Life was rough and we were very poor. But we were very happy, really happy as children.
I think the happiness comes from the love and respect from parents to children and children for parents. That’s the most important thing in all, what really makes life happy for anyone I would say. And that’s what our stories were told us for in the first beginning.
This collection of Duncan Williamson’s eighteen Scottish folk and fairy tales for children comprises four previously unpublished stories: “Fox and the Two Cat Fishers”, “The Tailor and the Button”, “The Kings’ Gardens” and “The Cobblestone Maker”, and twelve stories originally published by Canongate, Cambridge University Press and Penguin, now out of print. From the early Canongate Scottish Traveller series come “The Miser’s Gold”, “The Three Presents” and “Jack and the Silver Keys” in Tell Me a Story for Christmas (1987); “The Tramp and the Boots”, “The Broonie on Cara” and “The Broonie’s Farewell” in The Broonie, Silkies and Fairies (1985). “The Dog and the Fox”, “Jack Goes Back to School”, “Johnny McGill and the Frog”, “Thomas the Thatcher” and “House of the Seven Boulders” were first published in The Genie and the Fisherman (CUP, 1991). “Mary Rushiecoats and the Wee Black Bull” and “The Coming of the Unicorn” were part of the Penguin collection, A Thorn in the King’s Foot (1987). “The Legend of the White Heather” was Duncan Williamson’s first published story, by Oliver and Boyd in Scotsgate, 1982.
Linda Williamson
Fox and the Two Cat Fishers
Now, one time a long time ago on a small farm beside a little river there lived two cats, a black cat and a white one. And the black cat was very old, but the white one was young. They used to curl up in the straw inside the farm building every night. And the old black cat was like me – he was a storyteller. He used to tell the white cat all these stories about himself when he was young, and the white cat got kind of sick listening to him telling all these stories, you know! One night after they had finished their milk by the farm doorway they curled up as usual in the barn to sleep.
The black cat said, “I’m not sleepy tonight, I’d like to tell you a story!”
And the white cat said, “Look, I’m fed up listening to your stories. You’ve been telling me stories now since I was a small kitten.”
The black cat said, “The one I would like to tell you most of all is how I used to catch fish, because I am a great fisherman.”
The white cat said, “You catch fish?”
“Of course,” the black cat said, “I’m a great fisherman! I’ve caught many fish in my time.”
“Well,” the cat says, “we’ve been hungry many days and you’ve never tried to catch a fish for me.”
“If you come with me tomorrow,” said the black cat, “I’ll take you down to the little brook and I’ll show you how good a fisherman I am.”
So the white cat said, “Okay, but let us go to sleep. I’m tired.”
And the black cat said, “Tomorrow you’re coming with me to the river! I’m going to show you how good a fisherman I really am.”
So the next morning off they set the both of them, and they came to the little stream. It was full of little fishes, all swimming up and down by the riverside. And the white cat said, “How do we get these fish out of there?”
The black cat said, “It’s quite simple: all you need to do is sit there with your paw in the water, keep your claws out, and hide. When a little fish passes by – just throw it up on the grass.”
“That looks quite simple,” said the white cat.
“But just watch me,” said the black cat, “how quick I can get one!”
So he put his paw in the water and he waited and he waited and he waited. Not one single fish passed by. The white cat went a little bit further up-stream, put his paw in the water, and sure enough along came a little fish. And the white cat went fweesht – out goes the little fish on the grass. The white cat kills it with his paw.
He says, “That’s for my supper tonight!”
Now the black cat, he sat and he sat and he sat all day and never caught one fish, till he finally got fed up. He came up from the river and his paw was all wet. It was cold. And there was the white cat sitting with a little fish for his supper.
“You didn’t have much luck,” said the white cat, “catching your fish, great fisherman!”
“Well, no,” he said, “I didn’t get one. But I see you have got one.”
“Yes,” said the white cat, “first time in my life, first fish I’ve ever caught, and I’m not boasting about it.”
The black cat said, “I’m very hungry. Why don’t you share it with me?”
“Share it with you?” said the white cat. “My own one little fish I caught for myself? To share it with you? Indeed I will not; this is coming home for my supper!”
“Please,” said the black cat, “I’m an old friend of yours. Why don’t you halve it with me?”
So, they sat there arguing about the little fish. Who should come along at that very time but Mister Fox! And he too was hungry. He said, “What’s the trouble?”
And the white cat said, “Look, Mister Black Cat here took me down to the river to teach me how to fish. And I caught this little fish. He fished all day and never got any, and he wants half of mine! I am not going to give it to him.”
“Well,” said the fox, who was hungry and wanted the fish for himself, “that’s not the way to treat a friend. You should always halve with a friend.”
And the white cat said, “He is not getting half of my fish!”
Now they had sat there until the moon came up and they were still arguing.
“Well,” said the fox, “seeing you’re being like that, I’ll tell you what to do. They tell me that cats are great singers, and they can sing wonderful songs!” The fox said, “You two cats look up at the moon and start to sing and the one who sings the best song will win the fish. I’ll be the judge. Do you agree to that?”
Now the old cat, who knew plenty songs because he was very old, thought to himself, I’ll win it and I’ll have it because I know Gaelic songs and I know plenty folk songs and I’ve heard plenty old-fashioned songs around the farm. This young cat’ll never be able to compete with me.
But the fox said, “Both of you must look up, keep looking at the moon and sing me a song! Then I’ll be the judge.”
So the two cats, they looked up at the moon and they started to sing, “meow-ow-ow-meow.” And they went on and on for about ten minutes. Meantime Mister Fox had gobbled up the little fish! He went on his way.
The two cats sat there till their voices got hoarse trying to sing. And then they stopped. They looked round. Gone was the little fish and gone was Mister Fox! Mister Fox went home to his den and had a good laugh to himself over the trick he had played on the two cats.
The two cats wandered home tired and weary and very hungry. They cuddled up in straw and went to sleep… and that night the old black cat never told any stories!
The Cobblestone Maker
Now, boys and girls, I have a lovely story for you. When you walk the streets in big cities there are cobblestones – little stones laid across the streets so that you can walk on them and your feet won’t get wet. There’s many in the big cities, lots in Edinburgh. And these cobblestones are very hard to make, boys and girls; they are made by little people called cobblestone makers. They work in the great big granite mountains, chip away all day long and make all those beautiful cobblestones.
