By Loch and by Lin: Tales from Scottish Ballads Read online

  No sooner was the promise made than the dove came flying down. He lit on her shoulder and folded his wings as if contented to stay. The Earl of Mar’s daughter laughed for joy to find the dove was won. She carried him back to the castle that morn and made him a place in her bower. Her promise she kept, for she gave him a cage all made of the good red gold. She fashioned it all so fair and fine, with silver hangings and curtains of gold, that never a bird in all the world was as gay as her bonnie dove, Coo-me-doo.

  The day was passing and night was nigh, and it was eventide. The Earl of Mar’s daughter sat in her bower with only her bonnie turtledove to keep her company.

  She sat in the dusk with the bird on her wrist, and smoothed his feathers down, then all of a sudden he slipped away from under her hand, and was gone. She looked to see where he had flown, and not a sign of the bird did she see. But, standing beside the golden cage, she saw a strange handsome young man.

  The lady jumped to her feet in alarm. “From whence have you come?” she cried. “I bolted the door of my bower myself. What way have you found to come in?”

  “Earl’s daughter, hush you!” he said and smiled. “So foolish you cannot be! Have you forgotten your bonnie white dove that you brought home today?”

  Then she looked high and she looked low, but there was no bird to be seen. There was naught but the empty golden cage and the strange handsome young man.

  “Oh, tell me who you are, young man!” the Earl of Mar’s daughter cried. “And what have you done with my bonnie dove, my Coo-me-doo?”

  “I am your bonnie dove, your Coo-me-doo,” the smiling stranger replied. “My mother dwells far, far away on an island in the sea. Wealthy she is, beyond believing, and noble and powerful, too, for she is the queen of all the foreign isles. In magic, too, she is skilled, and she has laid spells upon me so that I become a dove all the livelong day, until night falls, when I become the man you see. This she has done that I might beguile young maidens like yourself. This morning I first came from my mother’s isle, over the stormy sea, with her spells newly laid upon me, and yours was the first maiden’s face that took my eye. You have so charmed me that I have no wish to look farther, and if you consent, I will remain with you forever, my dear love.”

  Then said the Earl of Mar’s daughter, “Oh, Coo-me-doo, my beloved, never again shall we be parted. You shall stay with me, night and day, until we die.”

  “Then the spell upon me which makes me bird by day and man by night must ever be a secret,” said Coo-me-doo. “If it became known my death would surely follow, for by day I cannot protect myself.”

  “I will keep the secret,” the Earl of Mar’s daughter said. “No one shall learn it from me.”

  Then the two lovers plighted their troth, clasping hands, and became man and wife.

  Seven years the Earl of Mar’s daughter and her Coo-me-doo lived happily together and each of the seven years brought them a young son. Each of these seven years Coo-me-doo, as soon as the child was born, carried it over the sea to the foreign isles and left it in his mother’s care, lest its presence betray the secret they had hidden so well.

  But, when seven years more had passed by, there came a great laird to the castle of the Earl of Mar. He saw the earl’s lovely daughter sitting by the window of her bower with her white dove, Coo-me-doo, perched upon her hand.

  She was so fair to see that he wanted her for his wife, so he came courting, bringing her costly presents to win her favor. Her father, the Earl of Mar, thought well of this fine suitor and bade his daughter accept him, and be his wife.

  “’Tis high time that you were wed,” said the earl. “The years are getting on and you are not getting younger. ’Tis unlikely you’ll have another offer half so good. The man is a laird, with great estates and with wealth galore. What more can you ask to wed?”

  But the Earl of Mar’s daughter refused. She returned all the presents the great laird sent her and told her father she would not wed him, nor any other man.

  “I’m contented as I am,” said she. “I ask no more than to be left to live alone, with only my bonnie dove, Coo-me-doo.”

  Then her father, sitting among his nobles in his castle hall, shouted loud in his anger. “In the morn before I break my fast or slake my thirst, I’ll have the life of that cursed bird Coo-me-doo! I’ll wring the neck of my daughter’s dove in the morning and marry her to the laird at noon!”

  “Coo-me-doo, my love so true,” the Earl of Mar’s daughter said. “Spread your wings quickly and fly away to save your life. I must remain here, but I will die before I wed the laird or any other man.”

  Then said Coo-me-doo, “Aye, my true love, I must no longer stay with you, lest we both be forlorn. Wait here, my beloved, in your father’s hall, and do not lose hope, though hope seem vain. To my mother I’ll fly for help across the sea to the island where I was born. When morning comes my neck will be far away from your father’s angry hands.”

  Away he flew, and long that night the Earl of Mar’s daughter wept, and her tears fell fast as she sat beside her white dove’s empty cage.

  Far over the stormy sea the bonnie white dove flew, until he came to the island where his mother dwelt. He flew to his mother’s castle and lighted there upon the top of a high golden tower. His mother came walking out and looked about to see what she could see, and she saw her son, the bonnie white dove, sitting high on the golden tower.

  “Get dancers for dancing!” the queen cried with joy. “Get harpers for harping! Let us be merry, for here’s my young son come home to see me this day.”

  “Nay, mother, get no dancers for dancing and get no harpers for harping,” the white dove replied. “For my love, the mother of my seven sons, is being forced by her father to marry a great laird and tomorrow is her wedding day.”

  “Oh, tell me, tell me,” his mother cried. “Tell me true and tell me quickly, what I must do for you?”

  “Instead of dancers for dancing,” said Coo-me-doo, “instead of harpers for harping, take four-and-twenty good stalwart men and turn them into great storks with feathers of gray. Turn my seven sons into seven great swans to fly above them, and myself into a gay goshawk to lead them all.”

  Then the queen, his mother, said, “That is a thing too great for my magic.” But she bade her son not to despair. “I know an auld-wife who dwells nearby whose skill is far greater than mine,” she said.

  The auld-wife was brought and brewed her bree and cast her spells. Her magic was mighty indeed. Instead of dancers for dancing and harpers for harping, there were four-and-twenty stalwart men turned into storks with feathers gray. The seven sons were seven great swans to fly above them high, and Coo-me-doo was a gay goshawk ready to snatch his prey.

  They rose up together in a flock and flew across the stormy sea, and came to the Earl of Mar’s castle, and there they perched on the trees near the gate at noon on the wedding day.

  The folks that came to the wedding looked up, amazed to see so big a flock of great birds, such as they had never seen before.

  The wedding train came from the castle, and the Earl of Mar’s daughter came first, on her father’s arm. Her maidens came walking along behind her, and then the bridegroom, with his best man at his side. And after them all, the wedding guests came dancing at the end of the line.

  Down the road to the kirkyard they went, but before they reached the door of the kirk, the great flock of birds flew out of the trees and swooped down upon them all.

  The great gray storks seized all the wedding guests so that they could neither fight nor run away, while the seven swans tied the Earl of Mar, and the bridegroom, and his best man fast to the trunk of a great oak tree. The swans took hold of the bridesmaids and the gay goshawk caught up the bride. Then up rose all those great pretty birds into the air, and in the blinking of an eye, birds, bride, and bridesmaids were out of sight.

  There are old, old men still living who have been heard to say that they’ve been at weddings these sixty years or more, but in all th
eir lives they have never, before or since, beheld so strange a wedding day.

  There was nothing the folk there could do and nothing they could say, when the flock of great bonnie birds came down and carried the bride and her maids away.

  When they flew back across the sea, the queen of the isles cried out with joy, “Get us dancers for dancing! Get us harpers for harping! Let us be merry, for here is my son and his wife come home to stay with me!”

  After a while the Earl of Mar’s daughter sent word to her father to tell him where he could find her, and being at heart a sensible man, and lonely beside, he forgave her. So now the Earl of Mar and his daughter, they visit back and forth, which is well, for thus the tale ends happily.

  The Tale of

  Dick o’ the Cow

  ALL the Armstrongs were reivers and robbers in the old days, and there was a mighty lot of them dwelling in Scotland along the Scottish Border. There were so many of them that folk said that if a fighting force should ever be needed, they would be able to muster five thousand well-armed men. One and all, they had a remarkable taste for high living and a noble distaste for honest toil, so they avoided working for the luxury they loved and managed to get it by going a-raiding along both sides of the Border, lifting the beasts and the gear of their neighbors, and carrying away whatever they could lay their hands upon. Anyone who lived within riding distance they looked upon as a neighbor, and they never minded going twenty miles or more in the darkness of the night, providing the booty they got from their unwilling hosts made the journey worthwhile. They were always impartial in their choice of victims, and raided the dwellers along both sides of the Border. Scot or Sassenach—’twas all the same to them.

  These Armstrongs had grown so powerful and daring that the very mention of their name scared most folk out of their wits, but there was one man got the better of them once, and that was a poor innocent called Dick o’ the Cow. And him an Englishman, too!

  Dick o’ the Cow did not come by his name because of any cattle. In Scotland beasts of that sort are known as kine. Dick got his name because the house he lived in was so thickly set about with cow, or broom, that it was hard to tell whether it was a house at all, or only part of a big bushy clump. But for all that, it was a good wee house with two rooms to it, one of which housed Dick and his goodwife, while the one at the back was where Dick kept his three fine milk-kine.

  Dick’s house stood on the estate of the Laird of Hutton Hall, and Dick was in service to the laird. But Dick was not only a worker on the land. Although he was generally known as an innocent, as Scots call one whose wits are a little bit lacking, still Dick was something of a wag, and mad and merry beside, so the Laird of Hutton Hall employed him as his fool. And it was this poor silly fool that got the best of two of the worst reivers that ever belonged to the Armstrong clan.

  The Armstrongs had a great liking for the name of John, so much so that half of the men of the clan bore John for their given name. To avoid confusion when so many had been christened John Armstrong, it was the custom to tack some sort of description to the name, and there were rafts of nicknames such as Lang Jock, Wee Johnnie, Cruikback John, Red John, Black John, Brown John, Muckle-mou’ Jock, and many more.

  One of these John Armstrongs was the Laird’s Jock, so called because his father was Simon Armstrong, the Laird of Mangerton, and it was the two sons of the Laird’s Jock—his eldest, another John Armstrong, known as Fair Johnnie, and his youngest son, Wullie—that Dick o’ the Cow paid off in their own coin.

  Some folk said the Laird’s Jock was better than the general run of Armstrongs, or maybe they only said he was no worse than the rest. But nobody had a good word for Fair Johnnie, who was a big yellow-haired laddie with a quick temper and a ferocious grin that struck terror to the heart of anyone who saw it. As for young Wullie, he was a feckless lad without much gumption, so he usually followed along wherever Fair Johnnie led.

  The raids of the autumn had paid the Armstrongs so well that they were able to lie in during the winter weather without troubling themselves with new supplies for the larder. But when spring came on, some of the men began to fret against the long do-less days.

  Fair Johnnie said to his brother, young Wullie, “Och, we’ve lain at home o’erlong. Our horses are growing fat and lazy, standing idle in their stalls. A-riding and areiving we’ll go, to let folk know we’re still alive!”

  So over the Border they rode that night, with their minds on Hutton Hall some twenty miles away. It was well known that the Laird of Hutton Hall was proud of his fine milk-kine. His herds and his flocks were said to be the best in all Cumberland.

  Fair Johnnie and Wullie came over the hill and looked down to Hutton Hall. The moonlight shone down on empty fields where only six old sheep strayed, cropping the grass on the lea. There were no herds of fine fat kine grazing there at all. The Armstrongs sat in their saddles and cursed till the air about them grew blue. They’d made the long trip in vain, for the canny Laird of Hutton Hall was too cunning for those two lads. His gear was all stored and his beasts were all penned behind good strong stone walls.

  “Six sheep is better than naught,” said Wullie, but Fair Johnnie shook his head.

  “Let the six old sheep graze on, for all of me,” said he. “Rather than drive these auld crowbait wethers twenty miles home to Liddesdale, I’d leave my body dead here in Cumberland.”

  So Wullie shrugged his shoulders and waited to find out what Fair Johnnie meant to do.

  “Hey, Wullie!” said Johnnie suddenly. “Who was that poor silly man we met t’other side of the hill? The one that pointed us out the way to Hutton Hall?”

  “Och,” said Wullie. “ ’Twas naught but the fool of Hutton Hall’s laird, the innocent that folk call Dick o’ the Cow.”

  “Dick o’ the Cow!” Fair Johnnie said. “I thought it must be he. They say the fellow has three fine milk-kine that he got from the Laird of Hutton Hall.”

  He grinned at Wullie and Wullie grinned back, with the same thought shared by those two. They turned and rode back down the hill till they came to the house of Dick o’ the Cow.

  Dick and his goodwife were fast asleep and the reivers let them be. On the points of their toes they made their way till they came to the end of the house. They peeked in through the window hole, and there in the straw below they saw the three big fat milk-kine that Dick had got from the Laird of Hutton Hall.

  “Whether I live or die,” Fair Johnnie said, “those three milk-kine are going to Liddesdale this night with me.”

  So stealthily did the two thieves work that scarcely a sound was heard in the stillness of the night. But they broke the house wall open wide, and through the gap they took the three fine kine of Dick o’ the Cow.

  As they started on their homeward way, driving the kine before, Wullie stopped his brother and said, “The kine are good and make it worth coming so far. But we need a bit of gear beside, to make the value more.”

  So Wullie went through the gap in the wall again, and crept around and about in the house, and he stole three coverlets off the bed where Dick and his wife were lying asleep.

  When morning came, Dick’s wife arose, and saw the hole in the wall. She soon discovered the kine were gone, and her three coverlets as well. She shouted and cried and wrung her hands, and wildly ran about.

  But Dick cried out. “Wife, hauld your tongue! From your weeping let me be. I’ll go, and for each cow you’ve lost, I swear that I’ll bring you back the worth of three!”

  He knew where his kine had gone and who had taken them away, for had he not met with Fair Johnnie Armstrong and young Wullie, his brother, over the hill the night before?

  So Dick went off to Hutton Hall to tell his sad tale to his master there, but his master thought it was one of Dick’s foolish jokes and paid him little heed.

  “Be off with you, Dick!” said the laird. “I have no time for your jests this morn.”

  “I’ve no time for jesting myself,” said Dick. “And what I tell you
is true. The Liddesdale Armstrongs were in my house last night, and they’ve stolen away my three fine kine, and three coverlets off my bed.”

  “That’s very bad, and very sad,” said the laird. “But what would you have me do?”

  “I can no longer in Cumberland stay to be your fool and your loyal man,” said Dick. “So, master, give me leave to go to Liddesdale and steal.”

  “Give you leave to steal!” cried the laird. “That, by my honor, I cannot do, unless you vow on your solemn oath to steal from none but those men who stole from you.”

  “I give you my promise,” said Dick o’ the Cow. “And I swear by my troth to you that I will not steal so much as a straw from any but those who stole from me!”

  Then Dick o’ the Cow took leave of the laird, and went and bade his wife farewell. As he went through the town he bought a good bridle and a pair of new spurs and packed them into the leg of his breeks and started for Liddesdale.

  The Laird’s Jock kept his house at Tenisborne, and in the Laird’s Jock’s house were Fair Johnnie, his young brother, Wullie, and a score and ten of the Armstrong kin. Dick came to the Laird’s Jock’s house and looked about him on every side. Here and there, indoors and out, he saw Armstrongs galore.

  “Wow! Here am I, one innocent fool,” said Dick to himself. “And the Armstrongs number thirty-and-three!”

  But he stepped inside the house and went straight to the chair where the Laird’s Jock sat.

  “Well may ye be, good Laird’s Jock,” he said, “and well may ye ever be. But the de’il himself may fly away with all your company. Last night Fair Johnnie, that limmer o’ hell, and his brother Wullie, too, they broke into my house and stole away my three good kine and three of my goodwife’s coverlets.”