Thistle and Thyme Read online

  When the young mother heard that, she threw her apron over her face and burst into tears.

  “I doubt ye’ve been goin’ about telling folks how bonny your bairn was,” scolded the old woman.

  “Och, I did! I did!” cried the young mother. “Even after they told me not to do so.”

  “Och, aye. And the fairies heard you say it. They’d not rest after that, till they got hold of your bonny bairn and put one of their ugly brats in his place. When did they switch him on you?”

  “It must have been whilst I was gathering whinberries on the hill, for he’s never been the same since that day. ’Twas but a wee while I was away from him, but it could have been then they did it.” And she fell to weeping almost as loud as the squalling creature in the cradle.

  “Hauld your whisht!” the old woman said sharply. “Be quiet, lass! Things are never so bad that they can’t be mended, a bit at least. Run and fetch a bundle of grass that your bairn lay on, and give me the shawl you spread for him. We’ll have the fairies’ babe out of the cradle and your own back in gey soon.”

  The bairn’s mother ran off to the hill, and found the patch of bright green grass circled round with bushes where she’d laid her babe. She gathered a great bundle of it and happed it up in her apron and fetched it back to the old woman. Then the old woman asked for the shawl the bairn had lain upon. The old woman wrapped the bundle of grass in the shawl and set it on her knee and dandled it as if it were a bairn. “Sit ye down by the cradle,” she told the young mother, “and neither move nor speak till I give you leave.”

  Then she got a huge big cauldron and filled it full of water and set it over the fire. And all the time, she nursed the bundle of grass in the shawl. She heaped up the fire until it blazed high and the water began to steam. By and by the water began to boil in the pot and when it was boiling high and thumping away like a drum, the old woman took the bundle in one arm and a big wooden spoon in the other, and began to stir the water round and round and round. And whilst she stirred, she sang over and over in a croodling tone:

  Fire boil the cauldron

  Hot, hot, hot!

  Dowse the changeling

  In the pot!

  And all of a sudden she threw shawl, grass and all, into the boiling water!

  The minute she did so, the bairn in the cradle sat up with an eldritch screech, and called out at the top o’ his lungs. “E-e-e-eeh! Come fetch me quick, mammy, or they’ll put me in the cauldron and boil me!

  The door burst open with a terrible bang and in rushed a wild-looking fairy woman, with the young mother’s bairn under her arm. She snatched the changeling out of the cradle and tossed the woman’s child into it. “Take your bairn and I’ll take mine!” she screamed, and out the door she flew.

  “Well now!” said the old woman as she laid the wooden spoon on the table. “You can take up the bairn, for it’s your own. You’ve got him back safe again.” And she put on her own shawl and started out the door.

  The bairn’s mother picked up her babe and wept for joy. She ran after the old woman to thank her, but all the old cailleach said was, “Have a care after this how you go about so braggart about your weans. ’Tis always unlucky to praise your own. A fairy might be hearing you.”

  And to be sure, though that fond mother had a half a dozen bairns more and each one bonnier than the one before, she never was known to say a word in praise of them. At least not out loud. Because you never could tell. There might be a fairy hiding somewhere near.

  The Bride

  Who Out Talked the Water Kelpie

  A SOLDIER THERE WAS ONCE, AND HE WAS COMING HOME from the foreign wars with his heart light and free, and his bagpipes under his arm. He was marching along at a good pace, for he had a far way to go, and a longing in his heart to get back to his home again. But as the sun lowered to its setting, he could plainly see that he’d not get there by that day’s end so he began to be thinking about a place where he could bide for the night.

  The road had come to the top of a hill and he looked down to see what lay at the foot of it. Down at the bottom was a village, and there was a drift of smoke rising from the chimneys where folks were getting their suppers, and lights were beginning to twinkle on here and there in the windows.

  “There’ll be an inn down there, to be sure,” said the soldier, “and they’ll have a bite of supper for me and a place for me to sleep.”

  So down the hill he went at a fast trot with his kilt swinging, and the ribbons on his bagpipes fluttering in the wind of his going.

  But when he got near the foot of the hill, he stopped short. There by the road was a cottage and by the door of the cottage was a bench and upon the bench sat a bonny lass with black hair and blue eyes, taking the air in the cool of the evening.

  He looked at her and she looked at him, but neither of them said a word, one to the other. Then the soldier went on his way again, but he was thinking he’d ne’er seen a lass he fancied so much.

  At the inn they told him that they could find him a place to sleep and he could have his supper too, if he’d not be minding the wait till they got it ready for him. That wouldn’t trouble him at all, said he. So he went into the room and laid off his bagpipes and sat down to rest his legs from his day’s journey.

  While the innkeeper was laying the table, the soldier and he began talking about one thing or another. At last the soldier asked, “Who is the bonny lass with the hair like the wing of a blackbird and eyes like flax flowers who bides in the house at the foot of the hill?”

  “Och, aye,” said the innkeeper. “That would be the weaver’s lass.”

  “I saw her as I passed by on the road,” said the soldier, “and I ne’er saw a lass that suited me so fine.”

  The innkeeper gave the soldier a queer sort of look, but said naught.

  “I’m minded to talk to her father,” the soldier said, “and if she could fancy me as I do her, happen we could fix it up to wed.”

  “Happen you’d better not,” said the innkeeper.

  “Why not, then?” asked the soldier. “Is she promised to someone already?”

  “Nay, ’tis not that,” the innkeeper replied quickly. “Only … Och, well! You see she’s not a lass to be talking o’ermuch.”

  “’Tis not a bad thing for a lass to be quiet,” the soldier said. “I ne’er could abide a woman with a clackiting tongue.”

  The innkeeper said no more, so that was the end o’ that.

  When he’d had his supper, the soldier went out of the house and back up the road till he came to the cottage again. The bonny lass was still sitting on the bench by the door.

  “I’ll be having a word with your father, my lass,” said the soldier. She rose from the bench and opened the door and stood aside to let him go in. When he had gone in, she shut the door and left him standing in the room on one side of the door and herself outside on the other. But not a word did she say the while.

  The soldier looked about the room, and saw at the far side a man who was taking a web of cloth from the loom.

  “Is it yourself that’s the weaver?” asked the soldier.

  “Who else would I be?” asked the man, starting to fold the cloth.

  “Then I’ve come to ask about your daughter.”

  The man laid the cloth by, and came over to the soldier. “What would you be asking then?” he asked.

  “’Tis this,” the soldier said, coming to the point at once. “I like the looks of your lass and if you’ve naught to say against it, I’d like to wed with her.”

  The weaver looked at the soldier, but said nothing at all.

  “You need not fear I could not fend for her,” the soldier said. “She’d want for naught. I have a good wee croft waiting for me at home and a flock of sheep and some bits of gear of my own. None so great, of course, but it would do fine for the lass and me, if she’d have me.”

  “Sit ye down,” said the weaver.

  So the two of them sat down at either side of the fire.
r />   “I doubt ye’ll be at the inn?” the weaver asked.

  “Where else would one from a far place stay?” asked the soldier.

  “Och, aye. Well, happen the folks at the inn were telling you about my lass?”

  “What could they say that I could not see for myself?” the soldier said. “Except that she doesn’t talk o’ermuch. They told me that.”

  “O’ermuch!” exclaimed the weaver. “She doesn’t talk at all!”

  “Not at all?” the soldier asked.

  “Och, I’ll tell you about it,” said the weaver. “She went out to walk in the gloaming a year or two ago, and since she came home that night, not a word has come from her lips. Nobody can say why, but folks all say she’s bewitched.”

  “Talk or no,” said the soldier, “I’ll have her if she’ll take me.” So they asked her and she took him.

  Then they were married, and the soldier took the lass away with him to his own croft.

  They settled in, she to keep the house and look after the hens and do the cooking and baking and spinning, and he to tend his sheep and keep the place outside up good and proper.

  The lass and he were well pleased with each other and all went well for a while. Though she did not talk, she was good at listening and it took a time for the soldier to tell her all about himself. Then she had a light hand with the baking and a quick hand at the spinning, and she kept the house tidy and shining clean. And she had a ready smile that was sweet as a song. The soldier was off and away most of the day, tending his sheep or mending his walls or working about the croft. When he came home to the lass, the smile and the kiss he got from her were as good as words.

  But when the year turned toward its end, and the days grew short and the nights long and dark, the sheep were penned in the fold and the soldier was penned in the house because of the winter weather outside. Then ’twas another story. The house was that quiet you’d be thinking you were alone in it. The soldier stopped talking, for the sound of his own voice going on and on all by itself fair gave him the creeps.

  She was still his own dear lass and he loved her dearly, but there were times he felt he had to get out of the house and away from all that silence.

  So he took to going out at night just to hear the wind blowing and the dead leaves rustling and a branch cracking in the frost or maybe a tyke barking at some croft over the hill. It was noisy outside compared to the way it was in the house.

  One night he said to the lass, “The moonlight’s bright this night. I’ll be going down the road a piece to walk.” So after he’d had his tea, he went out of the house and started down the road. He paid little heed to where he was going, and that’s how it happened he nearly walked into the horse. The horse stopped with a jingle of harness and then the soldier saw that the horse was hitched to a cart, and the cart was filled with household gear—furniture and the like. There were two people on the seat of the cart, a man and a woman. The man called out to him, “Are we on the road to Auchinloch?”

  “Och, nay!” the soldier said. “You’re well off your way. If you keep on this way you’ll land in Crieff— some forty miles on. And not much else but hills between here and there.”

  “Och, me!” said the woman. “We’ll have to go back.”

  “Poor lass,” the man said tenderly, “and you so weary already.”

  “I’m no wearier than yourself,” the woman replied. “’Twas you I was thinking of.”

  Suddenly the soldier said, “You’re far out of your way and you’ll never get there this night. Why do you not bide the night with us and start out fresh in the morn? Your horse will have a rest and so will you, and you’ll travel faster by light of day, and you’ll not be so much out in the end.”

  But it was not so much for them, he asked it, as for himself, just to be hearing other voices than his own in the house.

  They saw he really meant it, so they were soon persuaded. It wasn’t long till he had them in his house, and their horse with a feed of oats in his barn. They were friendly, likeable folks, and it was easy to get them talking, which was just what the soldier wanted. They were flitting because their old uncle had left them his croft, and they wouldn’t have come at such an unseasonable time, if they hadn’t wanted to settle in before the lambing began. Besides, they’d never had a place of their own, and they couldn’t wait to get there. So they talked and the soldier talked, and the lass sat and smiled. But if they noticed she had naught to say, neither of them mentioned it.

  The next morning they got ready to leave, and the soldier came out to the gate to tell them how to go. After he’d told them, the woman leaned over and said, “What’s amiss with your wife? Does she not talk at all?”

  “Nay,” said the soldier. “She’s spoken not a single word for two years past.”

  “Och, me!” the woman said. “She’s not deaf, is she?”

  “That she’s not!” the soldier told her. “She hears all one says. The folks where she comes from say that she’s bewitched.”

  “I thought it might be that,” the woman said. “Well, I’ll tell you what to do. Back where we dwelt there’s a woman that has the second sight and she’s wonderful for curing folks of things. She cured my own sister after the doctors gave her up. It was ten years ago and my sister’s living yet. You take your wife over there and see what she can do.” She told the soldier where to find the old body, and as they drove away, she said, “You needn’t be afraid of her for she’s as good as gold. She’ll never take anything for helping anybody, and if she’s a witch, nobody ever laid it against her. She’s just a good old body that has the second sight.”

  The soldier went into the house and told his lass to get herself ready, for they were going visiting. He did not tell her why, in case it all came to naught, for he couldn’t bear to have her disappointed if the old body couldn’t help her at all.

  He hitched his own wee horse to his cart, and he and the lass drove off to the place where the folks that were going to Auchinloch had dwelt.

  They found the old body without any trouble right where the woman said she’d be. She was little and round and rosy and as merry and kind as she could be. The only thing strange about her was her eyes, for they were the sort that made you feel that nothing in the world could ever be unseen if she took the trouble to look at it, no matter where it was hidden.

  When she heard the soldier’s story, she said at once that she’d be glad to help them if she could. Folks were probably right when they said the lass was bewitched, but what she’d have to find out was how it had happened. That might take time because the lass couldn’t help her, since she couldn’t talk.

  Then the old woman told the soldier to take himself off for a walk and leave the lass with her and not to come back too soon for if he did, she’d just send him away again.

  The soldier walked around and around, and at last he found the village that belonged to the place. There was a blacksmith shop and an old stone church and a post office and a pastry shop and a little shop with jars of sweeties in the windows, that sold everything the other shops didn’t have. When he’d seen them all, he went and sat in the only other place there was, which was the tavern, and the time went very slow. But at last he thought it must be late enough for him to go back and fetch his lass. Maybe he’d been foolish to bring her to the old body after all. He’d not go back if the old woman sent him away again. He’d just pack up his lass in the cart and take her home and keep her the way she was. If he’d known what was going to happen, maybe that’s what he’d have done.

  They were waiting for him when he got back to the little old woman’s cottage, and the old body told him at once she’d found where the trouble lay.

  “’Tis plain enough,” said she. “Your wife has offended the water kelpie. When she went to walk in the gloaming, she drank from the well where the water kelpie bides. And as she leaned over to drink, one of the combs from her hair dropped into the water and she never missed it. The comb fouled the water, and the kelpie can bide
in the well no more till she takes it out again. So angry he was, that while she drank of it, he laid a spell on the water that took her speech away.”

  “But what shall we do now?” asked the soldier.

  “All you need to do,” said the old woman, “is take your lass back to the well and have her take the comb from the water.”

  “And she’ll talk then?” the soldier asked.

  “Och, aye! She’ll talk. But watch out for the water kelpie, lest he do her more harm for he’s a queer creature always full of wicked mischief and nobody knows what he may do.”

  The lass and the soldier were so full of joy that they hardly knew how to contain it. The soldier wanted to pay the old woman for what she’d done, but she said it was nothing at all, and in any case she never took pay for doing a kindly service. So the soldier thanked her kindly, and he and his lass went home.

  When they had found somebody to look after the croft, they started off to take the spell off the lass’s tongue. When they got to the place, the soldier and the lass went out to find the well in the woods. The lass bared her arm and reached down into the water and felt around till she found the comb. She put it back in her hair, and as soon as she did, she found she could talk again.

  The first thing she said was, “Och, my love, I can talk to you now!” And the second thing she said was, “Och, I have so much to say!”

  They went back to the weaver’s house, and when he found that his daughter could talk, he was that pleased. He ran about the village telling everybody, “My lass has found her tongue again!” ’Twas a rare grand day for the weaver. And of course for the soldier, too.

  The weaver and the soldier couldn’t hear enough of her chatter. They took to following her about just to listen to her as if it were music they were hearing.

  After a day or two, she began to grow restless, for she wanted to go home to their own wee croft. So off they set, and she chattered to him every mile of the way. The sound of her voice was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard.