SCOTTISH
SCOTLAND SCOTCH STORIES & FOLKLORE
(excerpts
from posts)
(If you want to retell any of the stories listed below, be sure
to obtain permission from the copyright holder if the material
is not in the public domain)
1)
By
Loch and By Lin, tales
from Scottish Ballads, by Sorche Nic Leodhas. New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1969.
Tale of Bonnie Baby Livingston (Scotland)
Tale of Dick o' the Cow (Scotland)
Tale of Lang Johnnie Mor (Scotland)
Tale of the Earl of Mar's Daughter (Scotland)
Tale of the Famous Flower of Servingmen (Scotland)
Tale of the Heir on Linne (Scotland)
Tale of the Knight and the Shepherd Lass (Scotland)
Tale of the Lay of the Amadhain Mhor (Scotland)
Tale of the Lay of the Smithy (Scotland)
Tale of the Lochmaben Harper (Scotland)
2) Claymore
and Kilt, by Sorche Nic Leodhas,
published by Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1967 (all stories from
Scotland).
Columba
and the Angel (Scotland)
Debt Paid (Scotland)
Gaberlunzie Man (Scotland)
King's Jewel (Scotland)
Lady of the Rock (Scotland)
Laird of Logie (Scotland)
Rescue of Kinmont Wullie (Scotland)
Riddle Sent to Bruce (Scotland)
Royal Exiles (Scotland)
Sons of Cathmor (Scotland)
Wrath of God (Scotland)
3) Gaelic
Ghosts, by Sorche Nic Leodhas, Holt, Rinehart & Winston,
1963 (all stories from Scotland)
Gambling
Ghosts (Scotland)
Giant Bones (Scotland)
Grateful Old Cailleach (Scotland)
Holy Relic of Bannockburn (Scotland)
House That Lacked a Bogle (Scotland)
Lady's Loaf-Field (Scotland)
Man o' the Clan (Scotland)
Old Laird and His Dogs (Scotland)
Sandy MacNeil and His Dog (Scotland)
Walking Boundary Stone (Scotland)
3)
Heather and Broom, by Sorche Nic Leodhas, Holt, Rinehart & Winston 1960 (all stories from Scotland).
Ailpein Bird, the Stolen Princess and the Brave Knight (Scotland)
Bogles from the Howff (Scotland)
Daughter of the King Ron (Scotland)
Gay Goss-Hawk (Scotland)
Lairdie with the Heart of Gold (Scotland)
Lass That Couldn't be Frightened (Scotland)
Spin, Weave, Wear (Scotland)
Woman Who Flummoxed the Fairies (Scotland)
Can anyone send me the bones of The Woman
Who Flummoxed the Fairies?
4) Response: The
Woman Who Flummoxed The Fairies: An Old Tale From Scotland
/ retold By Heather Forest.
Response: Another source is Womenfolk
and Fairy Tales, edited by Rosemary Minard, Houghton Mifflin
Company, Boston, 1975.
A couple of years ago someone sent this summary and a couple of
other source ideas: The Woman who Flummoxed
the Fairies. I think it's in a book by Sorche nic Leodhas
and I may be spelling it wrong. But she's a wife, mother and wonderful
baker who gets stolen by the fairies because they want her to
bake cakes for them. She saves herself by driving the fairies
crazy, all by pretending to do what they ask - she is a caregiver,
and they want her to do that for them, and she takes care of herself
first - and is still kind in the end to the wee folk. Yes. I think
this might just do it. Maybe 10 to 12 minutes long, and funny.
I found it. it is a household story from Durris near Aberdeen
in Scotland. The book it's from is Heather
and Broom - Tales of the Scottish Highlands.
I would add the order in which the Woman asks the fairies to please
just get her a bowl -and how the King of The Fairies quickly orders
One Elf off to the task, and it builds as she needs other utensils,
her dog, her cat, her baby, her rocking chair, and her husband!
Now you MUST all know that fairies do NOT like noise. And of course
the more things she needs each add noise. The baby is allowed
to make noise, the husband it told to make sure he rockon the
cat's tail and I think steps on the dog's paw. Of course, the
King of The Fairies eventually orders them sent home - when she
asks for her stove. But she promises to make cakes for them -
and they always reward her with bits of gold.
Well, I just found a summary that I did a few years ago - it's
a little different so maybe you can use it too: This clever woman
makes the best cakes - she is captured by the fairies who want
her to make cakes for them. She does start to do that, but needs
her bowl, her spoons, her flour, her eggs, etc. At first, the
King of the Fairies has to order his people to get these things
for her from her home, but soon they are popping out without orders
to get the cat, the dog, the baby. She sighs heavily to indicate
there is one more thing she needs. Eventually, the husband is
brought to help pinch the cat, step on the dog tail, and get the
baby crying. Remember, Fairies Don't Like Noise! When the group
of exhausted fairies hear her ask where the oven is, the king
calls a halt. Just before she and her husband troop home with
all their possessions, she promises to leave a cake for themonce
a week (or month or something, I forget.) Of course, the King
promises to leave something in return. It turns out to be a small
bag of gold for each. So... they all live happily ever ... First
time, I told this was to a group of women in their seventies -told
them that they'd probably know what flummoxed meant and they wouldn't
giggle when I said fairies.
5) Here is another version in a great book to by Ellin Green Clever
Cooks; A Concoction of Stories. Charms, Recipes & Riddles,
Lothrop, 1973. Although she lists The Woman Who Flummoxed the
Fairies as Irish, not Scottish.
6) Barra Jacob-McDowell doesThe Twa Sisters,
as well as doing a story--depending on time, either The
Fox and The Goose or The Keg o' Butter.
7) Melanie Pratt wrote in April 2002 that "The
Twa Sisters is a great tale, especially with the harp."
8) Found this from our own Wendy. She shared: The
Sneeze Story. A man's first wife dies, leaving him with
a young son. She makes him promise three things: to marry the
weaver he's been eyeing and has been eyeing him, to be sure their
son is well looked after despite the stepmom, and to never consult
the schenachie (1000 spellings). He marries again, but things
get bad financially. They have two children together, his first
son the only red-head in a table of dark-haired children. And
when the factor comes twice for the rent he doesn't have, he plans
to sell his cow, but it takes sick. Desperate, he goes to the
island he promised not to go to, and the strange, horrible conversation
with the shenachie results in hischoosing who will die at his
house. He chooses his first son. At the table that night, the
child sneezes, he doesn't bless him, sneezes again, no blessing,
and he knows the third time, the child will die and his cow live.
But the boy's stepmother blesses him quite cheerfully, all unknowing.
Then at the window the shade of his first wife appears, saying "God Bless You, Morag McCray for the care you show to another
woman's child." And the man looks up, straight into the blazing
blue eyes of his first wife. It is a brilliant, subtle story.
I learned it from Kate Corkery, an Irish woman trapped in London
by employment. I tell it quite differently from her, though, so
if you want to get back toward the source, you would need to hear
her version or check the collection she got it from. Wendy at http://www.scottishsongandstory.co.uk
9) And Kimberly King suggested this: Always
Room For One More - an old Scottish song. A picture version
by Sorche Nic Leodhas won a Caldecott Medal. And yes, the tune
is included.
10) And another I've thought of is The Cow
That Ate the Piper. I've seen it listed as both Scotch
and Irish. (Which is what I am!) It is found in a lovely new picture
book, can't remember the author. AND of course, it's also at Conrad's
5 Minutes Stories Site. It's story 65 found in Set 3 -
http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~er719/set3.html
11) I've just been reading all the messages about Scottish stories,
and I'm sure you've got a full repertoire by now. Depending on
the age of your audience, you might find a relevant place in your
telling for the following little traditional Scottish folk charm,
either this or another time. "I will
pick the smooth yarrow that my figure may be more elegant, that
my lips may be warmer, that my voice many be more cheeful; may
my voice be like a sunbeam, may my lips be like the juice of strawberries.
May I be an island in the sea, may I be a hill on the land, may
I be a star when the moon wanes, may I be a staff to the weak
one; I shall wound every man, no man shall wound me."
(You may want to rephrase that last line!).
Also, for the future, Tam Lin is
a popular tale from the old Scottish border ballads. You may know
it already -Fairport Convention (and others) have done a version
of it. It's about a young knight who is held under the spell of
the fairy queen but he is rescued on Halloween by the courage
of his mortal lover.
Response: Here is a lovely online
adaptation by our own Mary Grace Ketner.
Janet and Tam Lin:
http://talesandlegends.net/Tamlin.html
Mary Grace
12) How about Fergus of the True Lips.
Daniel O'Connel and the Trickster?
13) For a Scots story, I love Tam Lin.
Should be in any anthology. I especially like it because it's
a brave woman who rescues the man in captivity. (I thought little
kids might think the romance was "icky," but it's been
OK so far.)
I mentioned to some of you that I am working up part of Gulliver's
Travels (Voyage II, Brodbinag) for an April 12 performance.
I ran it through for family, and they liked it. They said, however,
that if I put the part in about the King not wanting to know about
gunpowder because it was too horrible, they'd throw me out--times
being as they are--and I would never get another gig. (Incidentally,
I took all the human death and destruction out of the descripton
of the weapons, and only talked about property damage. My audience
didn't think that would be too scary, or the part about him killing
the giant rat, which I also turned down. It was just the peace
part they thought others would reject.)
Response: I think the king is wise,
and should have his say. Gunpowder is horrible (except maybe in
fireworks and building tunnels). You can say things in story you
can't say directly. Jackie Torrence talked about using story in
schools where you couldn't say prayers, because you could accomplish
the same thing and not get in trouble. It's not as if you would
be preaching a political view, or saying you are ashamed of the
President, or anything like that . . . or would you?
14) Thomas the Rymer , The Laird
of Co , Tam Lin. These are beautiful
stories I tell often to school children.
15) There are dozens of other stories at this site under "Poetry
and Stories."
http://www.electricscotland.com/kids/childrens_stories.htm
16) If it is for teens and adults, The Tailor
and his Wife is a sure-fire tale with a bit of bawdy.
http://www.talesandmusic.de/tales/tailor_and_his_wife.htm
This is one of my favourite tales.
For a deep tale, try The Wounded Selkie
(from the Orkney Islands), which has been mentioned several times
recently. I told it in a crowded St. Patrick's night on Monday
- you could have heard a pin drop! It's a great Orcadian tale of revenge and forgiveness, and on my CD, Jack Goes Hunting.
Richard M.
17) I found a book titled Thistle and Thyme,
Tales and Legends from Scotland, copyright 1962. Also found
at the library were Welsh Legendary Tales
Told by Elilsabeth Sheppard Jones, 1959 copyright, and Favorite
Fairy Tales Told in Scotland retold by Virginia Haviland,
copyright1963.
18) Oscar and Melvina, song with
a story behind it. She wants me to do the story....except that
I can't find it.
1) Fenian hero in a Scottish context was "MacPherson". Melvina/Malvina is very un-Gaelic,
but has the Classical feminine ending in "-a", which
also suggests a "Romantic" source (or translation).
In the late C18th James MacPherson produced what he said were
translations of an ancient Gaelic epic, about Fingal (i.e. the
Irish Finn MacCumhail), later established to be partly based on
Gaelic poems, but mostly invented. And from the Oxford Names Companion:
"Malvina (f). Scottish, English and Scandinavian (esp. Danish):
apparently a facticious name, based on Gaelic /mala mhin/ smoothbrow,
invented by James MacPherson (1736-96), the Scottish antiquarian
poet who published works allegedly translated from the ancient
Gaelic bard Ossian. The name became popular in Scandinavia because
of the admiration of the Emperor Napoleon for the Ossianic poems
..."
2 Aa story called The Fianna and the Dark Lord where Oscar saves
Muirgen (which means born on the sea) from Tighearna Dubh, the
Dark Lord.....Maybe the lady's name was changed....as so often
happens in tales.
3)The meaning of Melvina
Origin: Celtic
Meaning: Handmaid
Origin: English
Meaning: Feminine of Melvi
Origin: Gaelic
Meaning: Variant of Malvina: Smooth brow.The meaning of Malvina
Origin: Celtic
Meaning: Handmaid
Origin: Gaelic
Meaning: Smooth brow.
Origin: Greek
Meaning: Soft.
Origin: Irish
Meaning: Sweet.
Origin: Latin
Meaning: Sweet friend.
Aha - found it. Here's the story: The Story
of White Heather. Long, long ago in Scotland, the famous
Celtic bard, Ossian, had a daughter called Malvina. She was beautiful
and sweet natured. She won the heart of Oscar, a handsome warrior.
They became betrothed, but Oscar left in search of fame and fortune.
Malvina pined for him and sought solace by telling her father
how much she loved her brave warrior, Oscar. On a beautiful autumn
day, the two were sitting on a Highland hillside when a ragged
messenger staggered towards them. He brought the terrible news
that Oscar had been killed in a mighty battle. The messenger held
out a spray of purple heather to Malvina- a last gift from Oscar-and
told her that he had died whispering her name and pledging his
love. In her grief, Malvina ran over the hillside, weeping bitterly.
Where her tears fell, the purple heather turned pure white. When
she saw this, she said May this white heather forever bring good
fortune to all those who find it. And so, in Scotland, to this
very day, white heather continues to be a token of good luck.
Very often worn by the groom at a traditional Scottish Wedding,
White Heather was a token of Good Luck for the marriage.
19) "If you love scary Scottish stories you should read The
Piper's Revenge in More Ready to
Tell Tales by Holt and Mooney. It is on my to learn list
for Halloween this year. I'm working on this one, too."
I have a scary Scottish story! I'm sure I can develop it into
something or use it in something. I was staying at the Loch Lomond
youth hostel. A wonderful building, with a "hall" and
sweeping staircases
http://www.syha.org.uk/web/site/Hostels/LochLomond.asp
and FIVE floors. My room was on the 5th. At the back. In what
had to have once been servants quarters or something like that.
The only way up there was to go up the regular stairs for the
first 4 floors and then go to the back of the building for a tiny
spiral (a really tight spiral) staircase with no hand rail. There
were only 2 rooms up there and no bathroom. You had to go downstairs
and down a couple of hallways to get to one of the restrooms.
So, all is quiet, it's fairly dark, for a Scottish summer night,
and I have to go. Maybe it's later in the night than I think and
it's maybe about 4 am and I can wait a couple hours longer. I
light up my sportswatch and in the blue glow see that it is 1
am. Rats. No way I can hold it for another 5 hours. I get out
of bed and go out into that dark, twisty stairway. The stone stairs
are cold under my feet and it's dark and I remember that the listing
for this hostel mentions a haunted room. Barefoot in a nightshirt
in the middle of the night in a foreign country in an old building
is not the time to start thinking about ghosts, no matter how
practical and pragmatic you are (and I'm not particularly either).
Despite the scary thoughts, the pressure on
my bladder won out and I made it to the bathroom. I was never
so glad to see modern plumbing and florescent lighting in my life.
I figure it's got to take an awful canny ghost to overcome florescent
lights. The next day I stopped my liquid intake around 6 pm and
made sure the stairway light, which I discovered the next morning,
was turned on.
20) The Stolen Child is from Scotland -- and quite powerful.
http://www.healingstory.org/treasure/stolen_child/stolen_child.html
Mary G.
21) I believe The Piper's Revenge is Scottish. You can find a version in More Ready to Tell Tales by Holt and Mooney.
Karen C.
22) If one wants a bit of bawdy, this is one of my favourite tales:
The Tailor and his Wife
http://www.talesandmusic.de/tales/tailor_and_his_wife.htm
My CD Jack goes Hunting also has another great Orcadian tale of revenge and forgiveness, The Wounded Selkie, which has often been posted here.
Richard M.
22) Here are some other links you might try. Good luck!
Scottish Fairy Tales
http://www.electricscotland.com/kids/stories/
Scottish Fairy Tales
http://www.animationgrove.co.uk/fairytales.shtml
Tales of Scotland
http://www.darsie.net/talesofwonder/scot.html
Scottish Fairy and Folk Tales: Fairy Tales: The Faithful Purse-Bearer
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/sfft/sfft49.htm
Karen C.
23) Mary piqued the interest with a reference to the blue ribbon story/song that ends "I don't know where you've been, but I see you've won first prize."
Bones: Drunk kilt-wearing Scotsman lying unconscious, 2 women peek under kilt and acquire tactile knowledge of what they find, one says "It's gruesome." The Scot wakes enough to say, "And it'll grow some more if you keep doing that," and falls asleep again. Women tie blue ribbon around it.
I first heard this story told or possibly sung or recited in verse by a pub performer years ago. Perhaps Mary or someone could fill in the details.
At a Pan Celtic festival, I saw teenaged girls corner and terrorise a teenaged boy piper by trying to lift up his kilt. If boys had done that to a girl wearing a dress, they would be left with a life-long reputation as perverts.
Richard M. Ireland 6/5/05
•••••
Response: The best-known song is by wonderful singer/songwriter/instrumentalist Mike Cross. I've seen him do it live several times at events of the Philadelphia Folk Song Society.
Sandy P. 6/5/05
•••••
Response:
http://thebards.net/music/lyrics/The_Scotsman.shtml
The Scotsman words and music by Mike Cross
Well a Scotsman clad in kilt left a bar on evening fair
And one could tell by how we walked that he drunk more than his share
He fumbled round until he could no longer keep his feet
Then he stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh ring di diddly I oh
He stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street
About that time two young and lovely girls just happend by
And one says to the other with a twinkle in her eye
See yon sleeping Scotsman so strong and handsome built
I wonder if it's true what they don't wear beneath the kilt
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh ring di diddly I oh
I wonder if it's true what they don't wear beneath the kilt
They crept up on that sleeping Scotsman quiet as could be
Lifted up his kilt about an inch so they could see
And there behold, for them to see, beneath his Scottish skirt
Was nothing more than God had graced him with upon his birth
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh ring di diddly I oh
Was nothing more than God had graced him with upon his birth
They marveled for a moment, then one said we must be gone
Let's leave a present for our friend, before we move along
As a gift they left a blue silk ribbon, tied into a bow
Around the bonnie star, the Scots kilt did lift and show
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh ring di diddly I oh
Around the bonnie star, the Scots kilt did lift and show
Now the Scotsman woke to nature's call and stumbled towards a tree
Behind a bush, he lift his kilt and gawks at what he sees
And in a startled voice he says to what's before his eyes.
O lad I don't know where you been but I see you won first prize
Ring ding diddle diddle I de oh ring di diddly I oh
O lad I don't know where you been but I see you won first prize
Mary Lee S. 6/5/05
•••••
(This
web page updated 6/20/05)
