Folk Tales of Scotland Read Online Free PDF Page A

the hill, he noticed she had no shadow and glided over the ground, unlike any mortal.
Terrified, he fled into the house and slammed the door.
    The fairy-wife came to the door but the goodman didn’t open it. He was too frightened and forgot what his wife had told him to say. So the fairy climbed on to the thatched roof of the
croft and stood beside the smoke-hole. The cooking-pot was on the fire, underneath the smoke-hole, and suddenly it gave a leap right through the smoke-hole. The fairy-wifecaught it and carried it off, and the goodman was pleased to see the back of her.
    Night came but the fairy-wife did not. Only the goodwife came home, and the first thing she looked for was her cooking-pot. She looked high and low but it was nowhere to be seen.
    ‘Where’s my cooking-pot?’ she cried.
    ‘I don’t know,’ said her husband, ‘and I don’t care. When I saw that fairy-wife, I was so scared I shut the door tight. The fairy climbed on to the roof and stood
by the smoke-hole. Then the cooking-pot leapt up right through the smoke-hole. She seized it, took it away, and didn’t bring it back.’
    ‘You good-for-nothing wretch, what have you done? There’ll be no supper for us this night.’
    ‘She’ll bring it back tomorrow, you’ll see.’
    ‘She will not.’
    Next day, the goodwife climbed the hill behind the cottage. At the top was an entrance to the fairies’ cave. The goodwife went in, and there, asleep either side of the fire, were two
little old men with long white beards, dressed in green. On the hearth was the cooking-pot, half-filled with food. The fairies had eaten their supper and gone off to sleep.
    The goodwife crept over to the pot. Very quietly, she took hold of the handle and carried it off, without a word or a blessing for the two old fairy-men, still asleep by the fire.
    The pot was very awkward and heavy to carry, and as the goodwife was going out, it knocked against the entrance. There was a terrible shriek. The two old men woke up, sprang to their feet and,
when they saw the goodwife carrying off the pot, they screamed:
    ‘Silent wife!
Silent wife!
    Who came here from the land of chase.
    You, man who guards the fairy hill,
    Let loose the Black Hound, slip the Fierce!’
    The goodwife ran so fast the old men couldn’t catch her, but the two great dogs were faster. She heard them getting nearer and nearer, so she threw them pieces of food
from the pot. The dogs stopped to eat, but soon they had finished and were close at her heels again. She threw them another piece from the pot and ran on, knowing that the hounds were not far
behind. She wondered how much meat was left in the pot and if it would last till she reached home.
    It was getting dark, but the goodwife could see the lamp shining in the cottage window. She knew she hadn’t far to go, but the fairy hounds were closing in on her and she could hear them
panting. Then she turned the pot upside-down, threw them every scrap of meat that was left, and reached home safely.
    The farm dogs came running to meet her. When they heard the bark of the fairy hounds, they barked even louder. The black hounds stopped in their tracks, stared at the farm dogs and were too
frightened to go any nearer. Then they turned and ran off up the hill.
    The crofter was very pleased to see his wife and she was glad to be home. The fairy-wife never came to borrow the cooking-pot again and it was never empty.

T HE M AIDEN F AIR AND THE F OUNTAIN F AIR
    ONG , long ago a drover courted and married the Miller of Cuthilldorie’s only
daughter. The drover learned how to grind the corn, and so he set up with his young wife as the Miller of Cuthilldorie when the old miller died. They did not have very much money to begin with, but
an old Highlander lent them some silver, and soon they did well.
    By and by the young miller and his wife had a daughter, but on the very night she was born the fairies stole her away. The wee thing was carried far away from the