Folk Tales of Scotland Read Online Free PDF Page B

some fresh bannocks, not forgetting the three drops from the wee green bottle. He had just finished eating the bannocks when he vanished, and there in his place was the woodcock
that had fired the mill, singing:
    ‘O gie me my butter, my honey, my hert,
    O gie me my butter, my ain kind dearie;
    For don’t you mind upon the time
    We met in the wood by the Well so wearie?’
    She gave him butter as fast as she could, not forgetting the three drops of water from the green bottle. He had only eaten a bite, when he flapped his wings and vanished, and there was the ugly
wee bogle that had gripped her at the Black Well the night before, and he was singing:
    ‘O gie me my water, my honey, my hert,
    O gie me my water, my ain kind dearie;
    For don’t you mind upon the time
    We met in the wood by the Well so wearie?’
    She knew there were only three other drops of water left in the green bottle and she was afraid. She ran fast as she could to the Black Well, but who should be there before her but the wee ugly
bogle himself, singing:
    ‘O gie me my water, my honey, my hert,
    O gie me my water, my ain kind dearie;
    For don’t you mind upon the time
    We met in the wood by the Well so wearie?’
    She gave him the water, not forgetting the three drops from the green bottle. But he had scarcely drunk the witched water when he vanished, and there was a fine young Prince, who spoke to her as
if he had known her all her days.
    They sat down beside the Black Well.
    ‘I was born the same night as you,’ he said, ‘and I was carried away by the fairies the same night as you were found on the lip of the Well. I was a bogle for so many years
because the fairies were scared away. They made me play many tricks before they would let me go and return to my father, the King of France, and make the bonniest lass in all the world my
bride.’
    ‘Who is she?’ asked the maiden.
    ‘The Miller of Cuthilldorie’s daughter,’ said the young Prince.
    Then they went home and told their stories over again, and that very night they were married. A coach-and-four came for them, and the miller and his wife, and the Prince and the Princess, drove
away singing:
     
    ‘O but we’re happy, my honey, my hert,
    O but we’re happy, my ain kind dearie;
    For don’t you mind upon the time
    We met in the wood at the Well so wearie?’

T HE T ALE OF THE S OLDIER
    NCE there was an old soldier who had deserted from the army. He climbed a hill at the top
end of the town, and said:
    ‘May the Mischief carry me away on his back the next time I come within sight of this town!’
    He walked and walked till he came to a gentleman’s house.
    ‘May I stay in your house tonight?’ he asked.
    ‘You’re an old soldier with the look of a brave man,’ said the gentleman. ‘You can’t stay here, but you may stay in the castle beside that wood yonder till morning.
You’ll get a pipe and tobacco, a cogie of whisky, and a Bible.’
    After supper, the soldier, whose name was John, went to the castle and lit a big fire. When part of the night had gone, two strange brown women came in carrying a chest. They put it by the
fireside and went out. With the heel of his boot John stove in the end of it, as he couldn’t open the lid, and he pulled out an old grey man. He sat the man in the big chair, gave him a pipe
and tobacco, a cogie of whisky and a Bible, but the old grey man let them fall on the floor.
    ‘Poor man,’ said John, ‘you’re cold!’
    John stretched himself on the bed, and left the old grey man to warm himself at the fire, and there the grey man stayed till the cock crew, then he took himself off.
    The gentleman came in the morning early.
    ‘Did you sleep well?’ he asked.
    ‘I did,’ said John. ‘Your father wasn’t the kind of man to frighten me!’
    ‘I’ll give you two hundred pounds if you stay in the castle tonight.’
    ‘I’ll do that,’ said John.
    Well, the same thing happened again that night. Three brown women came in