Thistle and Thyme Read Online Free PDF Page B

came on and when it was midnight the ancient grandmother took her hand from the lass’s hand. She took herbs from the basket which stood at her side and threw them on the fire. The fire leaped up, and the smoke that rose from the burning herbs swirled round the old gypsy’s head. She looked and listened as the fire burned hot. When it had died down, she took the lass’s hand again and fondled it, weeping sorrowfully the while.
    â€œGive up thy search, poor lass,” said she, “for thy bairn has been stolen away by the Sìdh. They have taken him into the Sìdhean, and what they take there seldom comes out again.”
    The lass had heard tell of the Sìdh. She knew that there were no other fairies so powerful as they.
    â€œCan you not give me a spell against them,” she begged, “to win my bairn back to me?”
    The ancient grandmother shook her head sadly. “My wisdom is only as old as man,” she said. “But the wisdom of the Sìdh is older than the beginning of the world. No spell of mine could help you against them.”
    â€œAh, then,” said the lass, “if I cannot have my bairn back again, I must just lie down and die.”
    â€œNay,” said the old gypsy. “A way may yet be found. Wait yet a while. Bide here with my people till the day we part. By that time I may find a way to help you.”
    When the day came for the gypsies to part and go their separate ways, the old gypsy grandmother sent for the lass again.
    â€œThe time has come for the people of the Sìdh to gather together at the Sìdhean,” said she. “Soon they will be coming from all their corners of the land to meet together. There they will choose one among them to rule over them for the next hundred years. If you can get into the Sìdhean with them, there is a way that you may win back your bairn for yourself.”
    â€œTell me what I must do!” said the lass eagerly.
    â€œFor all their wisdom, the Sìdh have no art to make anything for themselves,” said the old gypsy woman. “All that they get they must either beg or steal. They have great vanity and desire always to possess a thing which has no equal. If you can find something that has not its like in all the world you may be able to buy your bairn back with it.”
    â€œBut how can I find such a thing?” asked the lass. “And how can I get into the Sìdhean?”
    â€œAs for the first,” the old grandmother said, “I am not able to tell you. As for the second, perhaps you might buy your way into the Sìdhean.” Then the old gypsy woman laid her hand on the lass’s head and blessed her and laid a spell upon her that she might be safe from earth and air, fire and water, as she went on her way. And having done for her all that she could, she sent her away.
    The gypsies departed and scattered on their ways, but the lass stayed behind, poring over in her mind the things that she had been told.
    â€™Twould be not one but two things she must have. One would buy her into the Sìdhean, and the other would buy her bairn out of it. And they must be rich and rare and beyond compare, with no equal in the world, or the Sìdh would set no value upon them. Where could a poor lass like herself find the likes of that?
    She couldn’t think at all at first because her mind was in such a maze. But after a while she set herself to remember all the things she’d ever been told of that folks spoke of with wonder. And out of them all, the rarest things that came to her mind were the white cloak of Nechtan and the golden stringed harp of Wrad. And suddenly her mind was clear and she knew what she must do.
    Up she got and made her way to the sea. There she went up and down, clambering over the sharp rocks, gathering the soft white down, shed from the breasts of the eider ducks that nested there.
    The rocks neither cut nor bruised her hands and feet, nor did the waves beat