Thistle and Thyme (4 page)

If you are thinking 'twas a hard thing that the gray geese should share the old wife's fate, remember they were all headed for market and if she'd got them there, they'd all soon have been roasted and eaten up. So no doubt the geese were well content with the way things turned out, and St. Cuddy had done the very best thing for them after all.

The Stolen Bairn
and the Sìdh

T
HERE WAS A PATH THAT RAN ALONG NEAR THE EDGE OF
a cliff above the sea, and along this path in the gloaming of a misty day, came two fairy women of the Sìdh. All of a sudden both of them stopped and fixed their eyes on the path before them. There in the middle of the path lay a bundle. Though naught could be seen of what was in it, whatever it was, moved feebly and made sounds of an odd, mewling sort.

The two women of the Sìdh leaned over and pushed away the wrappings of the bundle to see what they had found. When they laid their eyes upon it, they both stood up and looked at each other.

“'Tis a bairn,” said the first of them.

“'Tis a mortal bairn,” said the other.

Then they looked behind them and there was nothing there but the empty moor with the empty path running through it. They turned about and looked before them and saw no more than they had seen behind them. They looked to the left and there was the rising moor again with nothing there but the heather and gorse running up to the rim of the sky. And on their right was the edge of the cliff with the sea roaring below.

Then the first woman of the Sìdh spoke and she said, “What no one comes to be claiming is our own.” And the second woman picked up the bairn and happed it close under her shawl. Then the two of them made off along the path faster than they had come and were soon out of sight.

About the same time, two fishermen came sailing in from the sea with their boat skirling along easy and safe away from the rocks. One of them looked up at the face of the black steep cliff and let out a shout.

“What's amiss?” asked the other.

“I'm thinking someone's gone over the cliff!” said the first man. “Do you not see?”

The other one peered through the gloaming. “I see a bit of somewhat,” said he. “Happen 'tis a bird.”

“No bird is so big,” said the first fisherman, and he laid his hand on the tiller of the boat.

“You'll not be going in! The boat'll break up on the rocks!” cried his companion.

“Och, we'll not break up. Could I go home and eat my supper in peace thinking that some poor body might be lying out here and him hurt or dying?” And he took the boat in.

It came in safe, and they drew it above the waves. Up the cliff the two of them climbed and there they found a young lass lying on a shelf of rock. They got her down and laid her in the boat, and off they sailed for home.

When they got there, they gave her over to the women to nurse and tend. They found that she was not so much hurt as dazed and daft. But after two days she found her wits and looked up at them.

“Where is my babe?” she cried then. “Fetch my bairn to me!”

At that, the women drew back and looked at one another, not knowing what to say. For they surely had no bairn to give her!

At last one old cailleach went over to her and said, “Poor lass. Call upon your Creator for strength! There was no bairn with you upon the cliff. Happen he fell from your arms to the sea.”

“That he did not!” she cried impatiently. “I wrapped him warm and laid him safe on the path while I went to search for water for him to drink. I did not have him with me when I fell. I must go find him!”

But they would not let her go, for she was still too weak from her fall o'er the cliff. They told her the men would go by the path and fetch the bairn to her. So the men went, and they walked the path from one end to the other, but never a trace of the bairn did they find. They searched the whole of the livelong day, and at night they came back and told her. They tried to comfort her as well as they could. He'd surely been found, they said, by a passer-by, and he'd be safe and sound in some good soul's house. They'd ask around. And so they did. But nobody had seen the child at all.

She bided her time till her strength came back. Then she thanked them kindly for all they'd done and said she'd be going now to find her bairn. He was all she had in the world, for his father was dead.

The fisherfolk would have had her remain with them. They'd long given the child up for dead, and they'd learned to love her well.

“I'll come back and bide with you when I have my bairn again,” said she. “But until then, farewell.”

She wandered about from croft to croft and from village to village, but no one had seen him nor even so much as heard of anyone finding such a bairn. At last in her wandering she came to a place where some gypsies had made their camp. “Have you seen my bairn?” she asked. For she knew they traveled far and wide and she hoped that they might know where he was. But they could tell her nothing except that all the bairns they had were their own. She was so forlorn and weary that they felt pity for her. They took her in and bathed her tired feet and fed her from their own pot.

When they had heard her story, they said she must bide with them. At the end of the week they'd be journeying north to meet others of their clan. They had an ancient grandmother there who had all the wisdom in the world. Perhaps she'd be able to help.

So she stayed with the gypsies and traveled northward with them. When they got there, they took her to the ancient grandmother and asked her to help the lass.

“Sit thee down beside me,” the old crone said, “and let me take thy hand.” So the grieving lass sat down beside her and there the two of them stayed, side by side and hand in hand.

The hours went by and night 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.

“Give 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.

“Can 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.”

“Ah, then,” said the lass, “if I cannot have my bairn back again, I must just lie down and die.”

“Nay,” 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.

“The 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.”

“Tell me what I must do!” said the lass eagerly.

“For 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.”

“But how can I find such a thing?” asked the lass. “And how can I get into the Sìdhean?”

“As 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.

'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 upon her with the rising tide. The heat of the sun did her no harm, and the gales and tempests held away from her and let her work in peace. True it was, the spell of the ancient gypsy grandmother protected her from earth and water, fire and air.

When she had gathered all the down she needed, she sat herself down and wove a cloak of it so soft and white that one would have thought it a cloud she had caught from the sky.

When the cloak was finished, she cut off her long golden hair. She put a strand of it aside and with the rest she wove a border of golden flowers and fruits and leaves all around the edges of the cloak. Then she laid the cloak under a bit of gorse.

Off she went, hunting up and down the shore, seeking for something to make the frame of her harp. And she found the bones of some animal of the sea, cast up by the waves. They were bleached by the sun and smoothed by the tides till they looked like fine ivory. She bent them and bound them till she had a frame for the harp. Then she strung it with strings made from the strand of hair she had laid aside. She stretched the strings tight and set them in tune and then she played upon it. And the music of the harp was of such sweetness that the birds lay motionless on the air to listen to it.

She laid the cloak on her shoulders and took the harp on her arm and set off for the Sìdhean. She traveled by high road and byroad, by open way and by secret way, by daylight and by moonlight, until at last she came to the end of her journey.

She hid herself in a thicket at the foot of the Sìdhean. Soon she could see the Sìdh people coming. The lass watched from behind the bushes as they walked by. They were a tall dark people with little in size or feature to show that they belonged to the fairy folk, except that their ears were long and narrow and pointed at the top and their eyes and brows were set slantwise in their faces.

As the lass had hoped, one of the Sìdh came late, after all the rest had passed by into the Sìdhean. The lass spread out the cloak to show it off at its best. She stepped out from the thicket and stood in the way of the fairy. The woman of the Sìdh stepped back and looked into her face. “You are not one of us!” she cried angrily. “What has a mortal to do at a gathering of the Sìdh?”

And then she saw the cloak. It flowed and rippled from the collar to the hem, and the gold of the border shone as the sea waves shine with the sun upon them. The Sìdh woman fell silent, but her slanting eyes swept greedily over the cloak and grew bright at sight of it.

“What will you take for the cloak, mortal?” she cried. “Give it to me!”

“The cloak is not for sale,” said the lass. Cunningly she swirled its folds so the light shimmered and shone upon it, and the golden fruits and flowers glowed as if they had life of their own.

“Lay the cloak on the ground and I'll cover it over with shining gold, and you may have it all if you'll leave me the cloak,” the fairy said.

“All the gold of the Sìdh cannot buy the cloak,” said the lass. “But it has its price…”

“Tell me then!” cried the Sìdh woman, dancing with impatience. “Whate'er its price you shall have it!”

“Take me with you into the Sìdhean and you shall have the cloak,” the lass said.

“Give me the cloak!” said the fairy, stretching her hand out eagerly. “I'll take you in.”

But the lass wouldn't give the cloak up yet. She knew the Sìdh were a thieving race that will cheat you if ever they can.

“Och, nay!” she said. “First you must take me into the Sìdhean. Then you may take the cloak and welcome.”

So the fairy caught her hand and hurried her up the path. As soon as they were well within the Sìdhean the lass gave up the cloak.

When the people of the Sìdh saw that a mortal had come among them, they rushed at her to thrust her out. But the lass stepped quickly behind the fairy who had brought her in. When the fairy people saw the cloak they forgot the lass completely. They all crowded about the one who had it, reaching to touch it and begging to be let try it on.

The lass looked about her and there on a throne at the end of the hall she saw the new king of the Sìdh. The lass walked through the Sìdh unheeded and came up to him boldly, holding the harp up for him to see.

“What have you there, mortal?” asked the king.

“'Tis a harp,” said the lass.

“ I have many a harp,” said the king, showing but little interest.

“But never a one such as this!” the lass said. And she took the harp upon her arm and plucked the golden strings with her fingers. From the harp there rose upon the air one note filled with such wild love and longing that all the Sìdh turned from the cloak to wonder at it.