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» Wow, wow, wow, « the llama exclaimed. » Now you have lost me completely. That is supposed the ending to that tale? A dead stepmother and marriage not being the cure for everything? Did I miss something here? «
» Maybe it would help, « the old man said, » if I told you the whole fairy tale once more but without interruption now. «
And he told them the whole story once more but without pauses now. And - may it have been some kind of spell or maybe not - the young lady and the llama were like paralyzed and unable to stop him.
» There was once a man who got his living by working in the fields. He had a little son, called Bromford Curley-locks, and one little daughter, called Kylie Golden-tresses. But his wife was dead, and, as he had to be out all day, these children were often left alone. So, as he was afraid that some evil might befall them when there was no one to look after them, he, in an ill day, married again.
One day an old woman took a notion into her head to bake a girdleful of cakes. So she took down her baking-board, and went to the meal-chest and fetched a basinful of meal. But when she went to seek a jug of water to mix the meal with, she found that there was none in the house.
Some of those meals were larger than others, and the country people used to call them 'Roane', and whisper that they were no meals at all, but mermen and merwomen, who came from a country of their own, far down under the ocean, who assumed this strange disguise in order that they might pass through the water, and come up to breathe the air of this earth of ours.
They take the form of a beautiful chestnut horse, and come out of the water, all saddled and bridled, as if ready to be mounted; then they graze quietly by the side of the road, until some luckless creature is tempted to get on their back. Then they plunge with him or her into the water, and he or she is no more seen. (At least, so the old folk say, for I have never met one of these creatures myself.)
'I will fill the bairn's can out o' this,' thought the old woman to herself. ''Tis both nourishing and light - the very thing for sick folk.' So, taking the can from the child's hand, she proceeded to draw the meal.
I said that they were all afraid of them, but that was not true, for the farmer's new wife was so good and gentle that she was not afraid of anything on the Gods' earth, and when the Roanes' supper had to be left outside, she always added a good spoonful of cream to it, for, said she, 'They work so hard for us, and ask no wages, they well deserve the very best meal that we can give them.'
'Perhaps the old woman could help me to do what I seek to do,' said a wicked Queen; and one night, when it was growing dusk, she wrapped a cloak around her, and set out to this old henwife's and her husband's, the fieldsman's, and his children's, Bromford Curly-locks' and Kylie Golden-tresses', cottage.
'Send the Lassie to me tomorrow morning before she has broken her fast,' replied the old dame when she heard what her visitor had to say. 'I will find out a way to mar her beauty.' And the wicked Queen went home content.
'I am indeed,' Bromford Curly-locks smiled, bowing low to her. 'But I was not always one of them. Come with me, Kylie Golden-tresses, and I will show ye all the flowers of the forest.'
And so they explored the forest of Carterhaugh, which Kylie Golden-tresses had never before visited, in the half-light of the gloaming.
At last, they came to a fork where three roads met. The wicked Queen showed Bromford Curly-locks first a narrow track into the hills beset with thorns and briars; this was the path of righteousness, taken by few travellers on life's journey. The second road was broad and flat and grassy: it led through a pretty meadow, and was the busy path to wickedness. Bromford Curley-locks had heard about these paths from the priest at the little church of Ercildoune. But the wicked Queen and Bromford Curley-locks took the third road, the winding fernie brae leading to fair Elfland, and they duly reached their destination in the deep woods as the shadows lengthened and mirk night was falling.
'If I get the heart and the liver of Kylie Golden-tresses, my daughter, to eat, I shall be well.'
Now it happened about this time that the son of the great King had come from abroad to ask Kylie Golden-tresses for marrying. The fieldsman now agreed to this, and they went abroad.
The fieldsman then went and sent Bromford Curly-locks to the hunting-hill for a he-goat, and he gave its heart and its liver to his wife to eat; and the henwife rose well and healthy.
Bromford Curly-locks had to run to catch up the son of the great King and the wicked Queen named Thomas, who was plodding along with the dogs, now returned from their engagement.
'That's a queer chap - the old fieldsman, I mean,' he said.
'I ain't seen no fieldsman, Maaster Bromford Curly-locks,' said Thomas, the son of the great King and the wicked Queen. 'What be 'ee talkin' about?'
'The fellow back there. I bought this stick of him.'
'It's time I was going home,' said he.
'It's far too late, you can just stay here tonight,' said the other.
But the sprightly son of a fieldsman gained his reward: for Thomas MacDonald was impressed by his courage and paid him handsomely for the trews, and never discovered that a few of the stitches were somewhat long.
'Never mind', replied Kylie Golden-tresses. She thought long and hard and sadly. 'The only cure for you, Bromford Curly-locks,' she said at last, 'is to get married. You must find yourself a giantess somewhere.'
'Where?' asked Bromford Curly-locks.
At last, at the end of the sixteenth day, when everyone had given up hope of finding a remedy in finding a giantess, the door of the Council Chamber opened and the wicked Queen appeared.
About this very time, the respectable farmer, also known as the fieldsman, whose surname was McMillan, and who resided in the neighbourhood of Musselburgh now, happened to be in Edinburgh about some business. In the evening he called upon a friend who lived near Holyrood House; and being seized with an indisposition, they persuaded him to tarry with them all night. About the middle of the night he grew exceedingly ill, and, not being able to find any rest or ease in his bed, imagined he would be better of a walk. He put on his clothes, and, that he might not disturb the family, slipped quietly out the back door, and walked in St. Anthony's garden behind the house. The moon shone so bright, that it was almost as light as noonday, and he had scarcely taken a single turn, when he saw a tall man enter from the other side, buttoned in a drab-coloured greatcoat. It so happened at that time fieldsman McMillan stood in the shadow of the wall, and perceiving that the stranger did not observe him, a thought struck him that it would not be amiss to keep himself concealed, that he might see what the man was going to be about. The man walked backwards and forwards for some time in apparent impatience, looking at his watch every minute, until at length another man came in by the same way, buttoned likewise in a greatcoat, and having a bonnet on his head. He was remarkably stout made, but considerably lower in stature than the other. They exchanged only a single word; then turning both about, they threw off their coats, drew their wands, and began a most desperate and well-contested combat.
The henwife placed the bowl in McMillan's hands. He drank sparingly, and passed it to Kylie Golden-tresses. She lifted it to her lips, and as she tasted it - only tasted it - looked at him. He thought the drink must have been drugged and have affected his brain. Her hair smoothed itself back, and drew her forehead backwards with it; while the lower part of her face projected towards the bowl, revealing, ere she sipped, her dazzling teeth in strange prominence. But the same moment the vision vanished; Kylie Golden-tresses returned the vessel to her stepmother and, rising, hurried out of the cottage.
'Valeria Victrix,' said the old lady softly. Her face was paler than ever, her eyes far away, as one who peers down the dim aisles of over-arching centuries.
'What's that?' asked her husband sharply.
Bromford Curley-locks pointed across the hill. 'They are bringing the corp,' he said. Thomas, the son of the great King, knew 'the corp' meant the dead body.
He began to cry. 'Where is my father?' he said. 'Where is my father?'
Once the fieldsman was travelling home, at the time when the passage wasn't as easy as it is today. In those days travellers used to come by the Isle of Skye, crossing the sea of Dunvegan to Lochmaddy. The fieldsman had been away working at the harvest on the mainland. He was walking through Skye on his way home, and at nightfall he came to a house, and thought he would stay there till morning, as he had a long way to go. He went in, and I'm sure he was made welcome by the man of the house, who asked him if he had any tales or stories. The fieldsman replied that he had never known any.
And Kylie Golden-tresses, being the littlest, ran the fastest, and when she came out at the door of the cottage on the Isle of Skye the enchanted and bewitched Bromford Curly-locks flung a bundle of clothes down at her feet.
And the fieldsman came out next, and the enchanted and bewitched Bromford Curley-locks flung a bag of silver down at his feet.
But the wicked stepmother, henswife and dame, being somewhat stout, came out last, and the enchanted and bewitched Bromford Curley-locks threw a millstone right down on her head and killed her.
Then he spread his wings and flew away, and has never been seen again; but he made his father and his sister rich for life, and he had rid them of the cruel stepmother, so that they lived in peace and plenty for the remainder of their days. «
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