THE WEE BANNOCK

Once upon a time there was an old man and his old wife who lived in a wee cottage beside a wee burnie.  They had two cows, five hens, and a cock, a cat and two kittens.  Now the old man looked after the cows, the cock looked after the hens, the cat looked after a mouse in the cupboard, and the two kittens looked after the old wife’s spindle as it twirled and tussled about on the hearthstone.  But though the old wife should have looked after the kittens, the more she said, “Sho!  Sho!  Go away, kitty!” the more they looked after the spindle!

So, one day, when she was quite tired out with saying, “Sho!  Sho!” the old wife felt hungry and thought she could take a wee bite of something.  So she up and baked two wee oatmeal bannocks and set them to toast before the fire.  Now just as they were toasting away, smelling so fresh and tasty, in came the old man, and seeing them look so crisp and nice, takes up one of them and snaps a piece out of it.  On this the other bannock thought it high time to be off, so up it jumps and away it trundles as fast as ever it could.  And away ran the old wife after it as fast as she could run, with her spindle in one hand and her distaff in the other.  But the wee bannock trundled faster than she could run, so it was soon out of sight, and the old wife was obliged to go back and tussle with the kittens again.

The wee bannock meanwhile trundled gaily down the hill till it came to a big thatched house, and it ran boldly in at the door and sate itself down by the fireside quite comfortably.  Now there were three tailors in the room working away on a big bench, and being tailors they were, of course, dreadfully afraid, and jumped up to hide behind the goodwife who was carding wool by the fire.

“Hout-tout!” she cried.  “What are ye a-feared of?  ’Tis naught but a wee bit bannock.  Just grip hold o’ it, and I’ll give ye a sup o’ milk to drink with it.”

So up she gets with the carders in her hands, and the tailor had his iron goose, and the apprentices, one with the big scissors and the other with the ironing-board, and they all made for the wee bannock; but it was too clever for them, and dodged about the fireside until the apprentice, thinking to snap it with the big scissors, fell into the hot ashes and got badly burnt.  Then the tailor cast the goose at it, and the other apprentice the ironing-board; but it wouldn’t do.  The wee bannock got out at the doorway, where the goodwife flung the carders at it; but it dodged them and trundled away gaily till it came to a small house by the road-side.  So in it ran bold as bold and sate itself down by the hearth where the wife was winding a clue of yarn for her husband, the weaver, who was click-clacking away at his loom.

“Tibby!” quoth the weaver.  “Whatever’s that?”

“Naught but a wee bannock,” quoth she.

“Well, come and welcome,” says he, “for the porridge was thin the morn; so grip it, woman! grip it!”