The Green Woman of Kittlerumpit

by Stephen J. McKenzie

part 2 of 3

I’m sure you think you know the rest of the tale by now, and it is probably something along the following lines. The Goodwife, by God’s favour alone, happens to take a walk in that exact part of the wood where the fairy dwells, and has the incredible good fortune to overhear the green lady singing about her coming triumph as she sits spinning outside her little fairy cottage. The song includes the following revelation:

“Little knows our foolish dame
That Whuppity Stourie is my name.”

Now of course, the Goodwife is armed with the knowledge she needs to defeat the fairy, and therefore all ends well, which is to say that the Goodwife keeps her baby and must raise it all alone, so in truth it does not really end well at all. But never mind all that, because of course nothing of the sort ever really occurred.

To begin with, the right name of a fairy creature is a powerful thing, and in consequence, we are not in the habit of standing at the roadside, shouting out our most precious of secrets for any addle-brained farmwife to overhear. More, the dwelling place of a fairy is a most difficult thing to find, and it is not to be believed that the Goodwife could so easily have stumbled across the abode of even the lowest member of our troop, let alone the Fairy Queen of Galloway; for it was she who had been present in the sty.

And perhaps the most important point of all is that God had nothing to do with what transpired, and the Goodwife of Kittlerumpit was never in His favour, not before she met my Lady, and certainly not afterwards. So, once that you have gotten that simple and incorrect version of events out of your mind, I shall proceed to tell you what really occurred.

At that time, somewhat nearby to Kittlerumpit, in the Dale of Nith, dwelt a tailor and his wife. Their cottage was the oldest in the Dale, and the grounds on which it stood had formerly been part of a churchyard at Dalgarnock, near Dalswinton and all the piggery nonsense of the English.

The place was thought holy to St. Enoch, but in truth it was the presence of a well dug there by Ninian that held the charm, and it had never known bad doings at any time since he first drew water there, a thing which had not gone unnoticed by the local folk. Consequently the tailor and his wife expected nothing but fair and honest dealings should a fairy ever find its way inside. This insolence angered my Lady, the Fairy Queen, moreso than you could possibly imagine. Everything that transpired here did so according to her own design.

While they may have been protected against the Good People, life gave the tailor and his wife their fair share of troubles nonetheless, and for many years it was impossible for them to have a child. Then one winter when they had all but given up hope, the tailor’s wife found that she was swelling with a new life, and she bore it at just the same time as the Goodwife’s boy came into the world.

The Goodwife had heard of their situation, and knew of how hard it had been for the pair to conceive their cherished infant. But her heart was hard towards them. “They’ll not be so keen on the little runts now they have one of their own,” scoffed she, who now had three children to care for and disliked them equally. Yet still, a mother’s love is a strange and powerful thing, and despite her low opinion of all infants, she still did not wish to part with her own boy, preferring it that the tailor’s boy be given to the underworld instead.

So, on a particular afternoon, when the allotted year was nearly up, the tailor’s wife sat spinning by the fire with her baby asleep in the cradle nearby, when a sound at the door was heard, somewhat like a knocking, but somewhat also like the rustle of leaves blown on the wind. When she opened the door, she beheld on her doorstep a strange looking woman dressed in green, carrying an empty meal bowl. She had a long nose and strange red eyes, and looked only part human.

“Do you happen to have a half-measure of grain to see me through the next few days,” said the strange woman in green. “You can be certain I’ll return it.”

“Of course,” said the tailor’s wife, knowing at once that her visitor was a fairy, whose dealings within the cottage must be honourable. And so she went to the girnal and filled the woman’s cup with what remained of their supply, giving her exactly the requested amount, no more and no less.

“Thank you, and you will see me again in three days from now,” said the green woman.

Well, the tailor’s wife spared no detail at all in relating the affair when her man came home in the evening. “It is magic grain she’ll be returning to us, I’ve no doubt on it!” she said. “A single bowl will last us thirteen weeks, and bring good luck to all who eat from it!” For the pair of them believed all those old tales about the good fortune that followed if a fairy borrowed grain from a mortal wife. (I’m not saying that all of those tales are untrue; only that it is madness to assume that my people will behave the same way from one year to the next.)

Naturally when three days had elapsed the tailor’s wife was waiting eagerly when the green lady returned, her spinning abandoned, her bonny baby gurgling alone in the back room. The green lady produced a half-measure of meal, exactly that amount that she had borrowed, and this was much to the delight of the tailor’s wife, who made to kiss her hem, but the lady leapt back hastily to avoid the mortal body touching her own. Then she was gone, thanking the tailor’s wife for her charity, and promising that the little bowl of meal would last throughout all the snows of winter.

The tailor’s wife made cake at once, thinking it strange that the charmed meal appeared to become entirely used, but telling herself that it would replenish in the girnal overnight while they slept. And when her husband came home that evening, they ate well from the grain cake, and did indeed sleep very soundly afterwards.

Now, in the morning, the tailor’s wife was delighted to discover that the grain had indeed been replenished, and there was now a half-measure there exactly as there had been the day before. But this was not her only discovery. Their babe, formerly a fair-haired laddie with a sweet temper, now had a ginger showing to him, and bawled like a fishwife whenever his needs were not met in an instant, and also whenever they were, just for good measure.

Being so well-versed in the ways of the Good People, it was not long before the pair of them suspected that the green woman had taken their boy and replaced it with a changeling, a “yelping little pest,” as they soon called him. Moreover, the grain did not replenish as it should thereafter, contrary to the standard terms of exchange between mortal wife and fairy woman. But how had this taken place, within the walls of that sacred enclosure?

The doctor was called to the cottage, and he could provide no ordinary remedy, offering for a diagnosis the notion that the little intruder was indeed a fairy changeling. He sat with the boy asking it questions the likes of “Will ye have your pipes, lad?” and “Play us a song, and we’ll sing along.”

But the lad was not to be tricked into answering in an adult voice, and merely bawled all the harder, confirming the doctor’s suspicions that he was indeed a most cunning and treacherous imp. It was then that the doctor gave some insight into what was set to transpire.

“Oftentimes the good people take a healthy bairn and leave behind a poor weak creature, who fades to nothing in a week or two. But on some rare occasions, a bawling brat with the colic is the changeling, and I think yours is such a case. Sooner or later, she’ll be back for her brat, once you’ve done the hard work in nursing it through its difficult time. Your own boy will be returned to you on the same night.”

But the tailor was not convinced. “We are within St. Enoch’s walls!” cried he. “Such a thing should not be possible. Unless the stones in the walls have lost their power, and I can think of no other explanation.”

“It may be,” said the tailor’s wife, thinking back on the behaviour of the woman in green, “that we have not been dealing with a fairy at all. Perhaps she was a mortal in disguise, and this is a mortal child, given to us in exchange for our own laddie. And seeing the difference between them, who would not make such a trade, if they were able?”

“Aye, that would explain all,” said the tailor, and the doctor agreed that it was certainly possible. “Well, now that we know the truth, we’ll have a surprise for her, if she ever returns here for her own boy.” And together they set about to prepare for the green lady’s return.

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Proceed to part 3...