The Brownie of Bladnoch
Darkness spread over the land, the last traces of sunset faded over the Machars. It was All Hallows Eve.
One or two women, shawls drawn about their shoulders against the advancing chill, gathered at the gates and in the doorways of cottages before they should retreat indoors for the night. Children played along the lane.
From far down there came a scream, then a hubbub of cries, and the children came racing and scampering back to the houses, looking behind them with terror as they ran. Way up the lane, dark in the fading light and too far off to see distinctly, a hunched form came stalking towards the houses.
The women in the lane ran to their homes and shut the gates. Calling their men they stood back in the doorways.
The figure drew closer, bare feet slapping on the ground, moaning and humming and uttering fragmentary words beneath his breath: "Aiken Drum.… no fee... till your fields for a dish o' brose."
The young wife who lived in the first cottage gave a loud cry of fear and slammed her door.
The figure that trudged towards them was truly terrible, more like a monster than a man. He wore nothing but a rough kilt of rushes, his shaggy body was smeared with the mire of the deep Galloway bogs. Dreadful hair hung about his face and shoulders, and at the glare of his eyes a good woman passed clean away into her husband's arms. He had no nose, and for a mouth only a hideous gash that might have been torn by the horn of a bull. His clammy arms, ending in knotted claws for hands, trailed almost to his feet in the mud of the lane.
By the time he had reached the middle of the village all the doors were locked and barred save one. Frightened, but standing their ground, a goodwife and her husband watched as the creature came towards them and stopped only a few feet away. Unable to stand it, the man drew a swift circle around himself and made the sign of the cross. His wife was too terrified to move a muscle, then suddenly recovering, rushed into the house and grabbed up the big black family Bible. Clutching this to her bosom she ventured once more as far as the door-step.
"What do you want?" said the man, his voice little more than a whisper. "Tell us, in God's name, from where you come, and what you want here with us."
The monster gave a groan, his dreadful mouth moved.
"I come from a land where there is no sky, no water. No home! Aiken Drum, they call me: Brownie of the Bladnoch. Work! Have you work for Aiken Drum?"
"No! No!" Again the man crossed himself. "We have no work. Leave lie. Leave us in peace. We have no work for you."
"I seek no wages, no bond, no fee. All I ask is a dish of brose and a clear well, to drink and see my face. I can leap the burn when it is in spate, and milk the cattle, and plough the fields. I can churn the butter, and thresh the corn, herd the sheep on the hills and keep them safe from foxes, lull the children to sleep with songs they have never heard." His head lolled backwards, his dreadful eyes, full of anguish, glared at the sky.
"No, no! I tell you we have no work."
But the goodwife thought of their crops still on the fields unthreshed, the autumn ploughing, the decimation of their flocks and poultry by the foxes and wolves. She caught her husband by the arm. "His speech is fair, he seeks no harm. We have plenty of meal. Let us give him a trial for one week."
When the other wives and men saw that their neighbours were unharmed, that they were not attacked and devoured by the terrifying creature, they crept from their doorways and ventured closer. But when they heard that he was to stay among them and work for his living, they raised their voices in horror.
"No, he must not stay. His very looks make us faint with fear. And who will ever come to the village when they know that Aiken Drum is living among us? He is dreadful, a foul ghost. His presence will blast the village."
But the goodwife silenced them with a reminder of the work that was unfinished - for they were not industrious villagers - and what must yet be done if they were to survive the following year.
So Aiken Drum stayed. The goodwife had made a good bargain, for the brownie did the work of ten men. By the gleam of the northern lights, and the light of the moon and stars, the fields were ploughed and furrowed, the corn was threshed and later sown, the sheep were tended and herded into folds on the hills.
(One evening, the tale is told, a farmer had requested Aiken Drum to drive his sheep from the hill and pen them in a fold at the end of the village by an early hour. Before breakfast the following morning he went along to see if the job was well done. So conscientiously had the brownie done his work that along with all the sheep from the hillside he had driven down the hares and rabbits also, and they were running about among the sheep's legs and jumping up the walls of the fold. Not a single sheep was missing. The farmer congratulated Aiken Drum on the excellence of his work. The brownie replied: confound they wee grey devils! They cost me mair bother than all the lave o' them!")
Soon the villagers grew used to his awful appearance, and the children came to love him, for he sang strange gentle songs to them when they were fretful and could not sleep; and at other times he played and showed them fairy games that they loved. Wherever he was, the children were merry and content. In the evenings, when he started work before their bedtimes, they followed him into the fields.
And all he asked was the wooden bowl of brose that the goodwife left for him on the doorstep every night, and a drink from her clear well. No-one ever saw him eat the brose, but in the morning it was gone. He never even asked for a spoon. And so anxious was he to be helpful that a word, or a wish, and he was there, his gash of a mouth Twisted into a smile. Only when the sun was out did he slip away. Also, though the Bible held no fear for him, he could never bear to look upon in communion cup of the district.
For a long time the brownie worked for the villagers and unfailingly did his best. At length the act of a young wife drove him away. She was a newly-married girl, and very aware of the proprieties and decencies. It offended her sense of decorum that Aiken Drum should go around in no more than a ragged kilt of rushes. So one night she left a pair of old, mouldy britches, discarded by her husband, by his clean dish of brose.
She did not know - perhaps no-one in the village knew - that any payment for his labours infallibly drives a brownie away, even a gift so or as a pair of rotten breeks. So Aiken Drum, who needed a place of work and a home, and was so happy among them in his brownie way, had no alternative but to depart. Their bond was broken.
And in the night some were woken from their sleep by his loud cries of distress when he found the breeks by his bowl of brose. Peering from behind their curtains they saw his hairy form shambling flat-footed away down lane through the village. Soon he was gone into the darkness and his moans and sighs faded into silence. He never returned.
Some time afterwards his voice was heard by a shepherd up in Penninghame, a few miles to the north. It came from the heart of the bog in the miles of no-man's-land before the old Penninghame Forest, but in the darkness the shepherd could discern nothing. The brownie was grieving: "Aiken Drum. Oh, Aiken Drum! Fee and leave! Weep now, weep! No home! No home for Aiken Drum!" And as he passed, the shepherd heard the splash of his big feet in the bogs.
But still, they say, when the wind is in the trees, when the Bladnoch Linn is in spate and the water roars through the rocks, if you listen carefully you may make out the voice of Aiken Drum. And children in their beds smile, for they hear him clearly, singing them to sleep as he did so long ago.
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Weather for Newton Stewart
Thursday 17 May 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 6 C to 9 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 6 C to 11 C
Wind Speed: 23 mph
Wind direction: East
