Unriddling the World E-Book

Hugh Lupton

• Herausgeber: Wilton Square
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 494

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Stories are living things. They are viral. They enter us through our eyes and our ears and they take up residence inside us.  Unriddling the World  is a collection of fifty traditional narratives – stories from the winding track that leads from nursery rhyme to the great tales of creation and redemption, by way of ballads, riddles, folk tales, legends, epics and myths. They've been shaped by countless voices and they've stood the test of time. They are concentrations of human experience and they speak in the enigmatic picture-language of dreams. These  Fifty Wonder Tales  form the heart of Hugh Lupton's repertoire: from 'The Stone Monkey' to the 'Oil of Mercy', from 'The Pottle of Brains' to the 'Pool of Dharma', they are a gift from the past to the future, shaped for retelling by a master storyteller. They're alive . . . and they're waiting to be told again.

Leseprobe

Also available by the author

For Adults

The Dreaming of Place

The Assembly of the Severed Head

The Ballad of John Clare

Norfolk Folk Tales

For Children

Tales of Wisdom and Wonder

Tales of Mystery and Magic

The Songs of Birds

The Story Tree

Riddle Me This!

The Adventures of Achilles (with Daniel Morden)

The Adventures of Odysseus (with Daniel Morden)

Greek Myths: Three Heroic Tales (with Daniel Morden)

Contributor

Light Unlocked

Tales, Tellers and Texts

First Light: A Celebration of Alan Garner

Storytelling for a Greener World

For Tommy & Cora (one day)

With special thanks to E. A. Shale

We have to tell stories to unriddle the world

Alan Garner

If ever there was an art on which the whole community of mankind has ­worked – seasoned with the philosophy of the codger on the wharf and singing with the music of the ­spheres – it is this of the timeless tale. The folk tale is the primer of the ­picture-­language of the soul

Joseph Campbell

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Anansi Gets the Stories

Fennel and Rue and My Green Cap Too

Chulyen and the Whale

The Black Bull of Norroway

The Sword of Wood

The Physicians of Myddfai

Hans in Luck

Balder

Old King Caiman

Hoichi the Earless

The Sweetest Flesh on Earth

Cap o’ Rushes

The Stone Monkey

The Devil’s Violin

The Man Who Hated Stories

Gawain and the Green Knight

Mullah Nasruddin

The Lindworm

The Pottle of Brains

Orpheus

The Coming of the Horses

That’s a Lie

Tobias and the Angel

Jack Ostler and the Hare

The Little Cattle

Glamoury Ointment

The White Swans

The Two Companions

The Sleeping King

Hare and Moon

Erysichthon

Solomon and the Eagles

The Soldier and Death

The Pedlar of Swaffham

Aphrodite and Adonis

The Happy Man’s Shirt

Taliesin

The Oil of Mercy

Jimmy

The Tongue of the Dead

The Curing Fox

Rabbi Adam

Fionn and the Old Man’s Hut

The Troll With No Heart

The ­Cow-­tail Switch

The Pool of Dharma

The Firebird and the Horse of Power

The Snake of Dreams

The Little Rose Tree

Ymir

Notes and Sources

Acknowledgements

Supporters

A Note on the Author

Foreword

This book is a landmark in the modern storytelling revival, representing a large collection of favourite short traditional stories retold by (to use no stronger term in order to spare his blushes) the best publicly known English figure from that revival. It is wonderfully diverse, drawing on societies from North America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa and the breadth of Asia. It also reflects most of the great world ­religions – Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and ­Buddhism – as well as a number of indigenous, animist cultures. As such, it functions as a global compendium of the human imagination, and thereby shows succinctly much of what humanity has in common.

It may be asked at this point why modernity needed a storytelling revival at all, when the material of that revival is available in book form (and increasingly electronic form as well) for any interested person to locate. The act of reading a story is a more private one, to be paced as the reader wishes, and usually requires less effort than attending a story­­telling event. The answer to this apparent conundrum is ­two-­fold, and one part is less obvious than the other. The more apparent is simply that to hear a story told live, by a practised artist of the genre, is an experience as powerful as live theatre, music or dance. The seasoned voice invests words with emotion, character and impact that they lack upon the page. The shared effect of being a member of an audience also has its own power, as performer and listeners interact and inspire each other, intensifying the effect like an electric circuit.

The less obvious reason for the revival consists of the death of the past, a process which has occurred within my own lifetime, and Hugh’s. By this I mean that until the ­mid-­twentieth century the past was still alive, in the sense that older generations had both technical skills and moral precepts that could be imparted directly to the younger. These were usually treated as timeless, and expected to be of practical use for the lifetimes of those who learned them. This traditional world had history, in the recorded, taught and professional sense, but also the amorphous, informal body of information and wisdom to which I have referred. In the middle of the twentieth century, and especially from the 1960s, the pace of technological change began to accelerate to a point at which familiar mechanics rapidly became obsolete, and the economic and material basis of daily life also began to alter dramatically. Simultan­­eously, a much greater movement of peoples began drastically to alter the ethnic composition of societies, and to integrate them with other parts of the world. All this in turn weakened the bonds of much accustomed religion and morality.

The result was that the past rapidly faltered and perished as a living, accepted and unthinking aspect of life. As societies began instinctively to feel themselves cut loose from their roots, a number of new strategies appeared to cope with this sense of dispossession. One was the foundation of historical ­re-­enactment societies, to try to revive the past in a living form. Another was the burgeoning of the concept of ‘heritage’, and the widespread foundation of museums of all kinds to try to conserve it and reintroduce people to it. The storytelling revival was a third, to bring Westerners back to the timeless and ancestral experience of having their worlds enlarged and their imaginations fired by contact with an expert performer who could bring traditional narratives to them with maximum effect.

The narratives in this collection are, however, of a particular kind, despite the remarkable range of global and cultural provenance from which they are drawn. Conspicuously missing are the high, elite forms of heroic epic and chivalric romance, which have long formed part of the classic repertoire of storytellers. Episodes from these longer tales could have been included here, but the stories that Hugh has chosen are, overwhelmingly, the material of ordinary people, and reflect their concerns. These narratives do not celebrate heroic strength, aristocratic rank or ­semi-­divine birth, but courage, compassion, generosity, endurance, comradeship ­and – above ­all – quick wit. To be sure, a few concern pagan deities, but there is no reason to think that commoners in ancient and early medieval communities would not have known those, and used them to explain the images in the shrines, temples and festivals that they attended. Even the people of genteel, royal or even divine birth who appear within these tales tend to be in trouble, or indeed danger, of one sort or another, and needing a solution. Stories of this kind are as much a weapon of the poor and ­downtrodden – a mechanism for resistance and ­survival – as riot, rebellion, curses and satirical verse. That is what makes them truly international and perennial.

In many respects, traditional stories are not memorised and rehearsed and then presented by those that perform them live. They are taken into the tellers, and there ferment until it is time to pour them out to those eager to receive them: much as bards performing oral epics in illiterate or semiliterate societies do not commit them to memory line by line, but learn or devise the plotlines and then declaim them extempore, drawing on conventions of simile and metaphor but also, vitally, on the thrill of the moment and of audience response to perfect the result. It is this ­combination of the enduring and traditional, and the personal and ­spontaneous, that makes true storytelling a great art, and that quality is reflected in this collection by a true storyteller.

Ronald Hutton, 2023

Introduction

Stories are living things. They are viral.

They enter us through our eyes or our ears and they take up residence inside us. Sometimes they haunt us, sometimes they advise us, sometimes they amuse, perplex, gratify, contradict, intrigue, celebrate, terrify, challenge, arouse, confuse us. Some stories are distractions and diversions; others hover on the edge of revelation. Some have a short lifespan and are quickly forgotten; others linger inside us for a lifetime.

As a storyteller they’re my stock in trade.

But I’m choosy.

If I’m going to absorb a story, make it my own, and then pass it on to an audience, it’s got to be worth its salt. That’s why I’ve always told traditional ­narratives – stories from that winding track that leads from nursery rhyme to the great tales of creation and redemption, by way of ballads, riddles, folktales, ­wonder ­tales, legends, epics and myths.

These stories have been shaped by countless voices and they’ve stood the test of time. They’re concentrations and repositories of human experience. They speak in the enigmatic ­picture-­language of dreams. I’ve loved them since I was a boy.

It’s now more than forty years since I started telling stories for a living. Over that period I’ve told many, many tales. New stories are always being taken on. Old ones lie fallow.

But among them there are some that won’t rest. They’ve never gone quiet. They keep returning. They’ve always got something to say.

All storytellers who’ve served their time have a similar accumulation of restless tales, always demanding to be ­re-­examined and retold.

These are the stories at the heart of a repertoire.

In this book I’ve netted fifty of mine.

Each of them is a favourite. They represent my storytelling core.

They’re alive. They’re eager to escape. They shouldn’t be held down on the page. They long to take wing on the tongue and the breath.

The purpose of this book is to enable you, dear reader, to set them free again.

Traditional storytelling is a ‘gift economy’. It is founded on an act of generosity. The teller passes the story on. The story is an old thing, shaped by generations. It is (like language, like ­craft-­skill) one of the past’s gifts to the future.

Over centuries, through trade routes, migrations and invasions, the stories have been adopted and adapted, they’ve been passed from parent to child, from master to apprentice, from initiate to novice; they’ve been gossiped over beside campfires and declaimed in the halls of the mighty; they’ve been in and out of print; they’ve been broadcast; they’ve been downloaded and uploaded. Their very life has depended on the act of sharing.

They are part of our common wealth, our global commons.

And because of all this giving and taking, the same themes and motifs appear in stories from diverse corners of the world.

They are a shared creation, and they defy the boundaries of culture and creed. They belong to us all.

Copyright and ownership are anathema to them, as is any attempt to straitjacket them into one overriding meaning or moral. The commons won’t be enclosed, the stories are too slippery, too sprawling, too anarchic. Rather, we bring our truth to them. As Ted Hughes has written, they are ‘blueprints for imagination’.1

There is only one law among storytellers: make the story your own. It is the one point of honour among thieves.

I want you, dear reader, to snaffle, purloin and steal these tales (maybe ‘spirit away’ is the best term). By doing so you are guaranteeing their continued life. But once you’ve taken them, don’t parrot my words. Let them live inside you. Let them ferment. Let them find their way with you. See their images for yourself (an act that is at the very root of imagination). Find the language that rings true.

The way they speak to you may be quite different from the way they’ve spoken to me.

I’ve written them down as I tell them. I’ve tried to give a sense of the pitch and cadence of the spoken word, the music that lies at the back of an oral tale. I’ve reshaped the structure of many of them over many years of telling. I’ve taken liberties.

This book represents the sense I’ve made of ­them – but don’t take my word for it. I’m just a moment in the life of a story.

They’re yours now (as they always have been).

Hugh Lupton, 2023

1 ‘Myth and Education’, Winter Pollen by Ted Hughes (Faber & Faber: London, 1995), p.151.

Anansi Gets the Stories

One time, high on a mountain, the red earth began to crumble.

Out of a crack came one leg, two legs, four, six, eight legs.

Out of that crack came Anansi.

Anansi could see the whole ­world – deserts, lakes, forests, fields.

From every corner of the world he could hear the people. They were bickering, quarrelling, arguing, fighting.

It was a terrible noise.

Anansi thought to himself: ‘What the people need is stories. If they had stories, they would stop shouting. They would sit and listen to each other. All this fussing and fighting would stop.’

He threw a thread up into the sky.

He climbed up and up.

He came to Nyami’s place.

The sky god was sitting on his throne. He was covered with ­eyes – there were eyes on his face, his neck, his shoulders, his arms and his belly. There were eyes winking and blinking on the palms of his hands.

Anansi said:

‘I’ve come for the stories.’

The sky god said:

‘Nothing comes from nothing. If you want the stories, you must pay the price.’

‘What is the price?’

‘If you want the stories then you must bring me Osebo the leopard, you must bring me Mboro the hornet and you must bring me Mmoatia the tree spirit.’

It was a high price. The other gods laughed.

Anansi didn’t hear them.

He was climbing down his thread. He went to his wife.

‘Aso, Aso, how can I, Anansi the spider, catch Osebo the leopard, whose teeth are sharp and white as new moons?’

She said:

‘What you’ll need is . . . to dig a pit.’

Anansi raised a hand.

‘Enough, I understand.’

He fetched a spade and dug a deep hole in the ground. He found some coconuts and split them in half. He filled the coconuts with honey and water. He left them in the sunlight until the honey began to bubble and ferment.

He put the coconut shells around the edge of the pit.

Osebo came. He smelled the honey.

‘Mmmmmm.’

He drank from one of the coconut shells. It tasted good.

He drank from another. It tasted delicious.

He drank and drank, and the fermented honey worked its magic.

He was staggering this way and that.

He fell into the pit.

‘Let me out! Let me out!’

Anansi had been hiding among the bushes. He peered down.

The leopard was jumping and roaring and scratching at the earth.

‘Anansi, my brother, let me out.’

‘If I let you out, you’ll kill me.’

‘I won’t kill you. Let me out.’

Anansi cut a length of vine. He lowered it down. Osebo dug his claws into it and Anansi pulled. But just as the leopard’s head was appearing over the edge of the pit, Anansi lifted his long, sharp knife.

‘Gao’ was the sound of the stabbing.

He pulled the leopard onto his shoulders. He threw a thread up into the sky and climbed.

The sky god, Nyami, was sitting on his throne. He reached forwards and touched the leopard with the fingers of one hand.

‘What my hand has touched, my hand has touched. What my hand has not touched still remains.’

The other gods laughed. Anansi didn’t hear them.

He climbed down and went to his wife.

‘Aso, Aso, how can I, Anansi the spider, catch Mboro the hornet, whose sting is sharp as fire?’

‘What you’ll need is . . . a calabash.’

‘Enough, I understand.’

Anansi found a calabash. He cut a hole in it and scooped out the seeds and the flesh. He made a stopper to fill the hole. He rolled the calabash to the place where the hornets’ nest was. He found a spring and poured water over his head. He took a banana leaf and covered it with water. He lifted the leaf and shook it over the hornets’ nest.

‘Mboro, the rains have come.’

Drip, drip, drip, the water fell onto the nest.

‘Mboro, the rains have come.’

Mboro, the biggest of all the hornets, flew out of the nest.

‘My brother, look at me, I’m soaked to the skin. Be my guest, fly into my ­calabash – it’ll keep you dry.’

The hornet flew into the calabash and Anansi picked up the stopper.

‘Fom’ was the sound of the blocking of the hole.

He carried the calabash to the sky god. Nyami reached forwards:

‘What my hand has touched, my hand has touched. What my hand has not touched still remains.’

The other gods laughed.

Anansi went to his wife:

‘Aso, Aso, how can I, Anansi the spider, catch Mmoatia, the tree spirit that no man can see?’

‘What you need is . . . honey.’

‘Enough, I understand.’

Anansi made a little wooden man. He made it so that its head moved up and down. He tied a vine to the back of its head. He put it under a tree. He smeared it with sticky black honey from a wild bees’ nest. At the sticky man’s feet he put a bowl filled with sweet, fresh, juicy mangoes.

Anansi hid among the bushes with the other end of the vine in his hands.

Mmoatia the tree spirit stepped out of the tree.

Anansi could only see the grass stirring and the leaves trembling.

He heard the tree spirit’s voice.

‘Little one, are those mangoes for me?’

Anansi pulled the vine. The sticky man’s head nodded up and down.

The tree spirit began to eat.

Each mango lifted into the air and vanished. Soon they were gone.

‘Little one, do you have any more mangoes?’

Anansi didn’t pull the vine.

‘Speak to me or I’ll hit you in your eating place.’

Anansi didn’t pull the vine. Mmoatia drew back her hand.

‘Pa’ was the sound of the slapping.

Mmoatia’s hand was stuck fast to the honey.

‘Let go of me or I’ll hit you again.’

‘Pa.’

Both hands were stuck.

‘Let go of me or I’ll kick you with my foot.’

‘Pa.’

Anansi seized the sticky man with Mmoatia caught tight. He threw his thread up into the sky and climbed.

Nyami reached forwards with one hand.

‘What my hand has touched, my hand has touched. Anansi, you’ve paid the price and the stories are yours now.’

The other gods fell silent.

Under the sky god’s throne there was a ­sack – a spirit sack.

Nyami lifted the sack. He gave it to Anansi.

It was full of living things, things that could not be killed.

It was hard to hold.

Anansi took it and tucked it under four of his arms. With the other four he climbed back down his thread.

‘Aso! Aso! Come and look.’

He was climbing down the thread.

‘Aso, the stories are mine!’

He was climbing down and down.

He was trembling with excitement.

The sack slipped. It fell out of his arms.

It fell down to the world.

‘Ptackk’ was the sound of the splitting.

The sack burst open. The stories were flying everywhere.

Anansi and Aso were snatching them out of the air. Those stories were Anansi ­stories – and there are plenty of them.

But the rest were blown by the winds of the ­world – to the north, south, east and west.

That was how the stories came into this world.

That was how the stories came.

I just caught one and I told it to you.

If it be bitter, or if it be sweet, carry some away and bring some back.

Fennel and Rue and My Green Cap Too

One time, Jack was working as a ­journeyman-­carpenter, travelling from place to place and taking whatever work he could find.

He came to a seaside town. He took up lodgings and set a sign outside his door: ‘carpentry, joinery, all jobs considered’.

On the first day of business an old seaman came knocking.

‘I’ve got this old barge, Jack, but she’s in sorry fettle.’

He led Jack down to the beach. There was a boat high and dry above the tideline.

‘It’s the prow, ­see – it’s rotten to the core.’

Jack squeezed the wood of the prow and it crumbled in his hand.

‘What you need,’ he said, ‘is a strong, stout piece of wood with a bend to it, as’ll come under and up as a good prow should.’

Jack searched the timber yards of the town for a piece of wood that was the right size and shape for the ­job – but there was nothing.

‘There’s only one thing for it,’ he was thinking to himself, ‘I’ll go into the forest and see if there’s a fallen tree or a broken bough that’ll be fit for my purpose.’

He set off into the woods, following one track then another, searching high and low. But there was nothing.

‘Oh well.’ He turned on his heel and started for home. But soon enough he realised he was lost. One winding track led to another. The leaves brushed against his face. The brambles tore at his breeches. The darkness came.

He wandered this way and that. The forest seemed to have no end. It began to rain.

Then there was the twinkling of a light between the trees.

‘Where there’s light, there’s company.’

He made his way towards it. He came to a clearing. The light was coming from the window of a cottage in the depths of the wood.

Jack knocked at the door. It was opened by a crooked old woman. She smiled.

‘Come in, Jack.’

Jack stepped inside. There was a blazing fire. Sitting before it were two more ancient crones, warming their knees in the firelight. If they’d been hanged for beauty, they would have died innocent. They grinned ­gap-­toothed grins.

‘Come and sit by the fire with us, Jack, and warm yourself up.’

Jack sat down. The first old woman hobbled into the pantry and came back with a plate of bread and cheese and a mug of beer.

‘Get that down you, Jack.’

Jack ate and drank and the three sisters watched him, nodding their heads and sucking their gums. When he’d finished, the second sister looked out of the window. She sucked in her breath.

‘It’s wet and windy out there, ­Jack – you won’t be getting home tonight, will ye?’

The third one said:

‘And we’ve got a little room at the back of the house with a bed all made up ready. Why don’t you stay here with us?’

Well, Jack was warm and comfortable, and outside the rain was hammering at the windowpanes. This was an offer he couldn’t refuse.

The three sisters lit candles and they led Jack up the creaking stairs.

‘There you are, Jack. Sleep tight.’

They showed him his room and closed the door behind him.

Jack looked about himself. The walls were bare. The room was empty except for an iron bedstead and, at the foot of it, a heavy iron chest. There was something uncanny about the place, but Jack was too tired to think twice about it. He blew out his candle and climbed into bed.

No sooner had his cheek touched the pillow than he fell fast asleep.

He was woken by the bedroom door creaking open.

It was ­night-­time. Outside the rain had stopped. Silver moonlight was shining through the one window and flooding the room.

Jack half opened his eyes.

He saw the first old sister. She was hobbling to the foot of his bed.

He saw her lift the lid of the iron chest.

She reached inside and pulled out a little green cap. She put it onto her head. Jack saw her spin three times round against the ­clock – widder­­shins. She sang:

‘By fennel and rue and my green cap too, take me to London!’

She vanished.

Jack was amazed.

The door opened again. In came the second sister. And it was the same story, the chest, the green ­cap – and three times widdershins.

‘By fennel and rue and my green cap too, take me to London!’

Gone!

Jack closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.

The third old crone came, she sang the spell again, and followed her two sisters.

There was no sleeping for Jack now. As soon as she was gone, he climbed out of bed. He made his way to the foot of the bed. He lifted the lid of the iron chest and peered inside. By the light of the moon he could see a fourth green cap lying in the corner. He picked it up.

‘London! I’ve always wanted to go to London. They reckon the streets are paved with gold. And here’s my chance.’

He put the green cap onto his head, he spun three times widdershins and he sang the words:

‘By fennel and rue and my green cap too, take me to London!’

He was flying through the air.

He hadn’t blinked twice when he found himself standing in a shadowy London street. There was a flickering street lamp. He dropped to his knees and looked at the kerbstone. There was grime and mud but no sign of any gold. He looked to left and right. There was an inn. It was called the Traveller’s Repose.

‘First things first, I’ll fortify myself with a jar of ale and then I’ll set off to explore the rigs and the jigs of London town.’

He pulled his cap from his head and stuffed it into a pocket. He pushed open the door of the inn.

The place was full of people. The air was thick with talk and tobacco smoke. Jack began to push his way through the crowd towards the bar.

It was at that moment he remembered he had no money.

‘Oh well,’ he thought, ‘there’ll be somebody who’ll stand me a pint.’

Then, through the hustle and bustle he heard his name being called.

‘Jack, Jack.’

He turned and peered through the smoke.

‘Jack.’

The three ancient sisters were sitting at a table in a corner of the room.

‘Jack, pull up a chair and join us.’

Jack walked across to them.

The table was piled with food. There were bottles of wine and brandy.

‘Sit down, Jack, and help yourself.’

The sisters were cackling and spooning the food onto their plates. The landlord and his wife were running backwards and forwards with jugs of gravy, sauces, dishes of steaming vegetables.

It was more than Jack could resist. He sat down.

‘Tuck in, Jack, there’s plenty.’

He ate and drank. Soon enough his belly was hanging over his belt and his head was swimming with the wine.

He stood up. The third old sister looked up at him.

‘That’s right, Jack, you let it settle, then come back for second helpings.’

He took a couple of paces then turned back to the table.

Two of the sisters had vanished. The third had her cap on her head and was spinning three times clockwise.

‘By fennel and rue and my green cap too, take me back home again!’

Gone.

Jack was thinking:

‘Maybe it’s time I did the same thing myself.’

He reached into his pocket.

At that moment he felt the heavy weight of a hand on his shoulder. He turned.

The landlord was towering over him.

‘Excuse me, my friend, but before you take your leave, there’s a small question of a bill to be paid for the feast that you and your three friends have just consumed on my premises.’

Jack’s heart sank.

‘But I’ve got nothing, not a single penny.’

‘Well then, I think perhaps you and I had better step across the street to the police station.’

Jack’s hands were tied behind his back. He was led by the scruff of the neck to the constabulary. He tried to tell his story, but he was rewarded with a set of iron manacles and a night in the cells.

The next morning he was brought before the judge.

Jack stood in the dock and told his tale from start to finish.

The judge shook his wigged head.

‘Fennel and rue, eh, and my green cap too, eh? Flying through the air. Enough of your nonsense! It’s quite clear to me that you are a liar, a scoundrel and a thief of the first order, and I hereby decree . . .’

He reached for his black cap.

‘. . . that you shall hang by the neck until dead forthwith.’

Poor Jack was led to the scaffold. The gallows tree loomed above him and from it dangled the hempen noose. He began to sob.

‘Oh dear, oh dear.’

The tears trickled down his cheeks.

Standing beside him was the hangman. His head was covered by a black hood with ­eye-­slits so that he could pay proper heed to his craft. As he fitted the noose around Jack’s neck, he whispered:

‘What’s the matter, mate? Tell me what’s the matter. I can’t stand it when they cry.’

‘Oh dear, oh dear, if only I could wear my little green cap one last time before I die.’

‘Well, it’s against all the rules and regulations, but I was born with a tender heart. Where is it?’

‘It’s in my ­right-­hand trouser pocket.’

The hangman reached into Jack’s pocket and pulled out the cap.

‘There you go, mate.’

He put the green cap onto Jack’s head.

No sooner done than Jack spun three times round on the scaffold.

‘By fennel and rue and my green cap too, take me back home again!’

He was flying through the air.

He hadn’t blinked twice when he found himself standing on the doorstep of his lodgings. Beside him was the sign: ‘carpentry, joinery, all jobs considered’.

There was something around his neck. It was the coarse hempen noose.

He turned and saw the full length of the hangman’s rope winding on the path behind him.

At the end of it he saw the whole of the gallows tree, uprooted and lying by the gate.

Jack raised his eyebrows. He couldn’t believe his good fortune.

‘A strong, stout piece of wood with a bend to it, as’ll come under and up as a good prow should.’

It was the very thing for the job!

Chulyen and the Whale

One time Chulyen the raven was eating fish.

The more fish he ate, the hungrier he became.

‘If only there was something that would satisfy this groaning ache of hunger in my belly.’

He looked out to sea. A pod of whales was passing, lifting and rolling in the water, lashing their tails.

‘If I could catch a whale, who knows? Maybe I’d get enough meat to smoothen out these wrinkles of hunger.’

Chulyen opened his ­blue-­black wings and flew over the waves. He circled in the air above the whales, flapping his wings and pondering.

Suddenly one of the whales flung itself up out of the water. It opened its mouth. It swallowed Chulyen and crashed back down into the sea.

Chulyen was falling into pitch darkness.

He was falling and falling.

Then he landed on something soft.

He rubbed his eyes. Slowly he became accustomed to the ­half-­light. He looked about himself. He was in a red, glistening cavern. High above himself he could see arched ribs stretching up into shadow. Somewhere behind the red walls a heart was beating like a great, slow, steady drum.

The only light in the cavern was coming from a softly glowing lamp.

He hopped across and looked closer; it was a pool of oil with a burning wick floating in it. As the wick burned, more oil dripped down from the ceiling. It smelled sweet.

Chulyen was just leaning forwards to dip a claw into the oil and taste it when a girl stepped out of the shadows.

She looked at him and smiled.

‘How did you come here?’

Chulyen told her how he’d been swallowed by the whale.

‘What about you,’ he asked, ‘how did you come here?’

‘Me! I’ve been here as long as the whale has lived. I am the spirit of the whale.’

‘Tell me,’ said Chulyen, ‘how can I get out of this place?’

The girl laughed. Her voice was clear as tumbling water.

‘How should I know that? I’ve never been away. I can only leave this place once. After that there’s no coming back.’

Then she looked at Chulyen with her brown eyes.

‘But why don’t you stay here? I’m lonely sometimes. There’s plenty of fish; I’ll bring you as much as you can eat. But please, there’s one thing you must remember, leave the lamp alone. Don’t touch it.’

Chulyen looked at the lamp.

‘Why not?’

‘Because that flame is the life of the whale. If it’s disturbed, it will be dangerous for the ­whale – and for you.’

Chulyen promised not to touch the lamp. The girl smiled at him, then she turned and disappeared among the shadows.

As soon as she was gone, he licked his lips.

‘A promise given is a promise kept: I won’t touch the lamp.’

He looked up at the ceiling where the oil was gathering on a red ridge of flesh. It dripped down into the pool below where the wick was flickering. He reached out and caught a drop. He licked it with his tongue.

‘Mmmm, ­delicious – sweet whale oil!’

He caught another drop and swallowed it.

Then the girl was back. Her arms were full of fish. She threw them onto the floor. Chulyen took his ­fire-­sticks from under his wing and he made a blaze; there was plenty of driftwood lying about. Soon the fish were cooking in the flames. Chulyen and the girl ate; they talked and they laughed. After a while she got to her feet, she smiled at him and she disappeared.

Chulyen went back to the lamp and he drank some more of the sweet dripping whale oil.

And so the days passed: the fish, the oil, the beautiful ­girl – more fish, more oil. But it wasn’t long before Chulyen was bored. There was nothing to do down there in the whale’s belly. The fish and oil only seemed to make his hunger worse than before. They only reminded him how much more he needed to eat.

One time, when he and the girl had finished eating and she had left him alone, he opened his ­blue-­black wings and flew up to the ceiling of the whale’s belly. He examined the place that the oil was coming from.

The drip, drip, drip of it seemed pitifully slow.

He reached with his claw and tore into the ridge of flesh.

A sudden shudder went through the body of the whale.

Chulyen didn’t notice. The oil was coming faster. It was mixed with the red of the whale’s blood. He flew back down and thrust his head under the flow of delicious, rich, sweet oil. He opened his beak and drank it down. He gulped and gurgled with happiness.

He didn’t notice that the great drum of the heart was beating fast and then slow.

The oil was trickling down the sides of his face; his neck and body were sticky with it. Chulyen had never been so happy.

He didn’t notice that the pool of oil was drying up and the flame on the wick was getting weaker.

He didn’t notice that the heartbeat was slow and faint.

He gulped and gulped and gulped the oil down.

Then the flame went out. Everything was pitch black.

A great convulsion shook the whale’s body, then another. Chulyen was tossed about inside the belly of the whale like a seed in a rattle. The enormous body twisted and rolled. Chulyen was thrown this way and that. He was battered half senseless. For hour after hour he was hurled from side to side.

Then everything went still.

He was lying on his back in pitch darkness. He called to the girl:

‘Hey! Where are you?’

There was no answer. She had gone. She wouldn’t be coming back.

He groped in the darkness for the wick of the lamp, so that he could light it again. He couldn’t find it.

Everything was quiet. Chulyen was thinking: ‘Maybe this is what death is like.’

Then he heard voices. He heard the sound of laughter, the sound of knives and axes cutting and hacking and slicing into the flesh.

He understood what had happened. The body of the whale had been washed ashore by a great storm and now people had found it and they were helping themselves to the meat.

Chulyen was furious. The people were helping themselves to the meat of his whale.

They were taking his meat for their own use. How dare they?

He crouched in the darkness until the hacking stopped and the voices grew faint.

He guessed they were carrying the meat back to their village.

Chulyen began to cut a hole in the side of the whale. With his beak and claws he cut through the flesh and blubber and skin, and he pushed his way out into the sunlight. He blinked a few times. He looked at the place where the people had been cutting the meat.

‘Huh, they’ve taken ­enough – they won’t take any more.’

He tilted his head to one side and then to the other. He had an idea. He reached through the hole he’d just made and threw his ­fire-­sticks into the belly of the whale. Then he opened his ­blue-­black wings and flew up into the sky.

He circled round a few times, watching and waiting.

It wasn’t long before the people returned with their knives and axes to take more of the meat.

Chulyen flapped down and perched on the flank of the whale.

The people saw him.

‘Greetings, Raven. Look at the great gift the sea has brought to our people!’

Chulyen nodded his head up and down.

‘It is a fine gift. I’ve come to help you cut and carry the meat before it spoils.’

Chulyen flapped down to the ground. He showed the people how to peel away the skin and lay it on the ground. He showed them how to pile the chunks of meat onto the skin, so that it could all be dragged to the village in one journey. All morning Chulyen worked with the people and soon there was a mountain of meat stacked on the grey ­whale-­skin.

Then one of the men shouted:

‘Look! Come and look at this!’

The others looked up from their work.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘There are ­fire-­sticks! There are ­fire-­sticks in the belly of the whale!’

Soon the people were pressing and peering through the ribs into the whale’s belly. Chulyen flapped his wings and flew up onto the whale’s head.

‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘this is a bad thing.’

The people looked up at him.

‘What do you mean, a bad thing, Raven?’

Chulyen shuddered.

‘Fire-­sticks in a whale’s ­belly – it’s a very bad thing.’

‘Tell us more.’

The people were all looking at Chulyen; they were worried now.

Chulyen shuddered again.

‘It has been said . . . but no, it would frighten you.’

‘Tell us, Raven, you must tell us the truth.’

‘Are you sure you want to hear?’

‘Yes!’

‘It has been said by the wise that ­fire-­sticks found in the belly of a whale will bring certain death to those who have taken meat from it.’

The people backed away from the whale; anyone holding meat in his hands dropped it onto the shingle.

‘What sort of death? How will we die, Raven?’

Chulyen threw back his head and shrieked; every feather was shaking.

‘I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I’m not going to stay here and find out.’

He opened his ­blue-­black wings. He flapped up into the sky and flew away over the sea.

After a little while, he turned and began to fly back. The people were running away to their village as fast as their trembling legs would carry them. They didn’t once look over their shoulders.

When they were out of sight, Chulyen landed on the whale.

He fetched his ­fire-­sticks from its belly and kindled a fire. Soon he was roasting the meat and eating it. He ate and he ate until the mountain of flesh piled up on the skin was gone. He ate and he ate until the bones of the whale were picked clean. He ate and he ate until his belly was smoothened and swollen.

He ate until he could eat no more.

And when the people of the village plucked up courage to return to the seashore, all that was left of the whale were its clean white bones rattling in the surf at the edge of the sea.

And Chulyen was gone.

The Black Bull of Norroway

Once upon a time there lived a poor old washerwoman and she had three beautiful daughters. When the time came for them to make their way in the world, she baked three bannocks in the oven.

She set the first bannock on a wooden platter, took a knife and cut it in two.

She said to her eldest:

‘Now then, will you take the big half or the little?’

The first daughter snatched up the bigger piece.

‘That’s the one for me.’

The old washerwoman nodded and told her to go outside and look along the road. The first daughter pushed open the door of the cottage and saw a carriage with six white horses kicking up the dust. The carriage stopped, and a footman climbed down and opened the door.

The old woman said:

‘Well, yon’s for you.’

The first daughter stepped inside. The coachman shook the reins. The horses broke into a trot and she rode out of this story.

Then the old washerwoman set the second bannock on the table and cut it.

She said to her second:

‘Well, what’s it to ­be – the big half or the little?’

‘The big half.’

The second daughter picked it up, pushed open the door and there she saw a coach with four brindled horses.

‘Well, yon’s for you.’

She climbed inside the coach and was driven away along the road and out of this story.

Now came the third bannock, cut in half and steaming on the wooden platter.

The old woman turned to her youngest daughter. Let’s say her name was Meg.

‘The big half or the little?’

Well, Meg looked at the bannock, and she looked at the skin drawn tight on her mother’s hungry cheeks, and she said:

‘I’ll take the little half.’

‘And you’ll take my blessing with it.’

The old washerwoman kissed her daughter, took her hand and led her to the door. Meg looked to the left and right and saw nothing.

Then there came the sound of snorting and bellowing and a clattering of hooves. She rubbed her eyes and looked again and now she could see a great black bull lumbering and swaying along the road towards her.

Her mother squeezed her hand.

‘Yon’s for you.’

The bull stopped at the doorway and Meg climbed onto his back. She settled herself in the dip between his soft black shoulders and held his horns in her hands.

The old woman watched the bull as he scraped the ground with his hooves. She watched him lift his head and bellow. She watched him trot away along the road with Meg riding on his back. When they were out of sight, she turned back into the cottage and ate the bigger half of the bannock.

The time passed and the time passed.

Soon Meg was hungry. She broke her piece of bannock into two. She leaned forwards and pressed half of it into the bull’s mouth. The other half she ate herself.

All day they rode together without resting. The sun began to sink in the sky. Meg’s throat was parched with thirst and once again her belly was groaning with hunger.

The black bull lifted his huge head and spoke:

‘Eat out of my right ear and drink out of my left.’

She reached with her right hand and found food in his ear. It was rich and sweet and it crumbled in her mouth. She cupped her left hand and found fresh water in his other ear. She ate and drank.

The sun sank and the sky darkened. The first stars appeared. Still the black bull lumbered onwards. The silver moon began to climb into the sky.

The black bull spoke again:

‘Tonight we will stay with my eldest ­brother – he lives not far from here.’

Meg peered into the darkness and saw there was a castle ahead. Its turrets and towers were looming black and silver in the moonlight. The black bull trotted across a drawbridge, an iron portcullis was lifted. Servants came running from the shadows; they lifted Meg gently from the bull’s back. The bull was led into a barn. The barn door was bolted.

The servants led Meg upstairs and showed her to a room. There were candles blazing. There was a bedstead with sheets of soft linen and woollen blankets. As soon as she was alone she undressed, lay down and closed her eyes. She fell into a deep sleep.

Then she woke. The candles were guttering. She climbed out of the bed and looked through the window. The courtyard was bathed in moonlight. Below her was the barn. She slipped out of the room, down the stairs and crossed the courtyard. She slid the bolt and opened the barn door. There was a heap of straw and she could hear the bull breathing. She crept onto the straw and found a blanket of soft black hide. She climbed under it. She could feel the bull’s warmth. She curled up beside him and closed her eyes.

When she woke she was in the bed again, under linen sheets and blankets.

Daylight was pouring through the glass windows. Fresh clothes had been laid out for her. She washed and dressed. She was led downstairs to a dining room where the lord and lady of the castle were waiting for her. Breakfast was served and they ate together.

When the meal was finished, the lady of the castle drew Meg aside into a fine, shining parlour. From beneath her skirts she took an apple and pressed it into the girl’s hand. She whispered:

‘This is for you. Keep it carefully, and do not cut it open until your heart is breaking.’

Outside in the courtyard the black bull was stamping and bellowing.

She pocketed the apple, ran outside and climbed up onto his back.

All day they rode.

‘Eat out of my right ear, drink out of my left.’

She did.

The sun set and the moon rose. The black bull said:

‘Tonight we will stay with my second ­brother – he lives not far from here.’

Meg saw a second castle and they rode through the gates. Everything happened as before. She was shown to a candlelit room. She slept and then woke. She found her way to the barn and unbolted the door. Again she crept under the blanket of soft black hide and felt the bull’s warmth close by. Again she fell asleep.

When she woke, she was being gently lowered onto the bed, and the sheets and blankets were being tenderly folded over her. She turned her head and saw the shape of a man slipping out of the room and away into the shadows.

In the morning she breakfasted with the lord and lady of the castle. When the food was finished, the lady beckoned to her. She pressed a pear into her hands.

‘Keep it carefully, and don’t cut it open until your heart is breaking.’

Meg pocketed the pear and climbed onto the black bull’s back.

All day they rode. When the night came, they approached a third castle.

‘This is where my youngest brother lives.’

Again she was shown to a bedchamber. Again she slept.

When she woke, the candles were guttering. She remembered the man she’d glimpsed the night before and her curiosity was quickened. She took the stub of a candle and cupped it in her hands. She made her way down the stairs and across the courtyard. She opened the barn door. She could hear the black bull breathing on the straw. He was lying under the blanket of soft black hide. She gently lifted it and held the candle so that she could see him.

She gasped.

There was a man asleep on the straw. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. She leaned forwards again and held the candle over his face. She drank in his beauty with her eyes.

Splash.

One drop of hot wax fell onto his cheek. He woke with a start and looked up at her. His eyes filled with tears.

‘What have you done? One more night, just one more night and I would have been free of this enchantment.’

‘Who are you?’

‘I am a man, but I have been bewitched. I am condemned to the shape of a black bull by day. Only between midnight and dawn can I return to my true form.’

He reached and took her hand. He pressed it to his lips.

‘Only you, only a girl of true heart could have broken the spell, riding four days on my back with no knowledge of who I truly am.’

She blew out the candle. She lay beside him and held him in her arms. She whispered:

‘Is there no other way?’

‘There is one other way, but it is hard.’

‘Tell me.’

‘The enchantment can be broken if I fight and kill the Old One.’

She shuddered. He said:

‘It must be a fight to the death. And you must sit and wait without moving a muscle, neither hand nor foot, neither finger nor toe until I return. If I am killed, then all around you will turn red; if I am victorious, then all will turn blue. If you move, I will never find you.’

She kissed him.

‘I will not move.’

They fell asleep in each other’s arms.

When she woke, the ­black-­hide blanket was gone. The sun had risen and the black bull was snorting above her. She rose up from the straw and tenderly stroked his face. Then she ran into the castle. She dressed and found her way to the feasting hall. She sat with the lord and lady and ate her breakfast. When the food was finished, the lady called Meg aside. She stretched out her hand. On it was a purple plum.

‘Don’t cut it open until your heart is breaking.’

Outside the black bull was standing ready. She climbed onto his back and held his horns. They rode until they came to the edge of a barren valley. From far below they could hear howling, screeching, taunting.

‘Listen, the Old One is waiting for me. Climb down. Sit here on this stone. Remember who I am, remember what I told you.’

Meg climbed down. She wrapped her arms around the black bull’s neck. Then she sat on the stone, motionless, hardly breathing.

The bull began to swell. His eyes blazed. He threw back his head and bellowed. He lowered his horns, kicked up the clods with his hooves and thundered down the slope of the valley.

Meg could see nothing. She could only hear the sounds of ­battle – wrenching, tearing, crunching, snorting, screaming, groaning.

Then there came a long silence. She saw the lichened rocks and crags were growing redder as though the very ground was chafed and sore. She wanted to bury her face in her hands, but she sat still as stone. She didn’t dare even to let a tear trickle down her cheek.

Then came a deafening roar and a long scream.

The world turned from red to blue.

And she saw the man she had glimpsed in the candlelight.

She saw the beautiful ­bull-­man.

He was climbing the slope of the valley. His face was torn. His black hair was dripping blood. His shirt was ragged, soaked in his own gore.

She sat silent, though every cell of her body longed to run to him.

He seemed to see her. He turned his steps in her direction.

Her heart soared like a bird and without thinking she lifted her left foot and crossed it over her right.

He rubbed his eyes. He’d seen her but now she was gone. He searched the side of the valley but there was no sign of her.

Meg watched her lover. She saw him turn away from her. She waved; she shouted.

He saw and heard nothing. He turned and strode out of the valley.

She followed him, stumbling over the rocks and stones, but she couldn’t keep up with him. Then the night came.

In the morning there was nothing but a trail of blood.

She followed it.

It led her over fields and hills. Brambles tore her skirts. It led her through forests. She slept like a wild animal in ditches or under heaps of dead leaves. For three days she followed the blood.

It led her to a mountain of glass.

She put her foot to the glass but there was no purchase. She could see the bloodstains marking the way, but her shoes wouldn’t grip and her bare feet slipped down the slope. Her fingers could find nothing to hold on to.

She sat at the foot of the mountain and wept.

In her pocket she could feel the three fruit.

She whispered:

‘Is my heart breaking?’

And she answered herself:

‘Not yet.’

She followed the lower reaches of the glass mountain for many miles. She came to a village. In it there was a blacksmith’s forge. She saw the blacksmith with his hammer and tongs, working at his anvil. When he put down the hammer and lifted a jug of water to his lips she said:

‘Is there a way over the glass mountain?’

The blacksmith shook his head.

‘There is no track, path or road. No one has crossed it in my lifetime, neither man nor beast.’

She buried her face in her hands. The blacksmith looked her up and down.

‘But I’ll make a bargain with you. If you’ll serve me for seven ­years – pumping the bellows, fetching the charcoal, carrying the iron, holding the horses good and ­steady – then I’ll make you a pair of iron shoes with such spikes on the soles as’ll take you over the glass summit of the mountain.’

And so, for seven years Meg worked in the smithy. She worked until every pore and fold of her skin was black with soot and smoke. She worked until her hands were calloused and her body had grown strong and supple.

When the seven years were over, the smith fashioned the iron shoes and pressed them into her hands.

She carried them to the foot of the glass mountain. She slipped her feet into them and they fitted her perfectly. She stepped onto the side of the mountain and they held her firm. The steep slope was easy to her. She climbed to the shimmering summit and looked beyond.

Below her was a land she had never seen before.

She clambered down the sheer glass cliffs and steep sharp gullies towards it.

There is a country that is seldom visited. It is separated from the rest of the world by a mountain. It is made of glass.

To find it you must travel east of the sun and west of the moon.

It has a king.

Once upon a time that king was put under an enchantment. He was transformed into the shape of a black bull. For many years he roamed the wide world.

And then, one day, he reappeared in his own land. He had been restored to his proper shape, but he was weak and wounded. His shirt was dripping with blood. He was in a fever of exhaustion.

The people took him to his palace, they nursed and tended him. Slowly he gained his strength and his wounds mended.

He sat on his throne once more and ruled his country. But something was absent. There was a gap in his memory. He wasn’t himself any longer.

His advisers decided that maybe he was lacking a wife.

The king said:

‘Yes. Very well. But there is only one woman in the world I will marry. The one who can wash this shirt clean.’

And he held up his bloody shirt.

One by one the noblemen’s daughters and fine women of the country took the shirt and tried to wash away the blood. Not one of them could do it.

Years passed. Many women tried.

There was a washerwoman who had a handsome daughter. She decided to try her luck. She took the shirt. She and her daughter boiled and scrubbed ­it – but it wouldn’t come clean.

The washerwoman said:

‘Take it to the stream and wring out the suds.’

When the daughter came to the stream, there was a woman ­waist-­deep in the water. She was washing soot from her face and arms; she was wringing out her blackened rags. On the riverbank was a pair of iron shoes.

The daughter dipped the shirt into the stream. It was still stained red when she lifted it.

The woman watched her and said:

‘Give it to me, the current’s stronger here in midstream.’

The daughter threw her the shirt. The woman caught it and plunged it down. She lifted it. It was spotless.

The daughter waded into the water. She snatched the shirt from the strange woman’s hands. She ran to her mother.

‘Look!’

The washerwoman was beside herself with delight. They went straight to the palace. They were brought before the king. He looked at the daughter.

‘Who are you?’

‘I am a washerwoman’s daughter.’

The king pressed his fingers to his eyes, as though some flicker of a memory was returning to him.

‘Yes, yes, of course . . . and the shirt is clean.’

He took it in his hands and looked at it.

‘So I have found you at last.’

When Meg had washed away the soot and smoke from her skin and had washed her rags clean, she journeyed across that unfamiliar land.

Wherever she met men or women, the story on their tongues was always the same. There was to be a wedding. After seven years of searching, their king had found the woman who could wash his shirt clean.

Meg came to the palace.

She was thinking: ‘Where there’s a wedding there might be work.’

And she saw him.

She saw her lover, the beautiful ­bull-­man.

She saw that he was a king.

He was walking with his ­bride-­to-­be on his arm.

And in that moment she understood all that had happened.

The weight of all her sorrows and sufferings settled on her.

She sat down on the stump of a tree.

She whispered:

‘Is my heart breaking?’

She answered herself:

‘Yes, it is.’

She reached into her pocket and took out the apple. She cut it open.

Inside was a precious stone, a pearl the size of a hen’s egg.

She made her way to the ­bride-­to-­be. She curtsied. She held out her hand.

When the washerwoman’s daughter saw the stone, she wanted it more than anything in the world. Meg said:

‘This would be yours if you’d delay your wedding feast by one day and let me sit by the king’s bed tonight.’