‘ “I don’t wish to hear pipers’ news and fiddlers’ tales, goodwife,” quoth the green woman. “I know you have lost your goodman—we had worse losses at the Sheriff Muir[38]; and I know that your sow is unco sick. Now what will you give me if I cure her?”
‘ “Anything your ladyship’s madam likes,” quoth the witless goodwife, never guessing whom she had to deal with.
‘ “Let us wet thumbs on that bargain,” quoth the green woman; so thumbs were wetted, I warrant you; and into the sty madam marches.
‘She looks at the sow with a long stare, and then began to mutter to herself what the goodwife couldn’t well understand; but she said it sounded like—
Pitter patter,
Holy Water.
‘Then she took out of her pocket a wee bottle, with something like oil in it; and she rubs the sow with it above the snout, behind the ears, and on the tip of the tail. “Get up, beast,” quoth the green woman. No sooner said than done—up jumps the sow with a grunt, and away to her trough for her breakfast.
‘The goodwife of Kittlerumpit was a joyful goodwife now, and would have kissed the very hem of the green woman’s gowntail; but she wouldn’t let her. “I am not so fond of ceremonies,” quoth she; “but now that I have righted your sick beast, let us end our settled bargain. You will not find me an unreasonable, greedy body—I like ever to do a good turn for a small reward: all I ask, and will have, is that baby boy in your bosom.”
‘The goodwife of Kittlerumpit, who now knew her customer, gave a shrill cry like a stuck swine. The green woman was a fairy, no doubt; so she prays, and cries, and begs, and scolds; but all wouldn’t do. “You may spare your din,” quoth the fairy, “screaming as if I was as deaf as a door-nail; but this I’ll let you know—I cannot, by the law we live under, take your bairn till the third day; and not then, if you can tell me my right name.” So madam goes away round the pig-sty end; and the goodwife falls down in a swoon behind the knocking-stone.
‘Ah well, the goodwife of Kittlerumpit could not sleep any that night for crying, and all the next day the same, cuddling her bairn till she nearly squeezed its breath out; but the second day she thinks of taking a walk in the wood I told you of; and so with the bairn in her arms, she sets out, and goes far in among the trees, where was an old quarry-hole, grown over with grass, and a bonny spring well in the middle of it. Before she came very near, she hears the whirring of a flax wheel, and a voice singing a song; so the woman creeps quietly among the bushes, and peeps over the brow of the quarry; and what does she see but the green fairy tearing away at her wheel, and singing like any precentor:—