Tired waiting, tired waiting,
Blackbird, Blackbird.
KITTERLAND
It was more than eight hundred years ago, in the days of Olaf Goddardson, that Baron Kitter, the Norwegian, lived in Mann. He had his castle on the top of Barrule, and he spent all his time in hunting the bisons and elks that were on the island then, until he had killed them all. Then the people began to be afraid that he would chase their cattle and the purrs of the mountains, and leave them no beasts at all, so they went to the wisest witches of the island, to see what they could do.
One day Baron Kitter had gone over to the Calf to hunt the red deer there, leaving his cook, Eaoch of the Loud Voice, in the castle to cook his dinner. Eaoch set the pot on the fire and then fell asleep over his work. While he was sleeping the witch-wife Ada put a spell on the pot, and the fat boiled over into the fire. Soon the house was in flames. Eaoch woke and shouted for help at the top of his voice, and his cries were so loud that they reached the ears of Kitter and his fellow-huntsmen, ten miles away on the Calf.
When Kitter heard the cries and saw the flames on the top of Barrule, he made for the beach as hard as he could, and put out in a small currach for the island, with most of his friends. When they were in the strong current about half way across the channel, the boat struck on a rock and they were all drowned, and the rock has ever since been called Kitterland. The rest of Kitter’s friends, who had stayed on the Calf and so saved their lives, believed that Eaoch, the cook, had made a plot with the witches of the island to do away with all the Norwegians in Mann, so they brought him before King Olaf to be judged, and he was condemned to death. But according to the custom of Norway, he was allowed to choose how he would die.
Then he said:
‘I wish my head to be laid across one of your Majesty’s legs, and there cut off by your Majesty’s sword Macabuin, which was made by Loan Maclibuin, the Dark Smith of Drontheim!’