As soon as she entered all eyes were upon her; and the young lord soon recognised her as the lady of the “Basin of Water,” and claimed her hand for the first dance, and did not leave her till the last. When that came, he again asked her where she lived. But all that she would say was:
“Kind sir, if the truth I must tell,
At the sign of the ’Broken Ladle’ I dwell.”
and with that she curtsied, and flew from the ball, off with her golden robe, on with her catskin, and into the scullery without the cook’s knowing.
Next day when the young lord could not find where was the sign of the “Basin of Water,” or of the “Broken Ladle,” he begged his mother to have another grand ball, so that he might meet the beautiful maid once more.
All happened as before. Catskin told the cook how much she would like to go to the ball, the cook called her “a dirty slut,” and broke the skimmer across her head. But she only shook her ears, and went off to the forest, where she first bathed in the crystal spring, and then donned her coat of feathers, and so off to the ball-room.
When she entered every one was surprised at so beautiful a face and form dressed in so rich and rare a dress; but the young lord soon recognised his beautiful sweetheart, and would dance with none but her the whole evening. When the ball came to an end, he pressed her to tell him where she lived, but all she would answer was:
“Kind sir, if the truth I must tell,
At the sign of the ’Broken Skimmer’ I dwell;”
and with that she curtsied, and was off to the forest. But this time the young lord followed her, and watched her change her fine dress of feathers for her catskin dress, and then he knew her for his own scullery-maid.
Next day he went to his mother, the lady of the castle, and told her that he wished to marry the scullery-maid, Catskin. “Never,” said the lady, and rushed from the room. Well, the young lord was so grieved at that, that he took to his bed and was very ill. The doctor tried to cure him, but he would not take any medicine unless from the hands of Catskin. So the doctor went to the lady of the castle, and told her her son would die if she did not consent to his marriage with Catskin. So she had to give way, and summoned Catskin to her. But she put on her coat of beaten gold, and went to the lady, who soon was glad to wed her son to so beautiful a maid.
Well, so they were married, and after a time a dear little son came to them, and grew up a bonny lad; and one day, when he was four years old, a beggar woman came to the door, so Lady Catskin gave some money to the little lord and told him to go and give it to the beggar woman. So he went and gave it, but put it into the hand of the woman’s child, who leant forward and kissed the little lord. Now the wicked old cook—why hadn’t she been sent away?—was looking on, so she said, “Only see how beggars’ brats take to one another.” This insult went to Catskin’s heart, so she went to her husband, the young lord, and told him all about her father, and begged he would go and find out what had become of her parents. So they set out in the lord’s grand coach, and travelled through the forest till they came to Catskin’s father’s house, and put up at an inn near, where Catskin stopped, while her husband went to see if her father would own her.
Now her father had never had any other child, and his wife had died; so he was all alone in the world and sate moping and miserable. When the young lord came in he hardly looked up, till he saw a chair close up to him, and asked him: “Pray, sir, had you not once a young daughter whom you would never see or own?”
The old gentleman said: “It is true; I am a hardened sinner. But I would give all my worldly goods if I could but see her once before I die.” Then the young lord told him what had happened to Catskin, and took him to the inn, and brought his father-in-law to his own castle, where they lived happy ever afterwards.
Stupid’s Cries
There was once a little boy, and his mother sent him to buy a sheep’s head and pluck; afraid he should forget it, the lad kept saying all the way along:
“Sheep’s head and pluck!
Sheep’s head and pluck!”
Trudging along, he came to a stile; but in getting over he fell and hurt himself, and beginning to blubber, forgot what he was sent for. So he stood a little while to consider: at last he thought he recollected it, and began to repeat:
“Liver and lights and gall and all!
Liver and lights and gall and all!”
Away he went again, and came to where a man had a pain in his liver, bawling out:
“Liver and lights and gall and all!
Liver and lights and gall and all!”
Whereon the man laid hold of him and beat him, bidding him say:
“Pray God send no more!
Pray God send no more!”
The youngster strode along, uttering these words, till he reached a field where a hind was sowing wheat:
“Pray God send no more!
Pray God send no more!”
This was all his cry. So the sower began to thrash him, and charged him to repeat:
“Pray God send plenty more!
Pray God send plenty more!”
Off the child scampered with these words in his mouth till he reached a churchyard and met a funeral, but he went on with his:
“Pray God send plenty more!
Pray God send plenty more!”
The chief mourner seized and punished him, and bade him repeat:
“Pray God send the soul to heaven!
Pray God send the soul to heaven!”
Away went the boy, and met a dog and a cat going to be hung, but his cry rang out:
“Pray God send the soul to heaven!
Pray God send the soul to heaven!”
The good folk nearly were furious, seized and struck him, charging him to say:
“A dog and a cat agoing to be hung!
A dog and a cat agoing to be hung!”
This the poor fellow did, till he overtook a man and a woman going to be married. “Oh! oh!” he shouted:
“A dog and a cat agoing to be hung!
A dog and a cat agoing to be hung!”
The man was enraged, as we may well think, gave him many a thump, and ordered him to repeat:
“I wish you much joy!
I wish you much joy!”
This he did, jogging along, till he came to two labourers who had fallen into a ditch. The lad kept bawling out:
“I wish you much joy!
I wish you much joy!”
This vexed one of the folk so sorely that he used all his strength, scrambled out, beat the crier, and told him to say.
“The one is out, I wish the other was!
The one is out, I wish the other was!”
On went young ’un till he found a fellow with only one eye; but he kept up his song:
“The one is out, I wish the other was!
The one is out, I wish the other was!”
This was too much for Master One-eye, who grabbed him and chastised him, bidding him call:
“The one side gives good light, I wish the other did!
The one side gives good light, I wish the other did!”
So he did, to be sure, till he came to a house, one side of which was on fire. The people here thought it was he who had set the place a-blazing, and straightway put him in prison. The end was, the judge put on his black cap, and condemned him to die.
The Lambton Worm
A wild young fellow was the heir of Lambton, the fine estate and hall by the side of the swift-flowing Wear. Not a Mass would he hear in Brugeford Chapel of a Sunday, but a-fishing he would go. And if he did not haul in anything, his curses could be heard by the folk as they went by to Brugeford.
Well, one Sunday morning he was fishing as usual, and not a salmon had risen to him, his basket was bare of roach or dace. And the worse his luck, the worse grew his language, till the passers-by were horrified at his words as they went to listen to the Mass-priest.
At last young Lambton felt a mighty tug at his line. “At last,” quoth he, “a bite worth having!” and he pulled and he pulled, till what should appear above the water but a head like an elf’s, with nine holes on each side of its mouth. But still he pulled till he had got the thing to land, when it turned out to be a Worm of hideous shape. If he had cursed before, his curses were enough to raise the hair on your head.
“What ails thee, my son?” said a voice by his side, “and what hast thou caught, that thou shouldst stain the Lord’s Day with such foul language?”
Looking round, young Lambton saw a strange old man standing by him.
“Why, truly,” he said, “I think I have caught the devil himself. Look you and see if you know him.”
But the stranger shook his head, and said, “It bodes no good to thee or thine to bring such a monster to shore. Yet cast him not back into the Wear; thou has caught him, and thou must keep him,” and with that away he turned, and was seen no more.
The young heir of Lambton took up the gruesome thing, and, taking it off his hook, cast it into a well close by, and ever since that day that well has gone by the name of the Worm Well.
For some time nothing more was seen or heard of the Worm, till one day it had outgrown the size of the well, and came forth full-grown. So it came forth from the well and betook itself to the Wear. And all day long it would lie coiled round a rock in the middle of the stream, while at night it came forth from the river and harried the country side. It sucked the cows’ milk, devoured the lambs, worried the cattle, and frightened all the women and girls of the district, and then it would retire for the rest of the night to the hill, still called the Worm Hill, on the north side of the Wear, about a mile and a half from Lambton Hall.
This terrible visitation brought young Lambton, of Lambton Hall, to his senses. He took upon himself the vows of the Cross, and departed for the Holy Land, in the hope that the scourge he had brought upon his district would disappear. But the grisly Worm took no heed, except that it crossed the river and came right up to Lambton Hall itself where the old lord lived on all alone, his only son having gone to the Holy Land. What to do? The Worm was coming closer and closer to the Hall; women were shrieking, men were gathering weapons, dogs were barking and horses neighing with terror. At last the steward called out to the dairy maids, “Bring all your milk hither,” and when they did so, and had brought all the milk that the nine kye of the byre had yielded, he poured it all into the long stone trough in front of the Hall.
The Worm drew nearer and nearer, till at last it came up to the trough. But when it sniffed the milk, it turned aside to the trough and swallowed all the milk up, and then slowly turned round and crossed the river Wear, and coiled its bulk three times round the Worm Hill for the night.
Henceforth the Worm would cross the river every day, and woe betide the Hall if the trough contained the milk of less than nine kye. The Worm would hiss, and would rave, and lash its tail round the trees of the park, and in its fury it would uproot the stoutest oaks and the loftiest firs. So it went on for seven years. Many tried to destroy the Worm, but all had failed, and many a knight had lost his life in fighting with the monster, which slowly crushed the life out of all that came near it.
At last the Childe of Lambton came home to his father’s Hall, after seven long years spent in meditation and repentance on holy soil. Sad and desolate he found his folk: the lands untilled, the farms deserted, half the trees of the park uprooted, for none would stay to tend the nine kye that the monster needed for his food each day.
The Childe sought his father, and begged his forgiveness for the curse he had brought on the Hall.
“Thy sin is pardoned,” said his father; “but go thou to the Wise Woman of Brugeford, and find if aught can free us from this monster.”
To the Wise Woman went the Childe, and asked her advice.
“’T is thy fault, O Childe, for which we suffer,” she said; “be it thine to release us.”
“I would give my life,” said the Childe.
“Mayhap thou wilt do so,” said she. “But hear me, and mark me well. Thou, and thou alone, canst kill the Worm. But, to this end, go thou to the smithy and have thy armour studded with spear-heads. Then go to the Worm’s Rock in the Wear, and station thyself there. Then, when the Worm comes to the Rock at dawn of day, try thy prowess on him, and God gi’e thee a good deliverance.”
“This I will do,” said Childe Lambton.
“But one thing more,” said the Wise Woman, going back to her cell. “If thou slay the Worm, swear that thou wilt put to death the first thing that meets thee as thou crossest again the threshold of Lambton Hall. Do this, and all will be well with thee and thine. Fulfil not thou vow, and none of the Lambtons, for generations three times three, shall die in his bed. Swear, and fail not.”
The Childe swore as the Wise Woman bid, and went his way to the smithy. There he had his armour studded with spear-heads all over. Then he passed his vigils in Brugeford Chapel, and at dawn of day took his post on the Worm’s Rock in the River Wear.
As dawn broke, the Worm uncoiled its snaky twine from around the hill, and came to its rock in the river. When it perceived the Childe waiting for it, it lashed the waters in its fury and wound its coils round the Childe, and then attempted to crush him to death. But the more it pressed, the deeper dug the spear-heads into its sides. Still it pressed and pressed, till all the water around was crimsoned with its blood. Then the Worm unwound itself, and left the Childe free to use his sword. He raised it, brought it down, and cut the Worm in two. One half fell into the river, and was carried swiftly away. Once more the head and the remainder of the body encircled the Childe, but with less force, and the spear-heads did their work. At last the Worm uncoiled itself, snorted its last foam of blood and fire, and rolled dying into the river, and was never seen more.