The Hawick Fairies
Hawick, Scotland 1800s
“O there’s a bairn born, but there’s naething to pit on ’t.”
We’re travelling up to Scotland for this tale, we haven’t forgotten the North-est of the North of the U.K! There doesn’t seem to be a documented date for when this story took place, but it has been written about by Charles John Tibbitts in 1889, so I think it’s safe enough for me to guess this occurred sometime in the 1800s. As with most folklore tales, this one has a very good moral that we should all remember from time to time.
During the last two or three weeks of the year, a tradition I suppose we keep alive with the advent of the Christmas Markets, Hawick held a market for the slaughtering and selling of local sheep. It seems that these markets attracted all, those from both working and middle classes, bonding over their mutual love for all things sheep. A poor, unnamed man travelled over to Hawick from Jedburgh to attend such a market.
As he approached Hawick, he heard a very sudden, unnerving noise. He couldn’t immediately see anything that could be making such a noise, to him it sounded like females wailing. Within the shouts, he could make out the words, “O there’s a bairn born, but there’s naething to pit on ’t”.
As he approached closer to the noise, looking down on the floor, he saw something that could only be seen to be believed. A circle of fairies were rejoicing around a new born fairy child! Close by, he could see the decomposing bodies of previous fairy children, naked and cold. Putting two and two together, amazing logic skills on display, the poor man realised the fairies were rushing to find something to cover the fairy child in as the other new born fairies had perished from the cold. Realising what he must do, the man shed his plaid shirt and threw it on the ground for them.
The fairies flurried over to the shirt and gathered the baby fairy up in the fabric. The cries of anguish and worry quickly turned into cheers and whoops of joy. Ascertaining that he had solved a problem, he gladly went on his way to attend the markets.
At the markets, the poor man managed to find a bargain for a small sheep and purchased in good faith that this would turn his life around. Days after returning home, the good fortune bestowed upon him from helping the fairies became apparent. His wealth multiplied greatly, and the man was no longer poor. He led a long and healthy life, dying of natural causes at an old age, having the comfort and satisfaction of a life well lived.
The most basic takeaway from this tale is always, always be kind to fairies. This situation may never find you, so instead I think you should take away that being kind to others tends to reward yourself - whether it be ‘good karma’ or just the satisfaction of making someone else’s day a little better, I think we can all benefit from taking the moral of kindness from this tale.
Sources
https://www.worldoftales.com/European_folktales/Scottish_folktale_19.html#gsc.tab=0
Folk-Lore and Legends: Scotland. Charles John Tibbitts, 1889. W. W. Gibbings, London.
