Scotland's Storybook: stories in English (1.1 - Education Scotland

in the black kitchen.”
The prince turned round, took hold of the girl’s foot and plucked the shoe off
her and if you had seen the damaged foot and the blood and fluid that poured
out of the shoe, your stomach would have turned just as the King’s son’s did.
When they reached Cailleach nan Cearc’s house, the prince threw her daughter
off the horse back towards her mother and he gave them until nightfall to
gather all their possessions and depart his kingdom for ever.
And so the prince returned to his father’s house, the palace, and when he
reached the door he asked to be taken down to the black kitchen − a part of the
house he had never previously visited. And when he got there, there she was –
the gentleman’s youngest daughter, immersed in pots and pans and grimy
labour.
‘Will you try this on.’ he said, passing her the golden shoe.
‘I shouldn’t’ she said ‘look how filthy my foot is!’
‘Don’t worry, it’s seen filthier than yours’ he assured her.
And when she slipped the golden shoe on her little soiled bare right foot, it
fitted her so well that you would have thought she had never once taken it off.
‘Will we marry?’ he asked − the King’s son.
‘Why not? I mean definitely!’ she said.
And the wedding was arranged for the next day. And that night, for the first
time in many a long month, the girl slept, not on a hard stone floor but in a large
comfortable bed with three thick mattresses and sheets and blankets of silk on
top.
And she was just drifting off to sleep when she heard an unexpected noise
outside − the light lowing of her friend. She leapt out of bed and ran to the
window.
‘It’s you’ she said, ‘My friend, my little calf. I’m going to marry the King’s son
tomorrow’
‘I know’ the calf said ‘that’s why I’ve come to see you. I’d like to give you my
blessing and say goodbye because you won’t need me anymore. But did it ever
occur to you who I was?’
‘Who you are?’ she said. ‘’You are the dearest kindest little brown calf there
ever was.’
‘Thank you very much’ the calf said ‘That might be true; however I am also
someone else. I’m your mother. And I came back in the form of a calf, when I
saw that you had to marry your father, because that wouldn’t have been right at
all,’ she said, ‘and also when you almost lost your prince through the wiles of
that evil plotter Cailleach nan Cearc, I chose to become a bird and sing a useful
song.
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