THE FISHERMAN AND THE SEA TROLL

There was a fisherman lived over to the north, up at a lone fishercot near Eathie. The fishing there was good for there was no competition for the bait. His wife would go over the rocks gathering mussels to bait her husband's lines and he of course out in his boat to cast and catch. These days our boats are bigger and have sails, so they cannot come as close to shore as in the old days and we women must go out to carry our menfolk in to the shore on our backs, for their leather boots would crinkle and crack if they got into the salt of the sea, and must then be worked hard and long with goose oil to save them.

But my story comes from long ago, from before the Black Year of The Grain Famine, when the fishermen rowed themselves out to the grounds. On one day, and a dreich cold day it was, out went this man, and when he thought the place right, out and down went his lines to seek the white fish. His wife had baited three long lines for him, on each were eighty hooks every one attached to a sneed by its horsehair tipping. He let the lines down, then when time seemed right he began to pull the first in.

The fish at that line must have been pawkie plashacks, for they had nibbled off all the bait and not a one of them taken it. He turned to his second line. The fish that took to do with that line were slee saithes, and again they had smattered away but not bitten. He turned to his third line, thinking of the hard labour of himself and his wife to bait two lines for nothing. Surely the third would repay the day's effort? Here came the third line up, and even on that were no fish, for the cleek cabelews had chittled all the clabbydhu pieces. Yet though the line was heavy as if it held fish enough, there were none to the very end of it.

When the last hook of all came up, caught on it was another piece of line. Not made of the kind of strong twine he used himself, but a lumpy old-fashioned kind of line that seemed of mixed wool and hair. He pulled, and there were two lengths of it, then up came a boolder of a rock, clad in seawrack and dabberlacks, green gaw and pepper dulse. The fisherman was black scunnered, and went to throw the stone back so he could get home to what meal his wife was making. When he lifted the rock up to fling it from him, within the sheath of weed he heard a hollow chink. He parted the seaweeds and saw a little brown bearded face looking up at him. He almost dropped the whole parcel, but then he recognised that he had caught up that kind of stoneware jug they call a grey beard although it is brown with pot belly and smiling clay face.

The jug was sealed tight with lead, and the lead was sealed with a signet shaped like a fish, a Jerusalem haddie it seemed to him. He cleaned off the wrack and shook the jug. Empty, though there might be something inside for he thought he heard a sort of a groan, if that were not a sound of creaking boat timbers. He got out his pen knife and worked away at the lead seal. It focht him sair for a while, then it let go. Off popped the stopper, and out from the neck of the jug rolled a spiral of smoke, smoke that thickened as it rose and spread, smoke that turned into solid flesh and before him stood a troll, balanced on one splay foot which took up two thirds of the room of the boat while the other foot dangled aloft, its squat neckless head brushing the low clouds. "Get me out of here and away to the shore, little man, and I will make you a mighty gift," yelled the troll. The man looked up. Up past the highly aromatic bare four toed foot which crowded him against the stern of his boat, to the start of the green knee-breeches, the silken grey sash at the sagging waist below the huge bare potbelly, the gigantic green-grey plaid over the shoulders, the white wispy straggling beard, the mouth with tombstone teeth and red raw gums, the cavernous nostrils and the grey-green eyes that glared at him. "Come on, man, start rowing before a wind comes up and tips us both over."

The man began to row. It was hard, with the weight of the troll tipping the boat forward, but he had not too far to get to land. Down to the shore came his wife, amazed to see what he had brought home. Many a person would have run and hid, but not her. In came the boat to shore, out hopped the troll and stretched himself so his head and four-fingered hands disappeared into the white Banff Bailie clouds. Then he ran along the pebbled sand, each footstep a yard deep. "What in the Good Man's name have you brought to us?" she asked.

The troll thundered back. "Thank you, little fisherman, for freeing me from that prison, and bringing me safe out of the feechie sea. How you can bear to make your living upon it is past my understanding. Now, I promised you a great gift. Here it is. How would you like to die?"

"What?" cried out man and wife together.

"Is this your gratitude, to kill me?" the fisherman asked.

"Indeed. Many and many a man would envy you greatly, to have the choosing of the manner of your death."

"Then he chooses to die at the age of one hundred and eleven years, from a sudden fall from his golden throne where he had reigned a fine kingdom for a happy lifetime," said the quick-witted wife.

"Come, come, let us be serious. You will both die today, here upon this beach, the question is but in what manner you shall be slaughtered. You may have crushing, stabbing, slitting or whatever is your heart's desire - name it."

"But why must we die?"

"Because when your countryman wizard Michael Scott tricked and encased me into that jug, I swore an oath in the first one hundred years I lay in the ocean that whoever freed me I would enrich for ever and ever. But no-one freed me. So in the second hundred years I swore whoever would free me would have three wishes granted, but no-one came to my aid. So in the third hundred years I swore that I would when I was free take revenge upon every human I met, without any exception. You would not have me break an oath, now would you?"

"I feel you should at least consider the idea. It is only fair," said the fisherman.

"Well," said the wife, "if we must die we must die. But tell me about this bottle you claim you were shut up in. It must have been the size of a mountain, how could any bottle-maker create such a marvel?"

"'Twas not large at all. Your husband held the bottle in his hand."

"Don't give us your havers. Tell me how you really arrived in my man's boat. You swam up from the bottom did you not?"

"How can you insult me so? I am not some ignorant sea-trow that dwells among fish and many-armed things. I was a servant at the Great Crystal Palace in Byzantium in my youth, till I travelled north to see the world and fell foul of Michael Scott."

"You expect me to believe that? Pull the other one."

"It is all true. Hold up the jug, little man, let her see it."

"That little thing? Now I know you are lying. Your little toe would not go in there! I will never believe you now."

"Will you not? Then I must needs show you. Hold up the bottle, little man." The fisherman held the bottle high, and the troll began to quiver until he became gaslike and little by little poured himself back into the jug.

"Quick," said the wife. "Put the stopper in!"

He did so. "Now, troll," he shouted, "it is my turn to discuss the manner of your death. Am I right in thinking that if I were to open this jug under water you would die?" A moan within the jug confirmed it. "Or I could be more merciful, and just make sure that I mark where I throw you in, and then warn all other fisherfolk from casting there because there is an evil monster of the deep lurking there eager to catch them?"

"Set me free, I plead," cried the shrill little voice of the troll. "You are more noble than I, and more noble than Michael Scott upon whose head should grow a field of turnips. Set me free and I will do you a turn that will free you from want for ever."

"How can we believe you? Once you are free you will become angry and punish us."

"I depone upon oath. I aver and affirm to avay my plea on pain of compulsitour. If I am found feinzeit or improvin in retentis or mansworn, let me be quarter sealed as retourable to sea breve, succumbed as not suithfast, and suspended or tasched to thole my assize in deepest wairdour without sopite. I promise. Please."

The fisherman looked at his wife. She nodded. He opened the stopper and dropped the jug. Out poured the troll, and immediately kicked the jug flying into the ocean. The fisherman shrank back, but the troll laughed and stalked away, saying "Take up your handnet and follow me." The three climbed the hill behind the beach, towards the great carved stone called The Stone Of The Fish that was put standing on the skyline by the Oldest People. Just behind it there was a dip holding a large puddle of water. "Put in your net and take up what you need. Dip into it once only each day. It will always serve you."

The fisherman was amazed to see in the muddy water good sized fish of rainbow colours - red and orange, yellow and green, blue and violet, purple and white. He dipped his net and lifted. There were four multicoloured fish there. His wife said, "The young laird at the big house will pay good money for these."

"Remember," said the troll, "dip only once per day. Now I bid you farewell. Think not badly of me, I had lain in that jug these six hundred years and my temper had grown a little sour. I shall behave better in the future." He stamped his foot, and the earth around him split open and swallowed him whole.

The fisherman and his wife took the fish quickly back to their cot and put them into a bowl of water, whereon they began to struggle and wriggle about. They took the bowl over to the grand stone house on the hill where the local laird lived, and the fisherwife knocked at the door. The young laird was known to be a trencherman and epicure, and sure enough he bought the fish for a fancy price and said he'd be happy to pay the same tomorrow.

The laird gave the fish to his cook, saying, "I'll have them for supper tonight. Tonight we'll try them fried, tomorrow steamed." The cook gutted and cleaned the fish and put them to marinade with wild herbs, and in the evening she took the fish and popped them into her biggest frying pan. She fried them in oil till they were done on one side, then turned them over. At this with a crack the kitchen wall split open and a girl dressed in a short roughspun tunic and with summer flowers in her hair came out from the wall. A large ring hung from each ear, silver torcs at each wrist and a golden plaque at her breast. With a long rod like a ceremonial arrow she stirred the liquid in the dish, and the fish raised up their heads to look at her. She said, "Oh fish, oh fish, have you kept your promise?"

The fishes chorused,

A promise made is a promise made

Till the end of time till stone shall fade.

As you stay true so we stay true,

We keep faith as well as you.

Then the young woman tipped up the frying pan and went back into the wall, which closed behind her. The cook fainted. The young laird, wondering why his supper had still not appeared, came in as she was sitting up staring at the fish charred black as charcoal that lay on her kitchen floor. "What kind of accident have you had? Are you all right?"

"Indeed," said she, "I hardly know, sir. I cannot tell you what it was that happened, or how. I have spoiled your fine fish, that I never saw in this country before. I am sorry, sir."

"Never mind. The fisherman said he would bring more such fish tomorrow. We'll try again then. For tonight, have you any of that cold honey-roasted capercailzie left?"

Next day the fisherman and his wife went to the pool behind the great stone, where he dipped his net and caught four more fine fish, and his wife sold them to the laird. The laird said, "I'll have them for lunch rolled in oats and with some new kale on the side." He took them to the cook, and because he was concerned for her health he stayed to watch the preparation. She gutted and cleaned them and put them straightway into the biggest frying pan.

They had not been frying long when the young lady appeared, stirred them and asked, "Oh fish, oh fish, have you kept your promise?"

The fishes answered her,

A promise made is a promise made

Till the end of time till stone shall fade.

As you stay true so we stay true,

We keep faith as well as you.

She upset the fish with her arrow rod and returned into the wall. The cook looked at the laird, and the laird looked at the cook. "Well," said the laird, "it had better be a slice or two of bacon for lunch. Then I shall go and have a word with that fisherwife."

He found fisherwife and husband at their little cottage above the shore. They had been to Shandwick Town with the good silver money he had paid them, to buy good eating meat from Butcher Vass, a new shawl for her from Tailor Vass and glossy black boots for him from Cobbler Vass. "Your fish are hard to cook," said the laird.

"We have spent the money," said both husband and wife together.

"No matter. I should like to buy more of these fish." He told them of what had happened.

They did not tell him about the troll, for he was not of the old stock of the country, but they did agree to take him to where they had caught the fish. They led him up the hill to The Stone Of The Fish. Now, it was often remarked upon in that place, and in learned journals written in later days by men with white powder in their hair, that the name of that standing stone was odd, for no fish at all were to be seen upon it. There was a cross carved upon it, and the cross was filled with intertwined serpents that bit each others' tails. Around the cross were carved faces and angels, horses and beasts that had never been seen in the daylight of the world. No fish.

They went with the laird round behind the stone. Now any time before that they or anyone else in that place at that time had ever looked at that other face of the stone there was nothing to be seen. Perhaps there had been carving upon it at one time, but the wind and rain had beat upon that rock for a thousand years, and it was cut and channelled like a sand beach at the lowest of spring tides.

Until this day. Somehow the light struck upon the rear face of the Stone in exactly the right way, catching and sparking little flecks of light within it, and suggesting shapes within it that took their thoughts even though they had come intent upon the pool of fishes. The flecks of light seemed to brighten as they looked, and shapes to swim beneath that rough surface. At the head of the stone they could see a shape. A crescent moon resting upon its horns, filled with curlicue and graceful knot, stabbed by a broken spear, or was it an arrow?

"Look," said the young laird. "That is the shape of the rod that the young woman carried."

Below the moon crescent shapes within the rock seemed to surface, and were four great fish which raised their silver heads to the moon. Till suddenly a cloud scurried across the sun, and the shapes were all lost. "Oh," said the fisherwife, and raised her hand to touch where the end of the arrow-rod had been. Behind them came a sucking squelching souch, and when they turned the little pool had drained away, and the mud of it was dry and hard. The shape of it was like a giant's footprint, though with only four toes, and at the place of each of the toes lay a fish. One was red and orange, the second yellow and green, the third blue and violet, the last purple and white. But they were not living or gasping or dead fish. They were made of gold and silver and electrum, and their different colours came from the different glimmering precious stones that had been inlaid upon them.

"Here is a thing," said the laird. The fisherwife and her man waited to see what the laird would say next for it was all his land and if he chose to take all they could have no argument, for he could put them out of their cot next quarterday at his whim. So they waited.

The young laird knew there was more again to the tale than he had heard and seen, and that these things had come there not through him but through his companions. He said, "There are four fish, but only three of us here. Who will the fourth one be for?"

The wife answered. "There are four here, for I am with child." So the fisherman had one more reason to be happy that day.

The laird sold three of the fish, for it would have excited much suspicion if fisherfolk had offered such things in the market, and gave all the money to the fisherman and his wife. The young laird kept the fourth fish, and went often to his kitchen in hopes that the young woman would come again there, but she never did. So at last he married a lass from the low country, who sang like a lark in the morning and made him as happy a man as ever was married. But he still kept the purple and white fish hid in a secret drawer within his private chest.