THE TUNE OF THE DOG DISH

There is no harder case in the world than that of a blind fiddler who has lost his fiddle, for his livelihood and his identity both are enwrapped in that box of fruitwood and fishvarnish and the entrails of cats. With no fiddle he has no purpose in living, and no way of living. He is no longer a musician, he is a beggar, which in some lands and at some times has been an honourable enough profession, but never I think in Scotland at any time.

A young blind man called Joshu had served his seven years of apprenticeship to another blind fiddler, learning first how to make strings, then how to best and most discreetly acquire the makings of strings, thereafter how to make a bow of sprung wood and the hairs from a horse's tail. Then the mysteries of the four and twenty tunings of the fiddle were imparted, followed by how to sing all the tunes permissible to the fiddle in of course their differing modes. At last he was permitted to unite fiddle and bow, and begin to learn the fingering and touches, graces and flourishes. Thereafter he and his teacher could play duets, and one third of the take was Joshu's, from which he could save and built up enough stock of money to pay for a fiddle of his own to be made, and then he could hand back his teacher's spare fiddle.

During the time Joshu learned his trade he begged through the streets of Phadanrigh to get enough to feed himself and his teacher in payment and fee. Once he had learned his trade he must leave the town of Phadanrigh, for no student should take the bread out of the mouth of his teacher. First Joshu went to Thingvollr, but the street pickings for a musician were thin, and the inns were already well supplied with harpers. So he tried the great seaport of Cromachtree, and there he learned fine strong tunes brought by sailors from Lochlann, though they never sounded so sweet on his three strings as they did on the seven strings of the Lochlann fiddle, and tunes from Eirinn that were as wild and free as the caterans of that country, and tunes from Franconia that were gentle and sweet as the kiss of the sun on a summer's day, and solid dependable tunes from the Walled Lands.

But of all the tunes, those of Fib were best pleasing to Joshu's ear and other senses, for they spoke of ancient times when the blood raced and all the beings of the world contended together, and of old knowledge of the languages of the animals and the birds, and of secrets of the stirrings of the earth and the races who dwelt below in the rock. He decided he must travel to Fib and study there.

A seaport is a good place to be a fiddler. When they come ashore sailors are open-handed to whoever they meet, when they have had some drink taken they are much moved to hear a tune from their native land, however badly played according to the standards of their own place, and when they are near penniless and must take ship once more upon the ocean they dread and depend on, they will fling their last coins ashore to the fiddler that plays to bid them farewell and safe passage. Joshu earned well, but he was a young man and so he also spent well, and did not follow the advice of his teacher to put a portion aside each day until he had gotten the money and ordered the making of a second fiddle. Not that he would for some years be ready to take a student himself, but the life of a blind man is beset with unseen dangers, and all means of lessening danger must be secured.

He gathered up his pence and ordered passage to Covenapit on the coast of Fib. Joshu could have paid a third the price and travelled on the deck hunkered by the bulwark or rolled in his cloak, but he wished to hear the knowledgeable speech of the captain and officers when the ship hove to each night, rather than the maunderings of the crew, so he paid for a noble berth, a berth mean enough by the standards of our day.

Each aspect of the journey was of interest and value to him. Even the disgusting sensations of sickness brought on by the motions of the sea were educational, and might be turned to account in the composition of a new tune some time when he was feeling stronger again. All went well, until the last. Upon approaching the double lined rocky entry to the harbour of Covenapit a crucial rope sheared at just that moment it should never have parted, and the ship was spun crabwise onto the rocks. Little was lost. No lives, no cargo, the sails were recovered and the upper timbers, although of course the shell of the boat must be left to rot upon the rocks rather than smashed for timber, or evil luck would follow the skipper to outmatch by far the grave enough misfortune of losing his ship.

Only a few items of personal property were lost. Among them Joshu's fiddle. Word was sent throughout the community of the wreckers and gaitherers of that coast, but the fiddle was not recovered. Joshu travelled as quick as may be to the court of Inodun in hopes to find a fellow practitioner who would in the fellowship of the bow lend him an instrument, but the harpers were ascendant in that place at that time, and no harper would ever aid a fiddler. Joshu was again become a beggar.

One day as he sat in the marketplace, calling for alms or food, he heard a company pass by, mail shirts a chinking. Mail shirts were the wear of the north, the Fib fashion being for lapped metal sheets over leather. Perhaps these were countrymen, who could give him word and maybe even succour? Joshu rose and hurried as best he could after the soldiers. If he had his fiddle to earn with he would by now have recruited a sighted lad to lead and guide him, but poverty is alone and lonely. He stumbled on, hearing the clash of iron-shod feet as well as the mail links sighing like the sea upon a pebbly shore, but only slowly coming up on the men.

By the time he did win to their rear he was breathless with his hurry, and could only match step at the rear of the column as it entered into a change of the sound around, from street cries to occasional distant commands, from open-air bustle to the echoing silence of a great hall. The men stopped. In a quick muttered conversation with the rearguard Joshu found the soldiers were from far Dallaknap of Dal Riata in the west, no kin at all. Worse, he had followed them into the royal hall where such as he had no business, and if discovered there he was like to be scourged at best. Joshu crept away in hopes to find a safe exit, but managed to end in a dead alley behind pillars.

He sat, and thought, and listened a while. It seemed safe, and he at the point of beginning again to search for a way out, when near him on the other side of the pillars came a bustle of orders and clatter of dishes, followed by a quietness except for the sound of animals eating. The people of Inodun were ungenerous to beggars, and Joshu had eaten little for days. The smell of the food, good seared meat, made him sway and sniff deeply where he sat, and soon despite his wish he was drunk on the smell alone and began to croon gently a tune of the north. At the other side of the pillars one of the eaters stopped. Joshu fell silent as he felt hot breath upon his feet then his face, and a long slim hairy muzzle pushed itself into his hand. Joshu recognised the feel of a northern hunting hound, bred to chase the great deer and kept by kings for their sport.

The dog pushed its head beneath his hand again urgently. What did it want? Joshu had nothing to offer it, except caresses and tickling behind its ears, which it accepted with pleasure, but still sought something more. The comforting nearness of another living thing was cheering, and Joshu quietly began his tune again. The hound immediately licked his face in pleasure. The smell of good food from its breath was overpowering. He moaned.

The dog left him, but he heard a scraping sound, and soon a metal dish was pushed against his leg and Joshu smelt the meat again, and the hound's muzzle under his hand, guiding it to the dish. For a blind man any reach into a food bowl is a victory of hope over fear. The meat proved good and wholesome, and ample. Joshu's belly was so shrunken he was soon satisfied, and paid the dog in more tunes of the north. The hound finished the meal, and noisily licked the dish clean. Then it pushed the dish against Joshu, urging him to lift it up, and he did so. It was heavy.

There was a whistling summons out in the hall, and the dog after a last nuzzle left him. On the other side of the pillars he heard a lad comment to himself that one of the dogs' dishes was gone. Surely none of them could have eaten it, but where else could it be. Joshu tried to shrink back as he could, expecting a hard footfall and a firm hand on his shoulder, but the lad was lazy. Deciding he had miscounted, and commenting that anyway these were the plain gold dishes, not the ones inset with jewels, he gathered up the others and left.

A gold dish! Joshu took it safe under his cloak, and waited till the empty hall became a bustle of soldiers again, as the emissary from the west and his escort prepared to leave. Judging the sounds well, Joshu emerged as they tramped past him and again attached himself at the rearmost and passed out of the hall into the street with them. Joshu knew where the quarter of the gold merchants was, hard by the palace, and went there.

Which of the gold workers would risk taking the stolen property of the king? No-one becomes a gold merchant because they despise money, but they are often cautious and fearful people. He sat by the gold booths, and listened. Soon enough, two of the merchants began to disparage the ancestry and integrity of their fellow traders, their dishonest debasing of the gold they melted and worked, their giving of light measure, their slipshod and outmoded decoration styles. They repeatedly named the worst offender. Joshu knew who to approach.

The gold trader cheated him. Of course, who would expect other? But the fifth of the true value of something of high value is still a goodly sum of money, quite enough to persuade a maker of harps that he should try his hand at a fiddle once more. The old stored wood he used, too thin and resonantly living for a harp body, made a fine singing fiddle, and soon Joshu's playing in the marketplace was bringing in not just base coins but the now and then chink of small silver.

One day an innkeeper came by, and said, "My customers have grown tired of harping and carping, and do not often come in. Let us try fiddling. How much will you take for an evening?"

Business grew ever brisker, and soon taverns were competing to bid for Joshu's favour. By day he played in the market, by night in the inns. Before long a summons came from the palace, that the king wished to hear the fine melodies of the fiddler from the north, who had mastered the revered tunes of Fib, seldom heard other than on the harp. Joshu feared recognition, but could not refuse.

He sat in the king's own hall, selecting which tuning to use for his next tune, when he felt a long slim muzzle push at his bow hand. His blood chilled. The king himself said, "Ah, fiddler, I see the old hound smells the catgut with interest. It comes from the north like you. Play it a tune of its home."

In a fit of trembling, Joshu managed to scramble through an air. At the end the dog threw its head back on its long neck, and howled.

"We shall take that as a mark of approval," said the king. "Fiddler, you have played well. What would you have in payment? Gold coins or plate? Or fine clothing?"

"Sire, I would not wish to get gold from you."

"Then what? Ask!"

"The greatest fear a musician of the street has, sire, is that he will be couzened of his money, that urchins or the fleet-footed with snatch his winnings and run. The wealth of your town is such I cannot find a lad to help and protect me. The old hound is strong enough in voice to affright the town. Might it come sit by me in the market each day when I play?"

The hound was too old to hunt, and was kept and cared for out of sentiment. The king agreed. Joshu composed a new tune, and called it Fine Feeding From The Dog's Dish.