The Buggane Of St Trinian's

There was once a woman living near Glen Meay, and she was the wife
of a decent, quiet, striving man of the place. There was no one but
herself and the man, and they had a nice little cottage and owned a
bit of a croft on which they grazed a cow and a few sheep and grew
enough potatoes to do them the winter out; and the man had a yawl and
went to the fishing when things were slack on land. But for all that
they were not comfortable, for work as hard as the man might at his
farming and his fishing, he was kept as poor as Lazarus by a lazy wife.

For the woman was fonder of lying a-bed in the morning than sitting
at her milking stool; indeed the neighbours had it to say that she
wore out more blankets than shoes. Many a day her man would be going
out early as hungry as a hawk, without a bite or a sup in him. One
morning when he came in from work for his breakfast there was no
fire--his wife was never up. Well, my poor man had nothing for it but
to get his own breakfast ready and go back to his work. When he came
in for dinner it happened as it had happened for breakfast.

'Bad luck to her laziness,' he thought; 'this is coul comfort for a
poor man, but I'll play a trick on her for it.'

And with that he fetched a bart of straw and bunged the two windows
of his house. Then he went back to his work.

The sun had not yet set when he came home in the evening. His wife
was lying in bed waiting for day.

'Aw, woman,' he shouted, 'make haste an' get up to see the sun rise
in the wes'.'

Up jumped the wife and ran to the door just as the sun was going down,
and the sight terrified her. The whole sky looked like fire, and she
thought that the end of the world had come. But next morning it all
happened as it had happened before, and himself said to her:

'Kirry, it's the Buggane, sure enough, that'll be having thee one of
these days if thou don't mend thy ways!'

'What Buggane?' said she.

'Ax me no questions,' said he, 'an' I'll tell thee no lies. But it's
the big, black, hairy fellow that lies under the Spooyt Vooar that
I'm meanin'.'

'Aw, houl yer tongue, man; thou don't frecken me wi' thy Bugganes,'
shouted the woman.

In the evening the man left the house to go out to the fishing. As
soon as he had gone the woman took a notion in her head to bake, as
she had only the heel o' the loaf left for breakfast. Now, Themselves
can't stand lazy ways, and baking after sunset is the one thing they
won't abide. She who does so will meet their revenge--something
is sure to be taken by them, but seldom worse than some of the
live stock. Well, the woman set to work to bake some barley bread
and flour cake. First, she went out to get gorse to put under the
griddle, slipping the bolt on the door as she came in, that none
of the neighbours would catch her and cry shame on her for baking
after sunset. She got some meal out of the barrel and put it on the
round table, and put salt and water on it, and then she kneaded the
meal and clapped a cake out as thin as sixpence with her hands. But
she was only a middling poor baker, one of the sort that has to use
a knife to make the cake of a right round. She had turned the cake
twice, and taken it off, and brushed the griddle with a white goose
wing ready for the next cake which she was busy cutting round with
her knife. Just at that moment there was heard the sound of something
heavy lumbering up to the door. After a few seconds SOMETHING fumbled
at the sneg of the door, then SOMETHING knocked high up on the door,
and a voice like the thick, gruff voice of a giant was heard saying,
'Open, open for me.' She made no answer. Again there was a loud knock
and a big hoarse voice was heard which cried: 'Woman of the house,
open for me.' Then the door burst open and behold ye, what should
she see but a great, big ugly beast of a Buggane rushing in mad with
rage. Without as much as a 'By your leave,' he made one grab at her,
and clutched hold of her by her apron and swung her on his shoulder,
and away with him. Before she knew where she was he rushed her across
the fields and down the hill, till he brought her to the top of the
Spooyt Vooar, the big waterfall of Glen Meay. As the Buggane tore
down the hill, the woman felt the ground tremble under his feet, and
the noise of the waterfall filled her ears. And, there in front of
her, she saw the stream turn to white spray as it came leaping down
the rocks. As the Buggane swung her in the air to throw her into the
deep pool, she thought that her last hour had come. Then all at once
she remembered the knife that she held in her hand! Quick as thought
she cut the string of her apron and down she tumbled to the ground,
rolling over and over down the hill. And before he knew where he was
the Buggane, with the speed he had on him, pitched forward head first
down the rushing Spooyt Vooar. As he went head over heels and down to
the bottom of the pool with a souse you'd have heard half a mile away,
she heard him give a roar out of him:


Rumbyl, rumbyl, sambyl,
I thought I had a lazy Dirt,
And I have but the edge of her skirt.


And that was the last that was seen of that fellow!