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"LONG ago there were
people in this country called the Pechs; short wee men they were, wi’
red hair, and long arms, and feet sae braid, that when it rained they
could turn them up owre their heads, and then they served for
umbrellas. The Pechs were great builders; they built a’ the auld
castles in the kintry; and do ye ken the way they built them?—I’ll
tell ye. They stood all in a row from the quarry to the place where
they were building, and ilk ane handed forward the stanes to his
neebor, till the hale was biggit. The Pechs were also a great people
for ale, which they brewed frae heather; sae, ye ken, it bood (was
bound) to be an extraornar cheap kind of drink; for heather, I’se
warrant, was as plenty then as it’s now. This art o’ theirs was muckle
sought after by the other folk that lived in the kintry; but they
never would let out the secret, but handed it down frae father to son
among themselves, wi’ strict injunctions frae ane to another never to
let onybody ken about it.
"At last the Pechs had
great wars, and mony o’ them were killed, and indeed they soon came to
be a mere handfu’ o’ people, and were like to perish aft’ the face o’
the earth. Still they held fast by their secret of the heather yill,
determined that their enemies should never wring it frae them. Weel,
it came at last to a great battle between them and the Scots, in which
they clean lost the day, and were killed a’ to tway, a father and a
son. And sae the king o’ the Scots had these men brought before him,
that he might try to frighten them into telling him the secret. He
plainly told them that, if they would not disclose it peaceably, he
must torture them till they should confess, and therefore it would be
better for them to yield in time. ‘Weel,’ says the auld man to the
king, ‘I see it is of no use to resist. But there is ae condition ye
maun agree to before ye learn the secret.’ ‘And what is that?’ said
the king. ‘Will ye promise to fulfil it, if it be na anything against
your ain interests?’ said the man. ‘Yes,’ said the king, ‘I will and
do promise so.’ Then said the Pech ‘You must know that I wish for my
son’s death, though I dinna like to take his life myself.
My son ye maun kill,
Before I will you tell
How we brew the yill
Frae the heather bell!’
The king was dootless
greatly astonished at sic a request; but, as he had promised, he
caused the lad to be immediately put to death. When the auld man saw
his son was dead, he started up wi’ a great stend,’ and cried, ‘Now,
do wi’ me as you like. My son ye might have forced, for he was but a
weak youth; but me you never can force.
And though you may me
kill,
I will not you tell
How we brew the yill
Frae the heather bell!’
"The king was now mair
astonished than before, but it was at his being sae far outwitted by a
mere wild man. Hooever, he saw it was needless to kill the Pech, and
that his greatest punishment might now be his being allowed to live.
So he was taken away as a prisoner, and he lived for mony a year after
that, till he became a very, very auld man, baith bedrid and blind.
Maist folk had forgotten there was sic a man in life; but ae night,
some young men being in the house where he was, and making great
boasts about their feats o’ strength, he leaned owre the bed and said
he would like to feel ane o’ their wrists, that he might compare it wi’
the arms of men wha had lived in former times. And they, for sport,
held out a thick gaud o’ em’ to him to feel. He just snappit it in
tway wi’ his fingers as ye wad do a pipe stapple. ‘It’s a bit gey
gristle,’ he said; ‘but naething to the shackle-banes o’ my days.’
That was the last o’ the Pechs."
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Recorded by Marilyn Wright |
