Tatterhood Read online

  Margrete Lamond was born in Norway and came to

  Australia with her family at the age of eight. She grew up

  on a farm outside Sydney, then in her twenties moved

  to Nimbin, to lead the ideal life. Fifteen years and

  two children later, she has written three books of

  non-fiction and many plays and articles for children.

  She now lives in Sydney with her daughter and

  works as an editor for a children’s magazine.

  In her spare time, she likes to read, stare at the

  ceiling, grub in the garden and dance flamenco.

  Margrete’s other books for Allen & Unwin are

  Going for It!: Success Stories of Women in Sport

  and Plague and Pestilence.

  Copyright © text, Margrete Lamond 1999

  © illustrations, Peter Sheehan 1999

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  First published in 1999 by

  Allen & Unwin

  9 Atchison Street

  St Leonards NSW 1590

  Australia

  Phone: (612) 8425 0100

  Fax: (612) 9906 2218

  E-mail: [email protected]

  Web: http://www.allen-unwin.com.au

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Lamond, Margrete.

  Tatterhood and other feisty folk tales.

  ISBN 1 86448 960 X.

  1. Folk literature – Juvenile literature. 2. Tales – Juvenile literature.

  3. Tales – Norway – Juvenile literature.

  I. Asbjørnsen, Peter Christen, 1812–1885. Norske folke-eventyr.

  II. Sheehan, Peter, 1964–. III. Title: Norske folke-eventyr.

  398.20981

  Designed by Sandra Nobes

  Cover illustration by Peter Sheehan

  Set in Fry’s Baskerville by Tou-Can Design

  Printed in Australia by Australian Print Group, Maryborough, Vic.

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Contents

  Neither Naked nor Clad

  Tatterhood

  Bold, But Not Too Bold

  Ma’s Girl and Pa’s Girl

  Splintersmock

  The Goosegirl

  When the Hen Went into the Hill

  Whitebear

  The Squire’s Bride

  Author’s Note

  for my mother

  Sarah A. L. Askham

  and for my father

  Haakon Kierulf

  Neither Naked nor Clad

  Long before now – and longer than that – there was a prince who liked a girl and thought he’d marry her. But no sooner were they friends, and knew this and that about each other, than he thought she wasn’t grand enough for him, and he wanted to be rid of her again.

  Well, she wouldn’t go. And when she still wouldn’t, he said he’d marry her after all, on certain conditions. She must come to him not walking or sliding or driving or riding; not fasting and not full; not naked, not clad; and neither by day nor by night. For he thought she’d never do it, and when she failed he’d be free.

  Well, the girl went off. She found three barleycorns to chew on, and so she wasn’t fasting and wasn’t full. She threw a net around herself, and so she wasn’t naked and wasn’t dressed. She took a ram to sit on and, in the pale of dawn with her feet scuffing the dirt – not driving, not riding, not walking, not sliding – she shuffled forth to meet the prince.

  But when she reached the gates and begged to see him, the girl looked so outrageous that they wouldn’t let her through. When still they wouldn’t, she shuffled round to the prince’s window, reefed the ram’s horn clean off its head, stood up on its back and hammered on the shutters with the horn till the prince woke up.

  Well, the prince came to the window and leaned out. He saw how it was, and guessed the girl had outfoxed him, so he opened the doors, let her in and made a princess of her after all.

  Which is how things were done in those days.

  Tatterhood

  Once, before now, there was a queen who had no children. She was long in the face and red of eye, and barely knew a happy hour. Day after day her complaints echoed through the empty rooms.

  ‘There is nothing so desolate or grim as a childless queen,’ she moaned.

  And indeed there wasn’t.

  Well, times changed. The king and queen fostered a girl and they raised her as their own for a while. The walls no longer seemed so bare; the queen learned how to scold and had her share of worry and care at last.

  One day, this foster-daughter went down to the roadside in front of the house to play with her golden apple. As she was rolling it back and forth, a beggar-woman and her child loitered by. The two children eyed each other, first up and then down. The beggar-child raised her brows and the princess shrugged. Then they smiled, and it wasn’t long before the ragamuffin was on her knees in the dust with the princess, punting the apple to and fro.

  The queen, who was watching by the window, saw the girls playing and rapped on the glass. But when her child went up, the urchin went with her and they came into the queen’s room holding hands – one rough and one smooth – like the fast and firm friends they surely were.

  ‘Princesses don’t play with guttersnipes,’ the queen explained, and to the beggar-child she said, ‘Shoo!’

  ‘Well,’ said the urchin, calm as a block, ‘if the queen knew what my ma could do, she wouldn’t treat me so.’

  The queen wondered what she meant.

  ‘What can a beggar-woman do for a queen,’ she demanded, ‘that a queen can’t just as well do for herself?’

  ‘Grant the queen children,’ said the child.

  ‘Pish!’ said the queen.

  But the girl stood firm. ‘It’s true, every word,’ she said. ‘If only the queen were to fetch my ma, she would see for herself.’

  So the queen sent after the beggar-woman, who was found, fetched up and served both sweets and wine.

  Sure enough, the urchin was right.

  ‘I dare say there is something the queen could do,’ the beggar-woman said at last, ‘if the queen wished for a child of her own. She could have two vessels of water brought to her room one evening. She could wash herself in them, and then she could sling that same water under the bed. If the queen were to do that, there’d be two flowers under there when she looked in the morning – one beautiful, the other ugly. The queen could then eat the beautiful flower but, if she didn’t want the fright of her life, the queen would let the other stand.’

  By and by, the queen did as the woman advised. She had the water brought up, washed herself in both tubs and slung their contents under the bed. When she looked in the morning, there were the two flowers, just as promised.

  One was ugly and horrible to see, with ragged black petals and a hairy stem. But the other was so luminous and bright, so light and shimmery and altogether inviting, that the queen swallowed it without another thought.

  Then, because the first had tasted so right, she ate the black flower as well.

  ‘It surely can’t matter,’ she said to herself, ‘one way or the other.’

  It wasn’t long before the queen gave birth to a girl of her very own. But this girl was so ugly and foul, and had such a knowing look in her eye, that the queen couldn’t bear the sight of her.

  ‘If I am your mother,’ cried the queen, ‘may the gods comfort and carry me!’

  Not only was the baby ugly, shaggy and frightful to see but, instead of playing with
golden apples, riding a hobbyhorse and dressing in braid and linen, she clutched a kitchen dipper in her fist, rode about the house on a black billy-goat and wore a hooded cloak that hung in tatters about her head.

  They called her Tatterhood.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Tatterhood to her mother, ‘the one who comes after me will be more pleasant.’

  In a while, the queen had another little girl. This baby was so lovely and sweet, so blithe and shimmery and delightful, that the queen could scarcely bear to be parted from her.

  Neither could Tatterhood. Wherever the younger was, there Tatterhood also wanted to be. No matter how they tried to hide the ugly child away, Tatterhood and her sister couldn’t be separated. The queen had to put up with it, whether she liked it or not.

  One midwinter night, when the girls were both nearly grown, there was a sudden hullabaloo on the gallery outside the queen’s room.

  ‘What’s that rumbling?’ Tatterhood wondered.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ replied the queen.

  But Tatterhood wanted to know, and didn’t stop asking till the queen gave in.

  ‘It’s troll-hags,’ she said at last, ‘playing winter games out there.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Tatterhood, brandishing her dipper, ‘let’s chase them off!’

  Her sister and the queen begged her not to.

  ‘Sit it through,’ they said. ‘The trolls will be gone in the morning.’

  No matter how they begged and wheedled, Tatterhood stood firm.

  ‘I’ll sweep those troll-hags back where they belong,’ she said. But first she told the queen to bar the doors and windows, firm and tight. ‘No matter how curious you are,’ she warned, ‘and no matter how close you put your eye to the crack, you must neither of you see so much as a glimmer.’

  Then, waving her dipper, she plunged outside on the billy-goat to clear away the crones. There followed such a racket, such a clamour and din, that the building rasped and groaned as though the very logs were being torn apart at the joins.

  And – for one reason or another – one of the doors creaked open just a glimmer after all, and the sister thought she would stick her head out to see how Tatterhood was doing. So she did – and before she could blink, a troll-hag swept past, wrenched off her head and stuck on a calf’s head instead.

  Well, Tatterhood was a thorough girl and the ruckus outside soon died down. But when she came back inside and saw her sister, lowing and mooing and shaking her head like a beast in the field, Tatterhood understood what had happened and smashed at the furniture in anger.

  ‘I hope you’re contented now!’ she shouted. ‘Now that my sister has become a calf!’

  And she galloped and plunged on her buck till the rafters rumbled.

  ‘But I suppose,’ she said at last, ‘that I could well free her.’

  So Tatterhood asked for a boat, fitted and shipshape, for herself and her sister to sail away in. When spring came and the ice broke up, the two of them sailed down the fjord to the land where the troll-women lived.

  The troll-castle hung sheer on a cliff.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ Tatterhood told her sister as she hove the boat to, ‘and be still. I’ll be back with your head in a moment.’

  Then Tatterhood and her buck clambered up and up, to the top where the troll-house was.

  As she approached, Tatterhood saw one of the windows was open. On the sill, set like an apple to dry in the sun, was her sister’s head. She clattered onto the porch, snatched the head and galloped off with it, as fast as the buck could carry her.

  But the troll-crones had smelled her coming. They were after her in a flash, swarming out of the castle and teeming thick about her, foul and clawing, while Tatterhood laid about with her dipper. She struck and smacked and swiped – and the buck shoved and gored – till in the end the troll-flock gave up and let them go.

  Tatterhood climbed down to the ship again, took the calf’s head from her sister’s shoulders and set the right one there instead.

  Then, with her sister a person again beside her, Tatterhood took a different turn down the fjord and sailed off to a kingdom even further away.

  The king in that land was a widower. Although he had a son, he was lonely, as there was no one sensible to talk to, either on his estate or off it. When he saw the strange ship sailing up his fjord, he sent messengers down to investigate.

  But when the king’s men reached the shore there wasn’t a living soul aboard – except, that is, for Tatterhood. She was riding about the deck, backwards and forwards on the goat, bouncing and jigging till her hair stood up on her head.

  The king’s folk were stupefied.

  ‘Are there any more of you?’ they asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Tatterhood. ‘I have a sister.’

  And around she clattered, jiggety-clack, until the deck thundered.

  ‘Is she as rare a sight as you are?’ the king’s people wanted to know.

  ‘Rare, and rarer still,’ said Tatterhood. ‘But she’s not for the likes of you to be looking at, until the king comes and has a look for himself.’

  The servants ran back to tell the king.

  ‘The ship’s captain is a matted troll-hag,’ they said. ‘Half-buck and half-woman. Her sister is shaggier still – so hideous that only a king could bear to clap eyes on her.’

  The king set off at once.

  When he arrived, Tatterhood led her sister out from under the deck. The sister looked so beautiful, so petal-fine and golden, that the king was smitten, right where he stood on the shore. Of course, he wanted her for his queen at once, and proposed to her then and there. But Tatterhood had other ideas.

  ‘You can’t marry my sister, no matter what,’ she said. ‘Unless, that is, you let me marry your son.’

  Now the king’s son was a feeble young man, and sulky besides, so the king agreed. It will do him good, he thought to himself, and everyone else thought so too.

  The prince, however, was horrified.

  ‘She’s an ugly troll!’ he shrieked. ‘You can’t make me!’

  But make him they did. The king – and all the others – plagued and pestered and nagged at him so long and so hard that in the end he gave in.

  And so the wedding was prepared, with boiling, brewing and baking, and when it was done they rode to the church, all four.

  For the prince, it was the gloomiest trip he had made in his life.

  Tatterhood’s sister, driving along with the king, looked so shimmering, gold and delicious that everyone along the road gaped after her for as long as they could see her, and then some more. But Tatterhood rode beside the prince on her buck, as matted and shaggy as ever.

  The prince’s face was as long as a paddle.

  ‘Why don’t you speak?’ said Tatterhood, when they had ridden some way in silence.

  ‘What is there to talk about?’ answered the prince. His face grew longer, his head hung lower and his bottom lip looped over his chin.

  ‘You might me ask why I ride this buck,’ said Tatterhood.

  ‘Why do you ride that ridiculous goat?’ asked the prince.

  ‘Which ridiculous goat?’ said Tatterhood. ‘Isn’t this the noblest mount a bride could wish for?’

  When the prince looked over, he noticed that Tatterhood was astride the most stately stallion he had ever seen. Even so, he rode on as cross as two sticks and hadn’t a word to say.

  After a while, Tatterhood asked him again why he didn’t speak. The prince replied again that he didn’t know what to talk about.

  ‘You could always ask why I carry this dipper.’

  ‘So, why do you cling to that freakish dipper?’

  ‘What freakish dipper?’ asked Tatterhood. ‘This is the finest thing ever carried by bride-to-be.’

  With that, the dipper caught the sun and gleamed so bright that the prince had to squint and look away – but not before he saw it turn into the most glittering sceptre imaginable.

  Then they rode on, with the prince as s
our as two lemons and uttering not a word. Tatterhood asked him again why he didn’t speak, and this time she told him to ask about the hood she wore.

  ‘Well, why do you wear that ghastly grey hood?’ asked the prince.

  ‘Ghastly hood? What I’m wearing is as grand and gleaming a crown as any bride could have!’ Tatterhood said.

  And so it was. The prince admitted – though only to himself – that such radiance had never been seen and, though he rode on as lumpen as before, he couldn’t help thinking that Tatterhood was indeed an astonishing creature.

  Eventually, his bride asked again why he didn’t speak, and this time she invited him to ask about her looks.

  ‘All right then,’ said the prince, ‘why are you so ugly and grotesque?’

  ‘Am I grotesque?’ said Tatterhood. ‘Look again. You think my sister is lovely, but I’m ten times as dazzling as she.’

  This time, when the king’s son looked, he realised he couldn’t hope to find a more glorious maid, either in this kingdom or the next. Although she was tougher than troll-hags – and brazen and bold besides – there was no one so splendid as Tatterhood. Or so rare.

  As it turned out, the prince found his tongue and was soon smitten with his new wife. He drank to the wedding with great gusto and when everyone sailed home to Tatterhood’s parents, they drank to the wedding all over again, without end.

  Which is why – if you hurry and don’t drag your oars – there may be a drop left for you.

  Bold, But Not Too Bold

  Once, not long ago — when brides were few and men were many – there was a young woman so lovely that her name was known in all the valleys around. Suitors came from far and wide to see her, rowing up fjords, striding through forests and even scrambling over glaciers for the chance to marry her.

  Some were rugged and some were young. Several were farmers with hands as rough as fresh-hewn wood. But the man the girl’s father chose for her had polished boots, hair that was black and gleaming, and a moustache that curled over his mouth.

  Not only that, but there was none so rich as he – nor one more suitable – in all the kingdom. At least so the man said, and the girl’s father believed him.