Folk tale Friday: Fair Maid’s Tresses

By Duncan Williamson in Land of the Seal People (Birlinn, 2010)

Copyright: The Estate of Duncan Williamson

"When I left home at thirteen years of age I spent more time along the Hebrides. Now if you were to spend some time on the West Coast and the Hebrides, Islay and Jura, Tiree and Barra; well, there’s a lot of edible seaweed along the West Coast of Scotland, dulse, and people go crazy for that kind of stuff. Sea lettuce it’s called. There’s two different kinds, the brown and the blue. But there’s another kind of dulse that people wouldn’t eat, it’s known as Fair Maid’s Tresses. Now you know, Fair Maid’s Tresses is edible, but getting anybody to eat it would be a problem. Because it’s only found in one particular area, one place in the world, and that’s around the shores of Barra.

There’s a great legend attached to the Fair Maid’s Tresses a long time ago, and I’m about to tell you what took place. You see, the’re not many cliffs in Barra, well, some parts are kind o’ clifty in Barra, but it’s well away from Castlebay.

Along the coast in Castlebay there lived two sisters with their mother. They were beautiful young ladies, handsome. One was as dark as a raven and the other was as fair as could be, long golden hair, beautiful brown eyes. They were as far apart from each other as sisters could be, but they were full sisters. Their father was a fisherman, their father was lost at sea during a tragedy. They were brought up by their mother.

But the problem was -- both of them were in love with the same young fisherman! And that young fisherman spent a lot of his time at sea. But he was in love with the blond, the fair girl he adored. Every little chance he had he would come and spend the time with her. The old mother really adored the young fisherman. And the dark girl who was a year younger than her sister was madly in love with him. He treated her respectfully, but he didn’t have the same time for her as he had for her sister. And the more attention he paid to her sister the more jealous she got. She was crazy with jealousy! Till one beautiful summer’s morning.

She walks down to the old wise woman in the village who lived alone, and she says to the old wise woman, 'I want you to teach me a song, an enchanting song!’

She says, ‘What do you mean, girl?’

‘I want you to teach me a song that will enchant anyone I sing it to.’

And she persuaded the old wise woman in the village, an old herbalist, to teach her an enchanting song in Gaelic, a Gaelic enchanting song. Whoever heard it would reminisce in their mind and fall asleep. And she taught her over and over again every evening till she had it complete.

And then one day, it was a beautiful sunny morning. She asked her sister would she like to come for a walk. Sister was overjoyed; her young boyfriend was away at sea. She took her sister away along the coast of Barra by Castlebay, not to the beaches but to the rough rocks. And the tide was full out.

She and her sister walked down. They sat down on a rock well out on the tide shore, cliffs behind them. And she took a brush with her, a hair brush:

‘Sister,’ she says, ‘I want to comb your hair!’

She began to brush her sister’s golden locks that came down near her knees when they were brushed. And as she brushed her sister’s golden hair she sang the song from the old wise woman, the Gaelic song, the enchanting song. Soon she saw her sister’s eyes close and her sister fall asleep.

While her sister was asleep she kept on singing and she weaved her sister’s hair into the seaweed, the local seaweed on the rocks, the rough coarse seaweed. She wove her sister’s hair, every single part of her sister’s hair into the rocks on the seaweed while her sister lay asleep on the warm rocks in the sunshine.

Meanwhile the tide was coming in, the tide was coming in gradually. Every single strand of her sister’s hair was woven into the seaweed, and she waited till the tide was lapping around her sister’s feet. Her sister was still asleep enchanted with the songs of Gaelic. And the tide got closer.

She ran up to the rocks above and watched the tide coming in. She watched the tide come up to her sister’s legs, she watched the tide come up to her sister’s waist as she sat on the rocks above. She watched the tide come up to her sister’s breasts, up to her sister’s neck and just as the tide was coming up to her sister’s head she saw a strange thing; she saw a big grey seal swimming as fast as it could. As the water lapped over her sister’s head the seal dived down beside her sister!

She ran to the cliffs above and watched . . . for a little moment there was silence. And then she saw two seals come up from where her sister would have been. They looked at her on the rocks and swam away out into the bay. She was so angry and so upset she tried to call out, but no sound came from her voice. And she threw herself over the cliff into the sea!

But the wind caught her cape and spread her cape out and she floated . . . as she floated she became a cormorant, a black ugly bird of the sea and landed in the water still crying to her sister, 'I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’

But the two seals were gone.

So came the legend of the cormorant. And today that’s why if you see a seal it always snaps at the cormorant. Some people say it’s because cormorants steal a lot of fish and the seals don’t like them. But seals and cormorants don’t get on together. If a seal comes swimming along and there’s a cormorant in his way, he’ll make a snap at it to get it out of its way. But it’s not because cormorants steal a lot of fish; it’s because the cormorant tried to steal the young seal man’s wife a long time ago.

That’s the legend of the story. And today, if you walk the beaches in Barra you will see beautiful seaweed, edible seaweed, that’s known as fair maid’s tresses. But no one in Barra will eat it, because of the story that’s told."

By Duncan Williamson in Land of the Seal People (Birlinn, 2010)

Published on this blog with kind permission from Linda Williamson

Copyright: The Estate of Duncan Williamson