Scottish Sgeulachdan - The Stolen Bairn and the Sìdh

I recently got my hands a book of Scottish folklore collected by Sorche Nic Leodhas that I'd been trying to find for awhile, Thistle and Thyme.  Thistle and Thyme is full of sgeulachdan (skale-ak-tan), a Scottish word for tale, told by master story-tellers.  Sgeulachdan were told at celebrated events like weddings and Christenings and often held a moral or lesson for the listeners and "in the old days, the high point of the entertainment was the sgeulachdan" (Leodhas 9).  My favorite tales from this collection are The Stolen Bairn and the Sìdh, The Bride Who Out Talked the Water Kelpie and The Fisherlad and the Mermaid's Ring. 

The Stolen Bairn and the Sìdh

 One of the first things that struck me about this sgeulachdan was that the Sìdh did not actually "steal" the child.  There are many tales where the faeries steal people away, especially sneaking babes from their crib but in this story the faeries happen upon the bairn alone.  The two faerie women look about them, and seeing no one, "the first woman of the Sìdh spoke and she said, 'What no one comes to be claiming is our own'" (Leodhas 47).  Arguably, the Sìdh rescued the child when it had been separated from it's mother after she had accidentally fallen off a cliff.  I also love how the mother never gives up the search for her child, Leodhas notes that this sgeulachdan was probably told at a Christening because it focuses on the mother's love in her persistence and determination to find her lost bairn (Leodhas 10-11).

The second thing about this tale that stuck with me is how the mother gets her bairn back.  According to the gypsy grandmother that instructs her on how to reclaim her bairn from the Sìdh, "'For all their wisdom, the Sìdh have no art to make anything for themselves,...All that they get they get they must either beg or steal.  They have great vanity and desire to possess a thing which has no equal.  If you can find something that has not it's like in all the world you may be able to buy your bairn back with it.'" (Leodhas 52).  So the mother weaves a cloak of feathers and creates a harp with golden strings using her own hair.  I was captivated by the way the mother created two unique objects by putting a bit of herself into the objects, a cloak made by her own hands and her own hair into the harp.  The feather cloak especially since I have never seen a feather cloak and would love to own one as it would be super unique, no wonder she was able to get into the Sìdhean, the most exclusive Sìdh party.  I had never thought of the fae as being in capable of creating things before this story.  It showed the unique ability that makes us human, our creativity.  We have the ability to create unique one of a kind objects that have no equal with the power on invention and the willingness to put a bit of our selves into our creations, an attribute of humanity that other beings could desire and envy.  And it won the mother her wee bairn back from the Sìdh!