Part 1

Accordingly the bride led her husband the next day to the flowery knoll, and bade him look through the self-bored stone. Great was his surprise to behold Habetrot dancing and jumping over her rock, singing all the time this ditty to her sisterhood, while they kept time with their spindles -

‘We who live in dreary den,
Are both rank and foul to see;
Hidden from the glorious sun,
That teems the fair earth’s canopie:
Ever must our evenings lone
Be spent on the colludie stone.

‘Cheerless is the evening grey
When Causleen hath died away,
But ever bright and ever fair
Are they who breathe this evening air,
And lean upon the self-bored stone
Unseen by all but me alone.’

‘There is one,’ replied Habetrot, ‘whom I bid to come here at this hour, and he has heard my song through the self-bored stone.’ So saying she rose, opened another door, which was concealed by the roots of an old tree, and invited the pair to come in and see her family.

The laird was astonished at the weird-looking company, as he well might be, and inquired of one after another the cause of their strange lips. In a different tone of voice, and with a different twist of the mouth, each answered that it was occasioned by spinning. At least they tried to say so, but one grunted out ‘Nakasind’, and another ‘Owkasaánd’, while a third murmured ‘0-a-a-send.’ All, however, made the bridegroom understand what was the cause of their ugliness; while Habetrot slyly hinted that if his wife were allowed to spin, her pretty lips would grow out of shape, too, and her pretty face get an ugsome look. So before he left the cave he vowed that his little wife should never touch a spinning-wheel, and he kept his word. She used to wander in the meadows by his side, or ride behind him over the hills, but all the flax grown on his land was sent to old Habetrot to be converted into yarn.