Extract from Classic Folk Tales of Scotland

The Goodman of Kittlerumpit was a bit of a vagabond. He went to the fair one day and was never heard of again.

When the Goodman had gone, the Goodwife was left with little to live on. Few belongings she had, and a wee son. Everybody was sorry for her, but nobody helped her. However she had a sow, that was her consolation, for the sow was soon to farrow, and she hoped for a fine litter of piglets.

But one day, when the Wife went to the sty to fill the sow's trough, what did she find but the sow lying on her back, grunting and groaning, and ready to die.

This was a blow to the Goodwife, so she sat down on the flat knocking stone, with her bairn on her knee, and wept more sorely than she did for the loss of her Goodman.

Now, the cottage of Kittlerumpit was built on a brae, with a fir'wood behind it. So, as the Goodwife was wiping her eyes, what did she see but a strange little old woman coming up the brae. She was dressed in green, all but a white apron, a black velvet hood, and a steeple-crowned hat on her head. She had a walking-stick as long as herself in her hand. As the Green Lady drew near, the Goodwife rose and made a curtsey.

'Madam,' said she, 'I'm the most unlucky woman alive.'

'I don't want to hear piper's news and fiddler's tales,' said the Green Lady. ' I know you've lost your Goodman, and your sow is sick. Now, what will you give me if I cure her?'

'Any thing you like,' said the stupid Goodwife, not guessing who she had to deal with.
'Let's wet thumbs on that bargain' said the Green Lady.

So thumbs were wet, and into the sty she marched.

The Green Lady looked at the sow with a frown, and then began to mutter to herself words the Goodwife couldn't understand. They sounded like:

'Pitter patter,
Haly watter'

Then she took out of her pocket a wee bottle with some kind of oil in it, and rubbed the sow with it above the snout, behind the ears and on top of the tail.

'Get up, beast,' said the Green Lady. Up got the sow with a grunt, and away to her trough for her dinner.

The Goodwife of Kitderumpit was overjoyed when she saw that,
'Now that I've cured your sick beast, let us carry out our bargain,' said the Green Lady. 'You'll not find me un-reasonable. I always like to do a turn for small reward. All I ask, and will have, is that wee son in your arms.'

The Goodwife gave a shriek like a stuck pig, for she now knew that the Green Lady was a fairy. So she wept, and she begged, but it was no use.

'You can spare your row,' said the fairy, 'shrieking as if I was as deaf as a door nail; but I can't, by the law we live by, take your bairn till the third day after this; and not then, if you can tell me my name.'

With that the fairy went away down the brae and out of sight.

The Goodwife of Kittlerumpit could not sleep that night for weeping, holding her bairn so tight that she nearly squeezed the breath out of him.

The next day she went for a walk in the wood behind her cottage. Her bairn in her arms, she went far among the trees till she came to an old quarry overgrown with grass, and a bonny spring well in the middle of it. As she drew near, she heard the whirring of a spinning-wheel, and a voice singing a song. So the Wife crept quietly among the bushes, and peeped over the side of the quarry. And what did she see but the Green Lady at her spinning-wheel singing:

'Little kens our goodwife at hame
That WHUPPITY STOORIE is my name!'

'Ah, ah! ' thought the Goodwife, I've got the secret word at last!'

So she went home with a lighter heart than when she came out, and she laughed at the thought of tricking the fairy.

Now, this Goodwife was a merry woman, so she decided to have some sport with the fairy. At the appointed time she put her bairn behind the knocking stone, and sat down on it herself. She pulled her bonnet over her left ear, twisted her mouth on the other side as if she were weeping. She looked the picture of misery. Well, she hadn't long to wait, for up the brae came the fairy, neither lame nor lazy, and long before she reached the knocking stone, she skirled out:

'Goodwife of Kittlerumpit! You well know what I have come for!'

The Goodwife pretended to weep more bitterly than before, wringing her hands and falling on her knees.

'Och, dear mistress' said she, 'spare my only bairn and take my sow!'

'The deil take the sow for my share' said the fairy. 'I didn't come here for swine's flesh. Don't be contrary, Goodwife, but give me your child instantly! '

'Ochon, dear lady,' said the weeping Goodwife, 'leave my bairn and take me! '

'The deil's in the daft woman,'said the fairy, looking like the far end of a fiddle. 'I'm sure she's clean demented. Who in all the earthly world, with half an eye in their head, would he bothered with the likes of you? '

This made the Goodwife of Kittlerumpit bristle, for though she had two bleary eyes, and a long red nose besides, she thought herself as bonny as the best of them. She soon got up off her knees, set her bonnet straight, and with her hands folded before her, made a curtsey to the ground.

'I might have known,' said she, 'that the likes of me isn't fit to tie the shoe-strings of the high and mighty fairy WHUPPITY STOORIE!'

The name made the fairy leap high. Down she came again, dump on her heels, and whirling round, she ran down the hill like an owlet chased by witches.
The Goodwife of Kittlerumpit laughed till she nearly burst. Then she took up her bairn and went into her house, singing to him all the way: