The Wee Bannock


_"Grannie, grannie, come tell us the story of the wee bannock."_

_"Hout, childer, ye've heard it a hundred times afore. I needn't
tell it over again."_

_"Ah! but, grannie, it's such a fine one. You must tell it. Just
once."_

_"Well, well, if ye'll all promise to be good, I'll tell it ye
again."_

There lived an old man and an old woman at the side of a burn. They had
two cows, five hens, and a cock, a cat and two kittens. The old man
looked after the cows, and the old wife span on the distaff. The kittens
oft gripped at the old wife's spindle, as it tussled over the
hearthstone. "Sho, sho," she would say, "go away;" and so it tussled
about.

One day, after breakfast, she thought she would have a bannock. So she
baked two oatmeal bannocks, and set them on to the fire to harden. After
a while, the old man came in, and sat down beside the fire, and takes
one of the bannocks, and snaps it through the middle. When the other one
sees this, it runs off as fast as it could, and the old wife after it,
with the spindle in the one hand, and the distaff in the other. But the
wee bannock ran away and out of sight, and ran till it came to a pretty
large thatched house, and it ran boldly up inside to the fireside; and