and on her rashin coatie, and the calfy had the table covered, and everything ready for the dinner.
The next day the calfy dressed her in brawer claes than ever, and she went back to the kirk. The young prince was there, and he put a guard at the door to keep her, but she jumped over their heads, and lost one of her beautiful satin slippers. She got hame before the rest, and had on the rashin coatie, and the calfy had all things ready. The young prince put out a proclamation that he would marry whoever the satin slipper would fit All the ladies of the land went to try on the slipper, and with the rest the three sisters, but none would it fit, for they had ugly broad feet. The hen wife took in her daughter, and cut her heels and her toes, and the slipper was forced on her, and the prince must marry her, for he had to keep his promise. As he rode along with her behind him to be married, there was a bird began to sing, and ever it sang:
“Minched fit, and pinched fit,
Beside the king she rides,
But braw fit, and bonny fit,
In the kitchen neuk she hides.”
The prince said, “What is that the bird sings?” but the hen wife said, “Nasty lying thing! never mind what it says”; but the bird sang ever the same words. The prince said, “Oh, there must be some one that the slipper has not been tried on”; but they said, “There is none but a poor dirty thing that sits in the kitchen neuk and wears a rashin coatie.” But the prince was determined to try it on Rashin Coatie, but she ran awa’ to the grey stone, where the red calf dressed her yet brawer than ever, and she went to the prince, and the slipper jumped out of his pocket and on to her foot, and the prince married her, and they lived happy all their days.
[Told by Miss Margaret Craig, of Darliston, Elgin.—Dialect of Morayshire. Printed in “Revue Celtique”, t. iii, with variants by Prof. R. Köhler]
