The Wee Free Men

I’ll always be thinking about this place. I’ll have it in my eye. And I will be back. Now , go away! ”
    He turned and ran.
    After his footsteps had died away, Tiffany said: “All right, who’s there?”
    “It’s me, mistress. No’-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock, mistress.” The pictsie appeared from behind the bucket and added: “Rob Anybody said we should come tae keep an eye on ye for a wee while, and tae thank ye for the offerin’.”
    It’s still magic even if you know how it’s done, Tiffany thought.
    “Only watch me in the dairy, then,” she said. “No spying!”
    “Ach, no, mistress,” said Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock nervously. Then he grinned. “Fion’s goin’ off to be the kelda for a clan over near Copperhead Mountain,” he said, “an’ she’s asked me to go along as the gonnagle!”
    “Congratulations!”
    “Aye, and William says I should be fine if I just work on the mousepipes,” said the pictsie. “And…er…”
    “Yes?” said Tiffany.
    “Er…Hamish says there’s a girl in the Long Lake clan who’s looking to become a kelda…er…it’s a fine clan she’s from…er…” The pictsie was going violet with embarrassment.
    “Good,” said Tiffany. “If I was Rob Anybody, I’d invite her over right away.”
    “Ye dinna mind?” asked Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock hopefully.
    “Not at all,” said Tiffany. She did a little bit, she had to admit to herself, but it was a bit she could put away on a shelf in her head somewhere.
    “That’s grand!” said the pictsie. “The lads were a bit worried, ye ken. I’ll run up and tell them.” He lowered his voice. “An’ would ye like me to run after that big heap o’ jobbies that just left and see that he falls off his horse again?”
    “No!” said Tiffany hurriedly. “No. Don’t. No.” She picked up the butter paddles. “You leave him to me,” she added, smiling. “You can leave everything to me.”
    When she was alone again, she finished the butter… patapatapat….
    She paused, put the paddles down, and with the tip of a very clean finger drew a curved line in the surface, with another curved line just touching it, so that together they looked like a wave. She traced a third, flat curve under it, which was the Chalk.
    Land Under Wave.
    She quickly smoothed the butter again and picked up the stamp she’d made yesterday; she’d carved it carefully out of a piece of apple wood that Mr. Block, the carpenter, had given her.
    She stamped it onto the butter and took it off carefully.
    There, glistening on the oily rich yellow surface, was a gibbous moon and, sailing in front of the moon, a witch on a broomstick.
    She smiled again, and it was Granny Aching’s smile. Things would be different one day.
    But you had to start small, like oak trees.
    Then she made cheese…
    …in the dairy, on the farm, and the fields unrolling, and becoming the downlands sleeping under the hot midsummer sun, where the flocks of sheep, moving slowly, drift over the short turf like clouds on a green sky, and here and there sheepdogs speed over the grass like shooting stars. Forever and ever, wold without end.

AUTHOR’S NOTE
    The picture that Tiffany “enters” in this book really exists. It’s called The Fairy-Feller’s Master-Stroke , by Richard Dadd, and is in the Tate Gallery in London. It is only about twenty-one by fifteen inches. It took the artist nine years to complete, in the middle of the nineteenth century. I cannot think of a more famous fairy painting. It is, indeed, very strange. Summer heat leaks out of it.
    What people “know” about Richard Dadd is that he went mad, killed his father, was locked up in a lunatic asylum for the rest of his life, and painted a weird picture. Crudely, that’s all true, but it’s a dreadful summary of the life of a skilled and talented artist who developed a serious mental illness.
    A Nac Mac Feegle does not appear anywhere in the painting, but I suppose it’s always possible that one was removed for making an obscene gesture. It’s the sort of thing they’d do.
    Oh, and the tradition of burying a shepherd with a piece of raw wool in the coffin is true, too. Even gods understand that a shepherd can’t neglect the sheep. A god who didn’t understand that would not be worth believing in.
    There is no such word as noonlight , but it would be nice if there was.

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