Jack won the princess by catching the deer with the golden h...

Original Track ID

SA1976.72.A6; SA1976.72.B1; SA1976.73.A1

Original Tape ID

SA1976.072

Summary

Jack won the princess by catching the deer with the golden horns, after flying across the sea on a magic iron eagle and cleaning out the ogre's stable.

A king got a pet baby deer for his daughter when he was out hunting. The deer and the princess grew up together. The deer was a hummel deer (i.e. it had no horns). The princess wanted her deer to have horns, so her father got a set of gold twelve-pointed antlers for the deer. The deer was very clever and very fast. It could outrun all the horses in the land when races were held in the grounds of the palace. The king wanted his daughter to get married. She said she would only marry the man who could catch her deer on horseback. Everybody tried but nobody could catch the deer with the gilded horns. The princess wanted to get married. One day an old woman came up to the princess in the garden and told her about her sister's son Jack, the cleverest man in the world, in a faraway land. The princess wanted to go there. In the old woman's garden was an iron bird which would carry the princess to her sister's house. Jack would be the man to catch the deer. The old woman gave the princess a pocketknife and told her to open it if she was ever in trouble. The old woman said, "Your body's made of iron and its wings are made of steel. It'll take you there," and the eagle flew for three days with the princess on its back to the land where Jack lived. When the princess arrived Jack was away courting his girlfriend, a farmer's daughter. Jack's mother took the princess in to await Jack's return. When Jack and his girlfriend came home that night the princess told Jack she had a job for him that nobody else could do. Jack didn't want his girlfriend after speaking to the princess. The girlfriend was jealous, and got a drug from a henwife to put in Jack's tea and make him fall fast asleep. At the end of the three days princess had to leave. Jack awoke after she had gone. The princess left a message for Jack, "I live in a faraway land across the Red Sea. My body's made of iron and my wings are made of steel and he'll never reach the land that I live in." She also left him the penknife. The old woman back where the princess lived assured her when she returned that Jack would make his way to her somehow.

Jack set off in search of the princess. His mother told him to look up his three uncles who might be able to help him find the princess and the iron eagle. Jack travelled on and on but nobody had heard of the Red Sea or seen an iron eagle. An old man who kept bantam hens turned out to be the first uncle. He told Jack he had heard of the Red Sea but he must see his brother for more information. The second uncle lived in last house of a village at bottom of the third big mountain. He told Jack the Red Sea was a long, long way from there and he had never heard of an iron eagle. He sent Jack to his third uncle, the wisest man in the country. He told Jack that a hundred miles away at the side of a loch there would be a boatman who would row Jack to the island where on the third uncle lived. The boatman told Jack about a giant eagle from the Red Sea which came to the island every year and took the first thing it saw, beast or body. Jack's uncle had to be there to feed it when it came. Jack's uncle was glad to see his nephew and when he heard Jack's story he thought of how to help him get across the Red Sea. When the eagle came he rubbed Jack in fat and rolled him in a horse's skin. The eagle took the horse's skin and landed in a valley across the Red Sea. Jack cut himself out of the skin with the penknife the princess had given him and walked to a tavern where an old man told him about the race at the palace to catch the deer and win the princess. He directed Jack to a shopkeeper who told Jack where to find the henwife with the iron eagle.

Jack found the henwife's cottage, and she recognised Jack as her sister's son and told him the iron eagle came from an ogre's palace. The only horse in the country that could catch the deer belonged to the ogre. The henwife told Jack to bargain with the ogre that he could have his eagle back if he gave Jack the black horse in the stable. Jack climbed the cliff to the ogre's palace. The ogre told Jack he must clean out the stable before he could have the horse. It was an impossible task because the more anyone cleaned the stable, the more dung would fly in. But a wee man with a humped back who was the orgre's slave helped Jack by telling him to reverse the graip [dungfork] and fling the dung back out with the handle. In the morning Jack cleaned the stable, which had not been cleaned for ten years. Jack made the ogre stick to his promise. The black horse flew with Jack on its back to the henwife's cottage. She sent the eagle sent back to the ogre for Jack's sake. The next day was the last day of the race. Jack's horse flew after the deer. Jack caught the deer by the horns and the deer dropped dead. Jack gave the princess the horns and they were married and lived happily ever after.

Duncan Williamson heard this story from his father many years before. He told it a bit at a time on successive nights. Different Travellers had slightly different versions of the story, but the uncles, the henwife, the iron eagle, the ogre and the cleaning of the stables were common to them all. Duncan does not know whether the story was originally from a book or made up.

Recording Location

Language

Scots

Genre

Story Information

Collection

SoSS

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Good