The Shepherd Who Fought
the March Wind

IN the northern Highlands of Scotland, where the crofts are few and far between, there are shepherds tending their sheep on grassy braes, with only their faithful dogs to keep them company. Many of them will not lay eyes on the face of another living person for weeks on end.

The hours are lonely and long and tend to go by slowly, so the shepherds turn to many pastimes to make the time seem to go faster while keeping their eyes on their flocks. Some play on the fipple flute, amusing themselves by piping old songs or making up new ones of their own. But too much piping taxes the breath, and that’s a fact.

Some of the shepherds find a big flat stone from which they can keep their sheep in sight while they dance upon it, practicing the intricate steps of the old Scottish dances: jigs, strathspeys, flings, and reels; humming to the tunes that spur their feet, with the hope that a prize will come to them when they compete with the dancers next Gathering Day. But a man’s legs sometimes get awful weary. He cannot be at the dancing all the time.

Then there are some who read books, wanting to improve their minds, or maybe leaf through their Bibles for wisdom and consolation. But it is not too good to pass the time reading, because a man gets his mind so caught in a web of printed words that he can very well forget that he has sheep to tend.

Every shepherd has his own way of amusing himself in his hours of loneliness, but a lot of them will tell you that there is one way that is the best because it will not tax your breathing, nor tire your body, nor take your mind from your sheep. It’s useful, forbye, because you’ve got something to show for it in the end. What would it be? Och, knitting, to be sure!

In the old days you’d find shepherds all over Scotland with their cleevs of woolen yarn, spun from the fleece of their own sheep, and their wooden needles, shaped and polished by themselves, sitting on their lonely hillsides with their sheep grazing peacefully about them, and all of them knitting away as if their lives depended on it. As they could knit, in a manner of speaking, with one eye on their knitting and the other on their sheep, nothing was neglected and their minds were at peace.

There was once a shepherd up in northern Perthshire who was a champion knitter, and took great pride in turning out vests and trews and hose galore. He was maybe a little bit dress-proud, and liked whatever he was clad in to be the best to be had. The things he knitted were unco fine. You’d have to pay a terrible price for the like, should you be buying them from a shop.

Do not think him a weakling because he was so good at knitting. He was not one of those wizened wee old fellows with a face brown and wrinkled like a crab-apple in a Hogmanay punch. This shepherd was a braw young callant with yellow hair bleached lint-white by the summer sun, and curling above his brow. His blue eyes were dark and clear and honest, and his mouth, when not smiling, was always ready to smile. If he was not handsome, he was good to look at, and that, for a man, is enough.

He stood well over the two-yard mark in height, and his weight was fourteen stone, every ounce of it strong muscle and hard flesh and sturdy bone. He could whip any man in Perthshire who would stand up to fight him, and maybe anyone in Scotland, too. He was proud of his family, himself, his sheep, and the land that gave him birth, and anything else that was his. In all the world or out of it there was naught that he feared.

His name was Murdagh MacAlister, and though he was young he already had a croft of his own, with a tidy wee shieling on it. The house lay at the foot of the brae where he kept his sheep. Above the brae was a high moor with bens beyond it, and to the side was a long deep lonely glen.

He lived alone but it did not trouble him, for he was out with his sheep on the hillside night and day. He had Balach the dog, the spunky wee sheepdog that guarded the flock for him, and he and Balach loved each other like brothers. With Balach the dog, and his sheep and his knitting, Murdagh made do very well. Every now and then when he felt the need of a change of scene he’d send for an old shepherd who had given up sheep tending as a steady job, but didn’t mind taking on Murdagh’s sheep for a day or two.

Then Murdagh would go down to his shieling and don his fine linen shirt with the ruffles and his finest kilt, and buckle on his wide leather belt. He’d put on his velvet jacket and his silver-buckled shoon, and fasten his plaidie on the shoulder with his brooch, arranging the folds so that they would show the tartan at its best. He’d hang his sporran from his belt and tuck his sgian-dubh into the top of his stocking, then he’d put on his bonnet with the badge at the side, and Murdagh MacAlister was ready for town.

He’d walk the long miles of the road and stride into the town with his back straight, and his chest out, and his chin up, and his hips twitching to give the proper swagger to the kilt, and every lass he passed would turn her head to look after him and sigh, and say, “Ochone! Were he but mine!”

For two or three days he would carouse about the town, drawing after him a band of callants as wild and carefree as himself. Then, when the town was all but torn to pieces with their antics, he’d suddenly slip away and leave them. Back up the long road he’d go, to the shieling, lay off his fine clothes and put on his old ones, and go back to sitting and knitting and tending his sheep.

He’d sit on a stone that he’d always sat upon and he’d look about him, at the blue sky (when it wasn’t murky) and at the green leaves fluttering on the trees. He’d look at the heather blooming on the moor above the glen, and at the bens, bare and blue and misty, beyond. He’d listen to the lark, rising to sing in the cool fresh air, and to the burn with its peat-brown clear waters chuckling over the stones. And Murdagh Mac-Alister would say to Balach the dog, “O Balach mo chu, what could be better than this?” And Balach the dog would poke his cold damp nose against Murdagh’s hand to show that he agreed.

There came a day in March, with the lambing time over and the young lambs racing each other over the brae under the watchful eyes of their dams, when Murdagh sat on his stone in the sun knitting, with Balach the dog at his side. The day was mild and fair, with springtime slipping timidly but surely into the world. Murdagh’s heart was easy in his breast.

Suddenly, down from the bens and over the moor the wild March wind rushed by, roaring through the trees and tearing the young new leaves off in handfuls, letting them fly behind him as he came. The lambs, greeting, ran to shelter themselves against the sides of their dams, and the ewes drew close together in a huddle to keep themselves safe.

But the March wind danced lightly over their backs and, racing up to Murdagh, seized the bonnet from his head and tossed it up toward the sky. Murdagh leaped up to catch it, but the March wind snapped it out of his hands and sped off with it so fast that Murdagh could not catch up with him. In a trice, the March wind and Murdagh’s bonnet were out of sight.

It was only Murdagh’s third-best bonnet, but it belonged to Murdagh and he liked it. He did not take it kindly of the March wind to steal it away. But it was gone and there was naught to be done about it. However, in March, a man was not wise to go out in the weather with his head uncovered. So Murdagh left Balach the dog to tend the sheep for a while until he went down to fetch from his shieling his second-best bonnet.

When he came back he sat down on his stone and went on with his knitting, and he had to knit twice as fast to make up for the time the March wind had wasted him that day.

The next day a misty rain kept falling and clouds hung heavy over the bens. Murdagh, to keep out of the mizzle, sat knitting in the wee doorway of the wee shepherd’s bothan set against the wood. The March wind never came near that day.

The morn of the day that followed dawned bright and fair with the sky high and blue. The lambs played about on the green brae again and Murdagh sat knitting on his stone. He finished the stocking in hand and laid it in the flat creel that sat on the ground by the stone. There were three pairs of hose in the basket, now, and Murdagh was very well pleased. He picked up his needles to start to knit a new pair of stockings but before he could begin the wild March wind came whistling and shouting shrilly down from the bens. He hurtled over the high moor and took a wild turn through the glen, then racing up behind Murdagh, he snatched the second-best bonnet from Murdagh’s head and carried it away with him over the moor and back to the bens again.

Murdagh was terribly put out about it, and Balach the dog was the same. Murdagh shook his fists and swore like a trooper, and Balach the dog reared up on his hind legs and bayed. Now Murdagh would have to go down to the shieling again, and what with all the wind’s foolery he’d be getting behind with his knitting, to say naught of running out of bonnets. Still, a man could not go bareheaded in the chill spring air with always the chance of rain. So Murdagh left Balach the dog to tend to the sheep while he went down to the shieling to fetch his Sunday-best bonnet, which was the last he had.

It was a bonnie bonnet, and all but new, and Murdagh thought a lot of it. He set it on his head at the proper angle, and took a peek at himself in the looking glass to see how it looked, and it looked fine.

“This one,” he said fiercely, “the March wind will not be getting from me!”

He went to the press and took out a linen napkin which he folded cornerwise. He put it on top of his bonnet, pulling it as tight as he could and knotting the corners under his chin. He jerked at the bonnet, back and front, but the napkin held it tight on his head. “Now let the March wind have a try at it!” he said, grinning. Then he went back to the brae. When he got to the stone he sat down upon it but he did not take up his knitting. Bolt upright he sat, with his shoulders square, and his arms folded on his chest.

Murdagh could hear the March wind howling and stramashing around the bens and the moor. He sat waiting for the wind to get sight of his bonnet and swoop down and steal it away.

It was not long he had to sit waiting. Down came the March wind, blowing with all his might, with the trees bowing humbly before him and the tall green blades of grass bending low. He came up behind Murdagh and gave a sharp tweak to the rim of the bonnet where it stuck out from under the napkin’s edge. Murdagh’s bonnet stayed as it was, for the napkin held it tight to Murdagh’s head.

“Whee-e-e-e!” shouted the March wind, tugging away at the bonnet, and Murdagh, springing up from the stone, whirled himself about on the balls of his feet. He had his arms stretched out to keep his balance, and suddenly to his amazement he discovered that he had between his arms the body of a man, where he’d expected to find naught but air. He shut his arms and grasped the man as tight as he could. Murdagh could not see him, but he could feel the fellow’s rib cage, and the flesh of his arms as he braced himself against Murdagh, trying to get away, and Murdagh could feel the beating of his heart against his own, as they grappled, breast to breast.

“Hiero!” thought Murdagh. “So this is the stuff the March wind is made of! Well do they call him the living gale!”

Murdagh’s heart leaped for joy. Fighting with air was one thing, and a thing that could make a man unco uneasy, but there was not a man in the world, seen or unseen, that Murdagh was afraid of, and that he couldn’t beat. Now that he had found out the March wind was a man, Murdagh would teach him a lesson he’d not soon forget.

The March wind writhed and twisted, setting his strength against Murdagh’s, using every wile and trick he had command of, but he could not break Murdagh’s hold. If the March wind fought hard to get free, Murdagh fought harder to hold him fast.

They struggled together on the brae, from the high moor to the kailyard above the shieling, and from the glen at one side to the wood at the other, and into the burn and out. The ewes gathered their lambs together and scurried with them to a far corner by the wood and crouched low with them under the cover of the bracken there. Balach the dog circled about the wrestlers, keeping out of the way but holding himself ready to dash in and help, should Murdagh give the word.

The joy of the battle coursed hotly in Murdagh’s blood, and he shouted and laughed loud. He’d won many a fight before, but never one fought with an opponent he could not see! The March wind circled Murdagh’s waist with his arms, trying to lift him and throw him to the ground, but Murdagh felt with his knee till he found the back of the March wind’s knee, and tripped him so that he fell.

All of a sudden the fight was over, and there was the March wind lying upon his back on the ground, and Murdagh sitting on his chest with his knees holding the March wind’s shoulders down. He had one of the March wind’s wrists in either hand, gripping them tightly to keep them out of mischief, and although the March wind kicked and heaved it did him no good, for with the whole of Murdagh’s heft on his chest, weighing him down, he was bound to stay where he was.

Murdagh shook the sweat out of his eyes and settled down to rest a bit. He could hear the March wind gasping and panting from the stress of the battle.

“Och, aye,” said Murdagh with a grin. “Am I not panting a bit myself?”

He sat quietly until his breath came easy again, then he began to think of what he would be doing next. He could not just go on sitting there, holding down the March wind. A notion came into his head.

“O Balach mo chu,” he said. “Fetch me the creel!”

Balach the dog fetched the creel with the three pairs of stockings in it that Murdagh had finished knitting. Murdagh forced the March wind’s wrists behind his back and took both wrists into his left hand. With his right hand he took a pair of stockings from the creel and wound their double thickness around and around, binding the March wind’s wrists together and tying the ends with a good hard knot. Then he felt around until he had the March wind’s ankles and, taking care not to ease his weight from the March wind’s chest, Murdagh bound the two ankles together with a second pair of hose from the creel.

“That will hold you for the time,” said Murdagh, “but I can do better than that.”

He took the last two stockings from the creel and knotted the ends together twisting them into a rope. With a quick twist he turned the March wind over on his face and put the stocking round his neck. Before the March wind knew what was happening to him, Murdagh had drawn his legs and arms together, up behind his back, and fastened them with the ends of the rope of stockings and tied them tight. Murdagh stood over him and laughed. “You’ll blow no more for a while, you rogue!” said Murdagh. “That’s a pickle you’ll not be getting yourself out of soon!”

The March wind learned at once that the less he stirred about the better off he’d be. If he moved as much as a finger or a toe the cruel rope of stockings tightened about his neck so that he was all but choked to death.

Murdagh took the napkin from his bonnet and tossed it into his creel. He shook up the bonnet to put it in order, and set it back on his head.

“Och, now,” he said to the March wind. “What will I do about you?”

“What are you going to do, Murdagh?” the March wind asked fearfully.

“Balach the dog and me were up by the bens one day, tracking a fox that was nosing about the hen run. We found a hole up there that led into a cave deep down in the ben. I’m thinking it would be a good place to drop you into. A good big boulder set across it to seal up the hole would keep you inside in case you were able to get yourself untied.”

“Och, you would not do so!” the March wind cried in horror.

“Why should I not?” asked Murdagh. “We cannot have you lying here. The sheep would take fright at you, and maybe run away, losing themselves on the moor or in the glen. I’d be falling over you, not being able to see you. Sure, one or the other of us would come to harm. The best place for you is the hole in the ben, and when I get a bit of rest I’ll carry you up and drop you in.”

“Ochone! Ochone!” the March wind wailed. “Le-e-e-e-et me-e-e-e-e go-o-o-o-o!”

“I’ll not do it,” said Murdagh indignantly. “You’ve been naught but a vexation and a trouble to me in the past, and so you would be again if I should set you free.”

And Murdagh sat down on his stone and taking up his needles and yarn he set to work at knitting the stocking he had begun that morn.

After a while the March wind said softly, “Murdagh?”

“Aye,” said Murdagh.

“Murdagh,” said the March wind. “I know a place over beyond the bens where two great kists full of gold and siller are hidden away. For more than a hundred years they’ve lain there, and the man who brought them there is long dead and turned to dust. Nobody knows the kists are there but me. Let me go free, Murdagh, and I’ll blow both kists to you.”

“What good would all that gold and siller be to a shepherd like me?” Murdagh said scornfully. “All a man needs is a good roof over his head, food to fill his belly, working clothes for weekdays and good clothes for Sundays. All these I have already, and my croft and my sheep, forbye. If there’s aught else I fancy I’d like to buy, I’ll have you know I’ll get it for myself. I have a wee kist of my own, and though it is not full to the top, there’s plenty of gold and siller in it to buy me anything I’m likely to want. Och, keep your kists for yourself.”

Murdagh went on with his knitting, and after a while the March wind said softly, “Murdagh?”

“Och, aye,” said Murdagh. “What would you be wanting now?”

“Murdagh,” said the March wind. “Let me go free and I will blow fame and fortune to you. The king himself will give you his favor, and you will be a great laird in a castle, with servants to wait upon you. Would it not suit you fine to be proud and great?”

“Proud and great!” exclaimed Murdagh scornfully, with a flash of his eyes and a lift of his chin. “Och, ye great omadhaun, do you not know, then, who I am? Murdagh MacAlister, and my family goes all the way back to Alister Mor! There is royal blood in my veins, and there’s no man in Scotland that is better than me! I’m that contented I’d not call the king my cousin. I’m very well suited the way I am. As for your castles, they are too big to please me. I’ll take my shieling instead, and when the day comes that I need servants and cannot wait upon myself it will be because I’m dead and in my grave.”

So Murdagh took up his needles and yarn and began to knit again. After a while the March wind said softly, “Murdagh?”

“Och, what now?” Murdagh said.

“Murdagh,” the March wind said, “let me go free and I will blow you the bonniest lass in Scotland to be your own true love.”

“Och, what sort of lass would it be that the wind would blow in?” Murdagh asked in disgust. “Why would I be needing anybody to get me a lass forbye? There are no bonnier lasses in the world than those in our own town. I can smile and crook my finger to any one of them and she’ll come running to me. When I want a lass of my own I’ll get one for myself. I’m weary of all your nattering. I’m beginning to feel like myself again, so we’ll be going along to the ben and I’ll drop you down the hole.”

“Is there naught you would take at all to let me go free?” the March wind cried in despair.

Murdagh sat turning the question over in his mind for a long time while the March wind waited anxiously.

“If you play me false,” said Murdagh at last, “I promise you that I will neither sleep nor eat until I catch you again and drop you into the hole in the ben.”

“Ask what you will,” the March wind said eagerly, “I give you my word.”

“A-weel, in the first place,” said Murdagh, “you must bring back my two bonnets that you stole from me.” “That I will!” said the March wind. “And then?” “Then,” said Murdagh, “never again will you come roistering down upon us, bound upon mischief as you have so often done before. From now on you will leave the moor, the glen, the wood, and the brae, and all my croft, forever untroubled and at peace.”

“That I will do indeed,” the March wind promised. “So let me go.”

Then Murdagh got up and went to the March wind. He untied the knots in the stockings on neck and wrists and ankles, and cast them aside. Murdagh heard the March wind rise from the grass with a great sigh and stretch himself. Then there was silence on the brae. Murdagh did not hear him go, but he knew that he was gone.

Balach the dog gathered up the three pairs of stockings and laid them in the creel, making sure that all six stockings were there. And Murdagh sat down on his stone and busied himself with his knitting again. Presently, the leaves rustled softly on the trees and there was a whispering along the grass, and into Murdagh’s lap dropped his two bonnets—his third-best and his second-best.

One day, between spring and summer, the old shepherd came up to the brae and took the job of tending Murdagh’s sheep, with Balach the dog to watch over shepherd, sheep, and all, and make sure all went well. Murdagh dressed himself in his best and went off to town. He strode down the high street, young and gallant and gay, with a high step and a swagger to his kilt, and every lass he met turned her head to look after him and sighed to see him pass by.

As he was going along he caught sight of a bonnie wee lass standing in the doorway of her father’s house, and she was the one he had had his mind on, for a year and more. He was ready now to pick out a lass for himself, so he smiled and crooked his finger at her, and she came running to him. She followed him to the minister’s house, and they were wed that day. Then Murdagh took his bonnie wee lass under his arm and they walked together up the long road home to Murdagh’s shieling and to Balach the dog and the sheep on the brae.

Then there were three of them watching the sheep on the brae. There were Murdagh and Balach the dog, and when she had the shieling in order and her woman’s work done, there was the bonnie wee lass forbye.

And after a year or so, there were four, because there was a wee bairn in a cradle beside his mother and father where they sat on the stone. Then, as the years went by, there were five, and six, and more, for a new babe lay in the cradle each year. How many bairns there were in the end, I cannot tell you, but there were a sluagh of them, all as healthy as ever you’d want to see. And on mild and fair days Murdagh and his bonnie wee lass would sit on the stone knitting, while Balach the dog kept one eye on the babe in the cradle and the other on the browsing ewes and the bairns racing over the brae with the young lambs.

It takes a lot of knitting to make all the vests and trews and stockings and things needed to keep a raft of bairns warm and safe from the cold.

Sometimes, in the early spring, with lambing time over and the young lambs growing strong and frisking about their dams, the March wind would come slipping down from the bens, so secretly, so softly, that the bloom on the heather scarcely bent its head, the leaves scarcely stirred on the trees. He would lean to look at the flying fingers of Murdagh and his bonnie wee lass as they sat knitting, then he would move away to breathe gently on the sleeping face of the babe in the cradle, and to ruffle the curls of the bairns at play. Then stealthily, silently, the March wind would creep away from the brae, up the glen and over the high moor and back to the bens. Nobody ever heard him come, nobody ever heard him go, nobody ever saw him—unless it was Balach the dog, and if he did he paid him no heed at all.

The March wind never broke his word. The high moor, the glen, the brae with its bairns and its sheep, the croft with its wee shieling were left forever untroubled and at peace.