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.
