Harps, wolves and coyotes

Yet another Festival story…

Thursday night at the Ceilidh in Gardner , Heather Yule was telling a story  about a harper who was out on the moors during a snow storm.

Heather was telling the story with harp accompaniment. The story was about this harper who was traveling from one town to the next across the moors when a snow storm hit. He went as far as he could before he couldn’t travel any further. So, he hunkered down by a large rock. As he was sitting there, he could see wolves coming across the moors towards him. They came right up to him even though he was playing his harp as discordantly as possible to scare them away. It didn’t work. One wolf came closer than the rest. The wolf held up his paw and showed the harper a huge thorn in his paw. The harper pulled it out and the wolves left. The harper made it to the next town once the storm let up.

The next spring, the harper was in a town market and was approached by a tall handsomely dressed man. The man greeted him and asked how he was. The harper said he was doing well, but was confused by who the man was and asked him. The man smiled and asked the harper if he remembered this, and held out his hand. On the hand, was a large scar right were the thorn had been in the paw on the wolf. The man had been turned into a wolf by a witch. The witch had driven a thorn into his hand and turned him into a wolf until someone pulled out the thorn. The man thanked him and walked away.

Good story, great harp! However, as Heather was telling the story, we were standing right in the open doorway. Behind us, we could hear a couple of coyotes started yipping and then howled! It was perfect accompaniment for her story! We were giggling and so was her husband.