Whippety Stourie

Scottish Country Dance Instruction

1- 8 1s cross RH, cast 1 place, 1L dances up between 2s and casts round 2L to face 2M while 1M dances between 3s and casts up round 3M to face 3L
9-16 1s turn 1st corners RH, turn partner LH into ½ diagonal reel of 4 with 2nd corners (1s end facing 4th corner - 2nd corners persons)
17-24 1s turn 4th corners RH, turn partner LH into ½ reel of 4 with 1st corner (1s end in lines across - 1L between 3s in 1st place and 1M between 2s)
25-32 3s+1s+2s set, 1s ¾ turn RH to opposite sides while 3s+2s change places RH on sides, 2s+1s+3s set and change places with partner RH

(MINICRIB. Dance crib compiled by Charles Upton, Deeside Caledonian Society, and his successors)

Keith Rose's Crib Diagrams

Whippety Stourie - Full Size And Key To Symbols

Dance Information

One fairy tale, titled "Whippety Stourie" may be found in "Folk-Lore and Legends, Scotland", transcribed from the 1889 W. W. Gibbings edition by David Price.

Whippety Stourie Fairy Tale.
There was once a gentleman that lived in a very grand house, and he married a young lady that had been delicately brought up. In her husband's house she found everything that was fine--fine tables and chairs, fine looking-glasses, and fine curtains; but then her husband expected her to be able to spin twelve hanks o' thread every day, besides attending to her house; and, to tell the even-down truth, the lady could not spin a bit. This made her husband glunchy with her, and, before a month had passed, she found hersel' very unhappy.

One day the husband gaed away upon a journey, after telling her that he expected her, before his return, to have not only learned to spin, but to have spun a hundred hanks o' thread. Quite downcast, she took a walk along the hillside, till she cam' to a big flat stane, and there she sat down and grat. By and by she heard a strain o' fine sma' music, coming as it were frae aneath the stane, and, on turning it up, she saw a cave below, where there were sitting six wee ladies in green gowns, ilk ane o' them spinning on a little wheel, and singing,

The lady walked into the cave, and was kindly asked by the wee bodies to take a chair and sit down, while they still continued their spinning. She observed that ilk ane's mouth was thrawn away to ae side, but she didna venture to speer the reason. They asked why she looked so unhappy, and she telt them that it was she was expected by her husband to be a good spinner, when the plain truth was that she could not spin at all, and found herself quite unable for it, having been so delicately brought up; neither was there any need for it, as her husband was a rich man.

"Oh, is that a'?" said the little wifies, speaking out of their cheeks alike.

"Yes, and is it not a very good a' too?" said the lady, her heart like to burst wi' distress.

"We could easily quit ye o' that trouble", said the wee women. "Just ask us a' to dinner for the day when your husband is to come back. We'll then let you see how we'll manage him."

So the lady asked them all to dine with herself and her husband, on the day when he was to come back.

When the gudeman came hame, he found the house so occupied with preparations for dinner, that he had nae time to ask his wife about her thread; and, before ever he had ance spoken to her on the subject, the company was announced at the hall door. The six ladies all came in a coach-and-six, and were as fine as princesses, but still wore their gowns of green. The gentleman was very polite, and showed them up the stair with a pair of wax candles in his hand. And so they all sat down to dinner, and conversation went on very pleasantly, till at length the husband, becoming familiar with them, said--

"Ladies, if it be not an uncivil question, I should like to know how it happens that all your mouths are turned away to one side?"

"Oh", said ilk ane at ance, "it's with our constant -spin-spin-spinning-."

"Is that the case?" cried the gentleman; "then, John, Tam, and Dick, fie, go haste and burn every rock, and reel, and spinning-wheel in the house, for I'll not have my wife to spoil her bonnie face with -spin-spin-spinning-."

And so the lady lived happily with her gudeman all the rest of her days.

This fairy tale is categorised alongside Rumpelstiltskin, although guessing the name of a helper to rescue a baby is the only common motif.

Whippitie Stourie Fairy Tale Synopsis.
A woman's husband went to the fair and never returned; she was left alone with her baby son and owning only a big sow. The sow was about to farrow, and she hoped for a good litter, but one day she went to the pen to find the sow dying. She was distraught, and a fairy woman asked what she would give her if she helped the sow.

The woman promised her anything she liked. She saved the sow and demanded the baby. Though she would not listen to any pleas, she did tell the woman that under the fairy laws, she had to wait three days, and the woman could stop her by telling her her name.

The woman was distraught the first day, but the second, she went for a walk, and in the forest, she found a quarry where the fairy was spinning and singing that her name was Whuppity Stoorie.

When the fairy came the next day, the woman pleaded with her to take the sow, and then to take herself. The fairy scorned her, asking what she would want with such a woman, and the woman said she knows she is unworthy to tie the shoestrings for Whuppity Stoorie.

The fairy woman went screeching away.

The Sow Rescued By Whuppity Stoorie

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