Free The Coming of the Unicorn by Duncan Williamson

says, “Yes, I’ll give you a promise.”
    “Granny, please will ye never sell it?”
    “Oh, well, Mary, if you love it so much as that, I’ll not sell it.”
    But anyway, they began to settle down and times passed, months passed by. Mary took care of her calf and Granny took care of the hens and her ducks. And Mary loved her calf. She went walking with it. She took it everywhere she went. But Mary walking with her calf and feeding it and taking care of it, her clothes began to get kind o’ withered, tattery and torn. One day she came in.
    Granny says, “Where have you been, Mary?”
    “Oh, I was out in the forest walking with my calf.”
    “Mary,” she says, “ye’re in a terrible state. Your coat is torn and it’s ragged. Ye know I’m very poor and I canna buy ye a coat or anything.”
    “Granny,” she says, “well, patch it for me!”
    “No, there’s too many patches on it already. I can’t put another patch in it.”
    “Well, Granny,” she says, “make me a coat, knit me a coat!”
    “Mary, I canna knit ye a coat. I don’t have enough thread. But I’ll tell ye what to do, Mary; my old grandmother a long time ago was very clever and she taught me many things. If you will go out into the moor, in the rushie moor, and cut me some rushes, I’ll make ye a coat.”
    “Oh, Granny, ye couldn’t make me a coat from rushes!”
    She says, “Mary, I’ll make ye a coat like the old people used to do a long time ago. If you make up your mind to cut me somerushes like the rushes I want, I’ll make ye a coat!”
    Well, Mary was very pleased. “Granny, I can cut ye rushes.” And beside where they stayed was a rushie moor where all the rushes grew very high, five foot high. And people long ago used to split the rushes up. They wove them; they could make cloth from them like they do with the flax. So, Mary made up her mind that she was going to have a coat. She went into the back of the shed. She got an old sickle that was used by her grandfather who had died many years before, and she went on the moor. She cut the rushes, bunches and bunches and bunches of rushes. And the calf came with her.
    The calf was nodding, pushing her with his head and he’s nodding with her. He played and he jumped and he cocked his tail round his back. He ran round the field. Mary was still cutting the rushes. The calf was always with her, but it was getting bigger and bigger as the days went by. Mary gathered bundle and bundle and bundle o’ rushes. She brought them back. And her granny sat. She split them down, took the hearts off and she weaved them. She sat and weaved them day after day, day after day. And lo and behold, she made Mary a coat – the most beautiful green coat that you’ve ever seen in your life. Nobody in the village had a coat like this, because it was made from rushes.
    When Granny was finished with the coat she said, “There you are, Mary, there’s your coat!” And Mary tried it on. Mary loved this coat like nothing in the world. She put it on and it just fitted her, made from rushes.
    So, she used to walk to the village; Granny smoked a pipe and she used to go for tobacco and some things for her. And when all the people in the village saw Mary coming, they saw her with this strange coat on made from rushes. Even the children used to call her “Mary Rushiecoats”. But Mary visited the village many, many times and the people in the shops said, “Oh, here comes Mary Rushiecoats again with her wee black bull.”
    Wherever she went the black bull-calf went with her. And the calf got bigger and bigger as the days went on.
    Now, many months had passed by. A year had passed by, two years had passed. And Mary Rushiecoats still had her coat and Mary Rushiecoats still had her black bull-calf. Mary and her calf enjoyed life together like nobody in the world did. And Granny still sent her to the village and the bull went with her. Now, the bull-calf was getting so big that sometimes when Mary got tired, she