Grannie Island's Ceilidh - Stone Soup Katie Morag


Grannie Island's Ceilidh - Stone Soup

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# Katie Morag

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# Far away across the ocean

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# Katie Morag

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# Over the sea to Struay

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# Katie Morag

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# Far away across the ocean

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# Katie Morag

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# Over the sea to Struay

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# Katie Morag. #

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LAUGHTER

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I love parties,

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and I reckon Grannie Island's are the best in the whole wide world.

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They go on way past our bedtime, but as long as we've

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brushed our teeth and put on our jammies, we're allowed to stay up.

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Grannie Island doesn't call them parties, she calls them ceilidhs.

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Right then, boys and girls, ladies and gentleman, let's gather round.

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Who's ready tonight for some REAL entertainment?

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Most people think ceilidhs are all about dressing up in kilts

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and whirling each other around the room,

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but at Grannie Island's ceilidhs we don't just dance,

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we sing songs, play music, and tell stories as well.

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Oh, when I get my breath back.

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It's time to pin the tale on the island!

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Now, whose turn is it?

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Me, me, me, me, me!

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I think, Agnes, you'll find it's Hector!

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Come on, Hector. There you go.

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There you go, boy. That's it.

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Oh, you're a big lad.

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-Hector... Right, can you see?

-No.

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I'm going to spin you round.

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Round and round and round and now you're on your own...

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We always play pin the tale at Grannie Island's ceilidhs.

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The children take turns sticking a wee pin in the map of Struay.

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Then one of the grown-ups tells us a tale about that part of the island.

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Oh! It's the village.

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Now, who knows a story about the village?

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There must be hundreds of good stories about the village!

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-Oh! I know a great one!

-Bel it is then!

-OK.

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Oh!

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SHE CLEARS HER THROAT

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This story is one of the oldest you'll ever have heard

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and every single word of it is true.

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HE CLEARS HIS THROAT

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Well...some of it is anyway!

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Now most folk in the olden days were very poor,

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but they worked hard and got by.

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But one year disaster struck and the reason was...tatties.

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Potatoes.

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Now, the tatties got sick, so people couldn't eat them.

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So no tatties, no food, and everyone became very, very hungry indeed.

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One of those hungry souls was a young lad from Ullapool named

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Calum MacAulay.

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Calum had no family around him, or a home to call his own,

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so he wandered the country looking for food and shelter.

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One day, just across the sea here, at Ardnamurchan,

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he spotted an old wooden rowboat abandoned on the beach.

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Calum was starving, so he decided to row across to the big

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island of Mull and try his luck there.

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Now, Calum was a kind boy, and handsome too, with bright

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green eyes, and lovely red hair, rather like you, Hector McColl!

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And though he'd hardly been to school,

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he was as clever a lad as you could ever meet.

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But Calum was not a good sailor, in fact, he was a rotten sailor!

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And instead of rowing south to Mull, he headed west...

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After a while, Calum began to panic,

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thinking he'd have to row all the way to America!

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Finally, he caught sight of a pretty wee island with five tall mountains

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along the top of it.

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And that island was Struay!

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At last Calum reached the shore and he set off along the path,

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until he came to the village.

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He went up to the very first door and knocked on it.

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Now, people in the old days were normally kind to travellers,

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but in these hard times, folk were wary of strangers.

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Eventually, a young woman came to the door,

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a pretty girl by the name of Fiona.

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Calum said he was sorry to trouble her,

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but did she have a crust of bread, or a handful of oats he could have?

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Fiona felt sorry for Calum, but explained that they were

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a poor family and didn't have anything to spare.

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He thanked her anyway and went on to the next house,

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where he heard the exact same story - times were hard, nothing to spare.

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And the same at the next, and so on, and so on.

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Calum was about to give up, when he spotted an old iron pot

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lying near the village well and that's when he had an idea.

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He washed the pot out, filled it with water

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and built a little fire and put the water on to boil.

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And then he started looking for a rock.

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His search went on for quite a while, some stones were too big,

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some too small, some too round, others not quite round enough.

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And then, finally, he found the perfect one,

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and he rinsed it in the well and plopped it in the pot.

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STONE PLOPS

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There was no TVs and computers then,

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so if folk wanted entertainment, they looked out their windows!

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And that's exactly what everyone was doing!

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Staring at this mysterious stranger,

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boiling up a pot of water with nothing in it except a rock.

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Fiona was the first to come out,

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she was desperate to know what on earth he was up to.

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So she walked right up to him, and asked.

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"Well, surely it's obvious," Calum replied.

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"I'm making a lovely big pot of stone soup."

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"Stone soup?! I've never heard of such a thing."

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"Well, you don't know what you're missing," Calum said.

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"I've eaten roast beef in Orkney and pies in Dundee,

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"pork chops in Glasgow and cheese in Tiree."

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LAUGHTER

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"But there's not a dish in the whole of Scotland

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"as delicious as stone soup."

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Fiona looked at him in amazement.

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Calum looked at the pot and sighed.

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"Of course, to make it absolutely perfect, I should really add

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"a little something, a carrot maybe.

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"Still...it'll be fine the way it is."

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Fiona thought for a moment and then she spoke up.

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"Well, um, I might have a couple of carrots."

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"Well," Calum said, "That would be a treat, right enough,

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"and when the soup's made, I'll share it with you."

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So, Fiona fetched carrots, and Calum added them to the soup.

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As he and Fiona sat watching the pot simmer,

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more people came out of their houses.

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Calum smiled at them and tasted a spoonful of the broth.

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"Mmm," he said, "As good a stone soup as I've ever tasted!

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"Of course, some sliced up onion would add a finishing touch,

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"but I mustn't be greedy."

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At that, an old woman announced that she had a small bag of onions.

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If Calum were to share the soup with her and her family,

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she'd gladly add them to the mix.

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Calum was delighted!

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The onions were added, and a short while later,

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Calum declared it the finest broth in the whole of the Hebrides!

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By this time, the entire village was gathered round the large pot,

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and they had to admit that the stone soup was smelling very fine indeed.

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But one of the neighbours said,

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"Maybe a wee bit of ham wouldn't do any harm?"

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"Oh, no indeed," said Calum.

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"The people of the Borders were known for adding ham

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"to their stone soup."

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"Well," said the neighbour, "I might have a few slices,"

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and in they went.

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They all wanted to add something now.

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Some brought beans, others had peas, barley,

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all manner of wonderful things.

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After two hours, Calum declared the stone soup was well and truly ready.

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Everyone rushed into their houses

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and emerged with bowls and spoons of all shapes and sizes.

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They filled their plates and filled them again,

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until there wasn't one single drop left.

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Then, someone found a fiddle

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and they danced and danced till the sun went down.

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In the years that followed, if you ask folk on Struay to

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name their favourite food, you would only get one answer.

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"Why, stone soup, of course.

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"All you need is a pot of water and a nice round stone...

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"though you can add a bit of this and a bit of that

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"if you're feeling fancy."

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Now, Calum decided to stay on Struay.

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He'd taken a liking to Fiona and she to him.

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Soon they were married and every Sunday he would make

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a great, big, delicious pot of stone soup

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with that very same rock he used the first day they met.

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It was always enough to feed them and their seven children!

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The rock was passed down to their oldest daughter

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and she passed it on to hers

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until eventually it came to Grannie Island!

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Because Calum was her great-great-great-grandfather.

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And I have that very stone right here!

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CHEERING

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Well, that brought a tear to my eye. Thank you, Bel!

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Alistair and Jane, how's about giving us another tune?!

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Eh? Wow!

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WHOOPING

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We love the ceilidh stories and always want to hear more,

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but Grannie Island says the same thing, "Time for another tune!"

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And by the time the grown-ups have finished dancing,

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we're usually fast asleep.

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MUSIC CONTINUES

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Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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