The Nine Maidens of Dundee

     The Legend of the Nine Maidens of Dundee is a story set in a small farmland of Scotland named Pitempton. As the legend goes, the farmer was exhausted after working himself to the bone on his land, under the boiling sun. He craved water from the small well near his home, but he found himself too fatigued to fetch his own water so he sent his eldest daughter out to retrieve some for him. After a substantial amount of time had passed without the return of water from his eldest daughter, he sent the second-eldest daughter to figure out what was taking the eldest so long to get water from the well and to hopefully speed up the process. Starting the trend, his second-eldest daughter did not return with water and the third-eldest daughter was sent out to find her. I believe you can see where this is going. After the third-eldest daughter did not return, he sent out the fourth-eldest daughter. He continued sending the daughter next in line after the one before did not return until he had sent every one of his daughters to get water and/or find her sister directly older than themselves. When he had no more daughters to send on the search, he ventured out of his home to find out where all his daughters had gone by himself. The short walk to the well was a taunting task for him because he was still tired and dehydrated. When he finally got to the well he saw the things of nightmares, the nine bodies of his once beautiful daughters thrown on the ground surrounding the well. The creature standing above the bodies was described as a large serpent-like dragon. After taking in the scene before him, the farmer ran screaming into the town. Where he would tell the concerned neighbors that gathered around him about the monster he just encountered. The enraged mob marched for the well to avenge the nine ladies, led by a man named Martin. Martin was known as a man of “brave heart and tremendous skill and courage,” and was rumored to be a suitor of one of the departed daughters. After finding the dragon, the dragon attempted to escape the people rather than fight them but wasn’t successful in fleeing the scene. Martin won’t let the dragon get away so easily, using only his wooden club he beat the dragon in a fight. This fight had the town's people crowded around and cheering, “Strike, Martin.” The place where this dragon is believed to have been defeated is now named Strathmartine, a tribute to “Strike-Martin.”

Comments

  1. Why do Theatre?October 25, 2024 at 6:10 AM

    The story of the Nine Maidens has always been a particular favorite of mine, I'm glad to see that it was one of the various folklore tales you've covered.

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