Once long ago, before your time and before my time, there lived a farmer and his wife in a little cottage by the side of a burn. They lived quite happily together, considering themselves very lucky to have two cows, half a dozen chickens, a cockerel, and an old blind cat. The farmer contented himself looking after the animals, while his wife passed the long dark evenings at her spinning wheel.

One day, the wife thought she would make a couple of oatmeal bannocks for their tea. She put the griddle on the fire and baked two fine round bannocks – one for her husband and one for herself. She laid them to cool on a rack on the table and went about feeding the chickens.

When the farmer returned from his day’s work, a wonderful smell of baking met him at the door. He spied the two bannocks and, as they looked so good, he picked one up and began to eat it. When the other bannock saw this, it didn’t fancy being eaten at all, so it jumped off the table and rolled out of the door. The wife spotted it and gave chase, but she was not as young as she used to be and soon the wee bannock was out of sight over the hill.

Later that evening, the wee bannock came to a thatched cottage belonging to a tailor who was sitting cross-legged in his window sewing. He thought it looked good enough to eat so he too gave chase, but he soon got cramp in his legs and had to give up.

The wee bannock rolled on until it came to the house of a weaver who was sitting at his loom. As the wee bannock rolled past, the weaver shouted to his wife “Look Annie, a wee bannock. I wonder where it came from?” 

“Dinna let it go,” she said, “Grip it, grip it afore it escapes.” 

But it was not easy to catch the wee bannock. It dodged, and turned, and twisted this way and that, and vanished down the hill. Soon the wee bannock came to the house of a miller, who was sifting flour into a sack. He straightened himself up when the bannock rolled past but was not quick enough to catch him. The wee bannock rolled on and on down the brae to the blacksmith’s house. The blacksmith was busy at the anvil making a horseshoe when the wee bannock entered. “Come here wee bannock,” he cried. “You are come just in time, for I’m feeling mighty hungry.”

The wee bannock had no wish to be eaten and played jook-about in the blacksmith’s house, squeezing in behind a chair. The blacksmith gave chase but, in his hurry, he tripped and fell over. The wee bannock jumped over him and flew laughing out of the door and rolled away across the valley. Night-time was beginning to fall and the wee bannock, feeling quite tired now, thought he would creep under a whin bush and rest there till morning.

Unluckily for the wee bannock, he never saw that there was a fox’s hole, and you can be sure the fox was very glad to see it, for he hadn’t eaten for three days.

“Oh welcome, welcome,” fox exclaimed, and he snapped through the wee bannock with his teeth and that was the end of the wee bannock. “Delicious,” said the wily old fox, licking his lips. “What a tasty wee bannock that was.”