The Maiden Stone

Rona Munro

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781780017853
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

A wild and fantastical tale about a group of women struggling to get by in the harsh world of north-east Scotland in the early nineteenth century.

Down-on-her-luck, out-of-work actress Harriet and her family are wandering the roads of Scotland looking for food, shelter, and the opportunity to perform. But they are not the only ones travelling the highways and byways – there's tinker and storyteller Bidie along with her family, always looking for a break; and the dangerously beguiling stranger Nick, whose presence on the road just might be more of a curse than a blessing...

Rona Munro's play The Maiden Stone won the inaugural Peggy Ramsay Award and was first performed at Hampstead Theatre, London, in April 1995.

ACT ONE

Farm and woodland in North East Scotland. The hills are visible in the distance over a sweep of fields. There is a dry stone dyke on stage . One larger stone, an earlier monolith, the Maiden Stone had been embedded in the dyke. It resembles a crude human figure, leaning forward as if running.

There is a road, unmetalled, a farm track between stone dykes.

It is late summer.

Scene One

The road. Dusk.

BIDIE walks to centre stage. She has a baby on her hip, she’s singing to it softly.

BIDIE. And wi’ you, and wi’ you,
And wi’ you Johnnie lad,
I’ll dance the buckles aff my shoon
Wi’ you my Johnnie lad

O, Johnnie’s nae a gentleman,
Nor yet is he a laird,
But I would follow Johnnie lad,
Although he was a caird.

And wi’ you, and wi’ you,
And wi’ you Johnnie lad,
I’ll dance the buckles aff my shoon
Wi’ you my Johnnie lad.

While she has been singing a crowd of children have crept in. They flow around her, stroking her face, combing her hair. She kisses and pats them as she sings and talks. They kneel and stand around her, one kneels on all fours to make a seat, two on either side make arm rests, they have lambs and dogs and other animals, BIDIE sits on a throne of children and beasts.

Johnnie was sleeping in the green wood. A giant cam. Bending doon the tree tops tae see fit he fancies tae chew on. He spied Johnnie. He caught him up and carried him home oer his back. He says tae Johnnie, ‘Go get me twa eggs frae the siller hawk tae hae til my dinner or I’ll eat you now and pick my teeth wi’ your shin bane.’ Johnnie grat. It wis the ogre’s belly for him. But the giant’s dochter cam tae him. She’d pity for him. She wiped his face wi’ her reid hair and took him intae the forest.

They could see the siller hawk, riding the sough o’ a cauld blue wind, a wee white ash flake at the roof o’ the forest. Her nest wis as high as the clouds, up a pine tree wi’ a trunk as slippery as copper and nae branches tae it at a’.

The giant’s dochter pu’s aff a’ her fingers and sticks them on the tree and that wis his ladder tae the nest. Her ain bleeding fingers.

Next day, he wis set tae clean a giant byre full o’ sharn fae a hundred years o’ giant beasts. The giant’s dochter took aff her goon and dammed the stream wi’ her body tae drive the burn through the byre and wash it clean. Next day he wis tae catch a’ the birds that flew. She made a net o’ her hair and caught them for him. Then they lay together. Then she freed him oot that dungeon and he took her hame.

He left her at the castle gate and went in tae get her a goon. Once through his ain gate he forgot her altogether.

He was awa tae get merriet, riding doon the street wi’ his feeance, a wee blonde girl jist oot the egg. A craw and a hawk and a cooshie doo ca’d his name and he turned and saw her at the gate. Her hair’s aff, her hand bleedin and she’s naked yet. He fell aff his horse and ran tae kiss her. They say . . . They say they got merriet . . .

BIDIE laughs again, raises the baby and kisses it.

I say she held his bairn up tae him. She let him see his eyes in its face. Then she took it awa wi’ her intae the forest, Johnnie’s eyes an a’. Is that nae foo it should finish?

The children swirl round her again they dance off together.

And god help the wee blonde lassie wi’ eggshell still in her hair. (Singing.) An wi’ you, an’ wi’ you , an wi’ you Johnnie lad, I’ll dance the buckles aff my shoon wi’ you my bonny lad . . .

Scene Two

The farm, mid afternoon.

Lights up on HARRIET.

HARRIET is walking to and fro in front of a pile of props and bags. Both HARRIET and her luggage have been abandoned at the entrance to a farmyard. She is reading from a half finished letter.

HARRIET. They do not speak English . . .

HARRIET peers at her letter a moment then looks at her baggage behind her. She puts the letter down carefully, weighting it with a stone. She takes out a portable writing desk and sets it up on the dyke. Drawing out a pen she makes a tiny addition to her letter. She waves it in the air to dry then notices she has trodden in something. She wipes her foot against the grass then breathing heavily in irritation grabs a sheaf of writing paper and scrubs at her shoe. She continues reading.

They are a bleak and ig...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Original Production
• Dedication
• Author's Note
• Characters
• Act One
• Act Two
• Glossary
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information