The Bagpiper's Ghost Read online

aboot—about

  ain—own

  auld—old

  awa—away

  bairges—struts

  bairns—children

  bawties—rabbits

  besom—woman, often a talkative one

  blethering—talking nonsense

  bodie—body, person

  bonnie—handsome or lovely

  by my fegs—a mild oath, like “Rats!”

  canny—smart, knowing

  carlin—witch, old woman

  clout—a rag or cloth

  conies—rabbits

  coof—fool, simpleton

  daftie—crazy person

  dinna—do not

  doited—crazed, enfeebled, foolish

  doon—down

  dorty—stubborn

  forenoon—morning

  fou—drunk

  fowsome—filthy, impure, obscene

  frae—from

  gae—go

  going my dinger—going about vigorously

  gormless—stupid

  greetin teenie—someone who is always complaining

  gud—good

  haar—sea mist

  hue—have

  hame—home

  harling—roughcasting to protect soft stone from the weather

  hoovering—vacuuming, or slang for vigorously eating (Hoover is a brand of vacuum cleaner.)

  ken—know

  kirk—church, usually Protestant

  lad—boy

  lang—long

  lass—girl

  licht—light

  losh—a mild swear word, like “gosh”

  luv—love

  mair—more

  mischant—worthless person

  nae—not, no

  nicht—night

  noo—now

  oot—out

  paidling—aimless, feckless

  porridge—oatmeal

  puir—poor

  richt—right

  shut your cake hole—shut your mouth

  spoacher—a poacher, thief

  stane—stone

  swick—to deceive

  toom-headit—brainless, empty-headed

  toon—town

  weans—little children

  wee—small, little

  weel—well

  wee, sleekit, timorous, cowerin—from a Robert Burns poem, “To a Mouse,” it means “small, sly, frightened, cowering”

  wi’oot—without

  wouldna—would not

  A Personal History by Jane Yolen

  I was born in New York City on February 11, 1939. Because February 11 is also Thomas Edison’s birthday, my parents used to say I brought light into their world. But my parents were both writers and prone to exaggeration. My father was a journalist; my mother wrote short stories and created crossword puzzles and double acrostics. My younger brother, Steve, eventually became a newspaperman. We were a family of an awful lot of words!

  We lived in the city for most of my childhood, with two brief moves: to California for a year while my father worked as a publicity agent for Warner Bros. films, and then to Newport News, Virginia, during the World War II years, when my mother moved my baby brother and me in with her parents while my father was stationed in London running the Army’s secret radio.

  When I was thirteen, we moved to Connecticut. After college I worked in book publishing in New York for five years, married, and after a year traveling around Europe and the Middle East with my husband in a Volkswagen camper, returned to the States. We bought a house in Massachusetts, where we lived almost happily ever after, raising three wonderful children.

  I say “almost,” because in 2006, my wonderful husband of forty-four years—Professor David Stemple, the original Pa in my Caldecott Award–winning picture book, Owl Moon—died. I still live in the same house in Massachusetts.

  And I am still writing.

  I have often been called the “Hans Christian Andersen of America,” something first noted in Newsweek close to forty years ago because I was writing a lot of my own fairy tales at the time.

  The sum of my books—including some eighty-five fairy tales in a variety of collections and anthologies—is now well over 335. Probably the most famous are Owl Moon, The Devil’s Arithmetic, and How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? My work ranges from rhymed picture books and baby board books, through middle grade fiction, poetry collections, and nonfiction, to novels and story collections for young adults and adults. I’ve also written lyrics for folk and rock groups, scripted several animated shorts, and done voiceover work for animated short movies. And I do a monthly radio show called Once Upon a Time.

  These days, my work includes writing books with each of my three children, now grown up and with families of their own. With Heidi, I have written mostly picture books, including Not All Princesses Dress in Pink and the nonfiction series Unsolved Mysteries from History. With my son Adam, I have written a series of Rock and Roll Fairy Tales for middle grades, among other fantasy novels. With my son Jason, who is an award-winning nature photographer, I have written poems to accompany his photographs for books like Wild Wings and Color Me a Rhyme.

  And I am still writing.

  Oh—along the way, I have won a lot of awards: two Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, a Caldecott Medal, the Golden Kite Award, three Mythopoeic Awards, two Christopher Awards, the Jewish Book Award, and a nomination for the National Book Award, among many accolades. I have also won (for my full body of work) the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Grand Master Award, the Catholic Library Association’s Regina Medal, the University of Minnesota’s Kerlan Award, the University of Southern Mississippi and de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection’s Southern Miss Medallion, and the Smith College Medal. Six colleges and universities have given me honorary doctorate degrees. One of my awards, the Skylark, given by the New England Science Fiction Association, set my good coat on fire when the top part of it (a large magnifying glass) caught the sunlight. So I always give this warning: Be careful with awards and put them where the sun don’t shine!

  Also of note—in case you find yourself in a children’s book trivia contest—I lost my fencing foil in Grand Central Station during a date, fell overboard while whitewater rafting in the Colorado River, and rode in a dog sled in Alaska one March day.

  And yes—I am still writing.

  At a Yolen cousins reunion as a child, holding up a photograph of myself. In the photo, I am about one year old, maybe two.

  Sitting on the statue of Hans Christian Andersen in Central Park in New York in 1961, when I was twenty-two. (Photo by David Stemple.)

  Enjoying Dirleton Castle in Scotland in 2010.

  Signing my Caldecott Medal–winning book Owl Moon in 2011.

  Reading for an audience at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 2012.

  Visiting Andrew Lang’s gravesite at the Cathedral of Saint Andrew in Scotland in 2011.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2002 by Jane Yolen

  Cover design by Jesse Hayes

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-2107-4

  This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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  New York, NY 10014

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