Are you sitting comfortably neeps and tatties?

Yes, Mistress Cranachan.

Then we’ll begin.

Once upon a time there was a little tattie haggis called Douglas. Douglas lived in The Great Glen where Haggistoon the biggest haggis community in the entire world was located. Not even in Canada was there such a place.

Douglas was a good little tattie, but he got teased a lot because he preferred to play hopscotch with the neeps rather than shinty with the other tatties. Shinty as you know is a little rough and Douglas was wee for his age and a little delicate.

He did well in his lessons at school and was an inquisitive soul, but he got into a lot of trouble for asking why things were the way they were. His troubles really began when he started to question the very order of haggisdom. “Why,” he asked “do neeps have longer right legs than left ones and run anticlockwise round the hill and tatties have longer left legs than right ones and run clockwise round the hill.”

“Douglas Euan McHaggis,” shouted Mistress McBlackbun their teacher. “Of all the pupils I have ever taught I certainly never expected you, a great grandson of the McHaggis himself, clan chief of clan chiefs, would be the one who would ask such a disgusting thing. You have a detention every night after school for a week when you will copy in your very best hand writing the haggis constitution with all acknowledged one hundred and twenty-seven variations on the recipe. If I reject your hand writing once, mind you just once, you will be here every school day eve till you have completed the task. Do you understand me, or do I have to talk to your father?”

“I understand you right well, Mistress McBlackbun,” replied a very unhappy little tattie.

Douglas still played with the neeps and became more and more feminine as he grew older. He had more and more teasing from the other tatties till it became outright bullying. His mother tried her best to protect him from his father, but his father was embarrassed by his eldest son. “You may as well have birtht a neep,” he told his wife bitterly. “At least then I’d have had a daughter to love and be proud of.”

In secret, Douglas tried walking round the hill anticlockwise, and he was nearly was catcht any number of times. It wasn’t easy, but when he was walking anticlockwise he felt at peace with himself. It felt so natural and right that from time to time he skipped with the joy of it.

Occasionally he asked clever questions. “Why are the Laird’s ghillies only at the hill with the tourists at the time of breeding?”

“The word in Haggis is toories not tourists, but despite your appalling grasp of the language, that,” explained his great grandfather the McHaggis himself “is a very intelligent question. That as a direct descendant of mine who will one day rise to be the McHaggis you need to know the answer to.” He whispered, “We have a financial arrangement with the Laird. The longer and the better the running the more he pays.” He looked at Douglas who was wee for his age. “I do take it you are aware of the happening when a tattie runs into a neep and he catches her?”

Douglas blushed deeply, but replied steadily, “Indeed yes Great Grandsire, I was in the class that received sex education last year.”

“Humph. Well you’re clearly old enough, but may the Great Ashtree himself help me you certainly don’t look big enough to catch a neep. They put up a struggle, you know, to make sure they are catcht by a tattie worthy of them and who can give them a bellyful of little haggi over the years. On your way, tattie, I’ve wasted enough time on you now. Send me one of your bigger younger brothers.”

Douglas never got any bigger and over time became adept at changing from running anticlockwise by spinning on his rear left leg to running clockwise when he saw the top of a Tam o' Shanter coming towards him round the hill. Unfortunately for Douglas not only had he been seen running anticlockwise that morning before school, it was the day he’d asked, “What if a tattie wanted to run anticlockwise?”

That was enough for the McHaggis, “You disgusting little breakfast sausage,” he roared. “I’ve heard of your filthy little mind from Mistress McBlackbun any number of times and overlooked it because you're the eldest tattie of your father. But this is the outside of enough. You’re nothing but a Lorne Slice, a Lancashire a black pudding, a disgrace to all haggisdom. Get out of my sight. You’re an abomination in the sight of the Great Ashtree. Pack a knapsack and begone you unnatural little pervert. You can call yourself a trans neep as much as you want. There’s no such thing in my book. You’re a corrupt tattie loving tattie, and we want none of your ilk anywhere near decent neeps and tatties. Away with you, Filth. And don’t come back. Not even after I’m dead.”

Douglas’s Mum tearfully kissed him goodbye and whispered, “Keep in touch, daughter. The tinkers will carry a message for a copper. They’re not subject to the McHaggis’ whims and bigotry and don’t like him over much. Just make sure you tell them to deliver it to my hand only. But pray tell, what is your name, Sweetling? For you must have a neep name, and I can't let you leave without knowing who you truly are.”

“I’m Morag, Mum,” the weeping haggis replied.

“Fare thee well, Morag.” With that his mother turned and walked away, but as she entered the house she turned and waved.”

Singing for her supper, Morag wandered a long way and for a long time, but always she walked like a neep. She suffered a lot of indignity and not a small amount of grievous hurt from those who had a need to find someone, anyone, to hurt to make their small insignificant selves feel bigger. But still she held her head high and walked like a neep, for she opined only oneself could inflict humiliation, others could inflict many things but humiliation no.

Morag was singing for pennies at a county fair one day when a big strong looking haggis with strange looking legs put a silver piece in her cup and asked, “Wither away next, Mistress fair with the golden voice?”

“Green Monastery fair, kind Sir. Why?” She responded.

“I’m a jongleur, and one fair is the same as another to me. Let us share the road. And at least the company will keep the tedium at bay,” he explained. “And the company of one so fair as your sweet self will be no hardship.”

Morag laught and said, “Enough of your flattery, sir, for you’ll have me believing you mean it if you carry on, but a fair exchange is no robbery. I am Morag. I used to be a McHaggis of the Great Glen, but now I’m just Morag of the road, and, you?”

“I’m Dram McDram of Portree. But pray tell, Mistress Morag, why do you consider yourself to no longer be a McHaggis of the Great Glen, for tis a prestigious ancestry?” Dram asked.

“Have you no eyes? I was born a tattie and see you not how I walk. I walk like this because in my heart I’m a neep.” Morag’s eyes were moist at her admission.

“Obviously not, for I saw and still see a neep fair. But I see it all now,” said Dram. “I’ve never travelled the Great Glen, but I’ve heard it’s a very, shall we say, traditional place. I always could run clockwise and anticlockwise for my legs are nearly the same length, but my home must be a great deal more tolerant than yours for I received no insult or harm in result. Let us to Portree go. Tis my birth place, and it will suit you well, Mistress Morag. There the neeps run clockwise and look like you and the tatties run counterwise. Tis not the same in all places as in the Great Glen. I’ve even heard of places where both run both ways for they have legs like mine. I’ve never been there, but I do believe tis true.

“It would take the rest of the season singing and juggling our way there, but we should be home before the worst of the weather arrives. The ferry will cost us nothing for my cousin Angus is the ferry master.” Dram was very persuasive and Morag was willing to be persuaded, for she’d had more than her share of harsh treatment and to settle in a place where she’d be treated kindly was a very attractive idea. If it didn’t live up to expectation she could just leave with the spring and sing for her supper again.

In only a couple of weeks the couple were in love. Their journey was one of discovery, of both each other and of how very different their backgrounds were. It was freezing at night by the time they reached the ferry, and they were glad to see the lights of Dram's parents’ croft across the valley. They crossed the valley in the gloam and it was full dark when they arrived. Morag was made welcome, and Dram’s mother wept with joy when she realised Morag had brought her wandering son home for good.

There was no running for the couple, it was not necessary. They had already catcht the haggis they wanted and the couple were married under the old ash tree at the next full moon. Morag kept in touch with her mother who was delighted to hear they had adopted two baby haggi, both neeps and both had longer left legs.

And that, children, is the end of today’s story, for they all lived happily ever after.