A story to tell while preparing the wool

I wrote this story to tell the children whilst we are picking the bits out of the wool. It goes with my previous post about the song Tarry Wool. I hope that any Scottish readers will approve of this story about the great Bard. (If it helps, I am descended from the MacIntosh clan)

Once upon a time in Scotland, there was a little boy called Robert Burns but, because this was Scotland, everyone knew him as Rabbie. Rabbie lived a hard life. Even as a young boy he worked hard to help his father plough and farm his land. But there was one thing that made little Rabbie happy. For Rabbie loved to listen to music; he loved to listen to his mother Agnes singing as she swept and cleaned their home; and he loved the songs of William, his father, and of the other farm workers as they toiled to make a living off the land.

As a boy and then as a man, Rabbie walked from hill to valley and from town to city, listening to the songs that the people were singing and learning them for himself.

One day, Rabbie was walking from one town to another, high up in the hills with no one but the windswept sheep for company, when he heard singing

“Tarry wool, oh tarry wool
tarry wool is ill to spin
Card it well oh card it well
Card it well ere ye begin”

Rabbie was very excited at the prospect of learning a new song and he followed the sound until he came across a group of shepherds, sitting busily working while they sang.

“Tarry wool, oh tarry wool
tarry wool is ill to spin
Card it well oh card it well
Card it well ere ye begin”

Rabbie asked if he could join the shepherds and listen to their song and he sat himself down by a young shepherd boy. After a while of listening to them singing and watching them working he asked the boy what he was doing. The boy told him how they were cleaning their sheep's fleece to get all the little bits out and Rabbie asked if he could help. He sat with the shepherds overlooking the valleys as they cleaned the fleece and sang their song. What's this black sticky stuff he asked the boy. Ah, well that is the tar. We always put black tar on the sheep if he hurts itself. It stops dirt from getting in. That's why we call dirty wool Tarry Wool. But, you know, this here Tarry wool is the greatest stuff in the world. It clothes rich and poor alike. And it keeps us all warm and healthy and, with that, all the shepherds joined in again to sing. Rabbie Burns never forgot the song they sang and, when he was older, he wrote it down in a book so that we might never forget it too.

“Tarry wool, oh tarry wool
tarry wool is ill to spin
Card it well oh card it well
Card it well ere ye begin”