This Scottish folktale is one of those rare stories where the character who successfully defeats a giant is a girl. As often happens in folktales, Molly achieves this through gruesome actions. First, she tricks the giant into killing his three innocent daughters. Later, she tricks him into severely beating has kind wife, who had helped when Molly and her sisters needed food. As a reward, the girls marry into the family of a cowardly king who is happy to send Molly into danger three more times to satisfy his greed. There don’t seem to be any true heroes here.
Our source for the story was a children’s book called English Fairy Stories by folktale collector Joseph Jacobs, first published in 1890. Jacobs points out in his notes at the end of the book that, in common with with many other folktales, the story-line here is made up of elements that have close parallels with a number of earlier stories… at least four in this instance!
Jacobs’s source was an 1884 story “Mally Whuppy” that appeared in the Folk-Lore Journal. This had been transcribed from an oral source, which may explain a confusing line in the story. As Molly banters with the giant from the other side the river each time she runs across the Bridge of One Hair, she cries out …I’ll come / never come again to Spain. It would have to be a long bridge to reach all the way from Scotland to Spain. Rather, I suspect this may be a spelling error that has been perpetuated through the ages. The original oral version would almost certainly have referred to a Scottish location, quite possibly the Glen Spean region of the Western Highlands.
Original Text / PDF (1,389 words)