Faery Fauna II: Deer

Deer and the faeries are inseparably connected.  The animals provide the Good Folk with a valuable source of sustenance, but the association is even deeper than that; there is a magical control over them that merges into identity.

In the Scottish Highlands, the huge hag known as the cailleach bheur or cailleach-uisge, the water woman, inhabits wild places and acts as a guardian to wild animals, most particularly deer.  Normally, it is considered bad luck for a hunter to see the cailleach, for a glimpse of her would mean that he would certainly catch nothing that day.  Nonetheless, just occasionally, the hag might allow her deer to be hunted by favoured individuals- or she might curse a particular animal to be killed if it had offended- for example by kicking during milking.  In Sir Walter Scot’s poem Alice Brand, it is the elfin king who protects the deer of the greenwood; they are “Beloved of our Elfin Queen.”  Such is the affinity between the fae and deer that a fairy hunter encountered by two walkers at Corrieyairaick in Inverness-shire was seen to be able to walk through a herd without disturbing them at all.

Folklorist Joseph Campbell reported in Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland that, according to popular Highland belief, no deer is ever found dead with age, neither are its annually shed antlers ever found, because the faeries hide both the bodies and the horns, just as they use enchantments to hide their herds.  The faery folk have a particular dislike for those who kill their hinds, and, if they discover those hunters in lonely places, they will torment them with elf-bolts.  When a dead deer is carried home at the end of a day’s hunting, the faeries will frequently lay all their weight on the bearer’s back, until he struggles under the huge burden. An iron knife, however, being stuck in the deer’s body, will repel the faery interference and make the carcase light again.  Campbell also recorded that the old faery woman (or gruagach) called the Carlin of the Red Stream, is able to restore to life any of her herd that have been hunted, provided that she can obtain a small portion of its flesh to taste.

As noted already, the cailleach keeps flocks of deer (as well as cattle and pigs) and she herds and milks the hinds on the mountains.  Whilst in the summer the hag grazes her deer on the remote heights, on winter nights she can sometimes be seen driving her herd down onto the beaches of the Ross of Mull, where they can feed on the seaweed whilst other vegetation is sparse.  By way of contrast, the Carlin Wife of the Spotted Hill (Cailleach Beinne Bhric Horo) has a herd which, it is said, she will not allow to descend to the beach; instead, they “love the water-cresses by the fountain high in the hills better than the black weeds of the shore.”   This same cailleach is said to have sung a unique song whilst milking her hinds and, in turn, to have rewarded a bold young hunter who sang verses in praise of her: she granted him supernatural skills in pursuing deer.  In Somerset in the south of England there are references to the closely related ‘Woman of Mist’ who lived on Bicknoller Hill in the western Quantock Hills.  She too herded deer on the hillsides.

In some districts, such as Lochaber and Mull, deer are said to be the only form of ‘cattle’ herded by faery women (bean sith). A faery lullaby recorded by Alexander Carmichael in Carmina Gadelica is called Bainne nam fiadh (Deer’s Milk); it suggests that milk from hinds may substitute for faery mothers’ weakness in breastfeeding:

“On milk of deer I was raised,

On milk of deer I was nurtured,

On milk of deer beneath the ridge of storms, 

On crest of hill and mountain.” 

Carmina Gadelica, vol.2, 232

Quite a dear deer- yours online for just £70…

The faeries’ link with deer is more than just a matter of food and oversight.  Faery women (and some witches) can transform into hinds- and Osian’s mother is said to have been a deer.  Likewise, the cailleach bheur can turn into a range of animals including the deer, as well as cats and ravens.  The cailleach’s shape-shifting ability is seen as well in the baobhan sith (‘hag faery’), a particularly fierce and dreadful supernatural female of the Highlands, who may appear in addition as a crow or raven or as a lovely girl in a long green dress.  The gown conceals the fact that she has deer hooves instead of feet, a clear indication of her non-human nature.  The baobhan sith is known for seducing and then consuming unwary men- slitting their throats, ripping out their hearts and drinking their blood.  Glaistigs are also known to herd deer, to allow favoured hunters to take single beasts and to transform into female human form in which their identity may be betrayed by their deer hooves.  It is very curious indeed that the deer, an animal normally characterised as timid and gentle, should be an alternative form of notoriously ferocious faery females.

The assumption of deer form is found elsewhere in British mythology.  In the fourth branch of the Mabinogion, the story of Math son of Mathonwy, the brothers Gilfaethwy and his astronomer/ magician brother Gwydion are punished by their uncle Math for their joint rape of the virgin Goewin.  This assault has precipitated war, so Math turns them into a breeding pair of deer for a year, then pigs, and lastly wolves. Three young are born over the three-year duration of the spell; Math uses magic to change these offspring into boys and names them: they are, respectively, Hyddwn (Stag Man), Hychddwn Hir (the Long Pig), and Bleiddwn (Wolf Man).  In a related story, Amaethon, another brother of Gwydion, steals a white roebuck and a whelp from Arawn, king of the otherworld, a crime which again leads to a major conflict.

Various other marvellous deer appear in the Mabinogion.  In the story of Peredur, son of Efrawc, the hero has to hunt a one-horned stag that is both very powerful and fast; a pure white stag is hunted by King Arthur in the tale of Geraint son of Erbin.  Far more impressive than either of these, though, is the very long-lived Stag of Redynvre in Culhwch and Olwen, whose wise advice Arthur solicits. 

Gloria Wallington, Pictish Hunting Scene III, 1995

Deer have other supernatural aspects.  It has been reported that in Breadalbane, in the central Highlands, the belief once was that ghosts could appear as various beasts, including dogs, cattle and- of course- deer.  In England, for example at Levens Hall in Westmorland, white deer were supposed to have been tied to the fortune of the house, the killing of one guaranteeing misfortune for the residents.

As a final confirmation of the deep-rooted supernatural and mythological status of deer in the British Isles, we may note the annual horn-dance that takes place at Abbot’s Bromley in Staffordshire. The antlers used in this day-long ceremony (or maybe ritual) are actually from reindeer and date back to around the Norman Conquest- two remarkable and quite inexplicable facts. In describing the dance, the recently released book Weird Walk notes that across Europe there was a tradition of dressing up as deer or cattle, something that early medieval churchmen recognised as pagan magic and sought to outlaw. It looks as though it somehow survived at Abbot’s Bromley, even today connecting us with those hags and stags…

Abbot’s Bromley Horn Dance, c.1900

Last Tuesday Society talk

A quick plug for the Last Tuesday Society online talks. These are linked to the Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & UnNatural History, which is in Mare Street, Hackney, London E8. I’ve been booked to do a session on Faery Anatomy on Tuesday, 23rd April between 8pm and 9.30pm (BST).

Here are the links:

Facebook: https://fb.me/e/4S1m6djbh

Eventbrite

John Kruse – The Faes’ Anatomy

They asked me to plug the event and I’m sure they’d appreciate your bookings.

Faery Fauna I: Supernatural Swine

Twrch Trwyth– sculpture by Tony Woodward at Ammanford

The connection between faeries and certain animals in Britain is a complex and (as ever) sometimes rather confusing one. The fae can keep their own domestic and domesticated creatures- they have horses for riding, cows for milk and meat and dogs for hunting and guarding their homes, all of which feature in folk tales. Secondly, though, some faery beings can take on animal form or, more notably, may only appear as those creatures. I’ve written several times in previous posts about what I’ve termed these ‘faery beasts,’ the likes of the black dogs, water horses and water bulls.  In this and succeeding posts, I want to explore the slightly different vision of faery being: my focus will be upon those faeries who have two natures- animal as well as anthropoid- and the manner in which they are integrated into the wider enchanted environment of the isles of Britain. I will focus on a number of major animals, consider how their forms are often assumed by faery beings and examine how these creatures have long featured in the deeper mythology of Britain. 

Herds

The boar, or wild pig, appears very often in British folklore and there are regular associations with faeries: hence, the Highland hag called the cailleach bheur keeps flocks of pigs as well as deer and cattle.  Her storm-bringing assistants ride on both swine and wolves. A cailleach in Ross and Cromarty called Mala Liath is the protectress of herds of swine and, together with the wild boar of Glen Glass, is said to prey upon humans.

According to a Scots poem found in the Bannatyne manuscript, ‘The Gyre Carling,’ the faery female called the Gyre Carlin in Fife is said to be accompanied by her sow, which she will ride, in addition to which she can take on pig form if she wishes.  The gyre seems to be a southern variant of the cailleach bheur and, like so many of those northern hags, is thought to have lived on human flesh. 

The swine as supernatural companion is also found English ballad of the ‘Jovial Hunter.’ This tells of Sir Ryalas of Upper Wick in Worcestershire who went to the aid of a lady trapped in a tree after her husband and retinue had all, apparently, been killed by a wild boar.  The knight bravely fought the beast for four hours and eventually managed to kill it, but the ‘lady’ was not grateful to her saviour: she proved to be a wild woman of the woods who attacked him, complaining “you have killed my spotted pig!”

Shapeshifting

Regularly, too, faeries can take on the form of boars and pigs: the Manx glastin or glashtyn has one form as a horse but is also seen as a pig; Highland fuathan can also assume multiple shapes- including a pig and a dog; likewise, barguests- which often manifest as huge chained dogs, but also as donkeys, calves and pigs- and the Manx bugganes, which might appear as pigs, cows, dogs or cats.  The Scottish folklorist John Gregorson Campbell discovered a tradition in the Ross of Mull that a faery being might take the form of a small bird, called the torc sona (or ‘happy boar’) which could bring luck to farmers, such as a never-ending supply of seed.

Shapeshifting into pig form by a supernatural may also be encountered on the Isle of Man.  In 1910, the Reverend Canon Kewley, of Arbory parish on the island, recounted the experience of a staunch Methodist he knew.  This man had once seen the road full of little black pigs which all vanished as soon as he demanded of them, “In the name of God, what are ye?”  He was quite sure that he had seen a group of the ‘little folk.’  There also the faery pig of the Isle of Man, a creature called arkan sonney in Manx- ‘the lucky piggy.’  This is a white pig with red ears and eyes (a very typical colouring for supernatural beasts) which is capable of changing its size- but not its shape.  They are reputed to be very attractive and lucky creatures (akin to the Manx torc sona just mentioned).

Arkan Sonney by Luniers on DeviantArt

Boars

Monstrous supernatural boars that wreak destruction are a common feature of British myth.  The most famous of these, probably, is the Twrch Trwyth (Trwyth the Boar) in the Welsh story of Culhwch and Olwen in the collection of early medieval stories called the Mabinogion. Such was its reputation that the medieval Welsh poet Lewis Glyn Cothi (1420-90) made a comparison between a human warrior and the boar: “He would destroy towns with wrath, wounds and violence; he would tear down towers like Twrch Trwyth.”

The Twrch Trwyth has a comb, scissors and razor, hidden amongst the poisonous bristles between its ears, items which Culhwch needs so that he can cut the hair of the giant, Ysbaddaden, in the hope that he will then give consent for his daughter to marry the hero.  Trwyth is hunted across the whole of South Wales and into Cornwall by King Arthur and a large party of skilled pursuers.  A second boar, Ysgithrwyn Pen Beidd (Chief Boar), has then to be hunted to obtain a tusk with which to shave the giant.

Arthur hunts the Twrch– sculpture at Cwmamman

Several other magical boars and swine appear in the Mabinogion.  In the tale of Manawyddan son of Llyr, Pryderi and Manawyddan pursue a marvellous white boar into a castle never previously seen standing at that spot. When, successively, Pryderi and then his mother Rhiannon enter the castle, they are frozen on the spot by spells cast by the magician Llwyd ap Cil Coed.  The boar seen was either Llwyd in disguise- or was an apparition conjured by him.  Certainly, in the ancient Welsh stories we encounter examples of shapeshifting into pig-form: Twrch Trwyth is, according to King Arthur, a sinful king transformed into a swine by god in punishment; the poet Taliesin sang of his origins, describing how he was able to shape-shift, taking on multiple forms, including that of a stag (see a later posting) and of a swine: “I have fled as a bristly boar, seen in a ravine.” 

Generally, swine are portrayed positively, as highly valuable and desirable- so much so that in the story of Math, son of Mathonwy, the wizard Gwydion uses magical deception to steal swine from Pryderi.  However, at the start of the story of Culhwch and Olwen the boy’s mother is able to overcome a difficult labour by going to a place where swine were being herded; fear of the pigs hastened her son’s delivery. It’s not wholly clear whether there is a magical aspect to this.

Scottish tradition also has a tale of a monstrous and ferocious boar that lived in a cave on Ben Laighal in Sutherland.  It was killed by Diarmuid, but like Twrch Trwyth, it had poisonous bristles, one of which pierced his bare foot and killed him; the same tale is told of Diarmuid and the Mala Liath and Glen Glass boar mentioned earlier. The killing of monstrous boars that have ravaged neighbourhoods is also found in folktales from throughout England, for instance from Boarstall, Chetwode, Bishop Auckland and Brancepeth.

The wild boar has a reputation as a fierce and dangerous creature, but the stories recounted here go well beyond this. Not only can these swine become unnaturally huge, they may be found as the companions of malign faery females, wreaking devastation together with them. Then again, there can be a fortunate and benign aspect to some of these beings. At the very least, as we shall see in posts on other animals to follow, the faeries are regarded as being integrated into the British landscape and ecology not only through grazing swine but by becoming them.

On Grants & Portunes- two medieval faery puzzles

A Portune, by Jessica Hilton (2017)

In his early thirteenth century collection, Otia Imperalia, the English scholar Gervase of Tilbury drew attention to various creatures of English folklore.  These include a familiar description of mermaids alongside two rather more mysterious beings known as the Grant and the Portunes.  Here I wish to discuss these and how they may relate to the faery beings with whom we may be more familiar. 

I shall start with the Grant, although Gervase discusses this second.  His passage is short and can be quoted in full:

“On the Grant and Fires:  There is, in England, a certain kind of demon whom in their language they call Grant, like a yearling foal, erect on its hind legs, with sparkling eyes. This kind of demon often appears in the streets in the heat of the day, or about sunset. If there is any danger impending on the following day or night, it runs about the streets provoking the dogs to bark, and, by feigning flight, draws the dogs after, in the vain hope of catching it. This vision warns the inhabitants to beware of fire, and the friendly demon, while he terrifies those who see him, by his coming puts the ignorant on their guard.”

Tertia Decisio, 62

I shall also cite from Gervase’s original Latin text, which begins as follows: “De Grant et incendiis: Est in Anglia quoddam daemonum genus quod suo idiomate Gyant nominant, adinstar pulli equini anniculi, tibiis erectum, oculis scintillantibus.”  The reason for quoting this is to draw attention to the creature’s name: it is given as both ‘Grant’ and ‘Gyant.’  Some authors, such as Thomas Keightley in his Fairy Mythology of 1828, proposed a link with the monster Grendel of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf.  I don’t think this is necessary: Gervase says that these names are in English (Middle English to us) and, in fact, I reckon they’re nothing more than ‘graunt,’ borrowed from Norman French grand and meaning ‘big’ and the older English gigant meaning a ‘giant.’ In other words, the name itself is rather disappointing- it just means ‘Big.’  The two versions of its title, both capable of the same interpretation, to my mind tend to confirm my guess at its meaning.

Gervase’s comparison of the Grant to a foal must be significant and brings to mind the shag-foal and tatterfoal of the east of England, but these faery beasts mainly seem to scare people, rather than trying to alert them to imminent danger, such as a fire.  The walking on hind feet is a trait of the padfoot of Horbury (a kind of supernatural black dog) and another dark hound known at the village of Hallen, near Bristol, which would turn into a donkey and then rear up on its back feet.  The ‘shug monkey’ of West Wratting in Cambridgeshire, which I’ve described before, is a black, shaggy animal reported to be a cross between a big, rough-coated dog and a monkey, which sometimes would walk on its hind-legs. Those ‘sparkling’ eyes are very similar to the fiery red saucer eyes of numerous black dog apparitions; the propensity to set off the local dogs and to have them chase it in a pack as a premonition of danger or death is also not uncommon. The barguest at Oxwells near Leeds does this; various black hounds, including the trash, skriker, Gabriel Ratchets and the Welsh cwn wybir are all omens of death.

An alternative explanation for the grant has been advanced by doctoral student Joseph Pentangelo in an article The Grant, the Hare, and the Survival of a Medieval Folk Belief which can be read on Academia. He points out the longstanding role of hares in southern English folklore as fire omens, coupled with their occasional habit of walking on their hind feet, and proposes that Gervase’s grant is just “an exaggerated hare.”  Of the possible link with the barguest (first proposed in John Cowell’s Law Dictionary in 1708) Pentangelo says “apart from some rather general similarities- glowing eyes and an ominous nature- the two creatures seem to have nothing in common. Glowing eyes were a fairly widespread feature of medieval monsters, and do not necessarily indicate a genetic relationship.”

Hares are relatively rare in British faerylore, especially when compared to supernatural dogs, horses and donkeys and pigs, so that the suggestion that the Grant was one, whilst possible, is perhaps not as likely as it being some other mammal.  Secondly, if my interpretation of the name is correct (and if the name is authentic) it would tend to imply that its size is a key aspect of its character.  Once again, unnaturally large hounds (and/ or bogies that can swell in size) might point towards a form of phantom horse or dog, which are well known across Britain.

Turning to the Portunes, the text reads as follows:

“Of the Neptunes, or Portunes:  They have in England certain demons, though I know not whether I should call them demons or figures of a secret and unknown generation, which the French call Neptunes, the English Portunes.  It is their nature to embrace the simple life of comfortable farmers and when, after completing their domestic work, they are sitting up at night, with the doors all shut, they warm themselves at the fire, and take little frogs out of their bosom, roast them on the coals, and eat them. They have the countenance of old men, with wrinkled cheeks, and they are of a very small stature, not being quite half an inch high. They wear little patched coats, and if anything is to be carried into the house, or any laborious work to be done, they lend a hand, and finish it sooner than any man could. It is their nature to have the power to serve, but not to injure. They have, however, one little annoying habit. When, at night, the English are riding anywhere alone, the Portune sometimes invisibly joins the horseman; and, when he has accompanied him a good while, he at last takes the reins, and leads the horse into a neighbouring slough; and when he is fixed and floundering in it, the Portune goes off with a loud laugh, and by sport of this sort he mocks the simplicity of mankind.”

Tertia Decisio, 61

The measurement of the portunes given in the text is almost certainly an error that’s crept in. A height of half an inch would mean that they were dwarfed by the frogs they were eating (and carrying). Half a foot (six inches)- or even half a yard (one foot six) makes more sense, relatively; Jennifer Hilton’s depiction at the head of the page is probably more proportionate- and her other pages of Faery Art are also recommended.

As for the meaning of ‘Portune,’ this time, of course, Gervase does try to give us an interpretation (of sorts) of the beings’ name.  His Latin reads: “De neptunis, sive portunis: Ecce enim Anglia daemones quosdam habet, daemones, inquam, nescio dixerim, an secretas et ignotae generationis effigies, quos Galli Neptunos; Angli Portunos nominant.” Scholars have suggested that the French ‘neptune’ is Gervase’s version of the spirit known as the nuton/ lutin, a subterranean-dwelling creature akin to the British hobgoblin.  If this is correct, there’s very clearly no connection with the Roman sea god Neptune nor with the sea and Gervase seems to have garbled the name pretty seriously in converting it into Latin.  That gives us some problems with portune, therefore; he claims it’s an English name, but I’d argue that it pretty clearly isn’t a native name in the form he gives.  My guess is that this is a Latinised and rather garbled version of the Middle English portour, meaning someone who carries because, as he says, “if anything is to be carried into the house, or any laborious work to be done, they lend a hand.”

The portune’s briskness and helpfulness makes him a relative of the brownie, hob or domestic pixie; his pranks tormenting and misleading travellers connect him with pixies and hobs. Both these beings’ names, portune and grant, have disappeared from our folklore records. Does this mean that they themselves have vanished? I would argue not- partly because their characteristics survive in faery beings that are still known to us and partly because the names Gervase gives are so utilitarian. The grant and the portune survive, I suspect, but we just use more familiar or personal terms for them.

‘Monkies, Owles or Apes?’ On brownies, shugs and wags

The more traditional form of shuck

Elizabethan poet Thomas Churchyard wrote the following lines concerning bogies and pucks in his Handful of Gladsome Verses published in 1592 :

“Nay, better talk of bogges,

That walkes in dead men’s shapes:

Or tell of pretty little pogges,

As Monkies, Owles or Apes.”

What I’d like to discuss here is the small class of faery beings who do, indeed, look just like monkeys and apes.

The East Anglian dark hairy beast- known as the shuck or shug because of its shaggy potential to shock- is usually seen as a black hound. However, fascinatingly, this supernatural being may also be seen in some places in the form of an ape or monkey. These sightings are of interest because, in this anthropoid form, the shugs seem most closely related to humans (and to faeries) and, secondly, because by their very exoticness, the sightings seem more authentic.  Whilst it is easy to conceive of a villager of the sixteenth or seventeenth century imagining a monstrous version of an everyday animal, the creation of something resembling a mammal which many might never have heard of, let alone seen, is more surprising.  Nevertheless, these creatures were encountered across a wide area and a long period of time.  At West Wratting in Cambridgeshire as recently as the early 1950s a police constable saw the local ‘shug monkey,’ a black, shaggy animal that haunted the road leading to the next village of Balsham, and which was reported by one local to be a “cross between a big, rough-coated dog and a monkey, with big shining eyes.  Sometimes it would shuffle along on its hind-legs and at other times it would whizz past on all fours.  You can guess we children gave the place a wide berth after dark!”

At Melton, in Suffolk, ‘Old Shock’ haunted local roads and footpaths, throwing down walkers.  It has generally been described as taking the more typical forms of a large dog or calf with ‘tea-saucer eyes,’ but it was also to be seen hanging on the bars of a toll-gate, making it resemble an ape.  Nonetheless, it had a donkey’s head and (in contradiction of the source of its name) a smooth velvet hide.  This particular beast once bit the hand of a man that tried to catch it.  As is often the case with black dogs, it was believed that its appearance foretold a death in the vicinity. 

These ape-like faery beasts are by no means limited to the eastern counties of England.  In Surrey, in the south, the village of Buckland boasts a ‘shag’ which is a monster like a huge ape, sometimes spotted sitting on a large rock in a lane and sometimes invisible (NB- of course, if you can’t see it, how do you know it is the shug and what it looks like? I can’t answer this one!).  The Buckland shag would scare those driving carts or riding along the highway at night, just where it crossed a stream called the Shagbrook.  At Ranton, in Staffordshire, in the north Midlands, there was a ‘man-monkey’ who used to appear where the highway crossed a canal.  This creature was black with white eyes and would emerge from beneath the road bridge, leaping onto passing horses and terrifying them (and the humans with them).  Locals would add that a man had apparently drowned in the canal there at some point in the nineteenth century, making the implicit connection between faeries and ghosts that is often heard.

These shucks, shugs and shags seem to be rather anomalous oddities, hard to connect to the prevalent black dog apparitions (other than in their notable hairiness) as well as being apparently isolated from other known forms of faery beings. This leaves them hard to fit into any sort of taxonomy or ‘family tree’ of faeries, but they’re not entirely out on a limb (sorry!)

An 1866 depiction of the Wag by G Burlison

In the Border counties of Scotland there lived a sprite called the Wag-at-t’-Wa’ that sounds much like a monkey shug.  It would be found in the kitchens of farms, overseeing the work of the domestic servants but not actually undertaking any chores.  Whenever the pot hook (or crook) over the fire was free, the wag would swing there; he looked like an old man dressed in grey, except that he had long crooked legs and a long tail.  In this respect he clearly resembles a monkey hanging from a branch.  The wag approved of children, happiness in a household and lots of home-brewed ale.  He would disappear if there was a death in a family and a cross marked on the pot crook would seemingly lay him.  Furthermore, from the same broad region of the North-East of England, we have reports that one of the forms taken by the Northumbrian barguest when he accompanied midwives on their duties was that of a monkey.

The examples of the Wag and the barguest from Northumberland and the Borders perhaps suggest where the shug might better fit into a ‘taxonomy’ of faeries. The Wag swinging on the crook and the Melton Shock swinging on the gate sound nearly identical. The Wag has very clear links with brownies- as, for that matter, does the midwife’s barguest, for it was quite common for both brownies and broonies to fetch midwives when they were needed- all part of their attachment to a particular family and its well-being. Brownies are, of course, so-called precisely because they are small, hairy beings. The East Anglian shugs seem, somehow to have lost that familiar, domestic connection, but their physical appearance plainly argues for a connection. I wonder if the shugs and shocks got associated with the black dogs mainly because of their hairy scariness, overlooking other more appropriate connections, such as with the local brownies/ dobbies, who are just as well attested.

Trow Medicine- sickness & cures

The trows, the faery beings of Orkney and Shetland, are particularly noted in the folklore of those islands for their healing knowledge and the way in which their cures by be used advantageously by humans as well.

There are a a number of stories from Shetland that demonstrate the healing abilities of the trows.  One of several similar accounts describes an incident when the ‘grey folk’ were seen treating a jaundiced trow infant by pouring water over it; by pronouncing a blessing, a woman stole the kapp (the small wooden bowl) that was being used for this cure and she was able then to treat jaundice in humans by using it.  In another story of a trow cup with healing powers (this time made of bone), a special ritual was required for its use- the user had to fast, remain speechless and fill the vessel with water from an east-flowing well at sunset, pouring the water over their head and heart and blessing themselves at the same time. Just as interesting as the curative power of these vessels is the information that the trows can suffer from illnesses identical to those afflicting humans. 

That humans and trows are affected by the same diseases (and presumably can infect each other) is also proved by the fact that trow medicine is just as effective when it’s used on sick mortals. In another story, some ointment is stolen from the trows which proves efficacious for healing any human injury.  A further account from Shetland describes how a sick man lying in bed was visited by two trows with a ‘pig’ (a stone bottle).  They debated whether he would be cured by a drink from their bottle, but decide that time was too short and that they needed to leave before his wife returns home.  The invalid had the presence of mind to bless himself- and the bottle- which (like the wooden kapp earlier) thereby fell into his possession.  It contained a never-ending supply of liquid that cured him after just a couple of doses and also cured any others needing it.  It hardly needs to be pointed out as well that these two last accounts take for granted the fact that the trows have the knowledge and skills to be able to diagnose their illnesses and the devise effective treatments (as is true for faery kind as a whole). 

Any item that had once been the property of the trows is considered to be lucky. Hence, an item that looked like melted glass that fell in a milk pail when a woman was milking her cow outside was believed to be a trow ‘gun.’ Whatever it was, it could both make cattle sick as well as heal them. A cog or kit (another pail) left behind once at Gangsta when the trows were disturbed whilst they were stealing milk from a byre turned out to boost milk yields; a similar vessel helped to cure cattle that had been struck by trowie arrows. This last example is especially notable and may be compared to the experience of a man called Henry Farquhar (or Harker in one version). He was asleep in his house one night when he was awoken by a trow woman entering with her baby. He found he was unable to move and lay watching as she anointed the child from a pig (jar) she had with her, which she first warmed at the fire. When the farm cock suddenly crowed, the trows departed in a hurry, but the pig was left behind and was used thereafter to treat those who had been “hurtit fae da grund” (‘hurt from underground’- that is, by the trows). 

From this last case we see that trow items can be deployed against them to cure those people and cattle who have been injured by the very same trows. Interestingly, as well, the ointment in the pig never ran out so long as Henry helped people for free. However, one time when he was away from home, his daughter charged a caller for help- and the jar was empty ever after. Even faery benefits that have fallen accidentally into human hands seem to be affected by the rule that they should never be abused. If they are- just like a supply of faery money- once the unspoken rules of the gift are breached, it is lost.

Trow Woman by Johan Egerkrans

Do Faeries Feel the Cold?

An urisk, by John Patience on Deviant Art

The persistent debate about whether or not the fae are fully physical solid beings, or are more ethereal or spiritual, often overlooks the accrued opinions of witnesses who have encountered them over the centuries. We can get caught up in ideas from Theosophy, such as ‘thought forms,’ and neglect what our ancestors have told us.

I set off on this chain of thought when reading Seton Gordon’s Highways and Byways of the West Highlands (1935), in which he remarked that Loch Hourn, a sea loch on the Sound of Sleat, is haunted by the each uisge and tarbh uisge (water horses and bulls): “the clan of the uruisgean [urisks] or spectres must roam” there, he says, but it’s too forbidding for the daoine sith or hill faeries. Too rugged and cold for the Good Folk, but fine for those faery beasts that have a good pelt of fur? It sounds reasonable enough, but what other support does the idea find in the folklore?

Faeries have been reported to shelter under holly and mistletoe leaves in the winter and, certainly, in the west of Scotland (which Gordon was describing) the practice has been for mistletoe to be hung over doors during frosts specifically so as to provide faeries with shelter from the cold. In South Wales it was also believed that stormy weather and winter cold drove them into human homes for shelter, where they expected not just a warm hearth but food and clean water left out.

Likewise, on the Isle of Man, it was accepted that on dark and stormy nights the little folk would need to be able to shelter somewhere, so people would bank up their fires and go to bed early to make way for them. This habit was called the ‘fairies’ welcome’ or shee dy vea. In the Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries (see pages 122 & 132) Evans Wentz recorded a witness saying that his grandfather’s family would sometimes be visited by a little white dog on cold winter’s nights. This was a faery dog, and it was a sign that the faeries themselves were on their way. The family would then stop whatever they were doing and make the house ready (fire stoked and fresh water set out) before hurrying off to bed.

As I ‘ve described before, the general habit of the faes is to enter human homes at night to avail themselves of our comforts and facilities- fires, hot water, spinning wheels, ovens- but the particular requirement for- and, indeed, expectation of- these conveniences during winter indicates that they can suffer from bad weather as much as us. A well-known Scottish tale of a man who gives his shirt to wrap a new-born faery baby (and is, of course, rewarded for his kindness) underlines that they are just as vulnerable as we are to cold and damp.

Nonetheless, in another Highland tale, one family was attended by the spirit called the caointeach (keener) who, rather like a banshee (bean sith or faery woman), would wail and moan before any death. One very wet, cold and windy night she was heard outside a house in which a family member lay ill. One of the company present put a plaid outside and called to the caointeach to put on the tartan and move herself to the side of the house sheltered from the gale. She was never heard to mourn again for that family. The mourner’s helpful act was taken as an insult, just as when brownies object to being presented with clothes to replace their rags or cover their nakedness. How, exactly, are we to interpret this? Perhaps, as with the brownie, the service to the family is a matter of pride and duty and, as such, is perceived as being above such petty considerations as comfort and reward. Perhaps, in the case of the caointeach, the cold and wet is felt to be all part of the process of grief and suffering- and we shouldn’t forget that brownies and hobs, just like other faery beings, do have full expectation of enjoying the heat of the fire as recompense for their labours at the end of the day and (just like on the Isle of Man) the humans were expected to get out of the way at a decent hour to permit this.

Curiously- and in contradiction to what Seton Gordon wrote- it’s been recorded that during the summer, the urisk/ urisg lives alone in caves in wild places but, in winter, just like the more domestic faeries, they shelter in barns and outbuildings and, in return for being allowed to lie before the fire and to receive a bowl of cream, they will undertake farm chores such as herding and threshing. This rather undermines my suggestion that we may distinguish these beings’ dwellings and habits on the basis of their innate hardiness: the urisg is known for its very long hair and, in fact, one member of the family is called the peallaidh– the ‘shaggy one.’ Perhaps, in addition to having a pelt, a further factor in determining whether they seek shelter or not is their degree of tolerance for, or animosity towards, human-kind.

What this short survey of just one faery characteristic indicates is that they are, in many respects, exactly like us mortals. They experience hunger and thirst, they suffer sickness and injury, they age and die. Possibly, what differentiates us may be less a matter of physiology as a command of magic.

Churchyard mould & mole hill earth- some strange charms against faeries

Mole, by Melchior Lorch, 1548

Many substances repel faeries, as I have often described; amongst these are sprigs of rowan tree, items associated with the Christian faith, iron objects and, perhaps most understandably, stale urine. The urine (maistir) would be off-putting to anyone with a sense of smell; an aversion to crosses, blessings and pages from scripture make sense if we accept that the faeries not only stand outside the church but (in the view of people from the Middle Ages) were actively associated with the angels who were ejected from heaven along with Lucifer.

Two substances that have regularly been deployed as defences against the Good Folk are similar to each other and might, initially, seem rather puzzling. These are the earth taken from graveyards and from mole hills. Scattered about, they form an invisible but impassable barrier against our Good Neighbours. The earth operates in two ways: it can stop the faeries getting in and, just as effectively, it can stop faery beings escaping. There are several recorded stories from the Scottish Highlands in which captured mermaids or faery cattle (crodh sith) are contained by humans using earth. The cattle are valuable for their rich milk; a mermaid is a novelty and might perhaps become a bride. However, whilst these measures will work for a while, sooner or later (of course) someone forgets to renew the barrier- which generally has to be done everyday- and the captives escape.

The use of churchyard earth is rather easy to explain, I think. It is taken from consecrated ground and, as such, shares its magical power with any other Christian-related item. Any objects formed into a cross (metal scissors, for instance, for double protection) and any items linked to the faith will work, even if there appears to be some sacrilege involved in their use- hence, pages ripped from the Bible or prayer book and carried in the pocket will protect an individual, even though we might assume that the damage to the holy book was, at the least, inadvisable or disrespectful. We might instinctively feel a comparable reluctance to take soil from the location where relatives or fellow villagers are interred, but once again this does not seem to impair the magic inherent in the substance. Then again, perhaps it is that very quality of those ancestors- dead and buried underground- that makes their last resting place so potent. If the dead are related somehow to the faeries, strewing the soil in which they sleep might be deploying like against like.

Why earth from moles hills though? The reason is that moles turn out to have a special place in British folklore. They were once felt to be a cure for scrofula, the ‘King’s Evil,’ and, as such, equivalent to a touch from the hand of the monarch himself. Holding a mole in your hand until it died would imbue you with healing powers (akin to what may be received from faeries). The powdered skin and flesh of a mole would cure the ague (malaria). It was more than just a burrowing mammal therefore.

More significantly for our purposes, moles are obviously subterranean creatures, living in the darkness and seldom seen. As a result- and just like the faeries- they have been linked to ancient burial chambers and cairns. The reverend John Atkinson, in his account of Forty Years in a Moorland Parish in North Yorkshire, records a conversation with a faery in which the supernatural told a man that he and his kind lived underground for “t’moudiwarps dis, an’ wheea not fairies?” (the moles do, so why not the faeries?) It appears that their common habitation below ground created an association between moles and faes and somehow led to traces of one being effective against its ‘neighbour.’

Part of the status of moles may also derive from wider folklore attitudes to small animals. British folklore never seems to have viewed these creatures as just wild mammals. For example, hedgehogs were thought in England to suck milk from cows udders in the fields. They were also believed to act as witches’ familiars and to be able to run as fast as hares. In turn, hares themselves were viewed as unlucky, because they were either witches’ familiars or because they were actually the shapeshifted witches, out and about in disguise and up to no good. Sometimes, too, ghosts or other spirits might take hare form (and see my Beyond Faery for more details of faery hares and other such animals).

To conclude, the British countryside was full of magical beings and plants, whose powers and interactions were far greater and more complex than we appreciate today. Whether we class it as ‘sympathetic’ magic or we see it as a reflection of their shared realm, the earth through the moles passed, being the same realm as that dwelt in by the faeries, could exercise a strong, but poorly understood, control over them.

‘If you go down to the woods today…’- disguises and faery magic

Le grand et p’tit Colins by David Wyatt

In 1932 British big band leader Henry Hall composed the song The Teddy Bears’ Picnic, which advised children that “If you go down in the woods today, You’d better go in disguise…” The first teddy bears had appeared only thirty years previously, but Hall’s advice could easily have been written much earlier and aimed at much greater threats, for woodland is- of course- a notorious haunt of faery-kind and the need to be cautious- especially when you’re spying on them- is extremely well-established. Why, though, might being in disguise be helpful?

Here I’m going to bring together some folklore accounts that I’ve mentioned before, but I’ll frame them in a new context. There appears to be a thread of knowledge in some traditional stories that indicates a curious relationship between the faeries and human clothing. We’ll start with a curiously inconclusive- feeling story from Walter Evans Wentz’ Fairy Faith in the Celtic Countries.  It’s set at Barra Head on the Isle of Barra in the Western Hebrides, and it tells how:

“a fairy woman used to come to a man’s window almost every night as though looking to see if the family was home. The man grew suspicious, and decided the fairy woman was watching for her chance to steal his wife, so he proposed a plan. It was then (and still is) the custom after thatching a house to rope it across with heather-spun ropes, and, at the time, the man was busy spinning some of them; so he told his wife to take his place that night to spin the heather-rope, and said he would take her place at the spinning-wheel. They were thus placed when the fairy woman made the usual look in at the window, and she seeing that her intention was understood, said to the man, ‘You are yourself at the spinning-wheel and your wife is spinning the heather-rope’.”

Fairy Faith, p.104.

It’s not at all clear from this brief account why the changes of place and work in the cottage foiled the fairy woman so successfully, but the change of roles- and clothes- appears to be central.  A story told by Edgar MacCulloch about a fairy incident on Guernsey (Guernsey Folklore, 215-7) would appear to confirm this guess.  The story concerns the baking activities of Le Grand and Le Petit Colin, two household faeries known on the island.  A poor couple lived in cottage at St. Brioc, earning their living in a variety of ways.  The woman made money from spinning and would sit up late at her spinning wheel. She discovered that the two faeries regularly entered the house to bake bread in the oven during the night. When she told her husband, he wanted to witness the visits too, so he decided to sit at the wheel, disguised in her clothes and pretending to spin, when the expected visitors came. The faeries spotted the deception, complaining “Tonight, there’s a beard/ When the other night there was none.” They left the house as if in anger, and never visited again. Once again, we have a role reversal, with the man undertaking a female task, and further compounding this action by wearing his wife’s clothes; the result is that the faeries are repelled or defeated in their objective.  What’s the significance of these two narratives?

I suspect that the major issue is the change of clothes and that assuming disguises (however crude) can defeat or frustrate the faeries.  There certainly are a few clues that faeries have some kind of aversion to or dislike for human clothing. Consider the case of a little girl from Dartmoor who was carried off by the pixies and left stripped of all her clothes, unharmed and happily playing, but naked. This incident is echoed by a case from Argyllshire. A man’s wife had been abducted by the faeries, but over a period of two months she kept returning nightly to tidy the house and care for their children, although her husband never saw her. Then, one day, he was walking in a wood when he heard her voice calling his name. The woman was hidden in a hazel bush, saying that she wanted to come home but couldn’t because she had no clothes to wear. He had to bring her an item of clothing so that she could be freed and could return to her family. Both cases strongly suggest that the faeries object to human clothes; there was no apparent, practical need for the captives to be stripped, but their garments had to go. This may be because of their mortal origin and what they symbolised- as is implied by the adverse reaction of many brownies to being given garments- but other issues may also be at play. Divesting the captive of their clothing may give the faes greater control of their abductees; it may also make it harder for the the victim to give their captors the slip.

We know that one of the solutions to being pixie-led is to turn your coat or another garment; this turning can be either turning inside out or turning a hat back to front. These are easy strategies, but they have a potency beyond their simplicity that we don’t quite understand.  The faery-lore expert Katharine Briggs proposed that turning the clothes works as a change of identity, thereby freeing the individual from the fairy enchantment- and it may simultaneously somehow confuse them.  This theory apparently was at play in the Scottish Highlands when boys were protected against being abducted by the fairies by means of disguising them in girl’s dresses (see Barbara Fairweather, Folklore of Glencoe and North Lorn, 1974).  Once again, we have a change of clothing tricking the faeries or defeating their magic- and, of course, it’s also an example of the same cross-dressing seen in the first two examples: a double change of identity. 

What exactly is going on in these accounts is not entirely clear. I think we can rule out objections by the faeries to clothing as such, because we have plentiful reports of what they wear themselves; instead it looks as though there’s something about human forms of dress that can be unfamiliar or confusing to our Good Neighbours. What we taken for granted- you change your coat but you’re still the same person- for some as yet unfathomed reason completely throws some of the Good Folk. For them, perhaps, it’s as if that individual has disappeared, wielding their own powerful magic, and this leads to bafflement and (perhaps) fear on their part…

Charles Hutton Lear, A Glimpse of the Fairies

‘Dancing with the Good Folk’- in Watkins ‘Mind, Body, Spirit’ Magazine

Towards the end of last year, I was invited to speak at Watkins Bookshop in central London. The talk was recorded and a transcript has just been published in issue 76 for their Mind, Body, Spirit magazine for winter 2024. It’s available on Watkins’ video channel if you’d like to pretend you were there in the basement with us- personally, I can’t bare to watch it, but that’s because I’m embarrassed hearing and watching myself! 

In the talk, I explain how I rediscovered my longstanding fascination with faeries, about eight years ago, and what motivated me to start this blog. At the core of British Fairies, I’d say, is a respect for the folklore record- and for the uniqueness of different faery traditions. Even within the British Isles, there’s a spectrum of faery customs and types, and my feeling has always been to resist straying too far beyond those physical boundaries and mixing up elements from different situations and different cultures. If we are eclectic, we risk losing the distinguishing details and forgetting the authentic native traditions, accumulated over centuries of witness experiences, instead producing a homogenised ‘international faery’ lacking roots and connections to a landscape and its population. 

Regular readers won’t be surprised to learn that I have some harsh things to say about Disney-fied, girly-fied faeries, about pink tutus, sparkly tiaras and wands. As I’ve repeatedly set out here, the faeries of British tradition can be pretty tough, selfish and cruel and I think its dishonest to that accumulated knowledge to pretend otherwise. The faeries of British tradition are not intended to be the subject of a pretty ‘fairy tales’ (although traditional fairy tales can, once again, be quite brutal and unsentimental); rather they are about adult themes for adults, because adult mortals were constantly battling and interacting with adult faeries. Faerylore is about sex, violence, theft, competition, jealousy and all those other powerful and, often, unattractive emotions and motivations that drive people (whether mortal or supernatural). Over history, the relationship between humans and faes has probably felt most like an uneasy truce, with occasional bursts of warfare and occasional fraternisation. Of course, even those intimate contacts with faeries could be perilous, for the leanan-sith and other such faery lovers tend to be fickle, possessive and dangerously addictive beings.

I was quite flattered to find that Watkins have described me in the magazine as a “folklorist, mythologist, social and cultural historian.” I quite like those labels- and they’re not inappropriate. The latter part of my talk concerns the way in which faery lore has inspired British culture- through painting, book illustrations, music, literature and more. I’ve written about these here and elsewhere quite a lot and I think that these manifestations represent one of the most important and fertile aspects of our still developing relationship with the Good Folk. Just as important as our dealings with them are what we make of them afterwards: faery-lore is an important body of literature in itself, but the other stories we tell ourselves- through songs, nursery rhymes, pictures and, even, place names– are all part of a rich and dynamic history.