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.
I was recently looking through a series of books on the Highways and Byways of various regions in Britain, searching for interesting new faery material. In Andrew Lang’s volume on the Highways and Byways in the Border (1913), I spotted his theories as to why the faeries were seen so rarely by that date. Lang put it down to motor cars, bicycles, railways and “modern villas” (pages 31 & 233). I can see how the pollution and racket of engines might conceivably upset our Good Neighbours; bicycles seem a lot less objectionable, though, and as for “modern villas,” you can’t help wonder if there’s some Nimbyism here. Of course, all Lang’s reasons are his guesses, and may disclose more about his own prejudices than any faery pet-hates. I suppose that his concern with new housing was that it was encroaching ever further into unspoilt countryside, and thereby trespassing on faery ground and disturbing them with unwanted new neighbours and new noise. Lang’s remarks reminded me of John Nicholson, who described the folklore of Northamptonshire in 1891. He said that much lore had been lost because of school-teachers and “locomotive engine drivers”- who may seem a strange target, but his reasoning was this. The first brought state education, the second carried people around, whether as tourists or commuters, dissipating local culture and knowledge.
This set me thinking about the other explanations for the disappearance of faeries that I’d read, and how those might also reflect our own guilty feelings and our preconceptions about faery kind. Another volume in the same series, Highways and Byways in Northumbria, tells how a hob used to live on Hob Thrush Island at Lindisfarne. He was scared off by St Cuthbert back in Anglo-Saxon times, an eviction which only goes to prove how longstanding is the idea that Christianity is anathema to the faes. The presence of churches is frequently cited across Britain as the reason that faeries have disappeared; for instance, on Shetland, it was said that the preaching of a new priest who arrived in one parish in the mid-nineteenth century drove the fairies to flee as far away as the Faroe Islands.
On the Isle of Man, the opening of mechanised flour and fulling mills were reported to have driven the little folk away. As well as industry, the blame was again laid on the hustle and bustle of the tourist trade and the provision of state education, both of which made older Manx adherents of the fairy faith wary of the risk of “ridicule and scepticism” from younger people. In Wales, too, quarries, collieries, ironworks, telegraph wires and railways were all said to have been progressively banishing the tylwyth teg during Victorian times. These physical changes to the environment were believed to have been aided and abetted by the changes in attitude wrought by Methodism, teetotalism, newspapers and School Board education. In the Scottish Highlands, the already shy glaistig of Glen Duror quit the area entirely once steamers appeared on Loch Linnhe and blasting started at a new quartz quarry.
Industry, in itself, may not be a very good explanation for faery disappearances. On the Isle of Man, and elsewhere, the faeries were perfectly prepared to use the older water mills; there are also reports of faes being fascinated by some human machinery, so that mechanisation alone doesn’t seem to be the issue. As we know, the faeries operate their own industries, with coblynau and knockers down mines and in quarries. Perhaps it is the degree of noise and smoke pollution that is the issue. Equally, religion in itself is not the whole answer. The Welsh bwbachapparently objected not to a Christian priest as such but to a strand of Protestantism that was rather dour and earnest- opposed to strong ale and good cheer.
Joseph Campbell blamed the retreat of the sith folk on “railways, roads, newspapers and tourists” (Popular Tales of the West Highlands, vol.1, xxxi). What’s at issue here, I think, is not so much modernity, clutter and busy-ness as such, but the coincident change to the human temperament. Newspapers and school-books, as were blamed then (and doubtless subsequently, successively, cinema, radio, television, the internet, social media, podcasts etc etc etc), stood for a disruption to older social relations and to our accustomed interactions with the natural world and local environment.
One Scottish folklore authority summarised the situation very well in Victorian times. Reflecting on Western Argyll as it had been in the 1850s, Grant Stewart reminisced over the “dreamland” that people had inhabited before “the fierce eye of bespectacled modern omniscience” had dispelled belief. “These were the days of elemental spirits, of sights and sounds relegated by present day sceptics to the realm of superstition or imagination.” Describing Cornwall in the same period, William Bottrell felt that the pixies had clung on until the “love of unpoetical facts [that] had come into fashion, [and] they were frightened away.” What’s been lost then, is the time to pause, to let the mind wander and to be open to unfiltered sensations.
Our Good Neighbours- notoriously- don’t like to be disrespected. What has severed our connection with them is not so much our technology- which they can adapt to and even use- but the distractions that come with that. If we have our earphones in and our eyes on screens, we are not paying attention. So, to answer the question in my title: I don’t think humans scare faeries off, so much as neglect them. They cease to show themselves, because they’ve realised so many of us just aren’t looking anymore.
As I’ve often said in previous postings, faeries can display a very high- even an inflexible- moral sense and can be outraged if their principles and standards are breached. Generally, we are aware of these rules because they are imposed upon us humans, even if we’re unaware of them- or of the fact that we might have breached them.
What I want to consider here is what happens to faeries when they break their own laws. In the Dell of Eathie in the Scottish Highlands there is said to be a faery prison. This is where their offenders are detained, confined inside the cliffs during the daytime but allowed out on moonless nights, when they may go to a nearby mill to grind their grain. No dancing is permitted when they’re abroad, making the prisoners very bitter. Humans unlucky enough to encounter them on such nights are very likely to be abducted. The deprivation of such free-spirited beings as faeries of their liberty must be felt as a harsh punishment, even though the gaol itself sounds something like an ‘open prison’ in human terms.
How do individual faes end up in jail? We have some information on their laws. A man called Gruffydd who visited the branch of the Welsh tylwyth teg known as Plant Rhys Dwfen (the children of Rhys the deep), was told about the code that protected their island home from human incursions. Abhorrence of treachery was deeply ingrained in their characters, as was a devotion to their people: Rhys had commanded them to “honour our parents and ancestors, to love our wives without looking at those of our neighbours and to do the best for our children and grandchildren,” he was told.
Elidyr & the Golden Ball
Another Welsh account, that of Elidyr and the Golden Ball, underlined these beliefs. The boy Elidyr reported that the subterranean people he visited “never took an oath, for they detested nothing so much as lies. As often as they returned from our upper hemisphere, they reprobated our ambition, infidelities and inconstancies. They had no religious worship being only, it seems, strict lovers and reverers of truth.” In due course, Elidyr’s mother encouraged him to steal some faery gold for her. Playing with the faery king’s son, the mortal child stole the golden ball they were throwing and ran off. He was pursued by the faeries and dropped the ball in fear. They picked it up “spitting at and deriding the boy” (for his falseness, thievery and greed). He was never able to find his way into Faery again.
Lies and larceny very evidently appal the Good Folk. This is confirmed by a report from Shetland of a trow boy who was often sighted by the islanders, wandering alone and dejected. He had stolen a silver spoon from another of his kind- and had been ejected from his community. This is probably an even harsher sanction than imprisonment, but may be quite commonly used. The Manx poem Y Phynnoddereedescribes one of the Little People of the island who was also expelled from “the elfin coterie” because he had fallen in love with a mortal girl, rather than one of his own. Presumably this might be understood as another type of treachery. See the appendix of my Manx Faeries (Green Magic, 2021) for the full text of the poem.
This second posting in advance of publication of my next book, Beyond Faery, examines some of the water beasts of Britain.
There are various faery beasts that infest fresh and salt water in the British Isles. They are primarily found in Scotland and they are primarily horse like.
Each uisge
These ‘water horses’ live in lakes. Usually people only encounter and have to deal with one, but at Loch Aird na h-uamh there are reported to be multiple horses. Some of these steeds, people have been brave enough to ride; some have even survived the attempt, though many of those who tried were drowned or torn to pieces.
Typical of the species is the horse found at Lochan-larig-eala near Breadalbane. It is a white horse and when it first appears on the lake side, it lies down on the grass and looks very placid and pretty. Nine children playing there once climbed on it- at which point it dashed for the water immediately. The child at the back was able to use the horse’s tail to swing off; the rest didn’t escape and it’s said that they were eaten and all that remained was their lungs, which floated ashore in due course. Some versions of this story say that it happened on a Sunday, so that the faery beast was actually being employed to punish children who were playing rather than attending church. In this second account, the boy who survived happened to have a few Bible pages in his pocket, which saved him.
Some water horses will submit to working for humans, just to be able to get near enough to kill one. The story is told of John MacInnes of Glenelg who was struggling with his farm work when he was approached by a stranger and offered assistance. He accepted, despite the odd conditions imposed, and immediately found a fine horse standing in his field. MacInnes used it for ploughing and was delighted to find that it was both strong and obedient. Things went very well for time, although every evening when the horse was stabled John had to make sure he threw earth from a mole-hill over its back and said a blessing. One night he forgot. The next day, as soon as they were out in the field, the horse grabbed him with its teeth and dragged him into the nearby loch. All that was ever recovered was his liver. The stipulation of the mole-hill is curious, but one way of trapping fairy cattle (and mermaids) on land is to sprinkle grave-yard earth across their path (Scottish Notes & Queries, vol.6, 1893).
There is an each uisge in Loch-nan-Spioradan in Strathspey, which is seen as a beautifully equipped horse. A local healer who managed to obtain the bit from this horse’s bridle found that it had great healing properties, especially for ‘maladies of the mind.’
Water horses are also known in Wales, where they’re called ceffyl y dwr. Like their more northerly counterparts, their habit is to tempt people to ride them- and then to destroy them. From the island of Guernsey there are reports of a white fairy horse that shared many of the traits of each-uisge. Its back could extend to accommodate as many victims as wanted to ride on it and, once the riders were settled, it would gallop off at alarming speed with its passengers unable to dismount. Luckily, on Guernsey, the aim of all this was relatively benign- it was just to give the victims a fright before they were dumped in a marsh.
Fairy Horses
The each uisge is a uniquely savage creature, most unlike the average horse used for riding (whether by humans or their fairy neighbours). From Breadalbane there also comes a report of a ‘fairy horse’ that was much more like the sort of animal known in the human world. A man spent an evening dancing in the sithean at Lawes. He enjoyed himself immensely and, at the end of the festivities, the fairies lent him a horse to get home, which flew through the air like lightning and dropped him down his chimney.
There are a number of less benign variations upon this supernatural steed. From Leeds, West Yorkshire, come reports of a ‘goblin horse’ that would allow people to mount it before it galloped off at high speed, shouting ‘I ride, Madge!’ and dumping the rider in a pond. Further north in Durham there are similar creatures called ‘brags.’ The Leeds area is also home to a ‘black dog’ apparition called the ‘padfoot’ (which I will discuss in a separate posting). These beings are notorious shapeshifters and, in one instance, it changed into a donkey which ran between a man’s legs and carried him off at speed to his home (to the accompaniment of clanking chains) before sinking into the earth.
The Isle of Man also has the mysterious ‘night horses,’ which seem to be a faery horse with some of the traits of the each uisge. These are found at night on roads, ready saddled and bridled, but if any is incautious enough to mount, he will find himself flying along at a terrifying pace before being dumped on the ground somewhere. The night horse seems to like to give shocks, but no more. The creature called the glashtyn, which can have human and equine form, is more deadly. In its horse shape it will carry off any who mount it and try to drown them in a nearby river or pool.
As mentioned, Wales has its own water horse, the ceffyl y dwr, which is in fact one of several water beasts known there- or, alternatively, there is a single water sprite that assumes a number of different forms. Amongst those identified, there is a thin old man who is seen in raging mountain streams, sometimes stretching out his bony arms to observers; there is the water horse proper that’s found in pools or in rivers, where it tries to seize fishermen’s lines and drag them into the waters, and, lastly, there’s a monstrous fish (generally a salmon) that will try to drag under those that hunt it. In one instance, a man who tried to spear it whilst out fishing on a Sunday was nearly drowned; he ascribed the fish’s attack to a righteous rage over his Sabbath breaking- something that’s also been said of the each uisge already, although this may be more a matter of his guilty conscience than the faery beast being recruited to policing the reformed religion.
Kelpies
Kelpies are often treated as being interchangeable with the each uisge, but whilst the former live in still fresh water, kelpies live in rivers or in the sea. They are just as unpleasant as the each. One sighted near Leurbost on the isle of Lewis in 1856 was described as looking like a “huge peat stack”- so large that a six oar boat could pass between the fins that were seen. Iit was up to forty feet in length, witnesses claimed, and it had swallowed whole a blanket left by the loch by girl tending cattle.
Kelpies have been called ‘sly devils.’ Very much like the each, the kelpie will often appear on the banks of a swollen stream, feeding tamely as a traveller approaches. If the person is already on a horse, the kelpie will trot across the stream ahead, suggesting that it is shallow and safe. If the person is on foot, he’ll be tempted to mount the horse and ride it across the river. If he does this, it will immediately gallop off with shrieks of terrifying laughter. Either way, the hapless traveller is overwhelmed by the flooding torrent. For these reasons, William Collins, in his Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland, described how the kelpie will:
“Instant, furious, raise the whelming flood,
O’er its drowned banks, forbidding all return…”
So that victims are “Drown’d by the kaelpie’s wrath.”
Sometimes, it is possible to tame a kelpie by surprising it and slipping over its head a halter that has been blessed by having crosses cut into the cheek pieces. The beast can then be used for farm labour, pulling loads and ploughs and such like. It can’t escape as long as the bridle is kept on it, however badly it’s treated. Kelpies have been used like this to help build churches and castles all around Scotland.
Interestingly, like fairies, it’s said that kelpies can predict or see future events. They are said, around Buckhaven, to roar before a loss at sea. Likewise, at Rumbling Bridge in Clackmannanshire, the kelpie predicts drownings by lights and noises at night (although, admittedly, it is also that same kelpie that helps to drown many of these unfortunate people). At St Vigeans, near Arbroath, a kelpie had been used to build the church and, when finally released, it foretold the minister’s death by suicide and collapse of the church. Both these things happened in the early eighteenth century. The kelpie that was used to build the church of St Mungo’s in Dumfriesshire advised that a larger graveyard than had been planned ought to be laid out, as it would be needed one day to accommodate all the bodies from a nearby battle.
Given their violent propensities, people have often tried to hunt and exterminate kelpies living in their vicinity. This is, perhaps predictably, very difficult to do, because the kelpie is a hardy, elusive and indestructible creature. In the 1780s, for example, Highlanders tried to drag Loch Garn with nets to catch the underwater beast. They failed to catch it, after which they tried scattering lime in the loch to kill the monster. Neither succeeded.
Other monsters
In the far north of Scotland and on Orkney and Shetland you’ll encounter (if you’re very unlucky) the njugl or neogle, a creature seen near water mills that resembles a pony. It will stop the mill wheel to gain attention and, when the miller goes out to see what the problem might be, he will find the pony, saddled and bridled, grazing nearby. If he mounts it, it will dash for the water and leap off the bank, with both rider and mount vanishing in a flash of flame. Wiser millers chase the creature off with a red hot poker or similar. A notorious example of the nuggle used to plague the Orkney island of Hoy. It lived in a small lake on the north-east coast of the island, called the Water o’ Hoy, but frequented the ford over the Pegal Burn, a little further to the south, where it would try to catch hapless travellers.
In the Scottish Highlands and on Orkney and Shetland a variety of other terrifying and often hybrid beasts were known. Some of these are mentioned in my forthcoming posting on boggles. Here I’ll mention one that seemed to have no specific name. Over Yule on Shetland people were not expected to do any of their normal day to day activities or work. Once, however, two men went out fishing in defiance of the prohibition. They netted a monstrous creature that was half fish and half horse and which spoke, declaring to them: “Man who fished in Yule week/ Fortune never more did seek.” Once again, these supernatural beings seem to be recruited to back up religious rules and festivals.
Water Bulls
As I have discussed previously, you may encounter fairy cattle owned by the good folk, which have their own identifying characteristics, but there are also water bulls, the tarbh uisge of the Highlands. The bulls of Glenlochay near Breadalbane are said to be brindled, red and yellow. A cow will abandon its herd and travel up the glen to the lochan, where she will bellow until the tarbh appears and mates with her. The hybrid offspring are known to be those of a tarbh because they are all black with curly hair.
On the Isle of Man, water bulls are also found, being called tarroo ushtey. They’re recognised by their shining coats and sharp ears. They often mix with normal herds of cattle, and rouse the fury of the bulls kept with them, although the tarroo seems indifferent to the rage of the farmer’s bull. They can be fierce, but they often move quite slowly, making a strange whirring sound.
In one Manx story a farmer objected to the bull grazing with his herds and consuming his valuable grass, so he drove it off several times. The result, though, was that blights struck his crops. A wise-woman told the man that he could subdue the tarroo with a stick made from rowan wood- which he duly did. Having the beast under his control, he resolved to sell it at the market. He was easily able to drive the bull there, but no-one seemed interested, despite the size and sleekness of the animal. Right at the end of the day, a man finally showed interest, but he asked the farmer to ride the bull to prove that it was tame and well-behaved. Desperate for the sale, he consented to this, but as soon as he’d mounted he dropped his rowan switch. This of course released the tarroo from his control and it bolted, nearly carrying the man off into a deep pool in the river. He narrowly escaped- and learned his lesson, which was to always show the proper respect to the fairies and the faery beasts.
Also found on the Isle of Man is the glashtin, a sort of bogie that will very commonly take on equine form and which will inhabit pools and rivers. Unlike the tarroo ushtey, the glashtin is said to mingle with the herds of horses kept by Manx farmers without any disturbance or hostility between the animals. However, the glashtins only liked to mate with pure Manx-bred ponies, and as the island’s horses interbred more and more with outside breeds, the glashtin was seen less and less.
If you’re interested to learn more, see too my separate posting on water beasts. Additionally, several chapters of Beyond Faery deal in detail with the many aspects of the lore of the inland and marine water beasts of Britain. The book is due for release in early November.
British Fairies 