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Influence of Scenery—Science
and Superstition—Loch-nan-Spoiradan—Lochan-nan-Deann—Lochan-Wan and its
Sacrifice—Jenny Greenteeth — Poetry and Superstition — Tweed and Till—Dee
and Don—Folk-practices for Finding a Drowned Body—Deeside Tradition—Salt
used by Tweed Fishers for Good Luck — Guardian-Spirit of Conan — Peg Powler—Water-kelpies—
Nikr—Halliwell Boggle—Robin Round Cap —Round Hole, near Flamborough
—Aberdeenshire Kelpy Legends—Some Sutherland Kelpies—Story about an Islay
Kelpy—Mermaids in the North.
"ONE of the great charms of
Highland landscape is the gleam of still water that so often gives the
element of repose in a scene of broken cliff and tumbled crag, of noisy
cascade and driving cloud. No casual tourist can fail to notice what a
wonderful variety of lakes he meets with in the course of any traverse he
may take across the country. Among the higher mountains there is the little
tarn nestling in a dark sunless corry, and half-encircled with grim
snow-rifted crags. In the glen, there is the occasional broadening of the
river into a lake that narrows again to let the stream rush down a rocky
raving. In the wider strath there is the broad still expanse of water, with
its fringe of wood and its tree-covered islets. In the gneiss region of the
North-West, there is the little lochan lying in its basin of bare rock and
surrounded with scores of others all equally treeless and desolate." So
writes Professor Sir A. Geikie in his "Scenery of Scotland." His point of
view is that of a scientific observer, keenly alive to all the varied
phenomena of nature. But amid the scenes described lived men and women who
looked at the outer world through the refracting medium of superstition.
They saw the landscape, but they saw also what their own imagination
supplied. In Strathspey, is a sheet of water bearing the Gaelic name of
Loch-nan-Spoiradan or the Lake of Spirits. What shape these spirits assumed
we do not know, but there was no mistake about the form of the spirit who
guarded Lochan-nan-Deaan, close to the old military road between Corgarif
and Tomintoul. The appearance of this spirit may be gathered from the Rev.
Dr. Gregor's remarks in an article on "Guardian Spirits of Wells and Lochs"
in "Folklore" for March, 1892. After describing the loch, he says, "It was
believed to be bottomless, and to be the abode of a water-spirit that
delighted in human sacrifice. Notwithstanding this blood-thirsty spirit, the
men of Strathdon and Corgarff resolved to try to draw the water from the
loch, in hope of finding the remains of those that had perished in it. On a
fixed day a number of them met with spades and picks to cut a way for the
outflow of the water through the road. When all were ready to begin work, a
terrific yell came from the loch, and there arose from its waters a
diminutive creature in shape of a man with a red cap on his head. The men
fled in terror, leaving their picks and spades behind them. The spirit
seized them and threw them into the loch. Then, with a gesture of defiance
at the fleeing men, and a roar that shook the hills, he plunged into the
loch and disappeared amidst the water that boiled and heaved as red as
blood." Near the boundary, between the shires of Aberdeen and Banf, is a
small sheet of water called Lochan-wan, i.e., Lamb's Loch. The district
around is now a deer forest, but at one time it was used for grazing sheep.
The tenants around had the privilege of pasturing a certain number of sheep.
Dr. Gregor says, " Each one that sent sheep to this common had to offer in
sacrifice, to the spirit of the loch, the first lamb of his flock dropped on
the common. The omission of this sacrifice brought disaster; for unless the
sacrifice was made, half of his flock would be drowned before the end of the
grazing season." As in the case of Lochan-nan-Deaan, an attempt was made to
break the spell by draining the loch, but this attempt, though less tragic
in its result, was equally unavailing. On three successive days a channel
was made for the outflow of the water, but each night the work was undone. A
watch was set, and at midnight of the third day hundreds of small black
creatures were seen to rise from the lake, each with a spade in his hand.
They set about filling up the trench and finished their work in a few
minutes. Mr. Charles Hardwick, in "Traditions, Superstitions, and Folklore,"
published in 1872, tells of a folk-belief, prevalent in the North of
England, particularly in Lancashire. "I remember well," he says, "when very
young, being cautioned against approaching to the side of stagnant pools of
water partially covered with vegetation. At the time, I firmly believed that
if I disobeyed this instruction a certain water 'boggart,' named Jenny
Greenteeth, would drag me beneath her verdant screen and subject me to other
tortures besides death by drowning."
Poetry and superstition
regard external nature from the same standpoint, in as much as both think of
it as animate. But there is a difference. The one endows nature with human
qualities, and knows that it does so through the imagination; the other does
the same, and believes that there is no imagination in the matter. The work
of the former is well expressed by Dr. E. B. Tylor, when he observes, "In
all that water does, the poet's fancy can discern its personality of life.
It gives fish to the fisher and crops to the husbandman, it swells in fury
and lays waste the land, it grips the bather with chill and cramp and holds
with inexorable grasp its drowning victim." That rivers were monsters
hungering, or perhaps, one should say, thirsting, for human victims is a
fact borne witness to by poetry as well as by superstition. An example of
this occurs in the following popular rhyme connected with the Scottish
Border:—
"Tweed said to Till,
'What gars ye rin sae still'
Till said to Tweed,
'Though ye riu wi' speed,
An' I rin slaw,
Yet whare ye droon no man,
I droon twa.'"
Some Aberdeenshire lines have
the same theme:
"Bloodthirsty Dee
Each year needs three;
But bonny Don,
She needs none."
According to folklore, there
is no doubt that rivers are "uncanny." Beneath their rippling surface dwells
a being who keeps a lookout for the unwary traveller and seeks to draw him
into the dark depths. A belief in such a being is not always explicitly
avowed. But there are certain folk-practices undoubtedly implying it. When
anyone is drowned in a river, the natural way to find the body is to drag
the stream in the neighbourhood of the accident. But superstition has
recourse to another method. A loaf of bread, with or without quicksilver in
it, is placed on the surface of the water and allowed to drift with the
current. The place where the loaf becomes stationary marks the spot where
the body lies concealed. According to another method, a boat is rowed up and
down the stream, and a drum is beat all the time. When the boat passes over
the resting place of the body the drum will cease to sound. This was done in
Derbyshire no longer ago than 1882, in order to find the corpse of a young
woman who had fallen into the Derwent. In such practices there is a virtual
recognition of a water-spirit who can, by certain rites, be compelled to
give up his prey, or at any rate to disclose the whereabouts of the victim.
A Deeside tradition supplies a good illustration of this. A man called
Farquharson-na-Cat, i.e., Farquharson of the Wand, so named from his trade
of basketmaking, had on one occasion to cross the river just above the
famous linn. It was night. He lost his footing, was swept down into the linn,
and there drowned. Search was made for his body, but in vain. His wife,
taking her husband's plaid, knelt down on the river's brink, and prayed to
the water-spirit to give her back her dead. She then threw the plaid into
the stream. Next morning her husband's corpse, with the plaid wrapped round
it, was found lying on the edge of the pool. Till quite lately, fishing on
the Tweed was believed to be influenced by the fairies of the river. Salt
was thrown into the water, and sprinkled on the nets to insure a plentiful
catch of fish. This was really the offering of a sacrifice to the
river-spirits.
Frequently the guardian of
the flood appeared in distinctly human shape. An excellent example of this
is to be found in Hugh Miller's "My Schools and Schoolmasters," where a
picturesque description is given of the spirit haunting the Conan. Hugh
Miller was an expert swimmer, and delighted to bathe in the pools of that
Ross-shire stream. "Its goblin or water-wraith, he tells us, "used to appear
as a tall woman dressed in green, but distinguished chiefly by her withered,
meagre countenance, ever distorted by a malignant scowl. I knew all the
various fords, always dangerous ones, where of old she used to start, it was
said, out of the river before the terrified traveller to point at him as in
derision with her skinny finger, or to beckon him invitingly on; and I was
shown the very tree to which a poor Highlander had clung when, in crossing
the river by night, he was seized by the goblin, and from which, despite of
his utmost exertions, though assisted by a young lad, his companion, he was
dragged into the middle of the current, where he perished. And when in
swimming at sunset over some dark pool, where the eye failed to mark, or the
foot to sound, the distant bottom, the twig of some sunken bush or tree has
struck against me as I passed, I have felt, with sudden start, as if touched
by the cold, bloodless fingers of the goblin." At Pierse Bridge, in Durham,
the water-spirit of the Tees went by the name of Peg Powler, and there were
stories in the district, of naughty children having been dragged by her into
the river.
In the Highlands and Lowlands
alike, the spirit inhabiting rivers and lakes was commonly known as the
water-kelpy. A south country ballad says:
"The side was steep, the
bottom deep
Frae bank to bank the water pouring;
And the bonnie lass did quake for fear,
She heard the water-kelpie roaring."
Who does not remember Burns's
lines in his "Address to the Deil"
When thowes dissolve the snawy
hoord,
An' float the jinglin' icy-boord,
Then water-kelpies haunt the foord
By your direction ;
An' 'nighted travellers are allur'd
To their destruction.
An' aft your moss-traversin'
spunkles
Decoy the wight that late and drunk is:
The bleezin', curst, mischievous monkeys
Delude his eyes.
Till in some miry slough he sunk is,
Ne'er mair to rise."
The kelpy corresponded in
attributes with the Icelandic Nikr; whence has come our term Old Nick,
popularly applied to the devil. A well-known picture by Sir Noel Paton has
familiarised the story of "Nickar, the soulless" who is there represented as
a creature with frog-like feet, but with a certain human look about him,
crouching among sedge by the side of water, and playing his ghittern—an
instrument resembling a guitar. He appears, however, more melancholy and
less mischievous than the other members of his fraternity. A kelpy that
idled away his time with music and made no attempt to drown anybody, was
quite an exceptional being. In Sweden, where Nikr was regarded with awe,
ferrymen at specially dangerous parts of rivers warned those who were
crossing in their boat not even to mention his name, lest some mishap should
follow. In his "Saxons in England," Mr. J. M. Kemble thus refers to other
manifestations of the same creature:—"The beautiful Nix or Nixie who allures
the young fisher or hunter to seek her embraces in the wave which brings his
death; the Neck who seizes upon and drowns the maidens who sport upon his
banks; the river-spirit who still yearly, in some parts of Germany, demands
tribute of human life, are all forms of the ancient Nicor." The same writer
continues:---"More pleasing is the Swedish Stromkarl, who, from the jewelled
bed of his river, watches with delight the children gambol in the adjoining
meadows, and singing sweetly to them in the evening, detaches from his hoary
hair the sweet blossoms of the water-lily, which he wafts over the surface
to their hands." In his "Folklore of East Yorkshire," Mr. J. B. Nicholson
alludes to a haunted pool between Bewholme and Atwick, at the foot of the
hill on which Atwick Church stands. This pool is shaded by willows, and is
believed to be haunted by a spirit known in the district as the Halliwell
Boggle. In connection with Robin Round Cap Well, in the same district, Mr.
Nicholson tells a story—found also in the south of Scotland—of a certain
house-spirit or brownie, who proved so troublesome to the farmer whom he
served that his master resolved to remove to other quarters. The furniture
was accordingly put in carts and a start was made for the new home. On the
way, a friend accosted the farmer and asked if he was flitting. Before he
could reply, a voice came from the churn—"Ay, we're flitting!" and, behold,
there sat Robin Round Cap. The farmer, seeing that he could not thus rid
himself of the spirit, returned to his old home; but, afterwards, he
succeeded in charming the brownie into a well, where he still. remains. The
same writer relates a superstition about a certain round hole near
Flamborough where a girl once committed suicide. "It is believed," he says,
"that anyone bold enough to run nine times round this place will see Jenny's
spirit come out, dressed in white; but no one has yet been bold enough to
venture more than eight times, for then Jenny's spirit called out:—
`Ah'll tee on my bonnet
An' put on me shoe,
An' if thoo's nut off
Ah'l seean catch thoo!``
A farmer, some years ago,
galloped round it on horseback, and Jenny did come out, to the great terror
of the farmer, who put spurs to his horse and galloped off as fast as he
could, the spirit after him. Just on entering the village, the spirit, for
some reason unknown, declined to proceed further, but bit a piece clean out
of the horse's flank, and the old mare had a white patch there to her dying
day,"
In the "Folklore Journal" for
1889, Dr. Gregor relates some kelpy legends collected by him in
Aberdeenshire. On one occasion a man had to cross the Don by the bridge of
Luib, Corgarff, to get to his wife who was then very ill. When he reached
the river, he found that the bridge—a wooden one—had been swept away by a
flood. He despaired of reaching the other bank, when a tall man suddenly
appeared and offered to carry him across. The man was at first doubtful, but
ere long accepted the proffered help. When they reached the middle of the
river, the kelpy, who had hitherto shown himself so obliging, sought to
plunge his burden beneath the water. A struggle ensued. The man finally
found a foothold, and, disengaging himself from the kelpy, scrambled in all
haste up the bank. His would-be destroyer, disappointed of his victim,
hurled a boulder after him. This boulder came to be known as the Kelpy's
Stane. Passers-by threw a stone beside it till eventually a heap was formed,
locally styled the Kelpy's Cairn. A Braemar kelpy stole a sackful of meal
from a mill to give it to a woman for whom he had taken a fancy. As the
thief was disappearing, the miller caught sight of him and threw a
fairy-whorl at his retreating figure. The whorl broke his leg, and the kelpy
fell into the mill-race and was drowned. Such was the fate of the last kelpy
seen in Braemar. Sutherland, too, abounded in water-spirits. They used to
cross the mouth of the Dornoch Firth in cockle-shells, but, getting tired of
this mode of transit, they resolved to build a bridge. It was a magnificent
structure, the piers being headed with pure gold. A countryman, happening to
pass, saw the bridge, and invoked a blessing on the workmen and their work.
Immediately, the workmen vanished, and their work sank beneath the waves.
Where it spanned the Firth there is now a sandbar dangerous to mariners.
Miss Dempster, who recounts this legend in the "Folklore Journal" for 1888,
supplies further information about the superstition of the district. A
banshee, adorned with gold ornaments and wearing a silk dress, was seen
hurrying down a hill near the river Shin, and finally plunging into one of
its deep pools. These banshees were commonly web-footed, and seemed addicted
to finery, if we may judge from the instance just given, and from another
mentioned by Mr. Campbell in his "Tales of the West Highlands." He there
speaks of one who frequented a stream about four miles from Skibo Castle in
Dornoch parish. The miller's wife saw her. "She was sitting on a stone,
quiet, and beautifully dressed in a green silk dress, the sleeves of which
were curiously puffed from the wrists to the shoulder. Her long hair was
yellow like ripe corn, but on nearer view she had no nose." Miss Dempster
narrates the following incident connected with the water-spirit haunting
another Sutherland river:—"One, William Munro, and the grandfather of the
person from whom we have this story, were one night leading half-a-dozen
pack-horses across a ford in the Oikel, on their way to a mill. When they
neared the river bank a horrid scream from the water struck their ears. 'It
is the Vaiegh,' cried the lad, who was leading the first horse, and, picking
up some stones, he sent a shower of them into the deep pool at his feet. She
must have been repeatedly hit, as she emitted a series of the most piercing
shrieks. 'I am afraid,' said Monro, `that you have not done that right, and
that she will play us an ugly trick at the ford.' `Never mind, we will take
more stones,' he answered, arming himself with a few. But the kelpy had had
enough of stones for one night."
Off the Rhinns of Islay is a
small island formerly used for grazing cattle. A strong tide sweeps past the
island, making the crossing of the Sound dangerous. A story, related by Mr.
Campbell, tells that on a certain boisterous night a woman was left in
charge of a large herd of cattle on the island. She was sitting in her
cabin, when all at once she heard strange noises outside, and, looking up,
saw a pair of large eyes gazing in at her through the window. The door
opened, and a strange creature strode in. He was tall and hairy, with a
livid covering on his face instead of skin. He advanced towards the woman
and asked her name. She replied in Gaelic, "Mise mi Fhin ""Me myself." He
then seized her. In her terror she threw a ladleful of boiling water on the
intruder. Yelling with pain he bounded out of the hut. These unearthly
voices asked what was the matter, and who had hurt him? "Mise mi Fhin" --"Me
myself," replied the creature. The answer was received with a shout of
laughter from his mysterious companions. The woman rushed out of the hut,
and dislodging one of the cows lay down on the spot, at the same time making
a magical circle round her on the ground. All night she heard terrible
sounds mingling with the roaring of the wind. In the morning the
supernatural manifestations disappeared, and she felt herself safe. It had
not fared, however, so well with the cow, for, when found, it was dead.
In Chapter I. reference was
made to mermen and mermaids, and little requires to be added in the present
connection. In the south of Scotland the very names of these sea-spirits
have a far-off sound about them. No one beside the Firths of Forth and Clyde
expects nowadays to catch sight of such strange forms sitting on rocks, or
playing among the breakers; but among our Northern Isles it is otherwise.
Every now and again (at long intervals, perhaps) the mysterious mermaid
makes her appearance, and gives new life to an old superstition. About three
years since, one was seen at Deerness in Orkney. She reappeared last year,
and was then noticed by some lobstermen who were working their creels. She
had a small black head, white body, and long arms. Somewhat later, a
creature, believed to be this mermaid, was shot not far from the shore, but
the body was not captured. In June of the present year another mermaid was
seen by the Deerness people. At Birsay, recently, a farmer's wife was down
at the sea-shore, and observed a strange creature among the rocks. She went
back for her husband, and the two returned quite in time to get a good view
of the interesting stranger. The woman spoke of the mermaid as "a
good-looking person"; while her husband described her as "having a covering
of brown hair." Curiosity seems to have been uppermost in the minds of the
couple, for they tried to capture the creature. In the interests of
folklore, if not of science, she managed to escape, and was quickly lost to
sight beneath the waves. Perhaps, as the gurgling waters closed over her,
she may have uttered an alt revoir, or whatever corresponds to that phrase
in the language of the sea. The following story about a mermaid, told by Mr.
J. H. Dixon in his "Gairloch," published in 1886, is fully credited in the
district where the incident occurred:—"Roderick Mackenzie, the elderly and
much respected boat-builder at Port Henderson, when a young man, went one
day to a rocky part of the shore there. Whilst gathering bait he suddenly
spied a mermaid asleep among the rocks. Rorie `went for' that mermaid, and
succeeded in seizing her by the hair. The poor creature in great
embarrassment cried out that if Rorie would let go she would grant him
whatever boon he might ask. He requested a pledge that no one should ever be
drowned from any boat he might build. On his releasing her the mermaid
promised that this should be so. The promise has been kept throughout
Rorie's long business career—his boats still defy the stormy winds and
waves." Mr. Dixon adds, "I am the happy possessor of an admirable example of
Rorie's craft. The most ingenious framer of trade advertisements might well
take a hint from this veracious anecdote." |
