Bachelors of the Fae

This post is for the ladies, with a special dedication and thanks to my friend Sarah Oschman (for bringing the Ghillie Dhu to my attention).

Most often we hear about fae seductresses and fairy wives, however, there are some rather charming and handsome gentlemen of the fae waiting in the woods.  As always you have to watch your step with the fae...

Fae bachelor number 1, is tall, dark, handsome and good with kids, it's the Ghillie Dhu!

The Ghillie Dhu is a Scottish nature spirit that haunts birch groves and wear clothes made from leaves and moss.  Not a big talker, the Gillie Dhu is a mainly solitary fae but according to one account in Mackenzie's A Hundred Years in the Highlands, when a little girl was lost in the woods the Ghillie Dhu looked after her and brought her safely home.

Fae bachelor number 2, is known as the Love Talker, the ganconer is a solitary fae known for being a heart breaker.  He always appears with a trademark clay pipe and charismatic grin.  Any woman that speaks with the Love Talker is unable to resist his charms.  As soon as the ganconer has won her heart the maiden's paramour vanishes and she is left to mourn the loss of her love, pining away for him until her death...so he's a bit of a bad boy to say the least, watch out ladies!

Resources:

Briggs, K. M., "Some Late Accounts of the Fairies".  Folklore, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Sep., 1961), pp. 517-518. Web. 31 March 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1258579

Froud, Brian and Allen Lee.  Faeries.  New York : Abrams, 1978.  Print.

Paciorek, Andrew L., "Night Terrors and Lovers".  Strange Lands: Supernatural Creatures of the Celtic Other World.  Web. 1 April 2014.

Scottish Sgeulachdan - The Bride Who Out Talked the Water Kelpie

I recently got my hands a book of Scottish folklore collected by Sorche Nic Leodhas that I'd been trying to find for awhile, Thistle and Thyme.  Thistle and Thyme is full of sgeulachdan (skale-ak-tan), a Scottish word for tale, told by master story-tellers.  Sgeulachdan were told at celebrated events like weddings and Christenings and often held a moral or lesson for the listeners and "in the old days, the high point of the entertainment was the sgeulachdan" (Leodhas 9).  My favorite tales from this collection are The Stolen Bairn and the Sìdh, The Bride Who Out Talked the Water Kelpie and The Fisherlad and the Mermaid's Ring. 

The Bride Who Out Talked the Water Kelpie

Now I loved this story from the very title because it featured a kelpie and at the time I read it, I had found very few stories about kelpies.  According to Leodhas this sgeulachdan was told at a wedding and I'm sure holds a lesson for newly weds about living together and putting up with eachother, but all I could focus on in this story was the  kelpie.  And this kelpie didn't live in a stream or a loch like most kelpies, this kelpies had some special digs, it lived in a well.  Another thing about this kelpie is that it didn't try to trick anyone into riding on it's back or shape-shift into a man to seduce a young lady.  The kelpie of this story cast a spell so that a young woman would not be able to speak. Not one peep.  A soldier falls in love with her and marries her, glad that she is not chatty as other lasses he's met.  However her silence eventually unnerves him and the couple goes to see a woman of the second sight who tells them that the maiden has offended a kelpie by dropping her comb in his well.  I can understand the kelpie's frustration since wells aren't that big to begin with, imagine all the room that comb took up!  So the maiden took back her comb, but being wickedly mischievous, as kelpies are, the kelpie put another spell upon the lass so that she would not shut up! The solution to this turned out to be leaving the chatty lass at the well for a whole day, chatting away to the kelpie.  The kelpie replies to everything the lass says in a rather echoey well-like way.  When the soldier returns for his wife the kelpie is tired of having listened to her chatting all day and so:
"she called down the well. 'I bid you good day, kelpie.  'Tis time for me to go home.'  There wasn't a sound from the well for a moment.  Then in a great loud angry voice the kelpie shouted. 'GO HOME!' " (Leodhas 97).  From then on the lass did not speak too much or too little and they all lived happily ever after.

Scottish Sgeulachdan - The Stolen Bairn and the Sìdh

I recently got my hands a book of Scottish folklore collected by Sorche Nic Leodhas that I'd been trying to find for awhile, Thistle and Thyme.  Thistle and Thyme is full of sgeulachdan (skale-ak-tan), a Scottish word for tale, told by master story-tellers.  Sgeulachdan were told at celebrated events like weddings and Christenings and often held a moral or lesson for the listeners and "in the old days, the high point of the entertainment was the sgeulachdan" (Leodhas 9).  My favorite tales from this collection are The Stolen Bairn and the Sìdh, The Bride Who Out Talked the Water Kelpie and The Fisherlad and the Mermaid's Ring. 

The Stolen Bairn and the Sìdh

 One of the first things that struck me about this sgeulachdan was that the Sìdh did not actually "steal" the child.  There are many tales where the faeries steal people away, especially sneaking babes from their crib but in this story the faeries happen upon the bairn alone.  The two faerie women look about them, and seeing no one, "the first woman of the Sìdh spoke and she said, 'What no one comes to be claiming is our own'" (Leodhas 47).  Arguably, the Sìdh rescued the child when it had been separated from it's mother after she had accidentally fallen off a cliff.  I also love how the mother never gives up the search for her child, Leodhas notes that this sgeulachdan was probably told at a Christening because it focuses on the mother's love in her persistence and determination to find her lost bairn (Leodhas 10-11).

The second thing about this tale that stuck with me is how the mother gets her bairn back.  According to the gypsy grandmother that instructs her on how to reclaim her bairn from the Sìdh, "'For all their wisdom, the Sìdh have no art to make anything for themselves,...All that they get they get they must either beg or steal.  They have great vanity and desire to possess a thing which has no equal.  If you can find something that has not it's like in all the world you may be able to buy your bairn back with it.'" (Leodhas 52).  So the mother weaves a cloak of feathers and creates a harp with golden strings using her own hair.  I was captivated by the way the mother created two unique objects by putting a bit of herself into the objects, a cloak made by her own hands and her own hair into the harp.  The feather cloak especially since I have never seen a feather cloak and would love to own one as it would be super unique, no wonder she was able to get into the Sìdhean, the most exclusive Sìdh party.  I had never thought of the fae as being in capable of creating things before this story.  It showed the unique ability that makes us human, our creativity.  We have the ability to create unique one of a kind objects that have no equal with the power on invention and the willingness to put a bit of our selves into our creations, an attribute of humanity that other beings could desire and envy.  And it won the mother her wee bairn back from the Sìdh!

Clippity-clop, Clippity-clop...

She calls herself Ide.  It means "Thirst". (Ironic, no?)

We're all familiar with vampires, those blood-draining fiends with an aversion to garlic and religious icons that can change into cats or bats and can only enter a house if invited.  My favorite vampire, or vampiress, is one that you've probably never heard of and she hails from Scotland, not Transylvania...

The glaistig ([glæstIg] glass-teeg), also known as the Green Lady, is a Scottish water spirit, who is infamous for luring unsuspecting male travelers from their path, seducing them and draining them of their blood.

On my last visit to N.Y.C., my friend and I went to a fashion exhibit at The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. One of the dresses in particular caught my attention.  It was a full length dress, designed by Jean Paul Gaultier in 2002, gold and silver with a swirling teal skirt and designs printed on the fabric. But what really caught my attention, near the bottom of the dress was a print of a goat’s foot protruding from an illusory slit in the skirt so whoever wore this dress would look like she had goat feet.

“It’s a glaistig dress!” I whispered excitedly to my friend.

“What’s that?” she asked.  So I proceeded to explain, rather enthusiastically,that the glaistig abducts young men and drinks their blood until they are empty husks!  Needless to say my friend was rather taken aback. 

However, like most water spirits the glaistig is alternately evil and good.  The glaistig, similar to the faun, is the top half of a woman with the back legs of a goat which she hides beneath the long skirt of her green dress.  If treated well with an offering of milk the glaistig will watch out for herds of sheep and goats as well as minding the children of shepherds and goatherds and even herding livestock for farmers.  On the flip side the glaistig ranges between a mischief that throws rocks in the paths of unsuspecting travelers to downright vicious if she is wronged.  I wonder what inspired Gaultier to put a goat’s foot on this dress…

Resources:
F. I. T. (The Glaistig Dress)
Froud, Brian and Alan Lee. Faeries. Abrams: New York, 2002. Print.
Mysterious Britain & Ireland
Paciorek, Andrew L., Night Terrors & Lovers
Wikipedia

Selkies: Oh, Bring Back My Seal Skin to Me!

The capture of a seal woman on a Feroese stamp

      When I was very little my mom used to cut this column of bed-time stories out of the newspaper for my sister and I.  One of the stories was of the seal-maiden.  The story told of a fisherman that found a sealskin on the beach and decided to take it home with him.  As he left there was a cry and he turned to see a beautiful maiden.  It turned out that she was a seal-maiden, a selkie, the seal skin belonged to her.  She'd taken it off to dance on the beach and if the fisherman and if she didn't don her seal skin before the tide went out she'd be trapped on land.  But the fisherman was charmed by the selkie and refused to give her back her seal skin no matter how she pleaded.  So she went home with him and became his wife.  The fisherman hid the seal skin away and years passed and they had children and life went on.  Until one day, while the she was cleaning or while the children where playing (or both) the seal-maiden found the hiding place of her seal-skin.  She immediately rushed out to the sea, donned her seal skin like a coat and transformed into a seal, swimming out with the tide back to her sea home.  When the fisherman returned home he saw that his wife was gone and when he found that the seal skin was gone he knew that his wife had returned to her watery home.  This is the most common selkie tale though there are variations.  According to Teit, there is one ending where a selkie-woman returned to her seal-husband and seal-children but called back to her human husband asking him to never kill a seal because it might be her or her family while in another account the selkie's human husband commits suicide after his selkie-wife returned to the sea.

 Selkies or Seal-Folk are fae that shift from seal and human forms by means of their seal coats.  Although
they mainly live in the waters around Scotland and Ireland as seals, sometimes the selkie folk would come ashore, shedding their seal coats to frolic about on land, most often in groups just like regular seals.  In the folktales he collected from Shetlanders that had immigrated to British Columbia, J. A. Teit noted that all the sea-folk and animals had a special bond and would look out for each other, "thus gulls watched over the welfare of the seals when they were ashore, and warned them of the approach of danger; and seals did the same for mermaids" (193).  Despite this neighborhood watch system many selkie-women would have their seal coats stolen by fishermen that had fallen in love with them on the spot. A selkie's seal skin is their most prized possession because it is the only way that they may return to the sea.  Not only is a selkie trapped on land without their seal-skin, they must also submit to whoever has possession of their seal-skin.  A selkie may marry a mortal man that has gotten hold of her seal skin like the story of the seal-maiden, although "other selkie/human romances appear to have been built on genuine mutual affection" (Paciorek 208).

      For awhile I'd only heard and read stories of selkie-women but it turns out that there are male selkies, as well, and they are just as alluring as their female counterparts, "a selkie-man in human form was said to be to be a handsome creature, with almost magical seductive powers over mortal women" (orkneyjar).  I've noticed that while a selkie-woman may be beautiful and alluring her seal-skin is usually stolen by a fisherman but the selkie-men seem to come ashore deliberately, leaving their seal skins in a safe place before offering their aid to “unsatisfied” mortal women or by being called by seven tears of a maiden (orkneyjar).  Children from mortal and selkie unions were said to have webbed fingers and feet or be born in their own seal skin.

Ondine (2009) An Irish fisherman catches a woman in his net who appears to be a selkie

      According to Teit, there are also tales of people getting rides on the backs of seals.  In one story, a seal hunter, left behind by his companions after they'd been clubbing seals because of a sudden storm.  One of the seals which was only stunned, regained consciousness and found that his seal skin was gone.  The selkie boy's mother agreed to bring the seal hunter home if he helped her find her son's lost seal skin.  The hunter finds the boy's seal skin and returns it to him (Teit 192).

I can't wait to visit Scotland and Ireland and she the seals there!  Perhaps I'll catch myself a selkie-man...






Resources:

Froud, Brian and Allen Lee.  Faeries.  New York : Abrams, 1978.  Print.

Paciorek, Andrew L.. Strange Lands: Supernatural Creatures of the Celtic Otherworld. Blurb. Print.

Teit, J. A. "Water-Beings in Shetlandic Folk-Lore, as Remembered by Shetlanders in British Columbia". The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 31, No. 120 (Apr. - Jun., 1918). pp. 180-201. Web. 12 Sept. 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/534874

Towrie, Sigurd. "The Selkie-Folk". Web. 17 Sept. 2013. http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/selkiefolk/index.html

Kelpies: All the pretty little horses

The Kelpie is a Scottish demon, a water-horse that lures riders onto it's back, plunging into the loch and drowning it's rider.  I’m not sure what draws me to Kelpies aside from the fact that they’re a more obscure fae.  There aren’t as many stories about Kelpies as there are about mermaids or other sea monsters so whenever I find a new kelpie story I get especially excited. I’ve come up with about six stories having to do with kelpies and they were hard to find (although just recently I've found three articles with stories and first hand accounts of kelpies via JStor).  Stories about kelpies range from terrifying to light-hearted. The most common story that has many variations goes like this:  Some children are playing in the wood (all boys, though the number of boys varies) when they see a little lost pony.  The boys decide to climb on its back, as young impulsive boys will, and all of them miraculously fit (because of course this is no regular horse).  However, the last little boy can’t get on the horses back either because he is too small or he notices that there is something wrong with this horse (it could be the lake weeds in its hair or the fact that its eyes burn like coals).  The littlest boy refuses to get on and is left behind while his playmates are spirited away and drowned.  There are several stories in which a kelpie either helps or torments a miller.  I assume the connection with millers is due to the fact that mills relied on the water power of rivers, the kelpie's domain, in order to function.

Boy on White Horse by Theodor Kittelsen

Kelpies live in lochs and streams although I found one story were a Kelpie lived in a well.  They are shape-shifters but no matter what shape they take Kelpies always have some mark of their watery home about them.  Often they have lake weeds in their hair or their skin will be cold and wet.  Kelpie’s often take the guise of lost horses.  They are notorious for coaxing riders on their backs only to dive under the waters of the loch where they would devour their rider leaving only the liver to float on the surface of the loch.  The kelpie's aversion to liver is featured in an episode of the anime Hakushaku to Yosei (Earl and Fairy), when the Earl Edgar offers a kelpie liver pate.  Not realizing that this delicacy is made of liver the kelpie eats the foie gras and becomes sick, which I find amusing despite myself.  Poor kelpie!  The Scottish clan MacGregor is supposedly in possession of a golden bridle that may be used to bind a kelpie to the riders will.  the golden bridle is the only thing that will allow a person to have complete control over a kelpie although the Bible or saying the Lord's prayer will deter the kelpie.  In one story of a maiden tried to strike a water horse and her hand became stuck, as the kelpie galloped toward the nearest loch the frightened maiden stammered the Lord's prayer and was released.

There are variations of water horses in Scandanavia and Ireland and their appearances range from being black, white or green as glass.  Their eyes may be pearly white or red as a brand but most often their manes and tails are black.  The kelpie’s  Scandinavian cousin the Njogel (also known as Nikker or Neck) is pure white and possesses a long tail.  According to J. A. Teit in his article "Water-beings in Shetlandic folk-lore, as remembered by Shetlanders ing British Columbia", "some claim that his naturally very long tail was dragged behind and occasionally rolled up like a hoop or the rim of a wheel, between his legs, or on his back" (183-184).  I had never heard of this detail about the water-horse's tail before but as soon as I read this it reminded my of Tony DiTerlizzi's rendering of the Kelpie in Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You, where the Kelpie's tail does roll up at the end as described to Teit.

Illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi

The nikker was also known to be quite the ladies man and sometimes kelpies will appear as men to seduce women and take human wives.  As a man a kelpie may charm a girl into letting his head rest in her lap while she combs his hair, usually the maiden finds a bit of lake-weed and realizes the kelpie's true nature.  Although there are kelpie women they are reported to be be very few of them.  Another suggestion put forward by the kelpie character from the anime Earl and Fairy is that kelpie woman are too contrary, head strong and unruly for kelpie men to handle.  While some kelpie husbands might raise gales if their human wives managed to run away from them, others were very caring husbands.  The legendary Kelpie of Loch Garve brought a stone mason down to his watery home to build a fireplace and chimney so that the kelpie's human wife could be warm under the loch.





Resources:

DiTerlizzi, Tony and Holly Black. Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You. New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2005. Print.

Froud, Brian and Allen Lee.  Faeries.  New York : Abrams, 1978.  Print.

Gregor, Walter. "Kelpie Stories from the North of Scotland". The Folk-Lore Journal , Vol. 1, No. 9 (Sep., 1883), pp. 292-294. Web. 11 Sept. 2013. http://0-www.jstor.org.www.consuls.org/stable/1252794

"Kelpie".  Wikipedia.com.  30 August 2013.  Web. 11 Sept. 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelpie

"Kelpie Stories" The Folk-Lore Journal , Vol. 7, No. 3 (1889), pp. 199-201. Web. 11 Sept. 2013.  http://0-www.jstor.org.www.consuls.org/stable/1252766

"Loch Garve".  ambaile.org.  Web. 11 Sept. 2013. www.ambaile.org.uk/en/item/item_photograph.jsp?item_id=37365

Parkinson, Daniel. "Kelpie". Web. 11 Sept. 2013. http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/scotland/folklore/kelpie.html

Teit, J. A."Water-Beings in Shetlandic Folk-Lore, as Remembered by Shetlanders in British Columbia".

The Journal of American Folklore , Vol. 31, No. 120 (Apr. - Jun., 1918), pp. 180-201. Web. 11 Sept. 2013.  http://0-www.jstor.org.www.consuls.org/stable/534874

"Water Horses". fantasyhorses.homestead.com.  26 October 2012. Web. 11 Sept. 2013. http://fantasyhorses.homestead.com/water.html

"White Bow Scarlet Bow". Hakushaku to Yosei.  Writ. Mizue Tani, Asako Takaboshi, and Tokuko Nagao.  Dir. Koichiro Sotome.  Artland, 2008. Web. 11 Sept. 2013. youtube.com.