Kelpies
The Kelpie is a well-known mythical creature in Scotland. Their name originates from the Gaelic ‘cailpeach’ or ‘colpach’, and popular culture has given them a somewhat tame persona often portrayed as a beautiful horse-like spirit that roams our Scottish rivers and lochs. However, traditionally the Kelpie has a much more malevolent character believed to lure people and often children to their death. Folklore tells that the Kelpie can take the form of both a horse and a human, and can be found lurking near the waterside. Rabbie Burns mentions the Kelpie in his poem ‘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
And ‘nighted trav’llers are allur’d
To their destruction…”
In the North East of Scotland there are a number of Kelpie stories. We tell only a couple here and please do share any more that you are familiar with.
“…When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord
An’ float the jinglin’ icy boord
Then, water-kelpies haunt the foord
By your direction
And ‘nighted trav’llers are allur’d
To their destruction…”
In the North East of Scotland there are a number of Kelpie stories. We tell only a couple here and please do share any more that you are familiar with.
The Thieving Kelpie of Braemar
There is a folktale in Braemar of a Kelpie that took a liking to a young lady that lived near to the River Dee. The woman was struggling and had run out of corn meal. The Kelpie who had fallen in love with the woman wanted to help her, and knowing of a local mill nearby decided that he would try and steal some corn. One night when the miller had left the Kelpie snuck into the mill. He waited there until a bag, which the miller had left filling overnight was full to the top, lifted it on his back and started his journey to the young lady’s house. However, the bag of corn had taken a long time to fill and by the time the Kelpie left the sun was starting to rise and the miller was on his way home. When the miller saw the Kelpie, who had taken the shape of a large man, walking down the path with a sack full of grain on his back he grabbed a ‘fairy-whorl’ – a stone used to stop the mill from turning – and threw it at the Kelpie. The stone struck the Kelpie, breaking his leg, and he tumbled into mill-run where he was washed away and drowned.
St Vigeans Kelpie
The folklore of Kelpies tells of one way that this water-spirit can be tamed, and this is by capturing its bridle (if you are brave enough to get so close!). It is believed that if a person is capable of handling a Kelpies bridle then the spirit has no choice but to submit to its master. It was believed in the 18C that the church of St Vigeans was built by stones that has been carried by a water Kelpie who had been tamed and put to labour. Residents of the town also believed that the structure was supported by large iron bars which held it above a loch underneath the 40ft mound the church sat upon. It was in this loch that the water kelpie resided. On escaping its labours, the Kelpie is said to have harboured resentment against its captor and placed a curse upon the building.
For a long time, between 1699 and 1736, the parish refused to give the Lord’s Supper through fear of the curse. The curse it was said would lead the church to crumble, with the congregation inside, into the loch below.
In the Anecdotes from the Statistical Account of Scotland in the Scots Magazine of 1794 it reads:
For a long time, between 1699 and 1736, the parish refused to give the Lord’s Supper through fear of the curse. The curse it was said would lead the church to crumble, with the congregation inside, into the loch below.
In the Anecdotes from the Statistical Account of Scotland in the Scots Magazine of 1794 it reads:
“The belief of this had taken such hold of the people’s minds that on the day the sacrament was administered, some hundreds of the parishioners sat on the eminence at about 100 yards from the church, expecting every moment the dreadful catastrophe. They were happily disappointed.”
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