Fairies generally dwelt in subterraneous abodes; in the interiors of grassy
hillocks, whence issued dulcet sounds and flashes of weird light; sometimes the
side of a hill opened, and exposed them to the gaze of the belated wayfarer. No
doubt they were seen everywhere by the potent gaze of imagination; on the
meads and in the groves, or curled up among the bending flowers; for
“Visions as poetic eyes avow,
Hang from each leaf, and cling to every bough.”They were reputed to be well skilled in the medical art, and to favoured mortals
they sometimes imparted their knowledge. It is difficult to understand why they
were credited with the abstraction of children, and with the substitution of other
beings in their place. For this curious kind of theft was commonly attributed to
them. A “wise woman”—a dealer in simples and herbal potions—having failed
to cure a child, declared that “the bairn had been taken away, and an elf
substituted.”
Besides the fairies, Scotland could boast of its spirits of the waters, just as
Germany had its Loreleys and Ondines.
We can gather, however, no definite information respecting the water-kelpie, the
water-horses, or the water-bull, or of another anomalous animal called shelly-
coat. Describing Lochlomond, Graham says:—“It is reported by the countrymen
living thereabouts, that they sometimes see the hippopotam or water-horse,
where the river Cudrie falls into it, a mile west of the church of Buchanan.” A
river known as the Ugly Burn, in the county of Ross, springing from Loch
Glaish, was regarded with awe by all the countryside, as the retreat of the water-
horse and other spiritual beings. Shetland is represented as having possessed a
handsome water-horse which, when mounted, carried the rider into the sea. Mr.
Dalyell, writing in 1835, says, that the water-bull is still believed to reside in
Loch Awe and Loch Rannoch, nor, he adds, are witnesses wanting to bear
testimony to the fact. It was reputed to be invulnerable against all except silver
shot; though no one had put it to the proof. In the Isle of Man certain persons
who saw the water-bull in a field were unable to distinguish him from one of the
ordinary terrestrial species, nor did the cows show any disposition to avoid him.
But his progeny always turned out to be a rude lump of flesh and skin, without
bones.
The spirit of the sea was believed to be malicious, and capable of inflicting
injury. Allusions are frequent to “sea-trowis, meermen, meermaids, and a