The Celtic Spirit World
Filed by Aine MacDermot
He who could place a cow-shackle about its neck or a cap on its head completely subdued it, and, so long as these were kept in place, it would do the work of an ordinary farm-horse. In Skye it is credited with a sharp bill or snout of a brown hue, but its body-colour was either grey, or black with a white blaze on the forehead. When taking man’s shape it could not divest itself of its hoofs, which usually betrayed it. Those farmers who were foolish enough to use it as a beast of burden were sooner or hater involved in ruinous loss. When killed, the water-horse proved to be “nothing but turf and a soft mass like jelly-fish”. It could. be shot only with a silver bullet, excellent proof of its supernatural character.
The water-bull was supposed to dwell in lonely moorland lochs, whence it issued only at night. It frequently mated with ordinary cattle, and, as it had no ears, calves having short or rudimentary ears were thought to be its progeny. It had a strange, unnatural bellow, something like the crowing of a cock, and is described as being “a small, ugly, very black animal, bull-shaped, soft, and slippery”, its aqueous origin doubtless dictating the latter qualities.
A much more formidable mythical beast was the biasd na srogaig, or “beast of the lowering horn”, which seems to have been peculiar to Skye. Indeed, from all ‘accounts it closely resembled a unicorn, with a single horn on its forehead, and dwelt in lochans and small sheets of water. It was a bulky, clumsy animal, with long, ungainly legs. More terrible still was “the big beast of Lochawe”, which had twelve legs, and could be heard in winter floundering among the ice. Accounts of its appearance varied, some giving it equine form, while others described it as resembling a large eel or serpent.
Scottish folk-lore has many accounts of a strange white serpent which is certainly mythical, and whose flesh or skin possessed a valuable medicinal virtue. The legend of the Ramsays of Bamff recounts how an ancestor of the line gained fame and fortune as a physician by catching the snake and eating its flesh, which permitted him to cure the King of Scotland of a serious complaint by the simple expedient of looking through him, the reptile’s virtue of clairvoyance being passed on to the practitioner - surely the earliest example of X-rays!
An insect with an amusing as well as a fabulous name and existence is the Gigelorum, or giol-daoram, said to be the most microscopic of all created things. It is supposed to make its nest in the mite’s ear, and thus can never have been seen by the naked eye. The burach-bhaoi, that is “the wizard’s shackle”, was a mythical creature of the eel or leech species which abounded at fords in the Western Highlands, and which twined itself like a band around the feet of passing horses, so that they fell into the water and were drowned, when it sucked their blood. It had nine eyes in its head and back, all of which squinted. In Skye it was believed that this animal was to be found in Badenoch, and it was thought to haunt especially the dark waters of Loch Tummel, in Perthshire, and certain streams in Argyll.
There was formerly a popular saying in the Western Highlands that “seals and swans are kings’ children under enchantment” - a reminiscence probably of the well-known Celtic myth of the “Children of Lir”. They have been seen by men in lonely places to divest themselves of their covering of feathers or fur, and to take the shape of handsome princes and princesses. Myths and legends of such enchanted animals are legion. Seals, which abound in the Shetland Islands, were formerly believed to be Finn men and women in disguise who had swum to the islands in seal-shape. Could one seize them when they had cast off the skin which gave them animal form, he could retain them as prisoners at his pleasure, unless they succeeded in recovering the pelt, when they plunged into the sea and escaped. There was formerly a sept in North Uist known as “the MacCodrums of the Seals”, who, tradition avers, were descended from these enchanted animals.
Joy Sweeney wrote:
Dear Sir,
My grandmother, who was from Derry, Ireland saw the banshee just prior to her sister, Josephine’s, death many years ago. My grandmother lived in Florida and Josephine was living in Canada. My grandmother said she first heard the banshee wailing loudly and mournfully outside her door. Then she saw the old woman in white in a horse-driven carriage going by her house. She noted the date and time and later found out that her sister had died around the same time. My grandmother was a MacDonagh.
No one else in our family has seen the banshee.
Posted on 15-Jun-05 at 2:36 pm | Permalink
ed malvey wrote:
i was wondering where you got the name chapel of st. malvey i can trace my family name back to 1734 in ireland county cork
Posted on 10-Aug-05 at 12:14 am | Permalink
Aine MacDermot wrote:
It’s not me that got that name, this article is The Celtic Spirit World
by Lewis Spence
from ‘The Magic Arts in Celtic Britain’
(chapter VII)
Posted on 10-Aug-05 at 12:18 am | Permalink
ed malvey wrote:
i dont want to be a pest but do you have any idea about the origin of the chapel of st malvey?
Posted on 10-Aug-05 at 1:26 am | Permalink
Aine MacDermot wrote:
You’re not being a pest. And, no, I don’t know the origin of the chapel of St. Malvey. Sounds like a good topic for you to research, though (considering your last name).
Posted on 10-Aug-05 at 1:40 am | Permalink
Mirela Sevenich-Walter wrote:
Dear Sir,
my grandparents lived in Croatia. They have been born in a little village by the name Seona.
It´s an unusually name for a croatic village.
I can remember that ma granny teach me then I was a child a lot of fairys.
She believed in them and the other older pupil in the village , too.
I have heard stories about fairies in this village.
My granny says they always lived there with the people helped them or punished them.
She tells me, if I don´t lost the faith in them, one day I would see the fairies, too.
In the wood of this village is a spring and there was an old man living. The people called him brother John.
He lives like an eremit allone and he was praying for the ill people. He was healing the humans.
My grandmother shaws me the place there the fairies were dancing in the ring.
She gives me so lot my granny and I beginn to understand now.
Three months ago I became the idea to search about the name Seona in Slavonia (Croatia).
This is a name from scotish gaellic and comes from the name Seonaid (God is great).
I´m sure that in Seona the celts build one of them first villages, then they come to Croatia.
All this I tell a Dr. of archeollogy in Zagreb and he writes me back, that he has found some celtic graves and this story from me can be a way to find something more about our history.
Today,if you ask me if I believe in fairiey, yes do.
Why?
So I am catholic, but my grandmother tells me that god is great, he lives everythere and I can talk with him also in the nature.
I grove up with the belive in god and the fairies.
I loved them and talked to them, too. I see them as my sisters in soul.
Sometimes I can here them singing in the wood or crying on places there bads thing happening.
They are real the fairies. My granny says if the humans lost the faith they can´T never see the fairies again.
One day I was so tired, I hear voices from the door like children laughing. I think my children are coming home with my husband, but it was a litle green ghost.
He was small ,like a child from 6 years.
I can´t see a face only circle on his head with symbols like celtic art. He talks somthing to me, but I don´t understand. It was a language warm and deep. The louds sounds like drrhh, krch, shhr, chaarhh,,, somthing like this.
On the top of the wall from my room something litle flyes. They looked like small white princes and they laughed all time. The voice of them sounds like children laughing.
I have open my ices and I was thinking I´m dreaming, but in the next second I feel how thr little green ghost take my plaid from the bed and takes it over me. I was falling in a deep sleep.
Then I awaked I have feel so good. I never sleeped better.
It was a good feeling. This I will never forgett.
Bye, from Germany, yours Mirela
Posted on 20-Sep-06 at 6:33 am | Permalink
ed makvey wrote:
It’s been quite a while but I found out some info about St. Malvey the real name of the church is St Moluag’s church (locally known by its gaidhlig name of Teampull Mholuaidh) is a 13th Century temple in the village of Eoropie in Ness in the Isle of Lewis
Posted on 18-Jan-08 at 8:50 pm | Permalink
Tom Malvey wrote:
I have documentation on the church from a journal written by Charles Dickens in 1887. He calls it the church of St Malvey. I traced him back to 590 AD. He and St Columba et al were called the disciples of Ireland. I think you might be Molly’s son, brother Jimmy now Father Seamus, and my cousin.
Posted on 29-Jan-08 at 11:01 am | Permalink