Fairy Tales, Their Origin and Meaning; With Some Account of Dwellers in FairylandBunce, John Thackray
History
Fairy Tales, Their Origin and Meaning; With Some Account of Dwellers in Fairyland
Bunce, John Thackray
Fairy tales -- History and criticism
Among other Highland fairy monsters are the water-horses (like the
Scandinavian and Teutonic Kelpies) and the water-bulls, which inhabit
lonely lochs. The water-bulls are described as being friendly to man;
the water-horses are dangerous--when men get upon their backs they are
carried off and drowned. Sometimes the water-horse takes the shape of a
man. Here is a story of this kind from the island of Islay: There was a
farmer who had a great many cattle. Once a strange-looking bull-calf was
born amongst them, and an old woman who saw it knew it for a water-bull,
and ordered it to be kept in a house by itself for seven years, and fed
on the milk of three cows. When the time was up, a servant-maid went to
watch the cattle graze on the side of a loch. In a little while a man
came to her and asked her to dress or comb his hair. So he laid his head
upon her knees, and she began to arrange his hair. Presently she got
a great fright, for amongst the hair she found a great quantity of
water-weed; and she knew that it was a transformed water-horse. Like
a brave girl she did not cry out, but went on dressing the man's hair
until he fell asleep. Then she slid her apron off her knees, and ran
home as fast as she could, and when she got nearly home, the creature
was pursuing her in the shape of a horse. Then the old woman cried out
to them to open the door of the wild bull's house, and out sprang the
bull and rushed at the horse, and they never stopped fighting until they
drove each other out into the sea. "Next day," says the story, "the body
of the bull was found on the shore all torn and spoilt, but the horse
was never more seen at all."
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