Gaelic Folklore (8): Cailleach, Ancient Goddess Forms

8.

Cailleach, Ancient Goddess Forms

What follows are descriptions and tales from one old source:

n ocean form of the Cailleach is known as the Muileartach or Muireartach. The Muileartach resembled the Sumerian Tiamat of Mesopotamia and certain Old Egyptian Goddesses in having a demon or half reptile form.  In a well-known Gaelic folk-poem, of which there are several variants, she is represented as one who knocks at a door and calls upon Fionn to admit her. Although, as she approached in her darkness, she pulled up a tree, swept off the branches and had it for a stick, she cries in a plaintive voice: ‘Is mise Cailleach truagh, truagh (I am a pitiful, pitiful Cailleach.)’ Demon and reptile, or half-reptile form and in being a slayer and destroyer as well as a giver of life. Like the mother of the giants in the Finlay Changeling folk story, the Muileartach assumes the form of an old woman after leaving the sea and visits a house to ask for a night’s lodging, pretending to be a traveller who is cold and weary. She wants only to warm herself at the fire  and would be content to eat with the dogs (B’fheàrr leam, a bhith am blàth ‘s do theine mhóir, ‘s a bhith ancomith ri do chonaibh). The door is barred against her, and when she finds that her deceitful pleading is in vain, she kicks it open. Then, entering quickly, she seizes with her ‘crooked claw’ Fionns Cup of Victory and runs away with it, having shown herself in her true colours as a Cailleach of great fury (a’ Chailleach bu mhór fearg) The Fians pursue and struggle with the Cailleach: ‘Thinman (Caoilte), son of Roin, caught his big sword and his two spears, and the active youthful Oscar caught the embroidered skirt that was round her body. They took the apple from the wretch.' This myth has not only been connected with the Fians, but the much later Manus (Magnus Bareleg) and in the confused snowball of narrative are fragments of ancient myths like the mystic apple and the Cup of Victory from which  Fionn derived his mysterious powers, supplies of  food &c.

1.

Like our Cailleach Bhear, the Muileartach has a blue-black face and a single eye:

‘There was one flabby eye in her head

That quicker moved than lure-pursuing mackerel.

Her head bristled dark and grey

Like scrubwood before hoar frost.’

A variant is:

‘Her face was blue-black of the lustre of coal,

And her bone-tufted tooth was like red rust.

In her head was one pool-like eye,

Swifter than a star in a winter sky.’

She had come across the ocean to demand the heads of Fionn and his chief warriors, but was herself slain. Our Cailleach acquired various names in different localities. She is Cailleach uisge (Water Calleach) when she comes from the sea or haunts a swollen river ford, waiting to drown reckless and hurried travelers. A Cailleach na h-Abhann ( the river Cailleach) is mentioned, who haunted a ford on the river Orrin in Ross and Cromarty and drowned unwary people.  

  

n the Cromarty Firth the south-westerly gales of spring are referred to as those of Gentle Annie. Her stormy period is supposed to last for six weeks, and the fisher people of Cromarty have sayings regarding it. The Firth, called before 1300 Sykkersund (Safe Sound) is a natural, land-locked harbor, with abrupt headlands at its entrance, and is fringed by undulating hills. It is well protected from the east and north winds, but part of it is dangerous for small craft when the south-westerly gales blow in spasmodic gusts through a gap in the mountains. A particular point below the Cromarty coastguard station, which stands on Maryness, is feared by the boatmen, because there the tide runs swiftly and gusts of south-westerly wind sweep with great fury. The point of the promontory is called Heel of Ness, and the writer has seen fishermen lowering their sails as they rounded the point  even in moderate weather, owing to the superstitious dread of this area of danger. Gentle Annie is deceitful and no risks should be taken.  In Cromarty the fishers have the following saying regarding the Cailleach of the south westerly gales: ‘When Gentle  Annie is screeching round the heel of Ness, with a white feather in her hat, she’ll be harrying the crook’. (The crook is the pot which hangs from the hook of the chimney chain.) There is no food in the pot because the fishers cannot go to sea. "Gentle Annie" had the reputation of playing tricks with the weather. A morning broke peaceful and calm and men ventured to sea, lured by reason of her deceptive promise. Then suddenly a fierce storm came on and there were wrecks and drownings. In Gaelic lore the Cailleach period in spring is comparatively mild, but is only an interlude, because fierce storms follow. A sunken rock known as Bogha na Caillich is on the Inverness-shire coast. It is dangerous and is dreaded by seafarers. Other rocks, already referred to, at the mouth of Loch Etive, Connel Ferry, over which pour the Falls of Lora, are similarly a peril, although the Cailleach's "stepping stones" and the tides are very swift and treacherous.

dangerous sandy bar at the entrance to the Dornoch Firth is called the gizzen brigs (Norse, gisnar bryggja, leaky bridge). In the local Gaelic lore the bar is connected with a malicious female spirit. The writer has heard references to her as a storm-bringer and drowner of seafarers. The longevity of the Cailleach is accounted for in a group of stories which tell that she drinks the water of life. One of these, which locates the "Well of Youth" near Loch Ba in Mull, tells that she visited it at the dead of night, and drank before bird tasted water or dog was heard to bark. She thus kept herself always at sixteen years of age. A version of this story, continues: At last, when making her way to the well on a calm morning (and such mornings are very beautiful in the west Highlands) she heard a dog bark. She exclaimed:

‘Little knows any living wight

When mischance may befall him;

 For me early has the dog called

 In the calm morn above Loch Ba.

'I had enough of spells

 To serve the seed of Adam,

But when the mischance was ripe

 It could not be warded off.'

Having said this, she fell, crumbling into dust. She lived so long that she had above five hundred children. A prior's daughter in Tiree is said to have met the Cailleach Bheur and asked her how old she was. She said her memory extended back to the time when the Skerryvore rocks, where the lighthouse stands, were covered with arable fields.

"Little sharp old wife, tell me your age."

"I saw the seal-haunted Skerryvore

When it was a mighty power;

When they ploughed it, if I am right,

And sharp and juicy was its barley.

I saw the loch at Balefuill

When it was a little round well,

Where my child was drowned,

Sitting in its circular chair;

And I saw Leinster lake in Ireland

When children could swim across."

Beira sang in terms of affection regarding places in Tiree, and especially some on the farm of Valla:

"The little dune, the big dune,

Dunes of my love;

Odram and the Raven's mound

Where I was a young girl,

Though I am to-day an old woman,

Bent, decrepit and sallow."

his is the late, poetical aspect of the Cailleach, reflecting the influence of Christian culture. Her fierceness of character is obscured and she is regarded merely as a woman of remarkable longevity and more a sentimentalist than a treacherous enemy of man who claims sacrifices of human life. In numerous fragmentary folk-stories she is, along with her helpers, a shaper of Scotland. One tells how she carried on her back a pannier filled with earth and stones and formed almost all the hills of Ross-shire. Occasionally an accident happened. When standing on the site of the huge Ben Vaichaird, the bottom of the pannier is said to have given way, and the contents, falling through the opening, produced the hill, which owes its great height and vast extent of base to the accident.  The eminence known as Little Wyvis was similarly formed while one of her assistants was leaping across a valley. It is told that when the Cailleach was constructing a bridge across the Sound of Mull, commencing at the Morvern side, the strap of her creel, filled with stones, snapped suddenly and the contents of the creel formed the cairn called in Gaelic Càrn na Caillich. "She intended to put chains across the Sound of Islay to prevent the passage of ships that way, and the stones are pointed out on the Jura side, to which the chains were to be secured." Other are: Beinn na Caillich, a hill in Kildalton parish, Islay, is called. after her, and a furrow down its side, called Sgrhb na Caillich, was made by her as she slid down in a sitting posture. In the parish of Strathlachlan and Strachur in Cowal, Argyllshire, there is also a hill called after her, Beinn Chailleach Bheur.  In the eighteenth century Statistical Account of this parish, the Cailleach is referred to as the Old Wife of Thunder. She is reputed to be a leaper from hill to hill and one who could command terrific thunder and desolating deluges at pleasure and hence the dreadful apprehensions of incurring her ire that generally prevailed. Although some think that the parish minister of Strathlachlan and Strachur was mistaken in connecting the Cailleach with thunder, we find that the poet William Dunbar, who was familiar with her cantrips as a hill-shaper, &c., in Lothian, also refers to her as the source of thunder- storms. He makes her the wife of Fionn the giant, and writes:

"Scho spittit Lochlomond with her lippis;

Thunner and fyreflaucht (lightning) flew fra hir hippis."

 When she "wald rift" the heaven "rerdit" (roared). 

Dunbar pictures her wading into the Spanish sea "with her sark lape (tucked up). J. G. Campbell quotes a Gaelic poem with regard to a mountain loch in Mull, called Crù-lochan (horse-shoe lakelet), reputed to be "the deepest loch in the world". Cailleach Bheur says:

"The great sea reached my knee

And the horse-shoe tarn reached my haunch."

A well-known Highland folk-tale is devoted to the Cailleach who came in a dark cloud from Lochlann and threw down fire-balls or thunder-bolts which set on fire the forests of Scotland.

here are likewise folk-stories of our Cailleach as an inhospitable woman. She is visited by a man who wishes to reside for the night, and she gives him the head of one of her sheep to singe and then endeavours to deprive him of a share of it when it is cooked. But the man outwits her in a bardic contest. Stories of this type were evidently of comparatively late literary development in the ceilidhs. They emphasize the meanness of the food-denying winter deity and the cleverness of men who make use of poetic charms. In one of the stories a man named William declared he would compel her to give him lodgings and food. On entering her house she asked him his name, and he said it was "William Sit-Down". She repeated his name and he said: "Why should I not sit down when the mistress of the house asks it?" He there upon sat down. After some lively passages he tricked her into giving him not merely a meal, but the whole meal. This type of story is of considerable antiquity. Odysseus in the Odyssey (Book IX) tricks the one-eyed Cyclops by giving his name as "No-man". In various Gaelic folk-stories a fairy is similarly deceived by a man who gives his name as "Me Myself" or, as "Mysel'-and-Mysel". 

n the development of the William Sit-Down narrative, it is obvious that other popular tales were drawn upon in the ceilidhs. Our Cailleach Bheur and her assistants are evidently prominent figures in an imported mythology. In some respects, as has been shown, the chief Cailleach resembles the primitive Artemis of Greece. The view that she was merely a "deer goddess" ignores her associations with swine, goats, sheep, wolves, birds and fish as well as deer, her connexions with trees and plants, with mountain wells, rivers, lochs, marshes and the ocean, with tempests and thunder and with hills, rocks, cairns, boulders and standing stones.

n outstanding attribute is her druidic hammer or wand, which cannot be accounted for by any deer connexion. We gather from the folk-tales that it may be taken from her and that when she suffers loss of it she is powerless. There may have been a myth explaining how she recovered her wand after she emerged from her boulder, but, if so, it has been lost. The standing stones on Craigmaddy Moor between Glasgow and Milngavie are the Auld Wife's Lifts. As Finlay Changeling wields the hammer or wand for a time, so may have the Cailleach's son who "put out" her eye, apparently by making use of it. We seem to detect a memory of some old ritual in a curious dance known in Gaelic as Cailleach an Dùdain  (Cailleach of the mill-dust), which may throw light on this aspect of the problem. It is performed by a man and a woman and the man grasps in his right hand a wand known as the slachdan druidheachd (druidic wand) or slachdan geasachd (magic wand). The man and the woman, gesticulate and attitudinize before one another, dancing round and round, in and out, crossing and recrossing, changing and exchanging places. When the man touches the woman's head with the wand she falls at his feet as if dead. He laments over her, dancing and gesticulating. He then lifts up her left hand and, looking into the palm, breathes upon it and touches it with the wand. Immediately the limp hand becomes alive and moves from side to side and up and down. The man rejoices and dances round the figure on the floor. And, having done the same to the right hand, and to the left and right foot in succession, they also became alive and move. But, although the limbs are living, the body is still inert. The man kneels over the woman and breathes into her mouth and touches her heart with the wand. The woman comes to life and springs up, confronting the man. Then the two dance vigorously and joyously as in the first part. The tune varies with the varying phases of the dance.

3.

Magic hammers were wielded by Greek satyrs apparently in connexion with the raising from the earth of Pandora as Ge, the earth goddess. An Armenian myth tells that Christ descended from the sky with a golden hammer. He smote the earth and evoked the virgin church. Our Cailleach cannot now be connected with any particular people who entered Scotland, and there is certainly no justification for confining her to the Caledonians. It is extremely hazardous to assume that she reflects an ancient state of society in Scotland in which woman was supreme. Although the Picts, for instance, recognized descent by the female line, no woman's name appears in the lists of Pictish rulers. There is really nothing in the Cailleach stories to justify the view that they reflect a struggle between matriarchy and patriarchy. Some regards the Cailleach stories as fragments of nature myths imported from Norway. There can be no doubt that the deity had a calendar significance in her association with the storms of winter and spring and that she was connected with the sea and the mountains. But this theory fails to account for all the attributes of the complex Cailleach. The theory of Norse borrowing is far from convincing. Even the Norse material cannot be regarded as merely a collection of nature myths. Weather controlling was only one of the activities of the Cailleach.

ome would have it that the Cailleach was imported from Ireland. However: The Scottish stories about the Cailleach are far more alive and more widely spread than those of Ireland. They do not seem to have any traditions about her in Aran. In Ireland she has a wizard's wand with which, when herding her cows, she strikes a bull, turning it into a stone, and she is connected with cairns and dolmens. There is a hag's chair in County Meath. In Northern Ireland she formed a cairn on Carnbane by spilling stones from her apron, and she broke her neck when leaping from an eminence. She lives in a cave on the hills above Tiernach Bran. Her black dog gives milk which imparts great strength to a man who drinks it. She is credited with some of the feats of Aine an Cnuic (Aine of the hill, Knockainy), the Queen of the Limerick fairies, and she is the banshee of some Leinster and Meath families, as Cleena, Grian of Cnoc Greine, Aine, Una and Eevil are of other families, there having evidently been culture mixing and the mixing of myths. Most of the Irish stories emphasize the Cailleach's great strength and longevity. She had seven periods of youth and was a great lover:

"It is riches

 Ye love, it is not men:

 In the time when we lived

It was men we loved.

My arms when they are seen

 Are bony and thin:

Once they would fondle,

They would be round glorious kings."

t may well be, judging from the late character of the Irish material, that the drift of lore regarding her was from Scotland to Ireland rather than from Ireland to Scotland. She plays no part in Danann myth and, she is not mentioned in Cormac's glossary or in Cóir Anmantt, which contains the most ancient Irish existing traditions of the gods, nor yet in the Dindsenchus or Agallamh na Senorach.

n Leicestershire she has been remembered as Black Annis, who is associated with the Easter hare hunt and has a cat Anna form. An eighteenth century title deed refers to land known as Black Anny's Bower Close. Her cave was in the Dane Hills, but was filled in. According to a local poet:

"An oak, the pride of all the mossy dell,

Spreads its broad arms above the stony cell;

 And many a bush, with hostile thorns arrayed,

Forbids the secret cavern to invade.

 'Tis said the soul of mortal man recoiled

To view Black Annis' eye, so fierce and wild.

Vast talons, foul with human flesh, there grew

 In place of hands, and features livid blue

Glared in her visage; whilst the obscene waist

Warm skins of human victims close embraced.”

She is credited in the local folk-lore with devouring lambs and young children. Like Cailleach Bheur, she has a blue face and only one eye.

n Arthurian romance Morgan le Fay, it is told, was chased by Arthur, whose scabbard she stole. Then she rode into a valley where many great stones were, and when she saw that she must be overtaken, she shaped herself, horse and man, by enchantment into a great marble stone. Lady Charlotte in her notes to the Mabinogion refers to two large rocks, reputed to be Arthur's quoits, which he flung from the summit of Pen Arthur. A rock was thrown from the same eminence by a lady of those days, being a pebble in her shoe which gave her some annoyance.

fragment of the Scottish Cailleach story of the imprisoned maiden is found in the Norse ballad of "Hermod the Young", which tells of the hero liberating a beautiful maiden who had been taken captive by a giantess. Hermod visits the mountain dwelling of this hag and is permitted to remain for the night: Resorting to cunning, he persuades the giantess the following morning to visit her neighbours, liberates the fair maiden during her absence, and flees on his skis with her over the high mountains and down the low ones. The giantess pursues the couple. When Hermod with his young maiden had come to the salt fjord (Elivagar) the giantess is quite near them, but in the decisive moment she is changed to a stone, according to the Norse version, by the influence of the sun, which just at that time rose; according to the Swedish version, by the influence of a cross which  stood near the fjord and its 'long bridge'.

n Danish lore the captured maiden is Sigrid, daughter of Siward. She is carried away by a giant who is slain by Ottar. The maiden is loved by the hero, but she declines to respond and takes refuge in the hut of "a certain huge woman" and undertakes the task of pasturing goats and sheep. In the end she consents to become the wife of Ottar, who carries her away. Mrs. K.W.Grant has collected in Rumania from a Saxon-Hungarian woman, named Malvinia, a folk-tale of a very great witch, who was head over eight witches. She was harsh to her son's wife, to whom she set the task of washing a brown fleece white. The young woman washes it at a brook, but old Winter took pity on her and, taking the fleece from her, made it white. When she returned home with the fleece and some mountain flowers, the old witch was enraged and she and the other witches mounted goats and began a contest against all growth, like the Scottish Cailleach and her helpers. Snow and hail, wind and rain were summoned to do battle, but the warm sun shone out, the south wind breathed, and Spring triumphed. The nine witches were turned into stone, and 'there they sit', said Malvinia, 'on their goats, on the top of the mountain of Silash in Temesvar; and on the anniversary of their defeat the fountains in their heads overflow and their faces become blurred with weeping'.

he memory of an ancient savage goddess survives in the folklore of Greece. She is known as Lamia, Queen of Libya, whose children were robbed by Hera. She took up her abode in a grim and lonely cavern, and there changed into a malicious and greedy monster, who in envy and despair stole and killed the children of more fortunate mothers. Another Lamia, the Gello, assumes the form of a fish, a serpent, a kite or a skylark and likewise devours babies. When one of these hags is slain, no grass grows where her blood falls.

primitive form of Demeter concealed herself in the cave of Phigalia, had a mare's head and was associated with snakes and other monsters. When the Phigalians neglected to sacrifice to her a famine afflicted the land. She was known as the Black Demeter. Demeter cast a blight on the land when her daughter Persephone was carried away by Pluto. The Scottish Cailleach, as we have seen, beats the ground with her hammer, thus freezing it, to prevent the grass growing. In Babylonia the demoniac forms of deities are referred to in metrical charms and incantations. Labartu (Sumerian "Dimme") haunted mountain and marsh and devoured stray children, like the English Black Annis. The Egyptian goddess Sekhet was a slayer armed with a dagger. The mother goddess of Crete was associated with trees and mountains, snakes and wild beasts, and brandished a spear, or a staff which may have been a magic wand.

t would appear that our Cailleach Bheur of Scotland is a localized ancient deity of Cyclopean type and the Great Mother of giants. She shaped the mountains, gave origin to rivers, lochs and marshes, and had a sea connexion; she was the protector of fish and wild animals, whose forms she could assume; and she was connected with uncultivated trees, and was possessed of a magic wand, with which she controlled the weather during the winter and spring; she was an enemy of man, but yet a mother of many children; and she had a boulder or standing-stone form. The outwitting of her by means of clever repartee appears to be a memory of incantations and charms which protected human beings and compelled her to render service. The Cailleach has to be considered in her relation to human beings as well as to the calendar, and the various stories regarding her emphasize that she cannot be characterized as either a deer goddess or a central figure in a nature myth. The Scottish Cailleach had many specialized and local forms, like Artemis of Greece, whose primitive characteristics survived longer in one area than another. Like Artemis, the Cailleach had, as the lover of many kings and the mother of many children, a connexion with birth. Farnell refers to an "Artemis-Aphrodite ". Although reputed to be a "virgin goddess", Artemis gave birth to children. Perhaps, like the Cailleach, she renewed her youth by drinking from a "well of life " and was supposed at the same time to renew her virginity.

Scottish Folk-Lore and Folk Life - Studies in Race, Culture and Tradition, by Donald A. MacKenzie, 1935.

 

Picture source: 
1.https://funnyjunk.com/Water+witch+folklore/qLgDMdY/
2. Initials were taken from the book Carmina Gadelica vol.I and II, by A.Carmichael, 1900
3. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/58/1e/b2/581eb2c63df489e6a140b7b0ffde4d91.jpg

Nico

Gaelic Folklore (7): Cailleach Bheur, A Scottish Artemis.

7.

Cailleach Bheur, A Scottish Artemis

On the Celtic British Isles, Cailleach Bheur was a goddess of probably pre-Celtic origin. Her name means 'veiled'. She is said to have created the land by throwing stones here and there and was associated with agriculture, but also with the protection of flora and fauna from hunters. She was eventually considered to be a witch.  The dark mythical principle from which all life arises, which nourishes all living things, and to which it returns, was presented by the Celts as an eternal cauldron: the Cauldron of death and rebirth. In Celtic mythology, the Cailleach constantly stirring this cosmic cauldron so that everything arises over and over again and is consumed in an endless recycling process. Even the fallen heroes ended up in it and were made whole again in another world. But from the role of creatrix, this deity has gradually fallen into that of a witch. Probably because only the face of the destroyer was remembered.

What follows is a summary from one old source:

Memories of an ancient Goddess cling to a giantess who in the folklore of Scotland is referred to as Cailleach Bheur, Mala Liath, the Muilearteach and other names connected with localities. She resembles somewhat the Greek Goddess Artemis, being associated with wild animals and capable of transforming herself into animal shape. Withal, she is a weather controller, like the Artemis to whom Iphegenia, daughter of Agamemnon, was sacrificed so that a favourable wind be obtained for the fleet which was to set out from Aulis with the warriors who were to wage war against Troy.

1. Artemis of Ephesus.

In The Scottish Goddess we appear to have glimpses of the fierce old Artemis who was ultimately idealized by Greek sculptors and accorded refining treatment by the poets after her character had been adjusted to changed social ideas and customs and after goats and boars were sacrificed to her instead of human beings.

Cailleach means in modern Gaelic “Old wife” and originally signified a nun  (Veiled one) The supernatural Cailleach was distinguished from a nun by being referred to as Cailleach Bheur (Bheur in the meaning of shrill, sharp, cutting).

The Cailleach Bheur is in folklore associated with the coldest and stormiest period of the year, She is called  “The daughter of Grianan”, that is, of the “little sun”.  Daughter of the little sun doesn’t mean, however, that the sun was either her father or mother, but that she was born during the cold season. The Cailleach Bheur was supposed to have been transformed into a grey boulder at the end of the period of the “little sun” and have to have remained in that form during the period of the “big sun”. There are references to this boulder being always moist, indicating it was reputed to contain  life substance.

The descriptions of the Cailleach Bheur in various parts of the Highlands agree in giving her a blue-black face with one eye on the flat of her forehead, the sight of which is very keen. In songs put in her mouth she is made to say: “Why is my face so black, so black?” Her teeth are red as rust and her hair matted, confused and long and white as an aspen covered with hoar frost. She wears a kerchief or mutch. All of her clothing is grey and she is wrapped in a dun-coloured plaid drawn tightly about her shoulders. On her feet are buskins. She is of enormous stature and great strength, and capable of travelling very swiftly and of leaping from mountain to mountain and across arms of the sea. In her right hand she carries a magic slachdan (beetle, rod)  which is also referred to as a farachan (hammer).  With her magic hammer or rod the Cailleach Bheur smites to the earth, so that it may be hardened with frost and the grass preventing from growing. She is the enemy of growth.

She is spoken of as a wild hag with a venomous temper, hurrying  about with a magic wand in her withered hand, switching the grass and keeping down vegetation to the detriment of man and beast. She is baffled in the early spring period which bears her name: “When the grass, upborne by the warm sun, the gentle dew and the fragrant rain, overcomes the Cailleach Bheur she flies into a terrible temper, and, throwing away her wand into the root of a whin bush, she disappears in a whirling cloud of angry passion. She then takes flight, saying as she goes:

“I threw my druidic evil wand

Into the base of a withered hard whin bush

Where shall not grow fionn nor fionnidh,

But fragments of grassy froinnidh.“

In other versoins the Cailleach Bheur flings her magic rod or hammer under a holly tree, “and that is why no grass grows under holly trees.”

2.

The Cailleach Bheur uses her want chiefly as a weather controller. Some of the folktales in which she approximimates to a human being refer to her however, as wielding her wand as a weapon. She had apparently a connexion with the holly tree and whins (gorse), as with marsh reeds and water plants.

The period of spring called A’Chailleach is the one in which she pauses to prepare for her final effort in arresting growth, as is usually explained in the céilidhs (house gossipings). The daughter of the little sun of winter had been an active influence since her arrival at Halloween. According to the folktales our Cailleach Bheur ushers in winter by washing her great plaid in the whirlpool of Corryvreckan (Coire Bhreacan), which may be translated either Breacan’s Cauldron, or the Cauldron of the Plaid.  

Her chief seat in Scotland is Ben Nevis and she keeps as a prisoner there a beautiful maiden, with whom her son falls in love. The young couple elope at the end of winter and the Cailleach Bheur raises storms to keep them apart. These, according to one account, begin in February, the ‘wolf’ month (Faoilleach). Then comes the wind called Feadag (the whistle), which kills sheep, lambs, cattle and horses. It lasts for three days and is followed by Gobag (the sharp-billed one), which pecks in every corner and “lasts for a week” or, as some have it, “three, four, or nine days”.  Next comes Sguabag (the sweeper) and it is followed by Gearan (complaint), which lasts for a month and is associated with the period called Caoile (leanness). The next period is A’Chailleach (the Cailleach).  The Gobag wind, the voracious one, began on the day before the ‘wolf’ month (Faoilleach). Lathan a Cailleach (Cailleach Day) March 25, is referred to as the date of the Cailleach Bheur’s overthrow.  Until December 1599 March 25 was New Year’s day and is now ‘Lady Day’.  Some folk stories  tell that before the Cailleach Bheur had ceased her activities her son pursued her, riding a swift horse.  Having in her final storm caused the death of the wild duck and her newly hatched ducklings she ‘put out her eye’. Other versions state her eye was put out’’  by her son. To escape destruction at his hands, she transforms herself into a grey stone looking across the sea. Her transformation into a boulder took place on Beinn na Cailleach, and she is also associated with a prehistoric cairn on the summit of that mountain. 

3.

Another mountain connected with her activities is Schiehallion (Sidh Chaillean, fairy or sacred hill of the Caledonians). On this eminence there is sgriob na Caillich, the Old Wife’s Furrow, where she unearthed huge masses of stones in her ploughing.  There are references to the pursuit of the Cailleach Bheur by her son beginning when the day and night are of equal length. In the west this period March 17-29, the middle day, is known as Feill Paruig (St. Patrick’s Day) and there is supposed to be a south wind in the morning and a north wind at night. The son who pursues the Cailleach Bheur is supplanted by St. Patrick, who is said to come from Ireland, to see his parishioners in Barra and other places on the west of Scotland. His wife is a daughter of Ossian, the last of the Fianna (Fians). After this day ‘the limpet is better than the whelk’ and although ‘horses grow lean, crabs grow fat’. Vegetation is reviving. A Gaelic saying is: “There is not a herb in the ground but the length of a mouse’s ear of it is out on St. Paticks Day”. High tides come on St. Paticks Day. A swelling (Tòchadh) in the sea is supposed to be caused  by the increasing heat.

Like the Goddess Artemis, the Cailleach Bheur as has been stated is the patroness of wild beasts.  Artemis sometimes assumed the form of the wild animals with which she is associated. One of these was the quail. In Highland folklore the the Cailleach Bheur is spoken of occasionally as a gull, eagle or heron. C. St.John heard of the Cailleach Bheur in the form of a heron in Moray, about a century ago.  She was associated with Loch A-na-Cailllach (Lochan na Cailliche),  the Cailleach Bheur’s small loch, ‘a bleak, cold-looking piece of water, with several small grey pools near it’.  Donald, a gillie, who related a long story of the origin of the name of the lochan, drew St.John’s attention to a large cairn of stones at the end of it. The Cailleach Bheur had been ‘spreading sickness and death among man and beast’and was opposed by the local clergyman by means of bible and prayer, holy water and ‘other spiritual weapons’.  It was subsequently discovered that she had her abode in the cairn and was in the habit of flying through the air by night, especially when the moon was shining, towards ‘the inhabited part of the country’. At length she was shot by Duncan, an ex-soldier, who placed in his gun a crooked sixpence and some silver buttons. Everyone was convinced that the heron brought down was ‘the Cailleach Bheur ’herself’. Donald added, ‘She hasna’ done much harm since yon, but her ghaist is still to fore, and the loch side is no canny after the gloaming’.

Artemis had a close connexion with the wild boar. The untamed animals with which Artemis was most frequently associated in cult and legend were the boar and the stag or fawn.  In Ross and Cromarty, the Cailleach Bheur referred to as Mala Liath (Grey Eyebrows) was protectress of a herd of swine. The writer has heard references in this area to the Cailleach Bheur and her swine. There was the venomous wild boar of Glen Glass, a verse about it goes like this:

“His lair on Meall-an-Tuirc’s rough side

Where Mala Lia’ kept her swine-

Witch Mala Lia’, evil-eyed

Foul, shapeless and malign-

Was all begrimed with filth and gore

And horrid with the limbs of men

The unclean monster killed and tore

To feast on in his den.”

4.

Various warriors attempted in vain to slay the boar, but at length the heroic Diarmaid went towards its lair. He saw a raven pecking a dead hare and near it a corbie (hoodie-crow) perched  upon a bare boulder. Both oracle birds warned him (these birds were forms of the Cailleach Bheur) The raven said he was going to slay the boar but would meet with his death, while the corbie advised him to return to Grainne, the wife of Fionn, with whom he had eloped, because the boar would cause him to die. Diarmaid raised and pursued the boar. Mala Lia’,  the Cailleach Bheur, attempted to thwart him. She followed in his footsteps, taunting and cursing him and urging him to return to Grainne. At length, greatly annoyed by her bitter tongue, Diarmaid paused, caught her by a foot and flung her over a cliff. After slaying the boar, he was fatally wounded by a venomous bristle which pierced a vital spot on the inner side of one of his heels.  

The reference in this folktale to the swine devouring human beings suggests a memory of human sacrifices. There are, as stated, traditions of human sacrifice in connexion with the early worship of Artemis. We meet with a similar reference in the Scottish Lowland lore regarding the ‘Gyre Carling’ (Gay Old Wife), an undoubted form of the the Cailleach Bheur.  The Bannatyne MS. mentions her:

‘Thair dwelt ane grit Gyre Carling in awld Betokis bour,

That levit (lived) upoun menis flesche (men’s flesh).’

The Carlin carried ‘ane yren (iron) club’,  the Cailleach Bheur’s druidical hammer or wand, and when she was attacked by ‘all the doggis (dogs) ‘ from Dunbar to Dunblane and ‘all the tykis of Tervey’, she fled in her pig form:

‘The Carling schup (shaped) her on awe sow and is her gaitis (road) gane,

Grunting our (over) the Greik sie (Greek sea).’

The Carlin was sometimes called ‘Nicnevin’, an interesting Gaelic survival in the Lothian and Border counties. ‘Nic’ is the female patronymic prefix, but ‘nevin’ presents a puzzle. It was probably the genitive of the Gaelic word for ‘bone’.  There might be a connexion to the remarkable story of a child conceived from the ashes of old burnt bones. This child was called Gille Dubh Mac nan Cnàmh (Black Lad, son of the Bones), with an obscure added epithet. His place of origin was Annat in the parish of Kilmallie, Loch Eil. Apparently the burnt bones were sacrificial. 

There is the mention of ‘the milking-fold of the Cailleach Bheur’s sheep and goats- Buaile nan Drògh, which is a cave at Cailleach Point, that stormiest of headlands on the coast of Mull. There she sits among the rocks, ever gazing seaward. When she sneezes she is heard at the island of Coll. The rocks at the falls of Lora at the mouth of Loch Etive, Connel Ferry, are known as the ‘stepping stones’ of the Cailleach Bheur and her goats, which were at this place driven across the loch to Benderloch and to Acha-nam-bà (cow-field) in Benderloch where circular green hollows are referred to as  ‘the Cailleach Bheur’s cheese-vats’.  A natural enclosure in the rocks above Gorten in Ardnamurchan is called ‘the Old Wife’s Byre (Bàthaich na Caillich), it being said she folded her cattle there.  Deer are not kept in byres. Like the Irish Morrigan, the Cailleach Bheur had a cow which gave great quantities of milk. The writer has heard Highlanders tell of the Cailleach’s assistants (na Cailleacha Beura) riding on wolves and wild pigs as storm-bringers. They raise the storms of the wolf month, February.

Thus we have  the Cailleach Bheur’s animals: Deer, swine, goats, cattle and wolves. There are many folk stories regarding the Cailleach Bheur’s herds of deer. One of the pastures to which she drove them is in the Ross oof Mull. She also wandered with them by night on wild beaches where they devoured sae-tangle, especially in the winter season. The writer has seen wild goats feeding on seaweed in Skye. 

5.

Cailleach Bheinn á Bhric is associated with the speckled ben in Lochaber. She pastured her herds of deer in Glen Nevis and milked them there, singing one of her song the while. When hunters were unable to find deer, they blamed the Cailleach Bheur. In a Sutherland folk tale regarding the Cailliach Mhor Chlibhrich who had enchanted the deer of Lord  Reay’s forest so that they eluded the hunters. A man named William kept watch one night and by means of some counter enchantments managed to be present when the Cailliach Mhor Chlibhrich engaged in milking the hinds at the door of her hut in the early morning.:

“They were all standing all about the door of the hut till one of them ate a hank of blue worsted hanging from a nail in it. The witch (Cailliach Mhor Chlibhrich) struck the animal and said: ‘The spell is off you, and Lord Reay’s bullet will be your death today’. William repeated this to his master to confirm the tale of his having passed the night in the hut of the great hag, which no one would believe. And the event justified it, for a fine yellow hind was killed that day, and the hank of blue yarn was found in its stomach.”

The blue yarn is of interest, contrasting with the red cords, berries, &c., used by humans to shield themselves against attack by the Cailleach Bheur, the fairies, &c.

Artemis had a connexion with fish and one of her forms resembled that of the mermaid, having been fused with a seagoddess.  It is of interest therefor to find that in Lochaber the Cailleach Bheur generally appeared to them (wanderers) in the form of a gigantic woman by a stream, in the act of cleaning fish. She was connected with good or evil luck in hunting and fishing. There is a Gaelic song: Cailleach Liath Ratharsaidh, which tells of the three Hebridean Cailleachs of Raasay, Rona and Sligachan as being fond of fish. They were probably, fish-goddesses. But the Cailleach Bheur was as complex a deity as Artemis. Her connexion with fish, the sea, rivers, &c., is not confined to the Hebrides. The Cailleach’s association with water is emphasized by a folk tale in various parts of the Highlands. One version is as follows:

“Where Loch Ness now is, there was long ago a fine glen. A woman went one day to the well to fetch water and she found the spring flowing so fast that she got frightened, and left her pitcher and ran for her life, she never stopped till she got to the top of a high hill, and when there, she turned about and saw the glen filled with water. Not a house or field was to be seen. 

An Argyll version tells that the Cailleach Bheur was the guardian of a well on the summit of Ben Cruachan. She had to cover it with a slab of stone every evening at sundown and remove the slab at daybreak. But one evening, being aweary after driving her goats across Connel, she fell asleep by the side of the well. The fountain overflowed, its waters rushed down the mountain side, the roar of the flood as it broke open an outlet through the Pass of Brander awoke the  Cailleach Bheur, but her efforts to stem the torrent were fruitless, it flowed into the plain, where man and beast were drowned in the flood. Thus was formed Loch Awe. The Cailleach Bheur was filled with such horror over the result of her neglect of duty that she turned into stone. There she sits, among the rocky ruins at the pass overlooking the loch, as on the rocks at Cailleach Point in Mull she gazes seaward."

The origin of Loch Tay in Pertshire and Loch Eck in Cowal is accounted for in the same manner. According to the folklore of Ireland the River Boyne was similarly brought into existence by a nymph who walked three times by the left, with the result that the water rose furiously and drove her, as the river, towards the sea.

The earliest form of Artemis was connected with the waters and with wild vegetation and beasts. In Arcadia, Laconia and Sicyon she was worshipped as ‘the lady of the lake’ Near the lake of Stymphalus she bred the deadly birds which Heracles slew. She was also the goddess of the marsh in Arcadia and Messene. She was associated frequently with rivers as in Elis. As we have seen, the Cailleach Bheur was connected with the holly tree and whins and fish. No cultivated trees were associated with Artemis. It may be that the prototype of the Cailleach Bheur was connected with the river Lochy (Lòchaidh) in Lochaber, which Adamnan, , in his Life of Columba, refers to as Nigra Dea (black goddess). Other river names of like character are the Lòchá and Lòchaidh in Perthshire and Lochy in Banffshire. 

Scottish Folk-Lore and Folk Life - Studies in Race, Culture and Tradition, by Donald A. MacKenzie, 1935.

Source Pictures:

1. https://docplayer.hu/68023456-Learned-journal-of-karoli-gaspar-university-of-the-reformed-church-in-hungary-faculty-of-humanities.html

2. https://aminoapps.com/c/pagans-witches/page/item/the-cailleach/QKn0_VLjiYI38X6r5DgzalvroZMjEW75GVe

3. https://owlcation.com/humanities/TheCailleach

4.https://www.dragonfireart.org/celtic?lightbox=image_kp

5. https://artist.com/rebecca-magar/blue-wizard/?artid=1444

Nico

Gaelic Folklore (6): Urisk

6.

The Urisk

(Also known as: Ùruisg, ùraisg, urisg, urisk, ourisk , pheailladh, peailladh, pealladh or shellycoat.)

What follows are some descriptions and tales from old sources:

1.

Solitary fairy of Scottish Gaelic tradition, a subspecies of the fuath, half-man and half-goat, but not satyr-like, despite appearances. In many ways, the ùruisg is a rougher, hirsute brownie, given to helping at household chores, especially churning butter and cleaning, in spite of a reputation for good-humoured sloth. He has a taste for dairy products and is feared by dairy maids. Every manor house was reputed to have its resident ùruisg, and a seat in the kitchen close by the fire would be left vacant for him; he was lucky to have around. The ùruisg craves human companionship but almost always frightens people away with his unseemly appearance. He was also known to haunt lonely and sequestered places, notably a certain corrie near Loch Katrine. In spoken Scottish Gaelic the term ùruisg might also denote a diviner who foretells future events, or a savage-looking fellow. Urisks lived as solitairy fairies, but met together at stated times. 

A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology, by James MacKillop

The Urisk

There is also in the Highlands a rough hairy spirit, called the Urisk. The following legend will display his nature and character: To the very great annoyance of a Highland miller, and to the injury of the machinery, his mill, he found, used to be set to work at night when there was nothing in it to grind. One of his men offered to sit up, and try to discover who it was that did it; 'and, having kindled a good turf-fire, sat by it to watch. Sleep, however, overcame him, and when he awoke about midnight, he saw sitting opposite him a rough shaggy being. Nothing daunted, he demanded his name, and was told that it was Urisk. The stranger, in return, asked the man his name, who replied that it was Myself. The conversation here ended, and Urisk soon fell fast asleep. The man then tossed a panful of hot ashes into his shaggy lap, which set his hair all on fire. In an agony, and screaming with the pain, he ran to the door, and in a loud yelling tone several of his brethren were heard to cry out, "What 's the matter' with you?"

 "Oh! he set me on fire!"

"Who?"

"Myself!"

"Then put it out yourself" was the reply.

The Fairy Mythology, by Thomas Keightley, 1870

The Urisk.

The Urisk was a large lubberly supernatural, of solitary habits and harmless character, that haunted lonely and mountainous places. Some identify him with Brownie, but he differs from the fraternity of tutelary beings in having his dwelling, not in the houses or haunts of men, but in solitudes and remote localities. There were male and female Urisks, and the race was said to be the offspring of unions between mortals and fairies, that is, of the leannan sith. The Urisk was usually seen in the evening, big and grey), sitting on the top of a rock and peering at the intruders on its solitude. The wayfarer whose path led along the mountain side, whose shattered rocks are loosely sprinkled, or along some desert moor, and who hurried for the fast approaching nightfall, saw the Urisk sitting motionless on the top of a rock and gazing at him, or slowly moving out of his way. It spoke to some people, and is even said to have thrashed them, but usually it did not meddle with the passer-by. On the contrary, it at times gave a safe convoy to those who were belated. In the Highlands of Bread Albane the Urisk was said, in summer time, to stay in remote corries and on the highest part of certain hills. In winter time it came down to the strath, and entered certain houses at night to warm itself It was then it did work for the farmer, grinding, thrashing, etc. Its presence was a sign of prosperity; it was said to leave comfort behind it. Like Brownie, it liked milk and good food, and a present of clothes drove it away.

An Urisk, haunting Beinn Doohrain (a hill beloved of the Celtic muse) on the confines of Argyllshire and Perthshire, stayed in summer time near the top of the hill, and in winter came down to the straths. A waterfall near the village of Clifton at Tyndrum, where it stayed on these occasions, is still called Eas na h-uruisg, the Urisk's cascade. It was encountered by St. Fillan, who had his abode in a neighbouring strath, and banished to Rome.

4.

The Urisk of Ben Loy (Beinn Laoigh, the Calf's hill), also on the confines of these counties, came down in winter from his lofty haunts to the farm of Sococh, in Glen Orchy, which lies at the base of the mountain. It entered the house at night by the chimney, and it is related that on one occasion the bar, from which the chimney chain was suspended, and on which the Urisk laid its weight in descending, being taken away, and not meeting its foot as usual, the poor supernatural got a bad fall. It was fond of staying in a cleft at Moraig water-fall, and its labours, in keeping the waters from falling too fast over the rock, might be seen by any one. A stone, on which it sat with its feet dangling over the fall, is called 'the Urisk stone' (Clach na k-uruisg). It sometimes watched the herds of Sococh farm.

A man passing through Strath Duuisg, near Loch Sloy, at the head of Loch Lomond, on a keen frosty

night, heard an Urisk on one side of the glen calling out, " Frost, frost, frost " {reoth, reoth, reoth). This was answered by another Urisk calling from the other side of the glen, "Kick-frost, kick-frost, kick-frost" (ceige-reoth, etc.). The man, on hearing this, said, " Whether I wait or not for frost, I will never while I live wait for kickfrost" ; and he ran at his utmost speed till he was out of the glen.

The Urisk of the ' Yellow Water-fall ' in Glen Maili, in the south of Inverness-shire, used to come late every evening to a woman of the name of Mary, and sat watching her plying her distaff without saying a word. A man, who wished to get a sight of the Urisk, put on Mary's clothes, and sat in her place, twirling the distaff. as best he could. The Urisk came to the door but would not enter. It said :

" I see your eye, I see your nose,

I see your great broad beard,

And though you will work the distaff,

I know you are a man.''

The Urisk "could be gained over by kind attentions to perform the drudgery of the farm, and it was believed that many families in the Highlands had one of the order attached to it." The famous Coire nan uruisgean derives its name from the solemn stated meetings of all the Urisks in Scotland being held there.

The Urisk, like the Brownie of England, had great simplicity of character, and many tricks were played upon it in consequence. A farmer in Strathglass got it to undergo a painful operation that it might become fat and sleek like the farmer's own geldings. The weather at the time being frosty, it made a considerable outcry for some time after.

From its haunting lonely places, other appearances must often have been confounded with it. In Strathfillan (commonly called simply the Straths, Strathaibh), in the Highlands of Perthshire, not many years ago a number of boys saw what was popularly said to be an Urisk. In the hill, when the sun was setting, something like a human being was seen sitting on the top of a large boulder-stone, and growing bigger and bigger till they fled. There is no difficulty in connecting the appearance with the circumstance that some sheep disappeared that year unaccountably from the hill, and a quantity of grain from the barn of the farm.

In the Hebrides there is very little mention of the Urisk at all. In Tiree the only trace of it is in the name of a hollow, Slochd an Aoirisg, through which the public road passes near the south shore. The belief that it assisted the farmer was not common anywhere, and all over the Highlands the word ordinarily conveys no other idea than that which has been well-defined as " a being supposed to haunt lonely and sequestered places, as mountain rivers and waterfalls."

Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland, Collected entirely from Oral Sources By John Gregorson Campbell, 1900

The Urisk of Sgurr-A-Chaorainn.

An Urisk once lived in a steep rock at the foot of Sgurr-a-Chaorainn in Lochaber. This Urisk was, it

appears, very troublesome to the herd of Blar-a-Chaorainn, when he happened to go the way of Sgurr. Not an evening he passed it but the Urisk put his head out of a hole in the face of the rock and bawled after him:'* Carl, son of carl, son of carl. There you have of carls three:—a carl are you, and a carl is your father, and your son will be a carl, and his son will be a carl, and you all will be carls, like it or not."

When this herd left Blar-a-Chaorainn, there came in his place another whom his acquaintances called

Donald Mor. Donald was but a short time on the farm, until he was as much annoyed by the Urisk as

the herd that had left. Not an evening did he return from the hill past the rock but the Urisk bawled after him:‘'Donald Mor, I do not like you."

This salutation  was far from being pleasing to honest Donald, but he kept his opinion to himself as long as he could. At length his patience was so completely worn out by the Urisk 's continual jeering that he could not contain himself any longer. One evening, when returning, cold and hungry, from the hill, and the Urisk bawling after him as usual: "Donald Mor, I do not like you," Donald turned on his heel in wrath, and bawled as loud as the Urisk himself: "That is but the return you owe me."

The Urisk ceased his jeering; and from that time to this his voice has not been heard by any other person.

The Urisk of Eas Buidhe.

In Glen Mallie, in Lochaber, there is an eerie ravine called Eas Buidhe. In this ravine it was said that the Urisks took refuge; and near it were ihe summer pasture bothies of some of the farmers in the Glen. One of the Urisks, "The Urisk of Eas Buidhe, Sitting in Glen Maillie", was very troublesome to one of the dairymaids staying in the bothies near the ravine. Not a day passed but he came to the bothy where she lived; and he spent the time sitting at the fire, asking questions, and obstructing her in her work. She grew tired of him, but she knew not how to rout him without turning the wrath of the other Urisks against her. At last her patience with him was so completely worn out that she resolved to get rid of him, happen what might. One day as he was crouching about the fire as usual, he asked, among his questions, what her name was. She replied that it was:"Myself and Myself."

“That is a curious name," said he.

"Never mind, that is what I am called."

A pot full of whey hung over the fire, and when she went to take it off, he was in her way, as usual. This so provoked her that she intentionally allowed a wave of the boiling whey to fall on his feet, and scald him. He sprang up quickly from his seat, and ran out, howling and crying that he was burnt. As soon as the other Urisks heard this, they ran up from the ravine to meet him, and asked who burnt him. He answered that it was “Myself and Myself.”

“Oh, if you have burnt yourself, it cannot be helped; but if anyone else had done it, we would

have burnt him and all that is in the bothies along with him."

Big Alastair and the Uruisg.

Big Alastair was as good and as keen a rod-fisher as there was in his native place. As soon as he would see the appearance of a good shower coming, he would instantly throw his rod over his shoulder, and he would hide away at a trotting pace to the river. On a warm summer evening, with a good drizzling rain falling accompanied with mist, he, as his custom was, betook himself to the river; and after getting his rod in order, he therewith cast out the tackle. As soon as the hook touched the water, the fish began to take better than he had ever seen them take before. He was hauling the trout in so thickly, one after another, that he had no time to wait to put them on either withy or string. He just threw them on the green grass on the bank of the river, with the intention of returning for them when the fishing was over. His attention was so much on his work that night came upon him without his observing it. He then gave a look behind him, and whom did he see, fishing at his side, but a great Uruisg, who was taking in trout for trout with him, and throwing them with his own catch of fish upon the grass. There was no help for it, and no use in saying a syllable. But he and his companion kept on at the fishing until the best part of the night was overpast. Then the Uruisg cried: "It is time to stop. Big Alastair, and divide the fish."

3.

''No! No!" said Big Alastair, “it is not at all time, while the fish are taking so well."

Without saying more the Uruisg returned sulkily to the fishing. A good while after that, he cried again: "Stop now. Big Alastair, and let us divide the fish."

“Have patience a little longer," said Alastair,” considering that I never before saw the fish in such a taking humour."

The Uruisg did as he was asked, but it was not willingly; for the day was approaching, and another fishing to accomplish before it would arrive. So, in a short while, he cried the third time to Alastair to stop. Alastair knew, from the tone of the monster's voice that there was no use whatever in asking a longer delay. Whereupon he turned towards him and said: "Whether wilt thou gather the fish, or divide them?"

The Uruisg answered: “ I shall gather them, and do thou divide them."

" I do not know how to divide them," said Alastair.

"Pooh! that is not difficult. A spratlum down, and a spratlum up; a spratlum there, and a spratlum here; and the last big spratlum for me."

This division pleased Big Alastair very indifferently, for he understood that he himself was the big spratlum which the Uruisg wished to have as his share of the fish before the day should come. But what was he to do to disappoint the nasty fellow? The day was approaching, and if he could keep the work unfinished until it came, he would be safe. He began to divide the fish, but to all appearance he was in no hurry to finish that task. When the fish would not slip out of his hands, he would make a mistake in the counting, or some other mishap would occur to delay him. The Uruisg was losing his patience, and no mischance would befall Alastair which did not inflame his wrath. He would shake his head and shoulders, stamp on the ground with his feet, and in a voice half angry, half plaintive, cry out: “Won't thou take care, big Alastair? Won't thou take care, Big Alastair?"

But Alastair would suffer his remonstrance to go in at one ear and out at the other. At length the red cock awoke, and relieved him from the strait he was in. He crowed on a knoll above the river, and straightway the Uruisg went out of sight. Alastair took with him the fish, and returned home. But from that day to the day of his death he did not go to fish trout on the river after nightfall.

Folk Tales and Fairy Lore, by Rev. James MacDougall, 1859

Ourisks were supposed to be a condition somewhat intermediate, between that of mortal man and spirits. They were generally inclined to mischief, but, by kind treatment, were often prevailed with to be very serviceable to the family which they haunted, and by which they were accordingly considered as an acquisition. Their grand rendezvous was in ben venew: Coirre nan Uriskin merits the notice of the traveler, besides for its magnificent scenery.

Sketches descriptive of picturesque scenery, on the southern confines of Perthshire: including the Trosachs, Lochard, &c. together with notices of natural history, by Graham, Patrick, 1806

Uraisg, a monster, half-human, half-goat, with abnormally long hair, long teeth, and long claws, frequenting glens, corries, reedy lakes, and sylvan streams; an unkempt, untidy man. 

2.

A glen in Killninver, Argyll, is called 'Gleann-uraisg,' 'Gleann na h-uraisg,' glen of 'uraisg,' glen of the 'uraisg.' Many stories are told of the 'uraisg' possessing this glen, the appearance, the action, and the speech of this supernatural creature being graphically described. The 'uraisg' is not unfriendly to the friendly beyond showing them scenes, and telling them of events above the world, upon the world, and below the world, that fill them with terror. Strong men avoid the glen of the 'uraisg' at night. In the Coolin Hills, Skye, there is a place called 'Coire nan uraisg,' corrie of the 'uraisgs,' and adjoining it another place called 'Bealach Coire nan uraisg,' the pass of the corrie of the 'uraisgs.'

The Carmina Gadelica, by Alexander Carmicheal, 1900

The urisks haunt parts of the Coolin Hills in Skye, like the glaistig. The urisks were, as satyrs, associated with the glaistig. Its partiality for a fis diet is mentioned, as its connection with streams, marshes and the sea.

Peailladh was a fuath (evil spirit) and in Lewis Peallaidh is applied to the devil. Our Peaillaidh (shaggy one) was reputed to have been been the chief of the urisks, some of whom were harmless and friendly to individuals, while others were hostile and dangerous as water demons.  There is a footprint on a  Glen Lyon rock (caslorg Pheallaidh) reputed to be that of Peallaidh and a cataract called eas Pheaillaidh. An urisk might also be called a fuath, although not all demons reffered to as fuath were necessarily urisks.

A form of Peallaidh or the urisk on the east coast of Scotland and in the Lowlands was shellycoat. He  When shellycoat appeared, he seemed to be decked with marine productions and in particular, with shells, whose clattering announced his approach. From this circumstance he derived his name. A shellycoat haunted the old house of Gorinberry situated on the river hermitage in Liddesdale.

has been referred to as a water spirit who has given his name to many a rock and stone upon the Scottish coast.

A Shellycoat was reputed to haunt a rock on the shore of Leith and according to local writers the boys were wont to run round the rock three times, repeating the couplet:

‘Shellycoat, shellycoat, gang awa hame,

I cry na’ yer mercy, I fear na’yer name’

The Demon was reputed to trash severely those who offended it. Uriks and glaistigs simirlarly dealt with those individuals who had incurred their displeasure.

Certain of the supernatural beings remembered as urisks were black. One of them was known in Perthshire as Triubh-dubh (black trews).

Scottish Folk-lore and Folk Life, by Donald A. Mackenzie, 1935

Source pictures:

1.https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/431853051740093696/

2. https://twitter.com/bardicacademic/status/837225692039376896

3. https://andrewskilleter.com/store/fantasy-magic-imagination/the-urisk/

4. https://seliniartemisekati.blogspot.com/2017/11/urisk-urisk-e-un-elfo-il-panas-di-scozia.html
5. cryptidz.wikia.com/wiki/Shellycoat

Nico