What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
- Gerard Manley Hopkins
One of the more obscure fae, the water Kelpie of Scottish folklore tends to be forgotten beside the more renowned mermaid or sea monster. With its malicious nature and predilection for human flesh, the Kelpie holds little popularity with those who hear of it, the exception being parents who hold them in high regard for their ability to ensure children heed their warnings. In a country of wild places, deep bogs and raging rivers, through history the kelpie has undoubtedly saved many Scottish children from a watery grave by keeping them away from enticing water.
A shape-shifting spirit inhabiting rivers, streams, and later lochs in Scottish folklore, the Kelpie is a Celtic legend told in all areas of Scotland. As a water spirit it can take many forms, however its favourite guise is that of a beautiful horse, often ‘lost’, resting by a riverside. Sightings range from the horse being black, white or green as polished glass, but a common characteristic is the reversed hooves that differentiate it from being mortal. Any stranger unknowing of this, or any traveller too weary to notice the fae signs, will find themselves in dire peril if they attempt to mount the horse. Upon the slightest touch they will find themselves stuck, hand fused to the glossy coat as the horse plunges headlong into the deepest pool to drown and devour the victim.
Other times the Kelpie may transform themselves into human figures, predominantly male, to either threaten, woo or beguile unsuspecting passers-by. In this form they may only divulge their true nature through the trailing stems of water weeds in their hair, and damp, cold skin even on the warmest of summer days.
To survive an encounter with a kelpie you must capture its bridle or, if in human form, its necklace; the one weakness it possesses. Anyone who succeeds in doing so will then have command over it and other Kelpies of the same water source. It is rumoured that the MacGregor clan still have a kelpie’s bridle, passed down through the generations from an ancestor who took it from a
Kelpie near Loch Slochd.
Although perhaps not the most romantic of folktales, the Kelpie possesses a nature and form that is more deeply bonded with ancient Scotland than perhaps any other mythic creature. Beautiful and deadly, rugged and wild, water soaked and windswept, the Kelpie’s temperamental character is exactly that of the Scottish landscape.
For us the kelpie is a channel back to ancient living. To sheep-grazed crofts and blooming heather, to stone circles and Celtic mysticism. Our artistic rendering does not therefore ‘capture’ anything in silver, but is an ephemeral skin for an immortal being.
Kelpie designs
remain untamed. The dark patina of a sable coat, the silvery reflection of shifting water, the tangled coils of mane; all surrounding the shifting blue heart of a water spirit.
Full Poem
Inversnaid
- Gerard Manley Hopkins
This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.
A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.
Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
Featured art by Brian Froud & Alan Lee
Writing copyright of Boho Silver. All rights reserved, no reproduction without permission.