There are
many creatures in Scottish folklore and to list them all would be nearly
impossible, so I have selected a few:
There's the
Fear Liath also called the Greyman which is said to haunt BenMacdui, the
highest peak of the Cairngorms and the second highest peak in Britain.
The Fear
Liath has been described as an enormous figure covered with short hair, or as
an unseen presence that causes uneasy feelings in people who climb the
mountain.
A
Seonaidh is a
water-spirit to whom men would offer ale. They would make it themselves and one
would go out into the river and say:
"Seonaidh,
I give thee this cup of ale, hoping that thou wilt be so good as to send us
plenty of seaware for enriching our ground during the coming year."
Lots of
creatures were said to live in lochs and rivers and just as many would help the
farmers, but there are also the ones that weren't friendly:
Changelings are sickly offsprings of Faeries
which are secretly swapped in place of a human child.
Baobhan
Sith is a very
dangerous female vampire said to haunt the highland.
Several
creatures are also said to lure or use other measures to get people to the
water and drown themlike the Kelpies. A Kelpie is a shapeshifting water
horse that haunts Scottish rivers. It often appeares as a horse but can also
take the shape of a man and leap at unfortunate passers by.
And then of
course there's the Loch Ness Monster. The first sight of it was in the
River Ness in 565 AD. The Irish monk Saint Columba was staying in the land of
the Picts, which is east and northeastern Scotland today, with his companions
when he came across the locals burying a man by the River Ness.
They
explained that the man had been swimming in the river when he was attacked by a
"water beast" that had mauled him and dragged him under. They tried
to rescue him in a boat, but were only able to drag up his corpse.
Hearing
this, Columba send his follower to swim across the river. The beast came after
him, but Columba made the sign of the cross and commanded: "Go no further.
Do not touch the man. Go back at once.” The beast immediately halted as if it
had been pulled back with ropes"and fled in terror, and both Columba's men
and the pagan Picts praised God for the miracle.
On the
website dedicated to Nessie, as it's pet name is, it says that the last sight
of it was on Wednesday 15th June 2011
