蜜芽传媒

From misty mountains to deep-sea caves, this episode of After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal explores the dark side of Scottish folklore: from tales of Selkies, to Kelpies, to the ancient figure of the Cailleach.

Maddy and Anthony are joined by Donald Smith, founding director of the Scottish Storytelling Centre, and a storyteller who has written and lectured widely on the folklore of Scotland.

Here are just some of the things we learned from their conversation.

The Cailleach is one of the pervasive characters of Scottish folklore.

The Cailleach (in Gaelic) or Carlin (in Scots) is a mythical old woman associated with the creation of the natural landscape and the weather. As Donald Smith explains: “She is a weather goddess, a creator, the woman who stirs the powers of nature, who harnesses and creates the forces of the weather and the seasons. And she is remembered in endless place names and little local traditions.”

She is also one of the oldest.

The legend of the Cailleach is a prehistoric piece of folklore that is deeply rooted in every part of Scotland and its languages. “A lot of the really old folklore is about the making of the landscape,” says Donald. “The Cailleach forgets to put the lid on the well, and the next moment, we've got Loch Ore. She uses the Corryvreckan whirlpool to do her washing – that’s the world’s third largest whirlpool, between the islands of Jura and Scarba on Scotland’s west coast. So she's associated with all these things.”

The Cailleach isn’t necessarily a villain.

The Cailleach is depicted often as a hag of winter, but this aspect is balanced with a lighter side, as she is tied to the cycles of nature and the changing of the seasons. “She is depicted as quite a horrifying and savage kind of creature,” Donald says. “But the lore is that she takes some drops from the water of the well of life, and ensures that she then returns as the maiden, as Bride, the maiden of spring, in the next seasonal cycle.”

The kelpies are more sinister creatures.

A kelpie is a water horse that inhabits deep pools, rivers and lochs. They seek to lure young men or women into riding them, before plunging their victims into the depths to drown them. “The people want to get on these horses, before they realise they're being dragged, galloping straight into the loch and down into the deep – and you just can't get off.”

Kelpies have nothing to do with the Loch Ness monster, though.

Donald clarifies:
“The Loch Ness monster is more connected with the idea of some kind of primeval dragon-like serpent, not fitting with the Kelpie model.”

Then there are the selkies to worry about.

Selkies are creatures who can move between seal and human form. “That metamorphosis or transformation happens often in a dramatic encounter between the human world and the natural world. The selkie can remove their skin, and then they are completely human. And classically, you get the situation that the selkies come onto shore, and they take off their skins and dance by the shore."

“Of course, a human will chance upon this and fall and hopelessly love and desire for one of these beautiful creatures. They’ll try to trap them on the shore by stealing the skin, which sometimes leads to a tragic outcome where they end up separated. Eventually, the selkie might find the skin and leave, or sometimes eventually the human goes to the sea and they transform into a selkie.”