Folklore

Trows (Alternatively trowe; a Scots term for troll)  live on the Shetland and Orkney Islands and are probably the best known, and widespread, element of Orkney folklore. Description  Similiar to the Scandinavian Trolls and like them, they live...

The Hosts of the Sidhe or Hollow Hills. The inhabitants of the Otherworld. They were thought to ride out on the eves of the four great fire festivals when they had communion with earthly folk. Yeats wrote of them as ‘The Hosts of the Air’.

(ben-neeya)  She occurs both in Highland and Irish tradition as one of the variants of the Banshee. The Washing women is the type of Banshee who haunts the lonely streams of Scotland and Ireland. Washing the blood-stained garments of those about to die. She is...

Sometimes called the “King of the Dead”. He is similar to the Ankou in that he collects souls upon their death and escorts them to the land of the dead. Traveling his own familiar paths in black  with a black cart he is mainly seen on November Eve.

Bendith y Mamau (bendith er mamigh) ‘The Mothers’ Blessing’  which was the name of the fairies of the Carmarthenshire country in Wales; this saying became a prayer spoken to ward-off harm. These are faerie-goblin cross-breed and are known...

A blue-faced hag, akin to the Cailleachs Bheare and Bheur, who eats people. She is supposed to live in a cave in the Dane Hills in Leicestershire. There was a great oak at the mouth of the cave in which she was said to hide to leap out, catch and devour stray children...

The Blue Men used particularly to haunt the strait between Long Island and the Shiant Islands. They swam out to wreck passing ships, and could be stopped by captains who were good at rhyming and could keep the last word. They were supposed to be fallen angels. The...

(botuchan so-will) ‘The Little Old Man of the Barn’. A barn Brownie who took pity on old men, and treshed for them. D. A. Mackenzie gives us a verse about him in his Scottish Folk Lore and Folk Life: When the peat will turn grey and shadows fall deep And...

‘Bogies, ‘Bogles’, ‘Bugs’, or ‘bug-a-boos’ are names given to a whole class of mischievous, frightening and even dangerous spirits. Their temperments can range the spectrum from benign to malevolent. They can be a male...

Generally evil-natured Goblins although they are more disposed to do harm to liars and murderers. On the whole, these are evil Goblins, but according to William Henderson in FOLK LORE OF THE NORTHERN COUNTIES, who quotes from Hoog’s WOOLGATHERER, the bogles on...