Faerie hunting on the Isle of Skye
dawn letter XXVIII
I am a lucky woman. Last week I got to spend my birthday on the Isle of Skye with my love. Tucked into my suitcase was a dog-earned, heavily annotated copy of Otta Swire’s Skye: the Island and its Legends. This and my Sgitheanach1 partner’s local knowledge made for a memorable trip on the trail of ghosts, kelpies, and pagan temples.
I am hopeful these enchanting locations will inspire an eerie tale or two for my next story collection Fireside Ghosts but for now, let me tell you about the kelpie loch.
Our first faerie-hunting opportunity came after visiting the Gaelic college on Sleat. Sleat (pronounced ‘slate’) is a gorgeous wing of the island known as ‘the garden of Skye’ due to its fertile soil and abundant flowers. The spring sunshine added an amaranthine quality to our afternoon which seemed to stretch warm and endless, as if the Ord road were a bespelled path to Tìr Nan Òg.
We found the bridge easily after leaving the main Armadale road. In a couple of miles we crossed a fairy portal (cattle grid) and found the lochan lying serenely and conveniently next to the road. The waters looked calm and inviting, perhaps at the contrivance of the kelpie who haunts this loch. A kelpie is a Scottish water fairy that takes the form of a horse, tricking riders onto his back before plunging headlong into the loch to devour them. Sometimes kelpies appear to maidens as a handsome man and they only discover his true identity when they find bindweed tangled in his dark locks.
Only a few weeks ago I’d lain in bed reading about a local couple who attracted the unwanted attention of the kelpie who haunts this loch and now here I stood at the loch’s green fringes, a scant breeze sweeping the water, my nape prickling.
The story goes that the couple passed the loch one night as they returned from a wedding in Ardvasar. Swire says it was
their horror to see a stirring of the surface and then the head of a water-horse rising among the lilies.
The couple leg it but the woman is hampered by her cumbersome skirts. The kelpie is nearly upon them when she stumbles and trips. Her husband keeps running and doesn’t look back. The kelpie catches the woman but speaks to her kindly saying, “Better half a man than no man at all.”
I’ve always had a fondness for kelpie stories. My notebooks from my first year at university are peppered with dark kelpie romances inspired by Celtic myth and Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber. I remember writing one while staying in a lodge by Loch Lochy owned by my parents’ friends. I had a quiet evening to myself one night and the waterside setting and silence felt like the opportune time for a dark stranger to appear on the wooden porch, sloe-dark eyes promising the world while his hair dripped lochwater and bindweed.
I’ve wanted to include a kelpie story in my Fireside series but haven’t found a way yet. Fireside Ghosts is my last chance so perhaps Sleat’s kelpie loch will inspire! One of my main writing goals this year is to refill my creative well. Reading about these places is one thing but breathing their air is quite another.
I certainly felt inspired to don my lilac velvet bustier and white twirly skirt to take pictures (not historical attire, but Ashputtle makes do with what she has). I also threaded a flower garland in my hair and my boyfriend shot video of me pretending to be the fateful bride. I’ll share the results on Instagram once I’ve edited them.
The day we found the kelpie loch was the most beautiful day of the year so far with nothing but a faint breeze to stir the waters. The kelpie didn’t make an appearance, perhaps he was keeping cool in his underwater grotto! My boyfriend said a moody day with mist would be better for photos but part of me is glad this “bride” got to enjoy waters as deep, calm, and blue as the distant mountains and a warm kiss of sun on bare arms and shoulders.
After about an hour a few cars appeared and stopped to watch us. Not sure if they were curious locals or tourists but we decided to finish up and embark on a new quest to find a cold drink. One man waved at me as I clambered in my skirts back up to the road. I like to think he didn’t see me as an annoying Instagrammer but the ghost of the kelpie’s bride.
I’d planned to include more of our adventures looking for places mentioned in Otta Swire’s book but this post is getting long so I’ll leave the rest for another day.
My last dawn letter detailed my spring writing routine and the recent dusk letter revealed excerpts from novels and stories I’ve never felt comfortable sharing until now.
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Gaelic for a “Skye person”.
My aunt and uncle were on holiday on Arran in the late 60s or early 70s, with their two young sons, aged 7 and 10 ish. Primary school age. At Lochranza they decided to take the walk to the Fairy Rings to the north of the village. It's a wild, hilly and unpopulated part. Their youngest son got separated from them some distance from the car park, on the shore, where they had left their car. He was missing for hours and in desperation they decided to stop their frantic searching and head back asap to their car to alert the police and start a bigger search party. When they got back to the car park, their wee boy was waiting for them at their car. Well, the parents were absolutely furious and relieved and overjoyed in equal measures and demanded to know where he had been. He said he ended up in a wee glen with steep sides all around and very stony, He became really frightened and sat down on a rock hoping to be found soon by Mum and Dad. After a long time a wee man appearred, not much taller than himself, dressed all in dark greenich clothes and with shoes with huge big brass buckles on them. He spoke kindly to him and said he would need to take him back to his family as he was too young to be on his own. So my wee cousin took his hand and went with him back down glens to the carpark. As soon as he arrived at the shore and the wee man told him to look over there where my cousin saw his family car parked. He grinned as he knew he was safe now and he turned back to thank the wee smiling man with the huge buckles on his shoes who had been standing on the path with him that second, and there was nobody there. Nor anywhere near him on the shoreside but the cry of seagulls and oystercatchers. He related all of this to his parents, when they finally returned to their car too, some time later. My uncle was furious at this tale and told him to stop lying or else he would be punished. But my aunt tells me he would not change his story of what happened that day near the Fairy circles, especially the big brass or gold coloured shoe buckles and piercing merry dark eyes. My wee cousin now lives in Islington, London (Jeremy Corbyn lives round the corner from him) and he is approaching retirement age but his whole life he has never altered his story to his whole family and always insists he was rescued by one of the 'wee fowk'
Appreciate the folklore and your wonderful images. This was so fun to read.