Myth & Folklore
The Dullahan: the headless rider of Irish folklore
The headless death-herald of Irish folklore, with his glowing head and silent death-coach. A great monster, honestly young: 19th-c. collection, not medieval…
Section
Category: <span>Spirit Beings</span>
Myth & Folklore
The Cailleach: the divine hag of Gaelic tradition
The divine hag of Scottish Gaelic and Irish tradition: maker of mountains, queen of winter. Honest about a thin medieval record and…
Myth & Folklore
Changelings: the belief, its social history, and its real human harm
The changeling — a fairy left in place of a stolen human — was a folk explanation for illness and disability whose…
Myth & Folklore
Kelpies and the each-uisge: the Scottish Gaelic water-horse
The Scottish Gaelic water-horse comes in two forms: the river-haunting kelpie and the deadlier loch-dwelling each-uisge — a beautiful horse whose sticky…
Myth & Folklore
Selkies: the seal-folk of Orkney, Shetland, Scotland and Ireland
Selkies are the seal-folk of the northern seas — beings who shed their skins to walk as humans, and whose stories of…
Myth & Folklore
The Púca (pooka): the shapeshifting trickster of Irish folklore
The púca is the shapeshifting trickster of Irish tradition — a midnight black horse, a blackberry-spoiler at Samhain, sometimes a household helper…
Myth & Folklore
The Banshee (bean sídhe): the death-messenger and her regional forms
The banshee is the Irish "woman of the fairy mound" whose keen foretells a family death — a messenger, never a killer…
Myth & Folklore
The aos sí (the sidhe): the good folk and the fairy mounds
The aos sí are the Irish "good people" of the fairy mounds — descended in the sagas from the Tuatha De Danann,…