Blue men of the Minch

Last updated

The Little Minch, home to the blue men Little Minch.jpg
The Little Minch, home to the blue men

The blue men of the Minch, also known as storm kelpies (Scottish Gaelic : na fir ghormaScottish Gaelic pronunciation: [nəfiɾʲˈɣɔɾɔmə] ), are mythological creatures inhabiting the stretch of water between the northern Outer Hebrides and mainland Scotland, looking for sailors to drown and stricken boats to sink. They appear to be localised to the Minch and surrounding areas to the north and as far east as Wick, unknown in other parts of Scotland and without counterparts in the rest of the world.

Contents

Apart from their blue colour, the mythical creatures look much like humans, and are about the same size. They have the power to create storms, but when the weather is fine they float sleeping on or just below the surface of the water. The blue men swim with their torsos raised out of the sea, twisting and diving as porpoises do. They are able to speak, and when a group approaches a ship its chief may shout two lines of poetry to the master of the vessel and challenge him to complete the verse. If the skipper fails in that task then the blue men will attempt to capsize his ship.

Suggestions to explain the mythical blue men include that they may be a personification of the sea, or originate with the Picts, whose painted bodies may have given the impression of men raising themselves out of the water if they were seen crossing the sea in boats that might have resembled kayaks. The genesis of the blue men may alternatively lie with the North African slaves the Vikings took with them to Scotland, where they spent the winter months close to the Shiant Isles in the Minch.

Etymology

The Minch, a strait that separates the northwest Highlands of Scotland and the northern Inner Hebrides from the northern Outer Hebrides, is home to the blue men. [1] The Scottish Gaelic terms for the blue men is na fir ghorma (in the genitive fear gorm, for example sruth nam fear gorm "the stream of the blue men"). [2]

The blue men are also styled as storm kelpies. [3] [4] The most common water spirits in Scottish folklore, [5] kelpies are usually described as powerful horses, [6] but the name is attributed to several different forms and fables throughout the country. [5] The name kelpie may be derived from the Scottish Gaelic calpa or cailpeach, meaning "heifer" or "colt". [7]

Folk beliefs

Description and common attributes

The mythical blue men may have been part of a tribe of "fallen angels" that split into three; the first became the ground dwelling fairies, the second evolved to become the sea inhabiting blue men, and the remainder the "Merry Dancers" of the Northern Lights in the sky. [8] The legendary creatures are the same size as humans but, as the name implies, blue in colour. [9] Writer and journalist Lewis Spence thought they were the "personifications of the sea itself" as they took their blue colouration from the hue of the sea. [10] Their faces are grey and long in shape [9] and some have long arms, which are also grey, and they favour blue headgear; [3] at least one account claims they also have wings. [11] The tempestuous water around the Shiant Isles 19 kilometres (12 mi) to the north of Skye, an area subject to rapid tides in all weathers, [12] flows beside the caves inhabited by the blue men, [13] a stretch of water known as the Current of Destruction owing to the number of ships wrecked there. [13]

Although other storm kelpies are reported as inhabiting the Gulf of Corrievreckan, [14] described by poet, writer, and folklorist Alasdair Alpin MacGregor as "the fiercest of the Highland storm kelpies", [14] the blue men are confined to a very restricted area. According to Donald A. Mackenzie they have no counterparts elsewhere in the world or even in other areas of Scotland; such limited range is rare for beliefs in spirits and demons. [15] Folklorist and Tiree minister John Gregorson Campbell says they were unknown in Argyll on the nearby coast of the mainland for instance, [9] although Church of Scotland minister John Brand, who visited Quarff in Shetland in mid-1700, recounts a tale of what may have been a blue man [16] in the waters around the island. [17] In the form of a bearded old man it rose out of the water, terrifying the passengers and crew of a boat it was following. [17]

In traditional tales the blue men have the power to create severe storms, but when the weather is fine they sleep or float just under the surface of the water. [3] They swim with their torso from the waist upwards raised out of the sea, twisting and diving in a similar way to a porpoise. [18] To amuse themselves the creatures play shinty when the skies are clear and bright at night. [19] They are able to speak and converse with mariners and are especially vocal when soaking vessels with water spray, roaring with laughter as vessels capsize. [20]

When the blue men gather to attack passing vessels their chief, sometimes named as Shony, [11] rises up out of the water and shouts two lines of poetry to the skipper, and if he cannot add two lines to complete the verse the blue men seize his boat. [21] Mackenzie highlights the following exchange between the skipper of a boat and the chief of the blue men: [22]

Blue Chief: Man of the black cap what do you say
As your proud ship cleaves the brine?
Skipper: My speedy ship takes the shortest way
And I'll follow you line by line
Blue Chief: My men are eager, my men are ready
To drag you below the waves
Skipper: My ship is speedy, my ship is steady
If it sank, it would wreck your caves.

The quick responses took the blue chief by surprise; defeated and unable to do any damage to the vessel, the blue men returned to their underwater caves, allowing the vessel free passage through the strait. [23] The blue men may alternatively board a passing vessel and demand tribute from its crew, threatening that if it is not forthcoming they will raise up a storm. [11]

Capture and killing

No surviving tales mention attempts to kill the spirits, but a Gregorson Campbell story tells of the capture of a blue man. Sailors seize a blue man and tie him up on board their ship after he is discovered "sleeping on the waters". [9] Two fellow blue men give chase, calling out to each other as they swim towards the ship:

Duncan will be one, Donald will be two
Will you need another ere you reach the shore? [24]

On hearing his companions' voices the captured spirit breaks free of his bonds and jumps overboard as he answers:

Duncan's voice I hear, Donald too is near
But no need of helpers has strong Ian More. [24]

Sailors thus believed all blue men have names by which they address each other. [24]

Origins

The mythical blue men may have originated with the Tuareg people of the Sahara. Touaregs at the Festival au Desert near Timbuktu, Mali 2012.jpg
The mythical blue men may have originated with the Tuareg people of the Sahara.

Mackenzie's explanation of the legend of the blue men was based partly on research into the Annals of Ireland and goes back to the times of Harald Fairhair, the first Norse king, and his battles against the Vikings. The Scottish Gaelic term fir ghorma, meaning "blue men", [25] [26] is the descriptor for a black man according to Dwelly. [27] Thus sruth nam fear gorm, one of the blue men's Gaelic names, literally translates as "stream of the blue men", [28] or "river, tide or stream of the black man". [29] Around the 9th century the Vikings took Moors they had captured and were using as slaves to Ireland. The Vikings spent winter months near the Shiant Isles, and Mackenzie attributes the story of the blue men to "marooned foreign slaves". [30] He quotes an excerpt from historian Alan Orr Anderson's Early sources of Scottish history, A.D. 500 to 1286: [31] [32]

These were the blue men [fir gorma], because Moors are the same as negroes; Mauritania is the same as negro-land [literally, the same as blackness].

More recent newspaper reports have repeated Mackenzie's hypothesis. [33] Historian Malcolm Archibald agrees the legend originates from the days Norsemen had North African slaves, but speculates that the myth may have originated with the Tuareg people of Saharan Africa, who were known as the "blue men of the desert". [10]

The origin of the blue men of the Minch may alternatively lie with "tattooing people" [34] specifically the Picts, whose Latin name picti means "painted people". If they were seen crossing the water in boats resembling the kayaks of the Finn-men they may have given simple islanders and mariners the impression of the upper part of the body rising out of the water. [35]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outer Hebrides</span> Archipelago and council area off the west coast of mainland Scotland

The Outer Hebrides or Western Isles, sometimes known as the Long Isle/Long Island, is an island chain off the west coast of mainland Scotland. The islands are geographically coextensive with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland. They form part of the archipelago of the Hebrides, separated from the Scottish mainland and from the Inner Hebrides by the waters of the Minch, the Little Minch, and the Sea of the Hebrides.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North Uist</span> Island and community in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland

North Uist is an island and community in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kelpie</span> Shape-shifting water spirit in Scottish folklore

A kelpie, or water kelpie, is a shape-shifting spirit inhabiting lochs in Irish and Scottish folklore. It is usually described as a black horse-like creature, able to adopt human form. Some accounts state that the kelpie retains its hooves when appearing as a human, leading to its association with the Christian idea of Satan as alluded to by Robert Burns in his 1786 poem "Address to the Devil".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boobrie</span> Mythological shapeshifting entity in Scotland

The boobrie is a mythological shapeshifting entity inhabiting the lochs of the west coast of Scotland. It commonly adopts the appearance of a gigantic water bird resembling a cormorant or great northern diver, but it can also materialise in the form of various other mythological creatures such as a water bull.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stornoway</span> Town on the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland

Stornoway is the main town of the Western Isles and the capital of Lewis and Harris in Scotland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shiant Islands</span>

The Shiant Islands or Shiant Isles are a privately owned island group in the Minch, east of Harris in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. They are five miles southeast of the Isle of Lewis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Minch</span> Strait in Scotland

The Minch is a strait in north-west Scotland that separates the mainland from Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides. It was known as Skotlandsfjörð in Old Norse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scottish mythology</span> Mythologies of Scotland

Scottish mythology is the collection of myths that have emerged throughout the history of Scotland, sometimes being elaborated upon by successive generations, and at other times being rejected and replaced by other explanatory narratives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nuckelavee</span> Horse-like demon from Orcadian mythology

The nuckelavee or nuckalavee is a horse-like demon from Orcadian folklore that combines equine and human elements. British folklorist Katharine Briggs called it "the nastiest" of all the demons of Scotland's Northern Isles. The nuckelavee's breath was thought to wilt crops and sicken livestock, and the creature was held responsible for droughts and epidemics on land despite being predominantly a sea-dweller.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fuath</span>

A fuath is a class of malevolent spirits in Scottish Highland folklore, especially water spirits.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gulf of Corryvreckan</span> A narrow strait off the coast of Scotland

The Gulf of Corryvreckan, also called the Strait of Corryvreckan, is a narrow strait between the islands of Jura and Scarba, in Argyll and Bute, off the west coast of mainland Scotland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birlinn</span> Middle ages Scottish ship

The birlinn or West Highland galley was a wooden vessel propelled by sail and oar, used extensively in the Hebrides and West Highlands of Scotland from the Middle Ages on. Variants of the name in English and Lowland Scots include "berlin" and "birling". The Gaelic term may derive from the Norse byrðingr, a type of cargo vessel. It has been suggested that a local design lineage might also be traceable to vessels similar to the Broighter-type boat, equipped with oars and a square sail, without the need to assume a specific Viking design influence. It is uncertain, however, whether the Broighter model represents a wooden vessel or a skin-covered boat of the currach type. The majority of scholars emphasise the Viking influence on the birlinn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duntulm</span> Human settlement in Scotland

Duntulm is a township on the most northerly point of the Trotternish peninsula of the Isle of Skye made up of Shulista, south Duntulm and Ghlumaig.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Each-uisge</span> Water spirit in Scottish folklore

The each-uisge is a water spirit in Scottish folklore, known as the each-uisce in Ireland and cabbyl-ushtey on the Isle of Man. It usually takes the form of a horse, and is similar to the kelpie but far more vicious.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hebridean mythology and folklore</span>

The Inner and Outer Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland are made up of a great number of large and small islands. These isolated islands are the source of a number of Hebridean myths and legends. The Hebridean Islands are a part of Scotland that have always relied on the surrounding sea to sustain the small communities which have occupied parts of the islands for centuries, resulting in a number of legends relating to the sea local to these islands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Macaulay family of Lewis</span> Notable Scottish clan

The Macaulay family of Uig in Lewis, known in Scottish Gaelic as Clann mhic Amhlaigh, were a small family located around Uig on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. There is no connection between the Macaulays of Lewis and Clan MacAulay which was centred in the Loch Lomond area, bordering the Scottish Highlands and Scottish Lowlands. The Macaulays of Lewis are generally said to be of Norse origin because of the etymology of their surname and also because of the islands' Viking Age past. However, a recent analysis of the Y-DNA of men with Scottish surnames has shown that a large number of Hebridean Macaulays are of Irish origin. In the 17th century, however, tradition gave the Macaulays an Irish origin. By the end of the 16th century the dominant clan on Lewis was Clan Macleod of The Lewes. Other notable Lewis clans were the somewhat smaller Morrisons of Ness and the even less numerous Macaulays of Uig. The Macaulays were centred in the area surrounding Uig on the western coast of Lewis, and had a deadly, long-standing feud with the Morrisons, whose lands were located on the northern coast around Ness. Today the Lewis surname Macaulay is considered to be a sept name of the Macleods of Lewis. There are two other nearby clans of Macaulays who may, or may not, be connected to the Lewis clan—the Wester Ross Macaulays, and the Uist MacAulays.

The caoineag is a female spirit in Scottish folklore and a type of Highland banshee, her name meaning "weeper". She is normally invisible and foretells death in her clan by lamenting in the night at a waterfall, stream or Loch, or in a glen or on a mountainside. Unlike the related death portent known as the bean nighe, the caoineag cannot be approached, questioned, or made to grant wishes.

In Scottish folklore the Ghillie Dhu or Gille Dubh was a solitary male fairy. He was kindly and reticent, yet sometimes wild in character. He had a gentle devotion to children. Dark-haired and clothed in leaves and moss, he lived in a birch wood within the Gairloch and Loch a Druing area of the north-west Highlands of Scotland. Ghillie Dhu is the eponym for the ghillie suit.

The water bull, also known as tarbh-uisge in Scottish Gaelic, is a mythological Scottish creature similar to the Manx tarroo ushtey. Generally regarded as a nocturnal resident of moorland lochs, it is usually more amiable than its equine counterpart the water horse, but has similar amphibious and shapeshifting abilities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Gregorson Campbell</span> Scottish minister and folklorist

John Gregorson Campbell was a Scottish folklorist and Free Church minister at the Tiree and Coll parishes in Argyll, Scotland. An avid collector of traditional stories, he became Secretary to the Ossianic Society of Glasgow University in the mid-1850s. Ill health had prevented him taking up employment as a Minister when he was initially approved to preach by the Presbytery of Glasgow in 1858 and later after he was appointed to Tiree by the Duke of Argyll in 1861, parishioners objected to his manner of preaching.

References

Citations

  1. ↑ "Minch", Oxford Dictionaries, archived from the original on March 13, 2013, retrieved 4 June 2014
  2. ↑ Dwelly (1902), pp. 422–423
  3. 1 2 3 Bane (2013), p. 62
  4. ↑ MacGregor (1937), p. 119
  5. 1 2 Westwood & Kingshill (2012), p. 364
  6. ↑ Varner (2007), p. 24
  7. ↑ "kelpie, n.1.", Oxford English Dictionary (online ed.), Oxford University Press, 2014, retrieved 4 May 2014
  8. ↑ Mackenzie (2013), loc. 1345
  9. 1 2 3 4 Gregorson Campbell (1900), p. 200
  10. 1 2 Westwood & Kingshill (2012), p. 485
  11. 1 2 3 Kynes (2008), p. 130
  12. ↑ Sullivan, Pickering & Emmot (2010), pp. 63–64
  13. 1 2 Mackenzie (1917), p. 80
  14. 1 2 MacGregor (1937), p. 117
  15. ↑ Mackenzie (2013), loc. 1348
  16. ↑ Westwood & Kingshill (2012), p. 400
  17. 1 2 Brand (1883), p. 171
  18. ↑ Mackenzie (1917), p. 79
  19. ↑ MacLennan, Hugh Dan (1997), "Shinty: Some Fact and Fiction in the Nineteenth Century", Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, 59: 243
  20. ↑ Mackenzie (2013), loc. 1332
  21. ↑ Mackenzie (1917), p. 81
  22. ↑ Mackenzie (1917), p. 82
  23. ↑ Mackenzie (1917), loc. 1315
  24. 1 2 3 Mackenzie (1917), p. 83
  25. ↑ Edwards, Paul (Autumn 1987), "African Presence in Early Europe", Research in African Literatures, Indiana University Press, 18 (3): 402–405, JSTOR   4618218
  26. ↑ MacKillop, James (2004), "Fear Gorm", A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology (online ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN   978-0198609674 , retrieved 25 July 2014
  27. ↑ Dwelly (1902), p. 517
  28. ↑ MacKillop, James (2004), "Blue men of the Minch", A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology (online ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN   978-0198609674 , retrieved 4 June 2014
  29. ↑ Dwelly (1902a), p. 895
  30. ↑ Mackenzie (2013), loc. 1391
  31. ↑ Mackenzie (2013), loc. 1379
  32. ↑ Anderson (1922), p. 294
  33. ↑ Emerson, Stephen (12 February 2014), "Fact of the week: Blue men of the Minch", The Scotsman , archived from the original on 15 July 2014, retrieved 5 June 2014
  34. ↑ "Anthropological Note", Man , 22: 192, 1922, JSTOR   2839435
  35. ↑ Kingshill & Westwood (2012), loc. 7068

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.