5 Forgotten Mythical Creatures From Medieval Folklore (Part 1)

By Fire Pud the Dragon (Mythical Creature Expert and Part-Time Castle Historian)

Everyone knows of a dragon, take me as a prime example. Everyone has heard of a unicorn. Everyone can tell the story of the GIANT in Jack and the Beanstalk. But the history of mythology, from Norse sagas to Scottish folklore to the ancient legends of the British Isles, is stuffed with creatures that didn't make it into the mainstream. Stranger, funnier and considerably more alarming than anything in a standard fairy tale.

Some so fearsome you couldn’t possibly be include in a children’s picture book or expect a knight to deal with. I can mention them here though. Read on at your peril.

Here are five creatures that deserve significantly more attention than they currently receive.

One: The Trow

Origin: Orkney and Shetland Islands ·

First appearance in THE GOOD KNIGHT Book II. Trows are creatures from Orkney and Shetland folklore, descended from the Norse tradition of trolls but distinctly their own thing. Short, ugly and bad-tempered - reminds me of a maths teacher I once knew - which sounds standard, but here's where they get interesting.

Trows are nocturnal, mainly due to their aversion to sunlight. You see it turns them to stone - this is very useful if you ever get captured by one of these creatures.

Their music is considered dangerously enchanting, musicians who heard it were said to be unable to stop playing for days, weeks, sometimes years. And they steal people, replacing them with sickly substitutes while the real person lives underground playing trow music indefinitely.

Two: The Nuckelavee

Origin: Orkney Islands

If the trow is unsettling, the nuckelavee is something else entirely. It is a creature so specifically horrible that islanders refusee to speak its name without first asking for divine protection. It emerges from the sea with no skin, black blood running through yellow veins, a single burning red eye, a horse's body with a skinless human torso where the neck should be.

Oh, its breath causes crops to wither and plagues to spread. Charming.

The only thing that stops it is fresh water, which why you should always carry your own bottle of water with you. It is for emergency nuckelavee deployment.

There is nothing remotely funny about the nuckelavee. They will not be appearing in the series, some creatures are simply not suitable for bedtime - it does however remain the reason why Orkney islanders head home before dark and water refill stations are everywhere on the island.

Three: The Boggart

Origin: Northern England, Yorkshire and Lancashire

A household spirit or hobgoblin, invisible, mischievous, and committed to making your life mildly but persistently worse. It curdles milk, tangles hair, moves objects so they're never where you left them, and makes the floorboard creak the moment you've got the baby to sleep. Very similar to a second child in some ways.

Boggarts get attached to specific locations rather than people. So moving house helps, the boggart stays with the property, which does impact resale value . I you choose to stay, the only reliable strategy was keeping it amused - leaving small tasks out through the night. A pile of grain to count. A length of string to untangle. Sorting the kids toys etc.

This is, essentially, the same strategy used by parents of toddlers everywhere. And the strategy is not always successful. Our castle has at least one boggart I know of, possibly two but that could also be one of the knights. It would explain the knights' missing armour, why Bard always crashes into things, and why things go wrong at exactly the wrong moment.

Sir Cecil almost certainly blames it for most of his problems. The boggart is probably responsible for some of them.

Four: The Shellycoat

Origin: Scottish Lowlands and border country

It is not a coat belonging to someone called Shelley. It is a water spirit found in rivers and coastal areas of the Scottish Lowlands, distinguished by the shells and river debris hanging from its body that rattle loudly as it moves.

What it does with the advance warning it provides is mislead people, mimicking drowning sounds to lure bystanders to the water's edge, then revealing itself and laughing. Leading travellers the wrong way, then watching them realise their mistake.

The shellycoat is a practical joker who lives in a river and rattles. It wanted an audience, not a victim, if you laugh at its joke, it will leave you alone. If you don't, it will follow you home. There are laws against that behaviour.

Five: The Cù Sìth

Origin: Scottish Highlands and Hebrides · Pronounced: Coo Shee

The size of a young bull. Dark green. Moving in complete silence except for barking that comes in threes, warning, approach, too late. Sent by the fairy folk to collect the souls of the recently deceased.

Despite this role the creature is actually very calm and gentle. It doesn't give chase, it simply arrives, barks three times, and waits.

Slightly worryingly there is a neighbour in the village that have a large dog called Louis that always barks three times just as I am going to sleep.

Coming up in Part II

Five more creatures from the wilder shores of British mythology, including the Jenny Greenteeth (do not go near ponds), the Oakmen (do not enter their forest) and the Barguest (do not look directly at it on a dark night).

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