Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon, my Darlings. For today’s blog post, I will be discussing some of the folklore of Water Horses from Celtic folklore! Water Horses are a fascinating type of dangerous Water Faery Animal. Celtic Water Horses are known for living near running water, including rivers, streams, and Lochs. Below, we will look at Kelpies and the Each Uisge, how they are similar and where they differ folklorically!
Kelpies are the Scottish variant of these Celtic Water Horses, with Each Uisge being the Irish variant. Each Usige literally translates from Gaelic to English as ‘Water Horse’, and the Each Usige is considered to be the most dangerous of Ireland’s Water Spirits. Both Kelpies and the Each Usige are known for being shapeshifters! Interestingly, the Each Usige is able to transform into a bird and a handsome young man with seaweed in his hair. As for Kelpies, the way to identify that they are not regular horses is that they will always be wet, even on the hottest of days, and female Kelpies are known to manifest in the form of a beautiful woman dressed in Green!
Kelpies and the Each Usige are both known for being dangerous. These Celtic Water Horses are known for luring people to climb upon their backs, and once the person is securely on the Horse, they will run into the Water and drown the person! That is the deeply dangerous aspect of Celtic Water Horses. In the case of the Each Usige, the person will be eaten once they are drowned, making for an even more grotesque energy.
Kelpies differ in that they will not always drown the people they abduct, as sometimes they will take them away to the Otherworldly Realm they inhabit to marry them and have Kelpie children, or even abduct women to be midwives and wet-nurses. This relates quite directly to so much of the common folklore of Changelings! There is also some chance of survival if the Kelpie seeks to harm you, as their bridle is their weakness, and if you can get control of the bridle, you can control the Kelpie. There is a legend that Scotland’s Clan MagGregor is in possession of a Kelpie bridle, which is a powerful magickal artefact!
Finally, I want to note that unlike the Each Usige, whose folklore presents it as wholly malevolent, Kelpies are believed to be Oracluar Horse Spirits who may have once been revered enough that human sacrifices were paid to them. This type of sacrifice could have certainly served a dual purpose, in that you would be offering a sacrifice to gain Oracular messages, but also a willing sacrifice could be done in hopes of preventing the Kelpies from abducting people randomly! While none of this is known for certain, it is definitely an interesting thing to contemplate, and truly shows the less malevolent side of the Kelpie.
I hope you have enjoyed this short look at Celtic Water Horses. What do you find most fascinating about Kelpies or the Each Usige? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is a Kelpie artwork. I found the art on https://www.floshistory.com/blog/2021/04/20-kelpie-h8hbe-gj55g-rtlet-ng4w9-kl4zt-5w6al-r8spg-7w2rg-j7tpc-y8mc7-2zzdz-y4bst-egrgt-wc78r-wpkfa-3gzsy-4lpg3-g5pbd-pzfsr-9fyar-6pfb4-89kxj-dyp2w-wp36r-gk44y-59ysj-a3gf7-zgfjy-csnks.
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Further Reading
- Encyclopedia of Spirits by Judika Illes