Hags
I turn now to consideration of a range of largely malevolent female sprites that might be termed “hags.” Before we examine the various types of supernatural females who might be grouped together under this heading, we need to think about terms.
What Is a Hag?
The distinction between some of the more dangerous female faeries and hags is difficult to locate. In large degree, it is a matter of personal preference, depending upon such factors as dress, appearance, behaviour, and where the being lives. Today, with the popular view of faery kind inclined to more cuddly and kindly conceptions, the category allocated to “faery” is likely to be quite restricted; traditional views of the species were more accommodating and treated many creatures as faery that would now be regarded as “hags.” Let’s not forget, though, that for all her morbid and mournful character, the banshee is nothing but a “faery woman,” a bean sith in Scottish Gaelic.
As an example of the problems of definition, Hugh Miller described the belief in the north of Scotland in a green woman with a “goblin child” who would go from cottage to cottage at night, bathing her infant in the blood of the youngest human child. Another “green lady” used to go house to house spreading smallpox. The colour green is, of course, typically faery, but how we should classify these females—as faes or as “goblins” (whatever they may be precisely)—is hard to determine. Miller may have used the word goblin to denote a trow, but then, what is a trow if it isn’t just an ugly and ill-tempered faery of the Northern Isles?224
There’s a strong correlation between hags and giant dimensions. A woman of monstrous size and strength could well be classed as a hag; what probably distinguishes hags from giantesses is that the former combine some sort of supernatural power with their unnatural size and strength. Hand in hand with monstrous size in the popular imagination goes hideous appearance, and this is true of hags. Of course, ugly, malevolent women are also conventionally classed as witches and, yet again, there is considerable overlap. However, whilst hags and witches may well share magical powers, the latter are almost always regarded as being human, whereas there seems little dispute that hags have a wholly supernatural origin.
Types of Hags
In Scottish tradition there are many unnamed hags (or cailleachs) that haunt various spots and pose a threat to travellers. Given their predisposition to violence, they react badly towards people who defy or disparage them, but they can be repelled by iron (both of which are true of faeries as well). The story is told of a young man from Islay who toasted the local cailleach in mocking terms when he was at the inn one night. Walking home, she ambushed him, and so began a vendetta between the two. The youth had a knife specially made to defend himself, but one day during harvest he put it down in a field whilst he was working. The cailleach spotted her chance, got between him and his blade, and then squeezed him to death.225
Another common tale of a malevolent hag will describe a woman whose sole interest seems to be to murder strangers. Even if there’s no violence, there will be an atmosphere of menace in any encounter with her because of the woman’s size and looks. Typically, a huntsman will be alone in a hut one night when an old woman comes to the door seeking shelter. She’s admitted but is extremely wary of his dogs and asks the man to tie them, giving him one of her hairs as a leash. He pretends to secure them as bidden but wisely doesn’t make use of the proffered hair. As the crone sits by the fire she starts to swell in size and then attacks the man, calling out to her hair to strangle the dogs. Of course, they’re not restrained, and they help the man defeat his assailant. In some versions, the hag is torn to pieces by the hounds, but then starts to reassemble before his eyes—at which point, it’s clearly time to escape.226
There are also some named hags or groups of hags who have particular characteristics and habits and who should be examined individually. Here I examine the banshees, cyhyraeth, cailleach bheur, mist women, baobhan sith, and several others. Arguably, for their characters, the bean-nighe and the caointeach described in Part 1 could be included in this chapter as well, but because of their very strong affinity to flowing water, I dealt with them as river sprites. Conversely, as will be seen, the cailleach bheur has intimate links with rivers and lakes, meaning that she might have been discussed in Part 1.
Banshees
A banshee is an ancestral spirit or faery woman (bean sith) who is attached to a particular family or clan. A very well-known example is that of the Macleod family of Skye. The clan has a legend of a beautiful woman who came to their castle just after a son was born and chanted verses over him, foretelling his future and acting as a protective charm upon the boy.227
Over and above being able to foresee the future, it appears, too, that banshees can actively shape events that are yet to come: for this reason, for instance, there are two hills in Aberdeenshire where travellers will leave barley-meal cakes for the local banshees, believing that failure to do this would lead either to a death or some other terrible misfortune.228
Although the primary function of the Scottish banshee is prognostication, it isn’t all they do. The McCrimmon family were pipers, but none had any outstanding skill, until one day the banshee of the castle approached the youngest son, known as the Black Lad, whilst he was playing. She asked him if he wanted skill without success or success without skill, the usual terms offered in cases where faeries bestow some mastery. He chose the former and the banshee wrapped one of her hairs around the chanter of his pipes and then told him to play any tune he liked, whilst she held her fingers over his as he did so. By this means, she transmitted wonderful musical ability to him.229
The appearance of the banshee is generally unappealing, if distinctive. That of Loch Migdal has been spotted sitting on a rock in a green silk dress; she has long hair, yellow like ripe corn, but no nose. Another sighted in the same locality had webbed feet so that (although they are not seen washing shrouds for the dead like the bean-nighe) banshees are generally regarded as water spirits of some kind; curiously, some can become restless if they have to cross water. Sometimes they have manes and tails so that they are much closer to water horses or kelpies; others resemble old crones, perhaps with large, round eyes. Others can be hairy with large eyes.230
Cyhyraeth
The Welsh equivalent of the banshee is the cyhyraeth—the groaning spirit (the name is related to the word for “sinews” and denotes her corpse-like or skeletal appearance). She makes a “doleful, dreadful noise in the night,” disturbing people’s sleep and sounding like the groans of the dying. The cry would presage a funeral or an epidemic or would precede bad weather on the coast. The unpleasant groaning is heard three times, each time getting nearer but at the same time quieter and less shrill. At its loudest it has been said that it sounds like a person suffering from the stitch. The groaning sound also apparently intensifies if the cyhyraeth finds its way obstructed for any reason. Those visiting someone mortally ill will hear the cyhyraeth on their way to the bedside and will then find that the sick person’s voice sounds exactly the same.231
The cyhyraeth can be heard several months before the death it marks, or it can replicate the circumstances of the death, for example by following the future route of the funeral cortege, by coming to rest at the point where a grave will be dug, or by moving along the shoreline with lights showing before a shipwreck occurs. Some say it only precedes the deaths of those who have been ill for a long time or of those who have been mentally ill. In other places, the cyhyraeth seems to be a more physical spirit, passing through the streets and lanes of a neighbourhood and rattling on the windows and doors of every house in addition to its awful groans.232
Other “Banshee” Types
Most—but not all—the “banshees” are female, yet a few male sprites are found who share the function to predict death or misfortune. In the Scottish Highlands people may encounter several of these.
The Rothmurchans have the bodach an dun, the “ghost of the hill,” Gartnibeg House is haunted by the Bodach Gartin, and the bodach glas, the grey man, will make an appearance to foretell a death in the clan McIvor. The MacLachlan family of Killichoan Castle were served by a brownie, but this being, described as a small grey-haired man, would also behave like a banshee when any member of the clan was heading off to war; then he would cry and wail at a nearby waterfall as well as insisting that all the preparations for the farewell meal be carried out exactly and in full. At Gilsland in Cumbria resided the “Cauld Lad” who was supposed to have been a boy who died of cold but then remained with the household. When a person was about to fall ill, he came to the bedside with his teeth loudly chattering; if they were facing death, he laid his icy hands on the part of the body that would be the cause of their last sickness.233
Finally, across England there was belief in a being called the “grim” or “church grim.” This faery is described in the 1628 chapbook Robin Goodfellow—His Mad Prankes and Merry Jests. The grim appears at night “when candles burne both blue and dim” and can take several forms. It “walks with the owl” and loudly imitates that bird’s calls at the windows of those lying sick, causing them to despair of recovery. It can appear as a black dog or similar terrifying shape, haunting churchyards in stormy weather or, more trivially, scaring off revellers from parties and stealing their food and drink.234
It is interesting to discover that banshees are a type of faery still quite regularly encountered today. Perhaps because the name is so well known, people seem to be more ready to identify and name their experiences. Banshees have continued to be reported since the beginning of the twentieth century. Three quarters of these cases were from Ireland, doubtless reflecting the significance of the faery woman in national tradition there. Three quarters, too, were regarded by the witnesses as foretelling a death, although not necessarily that of a family member. Another case was linked to a serious assault which the victim survived, and a couple of others lacked any “cause” as such. What was common to all was, naturally, the wailing, howling voice that was heard. Witnesses repeatedly emphasised that this sound was not the cry of any animal but that it was a unique combination of shriek, moan, and song, often covering a huge range on the musical scale and often having no fixed or certain source. It could be both in the head and heard externally, a very real and quite often shared experience.235
Cailleach Bheur
The cailleach bheur is a wild, giant hag with a blue face and a vicious temper; she’s also called the “winter hag” or the “hag of the ridges,” but her name literally means the sharp or shrill old wife, denoting the cutting blasts of icy winds. She lives on high mountains in Scotland such as Ben Nevis, where she has imprisoned Bride, the spirit of summer, and she embodies the coldest time of the year, most particularly the wintry weather of early April, when she carries a wand, or hammer, in her hand with which she hardens the frosty ground and suppresses grass and other vegetation and delays the arrival of spring and good weather for men and beasts. The hag sends terrible tempests, called “cailleach weather” or “wolf-storms.” When, finally, the sun defeats her, she will fly off in a terrible rage for another year. Just before she does this, though, she will cast away her wand in disgust, and it will fall under a gorse or holly bush—explaining why grass never grows beneath these. After spring wins out, the cailleach turns into a cold, damp boulder throughout the summer, but in some versions of her story she is transformed into a beautiful woman who brings luck and plenty. At the end of the good weather, the cailleach ushers in the cold again by washing her plaid in the whirlpool at Corryvreckan; it comes out snowy white and thereby signifies the start of winter. Another tradition states that, when the foam spouts highest from the maelstrom, the cailleach has “put on her kerchief” and is at her most deadly.236
The cailleach bheur is also called cailleach-uisge, the water woman, and she may be encountered in wild places, cleaning fish by a stream. She also acts as a guardian to wild animals, most particularly deer, herding and milking them on the mountains. Normally, it is considered bad luck for a hunter to see her but occasionally she may allow her deer to be hunted by favoured individuals.237
The cailleach is so closely linked to bad weather and with water that she’s said to be responsible for drowning fertile valleys. She created Loch Eck, whilst Loch Awe is the result of an accident: she forgot one night to cover the well on top of Ben Cruachan where her cattle drank and it overflowed, flooding the glen beneath. The cailleach in this case is said to have been so horrified by the accident that she turned to stone. Related ideas make her the shaper of the Scottish landscape, linking her to many natural features and processes.238
The cailleach can take a multiplicity of forms. The cailleach bheur is a blue-black hag with one eye, matted hair, red teeth, and grey clothes. She is very long lived and has had hundreds of children. She can swell in size and she can turn into a range of animals such as deer, cats, and ravens.239 This cailleach also keeps flocks of deer, cattle, and pigs. On the winter nights she can sometimes be seen driving her deer down onto beaches where they can feed on the seaweed whilst other vegetation is sparse.240
Given her watery associations, it’s to be expected that the hag has a form found in the sea or water courses. The cailleach muileartach, the hag of the sea, is bald with a dark blue face and a single eye and a single tooth; she lurks in swollen rivers and fords, where she attempts to drown travellers, or she calls up storms along the Scottish coast. Despite her fearsome role as the “mother of the sea of darkness,” she can also heal the sick and raise the dead with a touch of her finger. A male counterpart of the muileartach is the “brounger” of the Scottish eastern coast. If this spirit was thought to be present when a fishing boat was out at sea, it had to circle three times to dispel his enchantment.241
The cailleach bheur has various close relatives across Britain. The Manx caillagh y grommagh, “the old woman of the gloom,” appears on the island on the morning of February 12 each year, trying to gather firewood to warm herself. If she can find enough dry sticks, the following spring will prove to be wet. If, however, the morning is damp and she can’t gather enough wood suitable for a fire, the spring will prove to be dry.242
There’s a headland in Malew parish on Man that’s named after her—Gob ny Callee. Here, the old woman stumbled whilst trying to step between two mountain peaks and it’s said that the land bears the impression of her heel and her bottom. The caillagh is also called faihtag, a name which reflects her prophetic abilities.243
Mist Women
The Welsh gwrach y rhybin (described in part 1) is sometimes called the “hag of the mist” because she may sometimes appear to an ill-fated individual in the fog on a mountainside. Another Welsh sprite is even more deserving of the title, though: this is the Old Woman of the Mountain, a faery being who was found all over the country.244
The Old Woman (as she appeared in Monmouthshire) was described in detail by the Reverend Edmund Jones in the late eighteenth century. She was seen as a poor elderly female, dressed in grey and carrying an empty milk pail. At night, or on misty days, she would come up behind travellers and cry out in distress. The result of an encounter would, unavoidably, be that the person would get lost, however well they knew the route they were following—either the road would be made to look different or they would find themselves heading in the opposite direction to that they intended.245
The Old Woman’s voice might be heard very near and then, immediately, very far off. If people were already lost in the mist, they might see the Old Woman ahead and try to catch up with her to ask for directions. As is common with faeries—especially Welsh ones—this chase would prove fruitless as the faster the traveller went, the further behind she or he would seem to fall. The Old Woman can never be caught and she never looks behind her. Pursuit would only result in the traveller getting even more hopelessly led astray and not infrequently they would end up stumbling into a bog, at which point the Old Woman’s mocking laugh would be heard. If you do find yourself led astray like this, putting your hand on iron such as a knife will dispel the Old Woman’s enchantment. During the nineteenth century, interestingly enough, the Old Woman was seen less on the highways and more underground, in “coal pits and holes of the earth,” according to the Reverend Edmund Jones. He may have been seeking to imply that she is a demon emerging from subterranean places, but the faeries have always been conceived as dwelling below ground.246
In Somerset there are references to a “Woman of Mist” who lived on Bicknoller Hill in the western Quantock Hills. She herded deer on the hillside, something for which the cailleach, glaistigs, and various other Scottish faery females are known too.247
Other Hags
As I’ve already described, the difference between “hags,” banshees, and other types of faery women can be vague. For example, the people of Tiree identified certain streams and pools of water at which cailleacha sith, “faery hags,” might habitually be seen, perhaps at their washing. In truth, the Highlands of Scotland seem to abound in various monstrous female creatures; every hamlet used to have its own named hag. For example, there is the muireartach, a hideous and violent being with just one, blue-coloured eye, whilst Glenmoriston is inhabited by the Cailleach a’ Chraich. In the past, this creature was known to waylay lone travellers and kill them in a very curious way: she would snatch their bonnets and dance on them until a hole was worn through—at which point the owner promptly expired. A dog can protect its master from this fate, but usually it is nearly flayed alive in the process.248
The baobhan sith is a particularly fierce and dreadful female of the Highlands who may appear as a crow or raven or as a lovely girl in a long green dress. The gown conceals the fact that she has deer hooves instead of feet, a clear indication of her inhuman nature. The baobhan sith is known for seducing and then consuming unwary men—slitting their throats, ripping out their hearts, and drinking their blood.249
In the Scottish Highlands, a number of faery women are concerned with or oversee women’s domestic tasks such as spinning and weaving. In Part 1, I mentioned the loireag, who is a Highland faery specifically responsible for overseeing the making of cloth through all its stages, from loom to fulling. She demands observance of all the traditional methods and customs such as the singing of the various songs that accompany each different part of the process, and, if there is any neglect, she will undo any work she’s dissatisfied with. Offerings of milk were made to the loireag, in part to propitiate her and in part to stop her sucking milk from the livestock in the fields. The loireag will bewitch the livestock to stop them getting away from her. She was described as a small woman but very scary; uttering a holy name could drive her off, nonetheless.250
Another Scottish spirit, the gyre-carlin, was also linked to cloth-making. It was said that if unspun flax was not removed from the distaff at the end of the year she would steal it all. Conversely, if asked by a woman for the endowment of skill in spinning, she would enable the recipient to do three to four times as much work as other spinners. Despite these domestic aspects, the gyre-carlin had a more fearsome side to her character. She was the Lowland equivalent of the cailleach, armed with an iron club and sustained by a diet of human flesh. Perhaps for this reason, she was also called Nicnevin, which seems to mean something like “daughter of bones.”251
The cailleach has some function in protecting wildlife and is often seen herding deer—or even appearing as a deer—and there are several comparable beings across Scotland. In Dumfriesshire the doonie performs the same role. She’s reported to have saved a boy who fell from a cliff when he was out collecting young rock doves, but she warned him to never trouble the birds again—for she might not be there a second time to catch him.252
The Brown Man of the Muirs, although male, acts as a guardian to wild beasts on the Scottish Borders. He was spotted in 1744, a solid, angry looking dwarflike figure dressed in bracken red clothes and with glowing eyes like a bull’s. He scolded a young man out hunting game, saying that it was a trespass on his land and an interference with the beasts under his care. The dwarf claimed to live on berries, apples, and nuts alone—and invited the youth back to his home to see. The hunter was about to leap across a burn to join the dwarf when his companion called to him. The dwarf vanished, and the two concluded that it would have been fatal to have gone with him. Nevertheless, they scorned his warning and shot some more game before returning to their homes. This was believed to have led to the sickness and death within a year of the man who had spoken to the Brown Man.253
In the Firth of Cromarty, the weather is under the control of Gentle Annie or Annis, a hag with a blue-black face. She is renowned for her treachery, as days may start fine and calm, encouraging fishing boats to put out to sea, but then violent gales might sweep in from the northeast. Both in her name and her responsibility for storms, this hag forms a bridge between the Scottish cailleach and more southerly relatives.254
In England, there are far fewer traces of any terrible supernatural hags. In Leicestershire is preserved a fairly limited recollection of Black Annis, a savage woman with a blue face, long teeth, and iron nails who lived in a cave on the Dane Hills and dragged people inside to devour them. She was also reputed to prowl the countryside, howling horribly and snatching people from their homes through the windows. That’s about as far as the tradition extends now, although it is suggestive of much more detailed and widespread knowledge that has been lost.255
Conclusions
It can be hard to draw any dividing line between the cailleach and characters such as the loireag and gyre-carlin, although the sense is that there is a definite difference here between “faery women” and monstrous females. Involvement with domestic activities seems to be an important defining feature, as must be violent or aggressive character. Faery women, like all faes, can sometimes be unpredictable and vindictive, whereas a constantly bloodthirsty and enraged nature is central to the hag. On this interpretation, characters concerned with spinning like Habetrot are definitely faeries—to be approached with caution but not terror—whereas the cailleach is unquestionably a monstrous crone.
224. Hugh Miller, Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland; Or, The Traditional History of Cromarty (Edinburgh: Johnstone and Hunter 1835), 70.
225. John Gregorson Campbell, Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland: Tales and Traditions Orally Collected by the Late John Gregorson Campbell, (Glasgow: James MacLehose & Sons, 1902), 189.
226. Stories about such monstrous women are told of Ben Breck in the Highlands, Appin Hill in Argyll, and Beinn a’ Ghlo mountain in Perthshire. See, for example, Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands, 123.
227. Walter Y. Evans-Wentz, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1911), 99.
228. Evans-Wentz, The Fairy-Faith in Celtic, 437–8.
229. MacDougall, Folk Tales and Fairy Lore, 175.
230. Campbell, Popular Tales, vol. 2, 205.
231. Sikes, British Goblins, 220.
232. Sikes, British Goblins, 219–222.
233. William P. Nimmo, Omens and Superstitions: Curious Facts and Illustrative Sketches (Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo, 1868), 9; Archibald Campbell, Records of Argyll: Legends, Traditions, and Recollections of Argyllshire Highlanders, Collected Chiefly from the Gaelic (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1885), 187.
234. Briggs, Dictionary of Fairies, “Church grim” and “Grim”; James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, “The Tricks of the Fairy Called Grim,” in Illustrations of the Fairy Mythology of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (London: Shakespeare Society, 1845), chapter 6; Elizabeth Mary Wright, Rustic Speech and Folk-lore (London, H. Milford, 1913), 194.
235. Marjorie Johnson, Seeing Fairies: From the Lost Archives of the Fairy Investigation Society, Authentic Reports of Fairies in Modern Times (San Antonio: Anomalist Books, 2014), 145-147; Simon Young, ed., The Fairy Investigation Society, Fairy Census 2014–2017 (n.p., 2018), 141, 156, 274, 302, www.fairyist.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/The-Fairy-Census-2014-2017-1.pdf.
236. Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica, vol. 2, 236; Dalyell, The Darker Superstitions of, 542; K. Grant, Myth, Tradition and Story, chapter 2; Mackenzie, chapter 7.
237. Mackenzie, Scottish Folk-lore and Folk Life, 152.
238. Leslie, The Early Races of Scotland, vol. 1, 142.
239. Mackenzie, Scottish Folk-lore and Folk Life, 125–132.
240. Campbell, Superstitions of the Highlands, 22-29, 122, 133; Mackenzie, Scottish Folk-lore and Folk Life, 152.
241. Mackenzie, Scottish Folk-lore and Folk Life, chapter 8.
242. Yn Lioar Manninagh, vol. 1 (1890–92), 223.
243. Gill, A Manx Scrapbook, chapter 4.
244. Owen, Welsh Folk-lore, 142.
245. Edmund Jones, A Relation of Apparitions of Spirits in the County of Monmouth, and the Principality of Wales […] (Newport: E. Lewis Etheridge, and Tibbins, 1813), 35.
246. Sikes, British Goblins, 49–53; Jones, A Relation of Apparitions, 37.
247. Tongue, Somerset Folklore, 120.
248. Campbell, Superstitions of the Highland, 105; Mackenzie, Scottish Folk-lore and Folk Life, 156; Alexander Macdonald, “Scraps of Unpublished Poetry and Folklore from Glenmoriston,” Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, vol. 21 (1896), 34.
249. “Fairy Tales,” in Celtic Review 5, 164.
250. Watson, “Highland Mythology,” Celtic Review 5, 54.
251. County Folk-lore 7, 34; Mackenzie, Scottish Folk-Lore and Folk Life, 149–50.
252. Aitken, Forgotten Heritage, 37.
253. William Henderson, Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders (London: Folklore Society, 1879), 251.
254. Mackenzie, Folk-Lore and Folk Life, 159.
255. County Folk-lore 1, 4.