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SeeAsrai (#ulink_934f9a10-6009-569d-be16-629bc29f816c).
Askafroa
The “Wife of the Ash Tree” in Scandinavian and Teutonic folklore. The guardian of the ash tree, she was considered to be a pernicious spirit. Regional variations include the Danish Askefrue and the German Eschenfrau.
Askefrue
SeeAskafroa (#ulink_9de755a8-cb21-5b03-b8f9-99fc15908709).
Asojano Babaluaye
An orisha in Yoruba beliefs, a disfigured, pestilent outcast inspiring fear, a formidable presence inflicting plagues and disease, Asojano is a representation of all the world’s ills. In more modern times, his powers of destruction are tempered by an ability to heal and among other qualities he is a beneficient guardian of those suffering from AIDS.
Asrai
Asrai or ashrays are water fairies. In some accounts they appear as beautiful maidens, tall and lithe with translucent skin, although they are in fact hundreds of years old.
Two almost identical tales from Shropshire and Cheshire in England tell of a fisherman dredging up an asrai, which seems to plead to be set free, but its language is incomprehensible. In one tale, the fisherman binds the asrai, and the touch of its cold, wet hands burns him, marking him for life. In both stories, the fisherman covers the asrai with wet weeds while it lies moaning in the bottom of the boat, but its moans grow fainter, and by the time the fisherman has reached shore it has melted away, leaving only a pool of water behind.
Aughisky
Pronounced agh-iski, this is the Irish water horse. In the Scottish Highlands it is known as each uisge.
According to W. B. Yeats in Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888), aughisky were once common. They would come out of the water and gallop across the sands or fields, particularly in November. If you could manage to saddle and bridle them, they made the finest horses. However, you had to ride them inland, for at the first glimpse of salt water they would gallop headlong into it, taking their rider deep into the sea to devour them. It was also said that untamed aughisky devoured cattle from the fields.
Aveline
In Andrew Lang’s story of the Princess Minon-Minette in The Pink Fairy Book (1897), Aveline is an industrious fairy godmother to the princess, unlike Girouette in the same tale, who carelessly neglects her prince’s upbringing. It is due to the ever-vigilant and ingenious magic of Aveline that the prince and princess survive and literally rise above their ordeals, finally finding each other once again as they float through the air.
Awd Goggie
In Yorkshire, England, children were warned to keep away from orchards for fear that Awd Goggie, a wicked sprite who protected woods and orchards, would “get them.”
See alsoAppletree Man (#ulink_c3abf985-e387-55ed-bb44-82b0eed17485), Nursery Bogies (#litres_trial_promo).
Aziza
This forest-dwelling African race of fairies is from the kingdom of Dahomey, in the present-day Republic of Benin. The Aziza are benevolent, providing help and magic to hunters. Playing a role similar to that of Prometheus in Greek mythology, they are said to have imparted practical or spiritual knowledge to humans, including the use of fire. Living in anthills and silk-cotton trees, they are usually described as being hairy little people.
Baba Yaga
In Slavic mythology Baba Yaga is an ambiguous supernatural entity, residing deep in the forest in a hut supported by giant, yellow chicken legs. The hut has no windows or visible entrance until the phrase “Turn your back to the forest, your front to me” is uttered, when it revolves to reveal the door. Surrounding the hut is a fence on which skulls are impaled.
In Russian folk tales Baba Yaga is described as an ugly and deformed old hag with a long nose, iron teeth, and bony legs, who takes delight in frightening, and possibly devouring, children. Her bed is the enormous oven in which she supposedly cooks the children and she travels in a mortar, steering this strange craft with a pestle and sweeping away all traces of her passage with a silver birch broom.
The ambiguous nature of Baba Yaga is emphasized in some tales in which her wise words and helpfulness are sought. She is also portrayed as one of three sisters, all bearing the name of Baba Yaga. An altogether mysterious and controversial being.
Babi Ngepet
A demon boar in Javanese folk tales who is the manifestation of a human involved in the practice of the black arts, specifically in seeking to become rich by purloining the goods of neighbors in the guise of a pig.
The superstition is still current, as is evident in a recent news report on an Indonesian website concerning the arrest of a pig in Jompang, East Java, on suspicion of it being a babi ngepet (sindonews.com (http://sindonews.com), June 2013). Discussion ensues on how to distinguish between a pig and an “imitation,” concluding that only by killing it can its identity become clear: if it transforms into another creature, it is certainly a babi ngepet.
Bacalou
A Loa, or Haitian Voodoo spirit, much to be feared.
Bäckahäst
A Scandinavian water creature manifesting as a beautiful white horse in folk tales. The comeliness of his appearance lures unsuspecting victims to jump onto his back and then, unable to escape, they are pitched into the nearest water to drown.
Badalisc
A mythical creature of the Lombardy region of northern Italy. The badalisc is a bad-tempered, gossipy monster with a large head and big mouth. Each year at Epiphany he is “captured,” with much drum-banging and a cast of traditional characters to accompany the procession. Afterward, he is led around the village and a speech is read out on his behalf in which the sins and misdemeanors of the locals are laid bare.
Badb
(Also badhbh.) A collective name for the three Irish goddesses of war—Nemen, Macha, and Morrigu—possessing magical powers to create confusion, stir fury, and bestow courage to aid their chosen victors in battle. In The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. Evans-Wentz (1911), the badb are described thus:
… this Irish war-goddess, the bodb or badb, considered of old to be one of the Tuatha De Danann, has survived to our own day in the fairy-lore of the chief Celtic countries. In Ireland the survival is best seen in the popular and still almost general belief among the peasantry that the fairies often exercise their magical powers under the form of royston-crows; and for this reason these birds are always greatly dreaded and avoided. The resting of one of them on a peasant’s cottage may signify many things, but often it means the death of one of the family or some great misfortune, the bird in such a case playing the part of a bean-sidhe [banshee].
Badhbh
SeeBadb (#ulink_b7b316ee-2127-582f-9dd3-178021653869).
Bakru
In South American tradition a bakru is a tiny, childlike creature formed from wood and flesh, with a very large head. Protected by its wooden body, and with no brain of its own, it is a spirit to be feared for its ruthlessness. In Suriname there are several varieties of bakru, one of which is created by evil magicians to bring harm and even death to its victims.
Ballybog
(Or peat fairy.) Protectors of the peat bogs in Ireland, these little creatures are extremely unprepossessing in appearance, with bulgy, no-neck bodies supported on spindly legs, a froglike mouth full of long, pointy teeth and, due to their location, unsurprisingly covered in mud.
Balor of the Evil Eye
SeeFomorians (#litres_trial_promo).
Bannik
In Slavic folklore the bannik is the spirit of the banya, or bathhouse, an entity to be treated with the utmost respect and caution due to his violent tendencies if he and his demonic friends are angered or offended.
Banshee
(Or Bean-Sidh.) An Irish omen of death in the form of a weeping, wailing spirit, described, in the seventeenth-century Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe, as “a woman in white … with red hair and pale and ghastly complexion: … to me her body looked more like a thick cloud than substance. I was so much frightened, that my hair stood on end, and my night clothes fell off …” Lady Fanshawe was recounting her experience while staying with an old Irish family.
Tales of the Scottish banshee depict the banshee as deformed. In Popular Tales of the West Highlands (4 vols, 1860–1862), J. F. Campbell describes an old mill that is haunted by a banshee:
She was sitting on a stone, quiet, and beautifully dressed in a green silk dress, the sleeves of which were curiously puffed from the wrists to the shoulder. Her long hair was yellow, like ripe corn; but on nearer view, she had no nose.
See alsoBozaloshtsh (#ulink_ef76f927-7de5-55b5-8aba-be1ceb96af38), Caoineag (#ulink_3c24fe56-116f-5e06-9713-740c9adbaff0), Caointeach (#ulink_ec96d5a0-0d15-5ef9-a75e-52f3a512f521), Cyhyraeth (#ulink_825c6646-3b71-5a53-8d56-34702d39e2bf).
Baobhan Sith
A beautiful but evil fairy in Scottish folklore, a succubus whose purpose is to seduce her victim and suck their blood until they die.
Barbegazi
Mountain-dwelling, white-bearded gnomes of French and Swiss tradition, whose element is ice and snow. Their extremely large feet are advantageous for gliding over the snow-covered terrain. Their name is derived from barbe-glacée, meaning “frozen beard.”
Barguest
A hellish black hound of the northern English moors, eyes afire, on the hunt for its next victim. Only those doomed to die can hear the howl of the barguest and their only escape is to cross running water, for the hound cannot follow.
Bariaua
Benevolent nature spirits in the folklore of the Tubetube and Wangawga people of Melanesia. These intensely shy beings dwell in trees and dread being seen by humans. However, they have been known to borrow canoes belonging to mortals, for it is said they are not able to build their own seagoing craft.
In one account, two bariaua borrowed a canoe one night to go fishing. Returning to shore in the early hours of dawn, they were surprised by an early-riser, a man named Burea. They disappeared immediately, leaving their catch of fish and their net in the canoe.
Burea shared the fish with the other villagers and hung the net up in the potama, or clubhouse.
The next morning the net had gone, claimed back by the bariaua, but the kindly spirits did not inflict any punishment upon Burea for eating their haul of fish.
Baron Samedi
Depicted as a top-hatted, formally dressed corpselike figure in the Haitian Voodoo tradition, Baron Samedi has great powers over life and death, and represents both the hedonism and enjoyment of life and the inevitability of death.
Basile, Giambattista (c.1575–1632)
Born in Naples, Giambattista Basile was an Italian soldier, poet, writer, and collector of fairy tales. He is best known for his collection of Neapolitan tales, La Cunto de la Cunti (The Story of Stories) (1634, 1636), also known as Il Pentamerone, a collection of 50 stories based on traditional Italian folk tales. It was published posthumously by his sister under the pseudonym Gian Alesio Abbatutis. It includes the earliest recorded versions of many tales that are still familiar to readers today, including “Puss in Boots,” “Rapunzel,” “Snow White,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Cinderella.”
Basile’s collection influenced later fairytale writers and collectors, including Charles Perrault in France and the brothers Grimm in Germany.
Bathing Fairies
The curious phenomenon of a troop of fairies discovered bathing in the health-giving waters of Ilkley Wells in the north of England is recounted in the 1878 edition of the Folk-Lore Record. A local resident asks the villagers what kind of things these fairies were, and they usually maintain that they are active little beings and resemble the human form, that they are “lill folk, and always dressed in green, but so agile that no-one [can] ever come up to them.” The bathman, William Butterfield, who looks after the Wells, further describes how he came to open up the baths one morning and had great trouble with the door, until:
… with one supreme effort, he forced it perfectly open, and back it flew with a great bang! Then whirr, whirr, whirr, such a noise and sight! all over the water and dipping into it was a lot of little creatures, all dressed in green from head to foot, none of them more than eighteen inches high, and making a chatter and jabber thoroughly unintelligible. They seemed to be taking a bath, only they bathed with all their clothes on. He shouts, ‘Hallo there!’ then away the whole tribe went helter skelter, toppling and tumbling, heads over heels, heels over heads, and all the while making a noise not unlike a disturbed nest of young partridges.
The water is left “still and clear” and William Butterfield never sees them again.
Bauchan
(Or Bogan.) In Scottish folklore a type of hobgoblin. One example is described in J. F. Campbell’s Popular Tales of the West Highlands (1860–1862) as the protector of a family on the Island of Skye, but otherwise as a violently hostile spirit. He appeared only in the hours of darkness, “and any stray man who passed was sure to become a victim, the bodies being always found dead, and in the majority of instances mutilated also … He was seldom, if ever, seen by women, and did no harm to either them or to children.” He was eventually caught and tucked under the arm of his captor, who wanted to see him in daylight. The bauchan had never been heard to speak, but began begging to be set free, swearing “on the book, on the candle, and on the black stocking” to be gone. He was liberated after this promise and flew off singing a mournful refrain.
Baumesel
Literally, “Ass of the Trees,” the Baumesel is a tree-dwelling goblin in the folklore of Germany.
Baykok
(Or Bakaak.) In the Ojibwe nation’s traditional beliefs, the baykok manifests as a malevolent skeletal presence who eats the liver of its victims. In Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha it represents death.
Bean Nighe
Another guise of the banshee in Scottish and Irish folklore is as the bean nighe, or washer woman, who is to be found beside lonely streams washing blood from the clothes of those soon to die.
On the Island of Skye the bean nighe is said to be “squat in figure and not unlike a small pitiful child,” according to J. G. Campbell’s Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (1900).
Bean-Sidhe
SeeBanshee (#ulink_f272d779-1c5a-5da1-be5c-33eb18a93cba); also Bean Nighe (#ulink_30b8372f-4e63-5f2c-ac53-5ad14d6a3be4).
Bediarhari
Malaysian term for fairies, or the “good folk.”
Bela
A tree spirit in the folk beliefs of the Kolarian people of India. When the Kolarian people made a clearing in the jungle it was customary to leave a solitary tree standing for the spirits to take refuge in. These trees became shrines to the nature spirits of the jungle.
According to an account in the Annals of Rural Bengal (1868), a jungle shrine in Bengal consisted of a bela tree, where the spirit resided, along with a kachmula tree, and a saura tree. The Kolarian left earth, rice, and money at the foot of the bela tree as offerings to the tree spirit.
Belliegha
A Maltese water monster inhabiting, and controlling, wells and water sources; belliegha translates as “whirlpool.”
Bendith y Mamau
“The Mother’s Blessing,” the local name for fairies in Glamorgan, Wales, where, according to Sir John Rhys’ Celtic Folklore: Welsh and Manx (1901):
… the parish was then crammed full of Bendith y Mamau, and when the moon was bright and full they were wont to keep people awake with their music till the break of day. The fairies of Llanfabon were remarkable on account of their ugliness, and they were equally remarkable on account of the tricks they played. Stealing children from their cradles during the absence of their mothers and luring men by means of their music into some pestilential and desolate bog were things that seemed to afford them considerable amusement.
Further accounts of their tricks include details of the underground secret passages leading to their dwelling and to caverns of stored gold where:
They have, they say, a gold ladder of one or two and twenty rungs, and it is along this that they pass up and down. They have a little word; and it suffices if the foremost on the ladder merely utters that word, for the stone to rise of itself; while there is another word, which it suffices the hindmost in going down to utter so that the stone shuts behind him.
A farmhand accidentally gains access to the passage but is discovered by the fairies who take him to live with them and “… at the end of the seven years he escaped with his hat full of guineas.” However, he passes on the secret to a farmer, who accumulates great wealth:
… thrice the fill of a salt-chest of guineas, half-guineas, and seven-and-sixpenny pieces in one day. But he got too greedy, and like many a greedy one before him his crime proved his death; for he went down the fourth time in the dusk of the evening, when the fairies came upon him, and he was never seen any more.
Bendigeidfran
SeeBran the Blessed (#ulink_5e33498b-3b2d-59e2-8718-a0aa34464f72).
Ben Varrey
“Woman of the Sea,” or mermaid, in Manx folklore, which has many tales of the half-fish, half-woman’s beauty enchanting young men and luring them into the sea. Mermaids from the Isle of Man are also portrayed as benevolent toward deserving mortals, warning fishermen of impending storms and thereby averting disaster.
