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One account of a mermaid who is captured by shore-dwellers and attended for three days with the utmost care tells of her eventual liberty and reunion with her own kind, whereupon she expresses her puzzlement as to why mortals should throw away the water in which they have boiled eggs.
Berkhyas
In ancient Persian folklore as retold in Thomas Keightley’s The Fairy Mythology (1828), Berkhyas is described as a div (or demon) of enormous stature with eyes like pools of blood, a hairy body, and boar’s tusks for teeth. Pigeons nest in the serpentine tendrils of his hair.
Bertha, Frau
In Notes on the Folklore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders (1866), William Henderson writes:
German Folk-lore connects unbaptised infants with the Furious Host or wild hunt … the mysterious lady Frau Bertha is ever attended by troops of unbaptised children, and she takes them with her when she joins the wild hunstman, and sweeps with him and his wild pack across the wintry sky.
Bhoot
An unsettled, wandering spirit caused by a violent death, taking on the appearance of an animal or human in Indian mythology. Clothed in white and with backward-facing feet, it casts no shadow.
Biasd Beulach
In Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (1902), J. G. Campbell relates a tale from the Island of Skye describing the malignant spirit of the Pass of Odail, which was “more awful that its character was not distinctly known.” It appeared in the dead of night sometimes in the shape of a deformed man and sometimes as a roaming beast, uttering unearthly howls and shrieks. It ceased to appear after the body of a man was found, with two wounds piercing his side and his leg, each bearing the imprint of a hand. It was considered impossible that these wounds could have been inflicted by a human.
Billy Winkler
A Lancashire nursery spirit similar to Wee Willie Winkie, who sprinkles magic dust or sand into the eyes of children to get them to sleep. In the 1908 novel The Blue Lagoon: A Romance by H. de Vere Stacpoole, Billy Winker is invoked as a similar figure to the Sandman: “‘Shut your eyes tight … or Billy Winker will be dridgin’ sand in them.’”
However, in a traditional folk song from Lancashire in John Trafford Clegg’s Sketches and Rhymes in the Rochdale Dialect (1895), Billy Winker is a drayman a little too fond of drinking the contents of the barrels of ale he delivers.
Biloko
(Also eloko.) Malevolent dwarves in the folklore of the Nkundo people of central Zaire. Bilokos used bells to bewitch humans, placing spells upon them that could result in death. These malignant creatures dwelled in hollow trees and subsisted on a diet of human flesh. They are described as having beards of grass and wearing garments of leaves.
In one tale a wife stays behind at the hut while her husband goes hunting. As he leaves, he warns her that if she hears the ringing of a bell she must pay no attention to it, for it portends death. However, later that day, when the woman is alone in the silence of the forest, she is charmed to hear the ringing of a little bell and invites the owner of the bell to join her at the hut.
A biloko dwarf emerges from the forest and joins the woman. She offers him some food cooked over her fire, but he tells her he eats only human flesh. By now the woman is under his spell and she offers him the flesh of her arm.
The next day, the bell rings again and this time the bewitched woman offers the biloko the flesh of her buttocks.
On the third day, suspecting some evil is afoot, the husband does not go hunting, but instead hides behind the hut. When the dwarf appears and holds a knife to the woman’s side, proclaiming he wants to eat her liver, the man fires an arrow at him.
Struck by the blow, the biloko falls down, driving his knife into the woman’s side, and killing her.
The husband drives his spear into him and beheads him, then invites the people from the village to see the vanquished dwarf.
Biriir ina Baroqo
A Somalian folk tale recounts the battle of two giants who each ruled half of the country. Habbad was cruel and wicked, but the benevolent giant Biriir ina Barqo came to hear of his despotic ways and defeated the oppressor in a battle, thus uniting the country under his peaceful rule.
Bisimbi
Nature spirits associated with waterfalls, pools, and also rocky outcrops, who are described in traditional Central African folk legends. They take on diverse names and attributes in other areas of the continent. Generally benevolent toward humans, they can be troublesome if generous offerings are not forthcoming and downright malevolent in their attempts to penetrate the brains of children. Mothers have devised a simple foil to this endeavor by placing a wooden sliver across the fontanelle on their babies’ heads.
Black Annis
A poem by Leicestershire poet John Heyrick, who lived in the eighteenth century, describes Black Annis thus:
Tis said the soul of mortal man recoil’d,
To view Black Annis’ eye, so fierce and wild;
Vast talons, foul with human flesh, there grew
In place of hands, and features livid blue
Glar’d in her visage; while the obscene waist
Warm skins of human victims close embraced.
This flesh-eating, blue-faced hag lived in a cave in the Dane Hills near Leicester. She was supposed to have excavated it with her bare hands, using only her long, clawlike iron nails. She was partial to a diet of children and lambs, and when she had devoured them, their skins were spread over the branches of the giant oak tree at the mouth of the cave.
Black Dogs
SeeBarguest (#ulink_3310b355-35f7-5693-b35a-ba7d2ddd66a7), Capelthwaite (#ulink_983afb3e-a35c-5f5d-a9bd-476d61391e71), Cù Sith (#ulink_9edcb9b0-3fcf-5760-9cbb-16ee2bc15623), Cwn Annwn (#ulink_37933ccc-d87d-593b-836c-87d089321fe9), Yeth Hound (#litres_trial_promo).
Blodeuedd
Literally, “Flower Face,” taking her name from the Welsh blodeu, “flower” or “blossom,” and gwedd, “face” or “appearance,” Blodeuedd is one of the main female figures in the fourth branch of the Mabinogion, a collection of ancient epic Welsh stories, which relates how she was made from oak, broom, and meadowsweet as a magical bride for Lleu Llaw Gyffes, “Lleu the Fair of the Steady Hand,” son of Arianhod.
Bloody Bones
SeeRawhead and Bloody Bones (#litres_trial_promo).
Blud
A malevolent fairy in Slavic mythology who causes confusion and disorientation.
Blue Burches
A folk tale from Somerset describes the pranks of Blue Burches (breeches), a hobgoblin of a mischievous but harmless disposition whose tricks were endured with forbearance by the cobbler in whose house he lived. In time, the local clergymen heard of the hobgoblin and came to the conclusion he was an incarnation of the Devil, whereupon they set out to exorcise him. The cobbler’s son unwittingly betrayed Blue Burches in the guise of an old white horse grazing nearby and the parsons cried out, “Depart from me, you wicked—!” The hobgoblin dived into the duck pond and was gone.
Blue-Cap
A spirit of the mines in the north of England, manifesting as a small, flickering blue flame. The diligent blue-caps expected and received their modest wages in a far-flung corner of the mine and were helpful to respectful miners, warning them of prospective dangers.
See alsoCoblynau (#ulink_601e3b1b-f5fd-55a0-a4b4-89ecddeb4aa7), Knockers (#litres_trial_promo), Kobold (#litres_trial_promo).
Blue Men of the Minch
“The Blue Men of the Minch,” a tale relating particularly to that stretch of water in the Hebrides between Lewis and the Shiant Islands, is related in J. G. Campbell’s Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (1900), in which an eyewitness “who was very positive he had himself seen a one” describes his encounter: “A blue-coloured man with a long grey face and floating from the waist out of the water, followed the boat he was in for a long time, and was occasionally so near that the observer might have put his hand upon him.”
The Blue Men were held responsible for the stormy waters of the Minch, leaving their undersea cave-dwellings to swim toward passing ships to wreck them and only being thwarted in their intent by canny captains who could outwit them with rhyme and a sharp tongue. They are variously described as fallen angels or, as in D. A. Mackenzie’s Scottish Folk-lore and Folk Life (1935), as being based on historical accounts of captured Moors in Ireland, called “Blue Men,” who were abandoned in the ninth century by Norse seafarers.
Bodach
Literally, “old man” or “specter,” this name is found in numerous place names in Scotland. Tigh nam Bodach or “House of the Specter,” is an example of an ancient pagan site in a remote glen, where a “family” of curiously shaped stones bears the names of the Bodach, his wife Cailleach, and their children. These supernatural beings, as folk tales relate, were responsible for the fertility of the area and, being treated kindly by the local population, left the stones to be moved out of the shelter each year during the summer to ensure continuing abundance.
However, a different creature altogether, the Bodach Glas, or Dark Gray Man, is described in Waverley by Sir Walter Scott as being a gray specter warning of impending death or catastrophe.
Bodachan Sabhaill
A helpful barn brownie, the Little Old Man of the Barn “will thresh with no light in the mouth of the night” while the old farmer sleeps, according to a verse in D. A. Mackenzie’s Scottish Folk-lore and Folk Life (1935).
Bogan
SeeBauchan (#ulink_7e14ed5f-1bba-5f88-b014-a5dbd84c59d8).
Bogeyman
Tales of the Bag-man, or Man with the Sack, are told in many cultures to frighten children into good behavior. They generally portray him as a nebulous, threatening spirit carrying a bag or sack on his back in which he puts children who misbehave.
Boggart
There are many local tales of this mischievous, sometimes malevolent, brownie, either in the guise of a household spirit who steals the food from the table and torments the family or as a tricksy field-dweller.
In an old Lincolnshire story the boggart is described as “a squat hairy man, strong as a six-year-old horse, and with arms almost as long as tackle poles” who declares he is the rightful owner of the land a farmer has purchased; however, the farmer is cunning and agrees that they should share the disputed field, asking the boggart to choose whether he will take what lies above or below the earth. The boggart chooses to take what grows above ground, and the farmer promptly sets potatoes. Whichever choice the boggart makes, the farmer thwarts him, until the boggart leaves in disgust, telling the farmer he wants nothing more to do with his land. “And off he goes and nivver comes back no more …”
Bogies
A name encompassing a variety of troublesome spirits such as bug-a-boos, bugbears, boggarts, and bogles, whose aim is to sow discord and mischief among humans, although as in the tale of the boggart (see here (#ulink_320b1c9f-7197-548e-8e59-065f73aa4635)), they can sometimes be outwitted by a quick mind and clever tongue.
SeeAwd Goggie (#ulink_f4b47dea-b5d3-5a8c-9d2e-2af47599028d), Churnmilk Peg (#ulink_dd37af34-3e81-56df-b495-03354914a24c), Gooseberry Wife (#litres_trial_promo), Jack in Irons (#litres_trial_promo), Jenny Greenteeth (#litres_trial_promo), Melsh Dick (#litres_trial_promo), Mumpoker (#litres_trial_promo), Nursery Bogies (#litres_trial_promo), Padfoot (#litres_trial_promo), Shellycoat (#litres_trial_promo), Rawhead and Bloody Bones (#litres_trial_promo).
Boginki
Supernatural female water spirits in Polish mythology, “little goddesses” who sometimes steal human babies, replacing them with changelings.
Bogles
In Notes on the Folklore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders (1866) by W. Henderson, bogles are described in one tale as possessing a rather better nature than most goblins, only bedeviling wrong-doers in a retributive manner; however, in another account a bogle haunts a household and can only be got rid of with the aid of a Bible, whereupon he hastily departs in the form of a gray cat. After many years he reappears as a death omen just before the man of the house is killed in the mines.
Another haunting tale is of Berry Well, in a village in Yorkshire, where a bogle takes on the shape of a white goose.
Bokwus
A Native American wild forest spirit of the Pacific northwest coast. Masks portray him as beetle-browed and with a beaklike nose, and he lures the spirits of the drowned to live with him in his forest dwelling.
Bongas
Spirits in the folklore of the Santal people of India. Bongas permeate every area of life in the form of ancestor spirits, household spirits, and nature spirits dwelling in hills, trees, and rocks. They are propitiated by elaborate ceremonies that often culminate in dances and the drinking of rice beer. Like their European fairy counterparts, they are capricious, choosing either to bring good or ill fortune to the humans whose affairs they take an interest in. They can assume human form, and there are many tales of bonga girls or maidens wedded to human grooms, who bring either happiness or torment to their mortal husbands.
The kisar bonga is a household spirit; similar to a Scottish brownie, he brings prosperity to his master if treated with due respect, but is quick to take offense and withdraw his help.
Booman
In the northern isles of Orkney and Shetland, the Booman hobgoblin is variously described as a “good fairy,” by Edmonston in the nineteenth century, or in other folk tales as a frightening presence haunting lonely roads. Today he is remembered mainly in a traditional game which involves enacting a funeral while singing “Booman is dead and gone” and in other folk songs.
Boomasoh
Tree spirits, or nats, in Burmese folk beliefs. They reside among the tree’s roots. Other types of tree-dwelling nat, such as the akakasoh and the shekkasoh, make their homes in other parts of the tree.
Bottrell, William (1816–1881)
Writer and folklorist William Bottrell was born near St. Levan, a few miles from Land’s End in Cornwall, England. He was educated at Penzance Grammar School until 1831 and later at Bodmin School. His grandmother told him traditional Cornish stories from a young age and was a great influence on his future writings. These stories had been handed down for generations.
Bottrell traveled extensively and bought some land in the Basque region of Spain, where he gathered more traditional folk tales. The land was later confiscated and he returned, ruined, to Cornwall. He settled on a smallholding near Lelant where he gathered more stories from the tin miners of the area. He recounted these tales to Robert Hunt, who used them in his own publications. Bottrell was encouraged by the editor of the Cornish Telegraph to write and publish the tales himself and the first of these writings appeared in that newspaper in 1867. He also wrote for the periodicals One and All and the Reliquary.
Bottrell’s tales tell of giants, mermaids, witches, and Cornish fairies such as buccas, knockers, and spriggans (apparently he had a black cat named Spriggans). The tales were compiled into three volumes, the first of which was Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall vol. I (1870); the second volume was published in 1873, and the third, Stories and Folklore of West Cornwall, in 1880.
Bozaloshtsh
Literally, “God’s Plaint,” a banshee-like spirit in Wend folklore of eastern Germany. Like the Irish banshee, she is an omen of impending death and weeps in lament beneath the window of those about to die. In some accounts she is described as a small woman with long hair; in others she is associated with the elder tree and is described as a red-eyed woman clad in white with long, braided hair.
Brag
Described in folk tales from Northumberland and northern Britain, the brag is an irksome goblin taking on the appearance of a horse, a calf, or a headless man among others.
An old tale relates the misfortune that befell the wearer of an ill-fated white suit: meeting the brag in the form of a horse, the white-suited man unwisely leaped onto its back for a ride home and was promptly tossed into a pond, the horse laughing and neighing noisily as it galloped away.
Bran the Blessed
(Also Bendigeidfran.) Son of the Welsh sea god Llyr and brother of Branwen, Bran the Blessed, whose name means “raven” or “crow,” is featured in the ancient Welsh stories of the Mabinogion. He is described as a sea deity, a giant of such massive proportions that no house can accommodate him, a king of Britain, and the keeper of the magical cauldron of regeneration, which restores fallen warriors to life.
One of the most famous stories of Bran tells of his struggles with the Irish.
One day the Irish king Matholwch came to Bran the Blessed to make an alliance. Bran and his brother, Manawydan, agreed to grant the king their beautiful sister Branwen’s hand in marriage to forge a lasting peace between Britain and Ireland.
Branwen consented and a great wedding celebration was held in the open air, for no building was big enough to contain the godlike proportions of Bran. There was much rejoicing, until Bran’s half-brother, Efnisien, arrived back to discover that the wedding had taken place without his knowledge. Flying into a rage because he had been left out of the proceedings, he attacked and mutilated King Matholwch’s horses. This act of cruelty was intended as an insult and Matholwch was greatly offended.
In an attempt to make peace and appease his Irish guests, Bran offered various gifts of horses, silver, and gold, and eventually won them over when he promised to give them the magical cauldron of regeneration. King Matholwch accepted the gifts and returned to Ireland with his bride.
At first all was well. Branwen was well received in Ireland and bore Matholwch a son, Gwern. However, as time passed, anger at Efnisien’s insult grew among Matholwch’s people. Matholwch himself took his resentment out on Branwen, banishing her from his chamber to work in the kitchen. No Briton who visited Ireland was allowed to return home lest Bran hear how badly his sister was being treated. But while chopping wood in the yard, the resourceful Branwen tamed a starling and, after years of patient teaching, trained it to carry messages for her. She tied a message to the bird’s leg to take to Bran, telling him of her plight.
When the news reached Bran, he summoned a great fleet of ships and men to invade Ireland and rescue his sister. Too large to fit aboard any ship, he himself waded through the sea.
The Irish were confounded when they saw what looked like a huge forest and strange mountain moving through the sea toward them. When Matholwch asked Branwen about this strange vision, she knew it was her brother coming to save her. When she told Matholwch that the forest was a fleet of ships and the great mountain behind it was her brother, the people of Ireland were afraid. They retreated across the River Shannon, destroying the bridge behind them, but when Bran reached the river he stretched his great body across it, allowing his men to cross over his back like a bridge.
Backed into a corner, Matholwch sought to make amends. He offered his kingdom to Branwen’s son, Gwern, and proposed to construct a building large enough to house even Bran, where the Irish and British could meet to celebrate a lasting peace.
Finally, Bran agreed and the great meeting-house was built. But Matholwch wasn’t true to his peace offer and hid armed men in sacks that were hung up inside the mighty house.
When the two sides entered the house for the supposed peace meeting, Efnisien enquired what was inside the sacks. On being told they contained flour, he proceeded to squish the contents of each sack until all of the warriors were dead.
