c4 The Kelpie. 



who found, as the moon rose and the haze dispersed, that they 

 Avere in mid-channel, with a strong tide setting fast in upon them, 

 were mistaken by the people, both on the Scottish and English 

 shores, for the wailing of Kelpies ! The consequence was that 

 the unhappy people (whose boat had drifted from them before 

 their fatal error was discovered) were all drowned ; though 

 nothing had been easier, but for the rooted superstition of their 

 neighbours ashore, than to have effectually succoured them." 

 Can any member of the society, I wonder, confirm this account 

 of the incident ? As a calamity it might almost be said to be 

 eclipsed only by what Sir Walter Scott mentions in his note to the 

 passage quoted above from " The Lady of the Lake," as one of 

 the Kelpie's most memorable exploits, viz., the destruction, on 

 the banks of Loch Vennacher, of a funeral procession with all its 

 attendants. 



A little stream again, we are told in a " Heart of Mid- 

 Lothian " note, had been swollen into a torrent by the rains. 

 "The hour's come, but not the man," was what the as yet un- 

 satisfied water-spirit was heard complaining. With that came 

 galloping up in hot haste a man on horseback, who attempted 

 to cross the water. " No remonstrance from the bystanders was 

 of power to stop him: he plunged into the stream, and perished." 

 A story resembling it is told in connection with the parish of 

 Castleton, with the variation that the bystanders prevented the 

 " predestined individual ' ' by force from entering the river, and 

 shut him up in the church, where he was next morning found 

 suffocated, with his face lying immersed in the baptismal font. 



The terror with which the demon was regarded was all the 

 greater because he so seldom gave any warning to those who 

 invaded his haunts. The workmen engaged in erecting the 

 church of Old Deer, and who had started to build it on the Bissau 

 Hill, might count themselves fortunate; and it was probably well 

 for them that they took the hint, when they found their work 

 impeded by supernatural obstacles, and heard the river-spirit 

 say : — 



■'It i-s not here, it is not here, 

 That ye shall build the Kirk of Deer; 

 But on Taptillerj', where many a corpse shall lie." 



The Gaelic name for the Kelpie — Each-uisge (water-horse) 



