Tag: scottish mythology

allaboutmyths:

gentleman-bayleef:

bebethsas:

allaboutmyths:

glitched-realness:

allaboutmyths:

My advise: if you see a suspicious woman washing laundry at a river, don’t talk to her, just walk on.
Or talk to her, I’m not your mom. But be warned, she will foretell death. Yours or someone else’s, but death is most assured.

I feel like Banshees are misunderstood tbh, like they’re not causing death nor trying to make you scared; the only thing they’re doing is being like “hey! X person is gonna die soon, you might wanna say goodbye or fix your stuff with them” but like, that’s just my opinion

I was specifically referring to the Washer Woman at the Ford, which, admittedly, is a type of banshee. Personally, I’d suggest a stealthy approach to talking to her, if you happen upon her. You might even get three wishes—-though this requires you to catch hold of her.

On a different note—-I agree that banshees are misunderstood. Media depictions are almost assuredly responsible for this. They’re not the scary monsters they’re made out as, since yeah, they’re only warning you of the death and not bringing it about themselves.

also Scottish Banshees: there were at least one per clan, and they foretold the deaths of members of the clan (usually members of the royal family)…which is awesome, because it was more of a ‘heyyy just a heads up, when this guy rides unto battle, he’s gonna die.’ They looked out for the members of the clan and were seen as important. They weren‘t avoided like the plague

The woman washing clothes in the river sounds like a Red Cap, a fae from Scotland and Ireland that uses the blood of her victims to dye her clothes

I want to point this out before anything else—-I am not trying to disprove you. Rather, I just haven’t come across this particular story/stories. I LOVE learning about different version of myths, legends and folklore!!!!

That being said—-I haven’t heard of a Red Cap in relation to the Washerwoman at the Ford, but I have heard of a Redcap before. Specifically:

Redcaps as a type of goblin-like creature, and live in ruins—-specifically along the border between England and Scotland. They’re called Redcaps because they dye their hats with the blood of their victims. They’re depicted as solely male, unlike the Washer at the Ford, who is a bean sith and therefore a woman. If their cap ever dries out, they die, since they need a continual supply of blood. There is a version where they’re benevolent, but it’s not a particularly widespread version.

What happens if you just quietly help her with her laundry, because hand-washing laundry by yourself sucks?

red–thedragon:

poplitealqueen:

Some selkie comes on land, right? And he’s a horny boy, just on dry land to bang as selkies are wont to do, but he’s not a dumb boy so he keeps his seal-skin close at hand, maybe in the form of a jacket tied around his hips or a cloak on his shoulders.

Anyways, he’s walking around. Looking and looking, and OH. Who is this handsome, dripping wet fellow standing by a mini ocean (the human skinned folk call them locks or something like that, our selkie boy can’t quite remember) that he has just come upon? The selkie is all, oooh, is that seaweed in your hair? I love seaweed.

And seaweed head is like, “Sure is. Wanna bang?”

And selkie is like, “Do I!”

But when they’re about to get it on, the selkie notices something strange. Seaweed head’s skin is sticky like glue, catching the hand he presses to his chest fast, and they appear to be walking *into* the mini ocean.

Luckily, seal-skins are easy to use when selkies have them close. Just as they’re disappearing into the dark ripples of the loch, the selkie transforms back into a seal. His hand turns back into a flipper, freeing itself from seaweed head’s strange, sticky hold, and he swims just out of reach.

“You’re the strangest human I’ve ever met,” said the selkie.

“I’m no human,” replied seaweed head. “I’m a kelpie, and I eat humans.”

“Well, I’m not really human,” explained the selkie, kinda weirded out because the kelpie just transmorgrified from seaweed head to a giant frigging horse with inverted hooves. “I’m a selkie. Do you eat selkies?”

The kelpie pondered this.

“I don’t think so?” He finally conceeded, and now he looked kind of uncomfortable. “Maybe you should go home now, weird little…thing.”

But the selkie said nah because this was exciting and new for him, and long story short this is how some kelpie gets adopted by a pod of selkies and learns how not to be a giant sadistic child-eating lake monster, and then the kelpie and the first selkie fall in love because why not? Let monsters love monsters. Cowards. Thanks for reading.

I love this so much