Monster of the Week: Kelpie

By Alex Harris

You might know it from: Pokemon (probably inspiration); Dungeon & Dragons; Potentially Umamusume, you can never be too sure. 

Dear Reader,

For a bit, the Kelpie wasn’t a monster I was familiar with, I’d heard of it by name but didn’t have anything to attach it to, so I thought it would be interesting to share what I learned with you. The Kelpie is a mythical spirit that drags people, usually children, into the sea (or river, or lake, or basically anything deep enough to kill someone). What happens to the people after the drowning is unclear. Sometimes they are eaten, sometimes enslaved, but either way it's not a very good time. Kelpies are shapeshifters, but they tend to take the form of a horse. Granted, it's a really beautiful horse, to the point where you feel a deep urge to get on it and claim it for your own. The Kelpie’s strategy is to hope that you see the horse, say, “Oh boy, I can’t wait to ride on that horse,” and get on. Then, you hurtle way faster than a horse could possibly go, ending up plunged directly into the ocean and unable to get away. As the Kelpie is a shapeshifter, it also transforms into other forms, often humans. It takes the form of a woman occasionally to lure men to their death, and if it gets tired of the whole trickery thing it can also become a buff man to drag you in. The Kelpie’s main limitation is its bridle. If you manage to take it, you gain control of them. 

Kelpies tend to be portrayed as evil, mostly because of the whole child-eating thing, but they are often sympathized with in Scottish mythology. Kelpies are hard workers, and that is often either exploited or appreciated. An example of the former is the story of Laird Graham of Morphie, who stole a Kelpie’s bridle to force it to build a castle for him. He forced the Kelpie to work in cruel conditions until it became closer to death than it already was as a spirit. The Kelpie in that story eventually gets its bridle back and curses the Laird. An example of the latter comes from the story from Peterhead, when a man captured a Kelpie to help him build a bridge. After the Kelpie completed it, he set it free and remembered its dedication for days to come. 

There are many different stories and creatures within that take up a similar role as the Kelpie. Close by is the Nuggle and the Each-uisage, but farther away in both location and lore are the Bäckahästen and the Nixies. The Bäckahästen has many similarities to the Kelpie on first blush, as both lure you on to their backs and drown you, however, it is also an adept musician, able to teach music that sways even nature itself. The Nix are also skilled musicians; although they are sadly not horses, they use lyrics to lure people into the lake. A famous example of a Nix is Lorelei, who is said to have caused various accidents in the Rhine. Confusingly, the umbrella term for creatures who lure you into a watery grave, like the Kelpie, the Nuggle, the Bäckahästen, and the Nixies, are Nixies. An obvious question arises, why are these types of stories so common? There are theories, namely that it diffused through the pagans, but my personal opinion is that bodies of water are vast and encroaching, and in an area almost fully surrounded by water like Scotland, it makes sense that people would develop such a fear and reverence for the deep.