The Old Corpse Road Folklore Collective









Wichtlein behave in much the same way as goblins. They announce the death of a miner by tapping three times. When a disaster is about to happen they are heard digging, pounding and imitating miners work.




Also called Fairy Lights, Elf-fire, Hobbedy’s Lantern or Night Whispers. No one is quite sure what these distant floating balls of flame are, but they are generally associated with and are sometimes thought of as faeries in the British Isles. Usually known as small winged fairies whose glowing lights can be seen at dusk in the meadows and grassy hills. Known to appear at night in lonely places carrying a lantern. It uses this light to cause travelers to lose their way.



Water Leaper (Llamhigyn Y Dwr)

The Water Leaper, also known as Llamhigyn Y Dwr, is a creature from Welsh folklore that lived in swamps, lakes and ponds. It is described as a giant frog with a bat's wings instead of forelegs, no hind legs, and a long, lizard-like tail. It jumps across the water using its wings, hence its name.It was blamed for problems ranging from snapping fishing lines to eating livestock or even fishermen.




Trows (Alternatively trowe; a Scots term for troll)  live on the Shetland and Orkney Islands and are probably the best known, and widespread, element of Orkney folklore.


Similiar to the Scandinavian Trolls and like them, they live beneath the ground and have an aversion to daylight. In many cases indistinguishable from the fairy folklore found throughout Northern Europe, the archetypal trow was an ugly, mischievous, little creature that resided in the ancient mounds scattered across Orkney.Their traditional grotesque and outlandish appearance is confirmed by some of the names ascribed to them - names such as Truncherface (trencher face) and Bannafeet (bannock feet). Trows, like faeries in general, can be helpful to those they found favorable and offended by any gifts set out for them.



In what may be one of the earliest recorded trow tales, the creatures were said to be nocturnal and never appeared in daylight. If a trow is caught above ground when the sun rises he cannot return to his home until the sun sets again. Even when they emerged at night, to many they were invisible. This element of trow folklore echoes both the traditions that the Orkney fairy was invisible and that the Norwegian troll was unable to venture outside in sunlight.



King Trows were exclusively male and would leave their homes to court and marry mortal women, though as soon as her baby was born the mother would die.  They are frequently observed performing a curious lop-sided dance called 'Henking' 

In days past, trows were said to be frequent night-time visitors to the house. Once a household had retired for the night, the trows would enter the building and sit by the glowing fire. Numerous tales recount how the terrified farmer and his wife would lie in bed listening to their unwanted guests scuttling around in the other end of the house. This, together with the trows' documented hatred of locked doors, strengthens opinion that the tradition is a remnant of the creatures' origin as an undead spirit.



But although the majority of trow tales come to us as mere folktales, there are still a few intriguing accounts that supposedly detail actual trow encounters. In the late 1960s, after the Orcadian folklorist Ernest Marwick published some stories about the trows in a Scottish magazine, an Englishman who had spent time in Hoy during World War Two wrote to describe:


Trowie Tunes

Some Shetland fiddle tunes are said to have come to human fiddlers when they heard the trows playing. One example of such a "trowie tune," Winyadepla, may be found in the playing of Tom Anderson on his album with Aly Bain, The Silver Bow.


White Ladies

The use of White Ladies for both ghosts and fairies is an indication of the close connection between fairies and the dead. The White Ladies were direct descendants of the Tuatha De Danann.The name "Guinevere" means "white phantom".They may be female Gentry (see Gentry) or the Tuatha who vanished into the Mists.

Tylwyth Teg

(terlooeth teig) .

Tylwyth Teg is a general name for the fairies in Wales, it means the 'fair folk'. Like the euphemistic Bendith y Mamau the flattering name was thought to appease them, in an attempt to avert their kidnapping activities. Fairies would typically leave a sickly changeling child in the place of the healthy child they had stolen.

In many accounts, their king is said to be Gwyn ap Nudd. They are associated with a number of places in Wales, including the lake, Llyn y Fan Fach.They are like the Daoine Sidhe, and dwell underground or underwater in under hollow hills and in deep crevices, and to frequent ancient places such as Bronze Age Barrows or cromlechs.

They are small in stature and have golden or fair-hair and dress in white. Like other faerie folk they are fond of dancing and singing and making fairy rings. They are partial to golden haired mortals. The danger of visiting them in their own country lies in the miraculous passage of time in Faeryland. According to many stories time in their realm passed much slower than in ours, a day in their realm could be a year or a hundred years in ours. This difference could prove disastrous for any mortals returning from the fairy realm. They give riches to their favourites, but these gifts vanish if they are spoken of.They are usually portrayed as benevolent but capable of mischief. The Tylwyth Teg are said to fear iron and unbaptized children could supposedly be protected from them by placing a poker over their cradle.

They often interacted with mortals in the past and the fairy maidens are easily won as wives and will live with human husbands for a time , although they always longed to return to their own people.

One example of the Tylwyth was the Jili Ffrwtan, female fairies who were of a proud and amorous disposition.

A common belief was that the Tywyth Teg had Fairy paths upon which it was death for a mortal to walk.