Punch a hole in an eggshell or the fairies will use it as a boat

4 hours ago , by Richard Lutz

Richard Lutz pays tribute to those of the other world

The wooden bridge links our mundane lives to the multiverse of fairies, elves, witches, sprites and the wee people of the night. It is at the eastern end of Lynn Glen, a deep gorge carved out of the crust hundreds of millions of years ago (‘before the dinosaurs’, an expert helpfully confides), in what is now the fertile green earth south of Glasgow.

The deep notch, its sandstone walls edged by trees, is riven by The Water of Caaf tumbling in a series of noisy waterfalls:

It tumbles and roars:

And tumbles some more:

The path alongside is decorated (some would say littered ) with magic symbols and spirit-houses placed there by people unknown. Coins are nailed into tree branches:

And, ominously, a bench has been built to commemorate a terrible legacy when Bessie Dunlop was burned at the stake 450 years ago.

Her crime: she was a midwife. She was one of 5000 murdered for witchcraft in Scotland alone between 1500 and 1700. It’s a bloodstained and ugly chapter in the nation’s past.

Next to her memorial, a photograph peers out from a tree. It’s of an unidentified young man:

There’s no name, but the caption reads simply ‘Sonshine’. He peers out hesitantly, tentatively, above a branch studded with those nailed-in coins.

Why did some grieving mother, wife or friend decide it was vital to place that picture there? Was it to pay tribute to the spirits? To pay tribute to the young man? Was it just a nice nook in the Glen? Tellingly, and this is my imagination running wild here, this little photo-memorial, so near Bessie’s bench, is only yards from the bridge where the ravine’s fairy trail ends and the ‘normal’ world once again springs into life up a switchback to higher ground.

Throughout Britain, and especially in Scotland, other remote nooks and crannies are hideaways for the little people. And with their refuges come the lessons to be learned…such as always punch a hole in the bottom of your hard boiled-eggshell or the fairies will use it as a boat. 

More spirit-info comes from The Reverend Robert Kirk, a minister in the Scottish town of Aberfoyle, who wrote a book in 1691 called The Secret Commonwealth about the lives of elves and, crucially, The Sith who are the spirits of the Gaelic world. Just one year later, he died while walking on Doon Hill, north of Glasgow where he said the fairies lived.

Today Doon Hill still remembers the vicar’s theory. A tall Scots Pine caps the top and it’s draped in fairy cloth by those that….well….believe in the other world. One fact you didn’t know is that Rev Kirk was reportedly captured by elves and kept prisoner beneath the tall tree because his book spilled the beans on the sprites who lived there.

Way northwest of Doon Hill is the Isle of Skye. Remote, misty, many times simply rainy and plagued by bus tours. Best to go before Easter to check out the spirit world dug deep into its stark landscape. But first a view of this edge of the world:

It is Neist Point, poised in the western edge of Skye. It is the neighbour to the Neist Lighthouse, now unmanned and peering out into the North Atlantic:

Not too far away there’s a link to the mythic underworld. It is a chain of mountain cataracts and clearwater ponds that collect in The Fairy Pools of Skye:

It’s a well known fact that the pools were the site of a massacre so vicious that the clear mountain waters ran red with blood. And it’s also a well known proven legendary fact that the chief of the local MacLeod clan actually married a fairy princess.

She might have been a sea spirit, called a selkie, who inhabit the rough seas around Skye. They change into human form, many times as young women, and walk among those on land until they return to the grey waves. Some have been seen having a paddle in The Fairy Pools. Many have been known to help sailors in peril. Maybe one married a clan chieftain on a misty night.

More nefarious are kelpies. They are mysterious horses spirits who live in Scottish lochs and rivers and are bent on nothing but trouble.

Keep away from the kelpies. They’re up to no good. No good at all. By the way, to help you avoid these darned water borne spirit horses, these kelpies, take note that they are always black. That’s a well known proven fact in fairyland. A well known fact indeed from The Waters of Caaf all the way up to the Fairy pools of Skye. Take heed and safe travels.