Shapeshifting Creatures of Folklore: Fairies, Selkies and Ghosts

Shapeshifting is an ancient ability that appears in cultures around the world across the ages.

It appears in an array of ‘types’ of shapeshifting. Some creatures can simply shift their form due to a natural ability. Gods often change their form (hello, Zeus), but they can also change the form of others. Look at the myths involving humans and nymphs being turned into plants or animals through their dealings with the gods. Zeus turns Io into a heifer to hide her from Hera’s gaze. Daphne’s river god father turns her into a laurel to avoid Apollo’s amorous pursuit.

Demonic activity, sorcery, and being cursed might also lead to a person shifting their form. Look at witches transforming themselves into hares. Fairy tales are often a good source of the latter story type – Beauty and the Beast would be a good example.

Since this is such a vast and multifaceted topic, we’ll focus on those creatures able to change their own shape at will, and as ever, I’ll stick to the British Isles. In next week’s post, we’ll look at those who shift their shape through magic.

This is in no way a comprehensive exploration of the topic since it’s a blog post, not a book – this is just the tip of the iceberg! If there’s a demand for it, I’ll cover shapeshifting gods in another post. But for now, let’s look at shapeshifting fairies and supernatural creatures…

Shifting Form Through a Change of Skin

Perhaps an obvious way of shifting your form is by switching between the two selves that you have. Selkies are a famous example of shapeshifter, able to change their form between human and seal by discarding or returning to their seal skin. I have a full article about selkies, so I won’t go into them too much in detail here.

But they demonstrate the way in which a supernatural creature can shift forms in a consistent way. Unlike some of the fairies and ghosts we’ll meet who change their form at will, these skin-based shapeshifters move between two forms. It isn’t always entirely clear what benefit they get from their human form, aside from the ability to gather and dance in groups.

This is also a fascinating motif because there are examples of this same principle in other parts of the world. The women might take the form of swans, cassowaries, and other birds. In these stories, the focus is most often on the shapeshifting women, and they’re presented as docile or compliant. Human men steal their skins and force them into marriages, though if they regain their skin, they return to their natural environment. For these shapeshifters, the human form is only temporary.

Meanwhile, the kelpie of Scottish legend is a shapeshifter in some tales between humans and horses. These accounts often have the kelpie become a human with hooves. They’re sometimes considered fairies, while others, like Katharine Briggs, consider them to be nature spirits (1957: 272).

When kelpies appear in male form, they’re said to be very hairy. They jump out at lone travellers on deserted roads to crush them to death. Most depictions show female kelpies as being seductive and hyper-sexual. They take the form of beautiful women and lure men to their deaths in the water.

In both cases, the human form acts as the way to access their victims, though it doesn’t appear to be their ‘true’ form.

Fairies

Some fairies are believed to be able to turn into different animals. However, John Kruse suggests this might be less to do with any inherent ability, and more to do with the fluidity of the boundaries between fairies and animals (2022). Kruse also suggests that the ability to change form is comparatively rare among British fairies, where they favour glamour to change their appearance instead (2018).

That said, there are some branches of the fairy family that make shapeshifting a central part of what they do. Yes, I’m going to focus on the so-called ‘bogey beasts’ that are common in the legends of the northeast of England.

Bogey beasts tend to use shapeshifting as a way to fool humans, wreaking havoc and causing harm with merry abandon. Many of them don’t speak but have some sort of ‘trademark’ so people know they’ve encountered them. That might be a favoured haunt, a sound, or a feature, like flaming eyes.

The Hedley Kow

The Hedley Kow is described as “a bogie” by William Henderson, and he’s an unusual shapeshifter since he can also take the form of inanimate objects. In one famous tale, he turned himself into a bale of straw near an old woman gathering sticks. Pleased at such a find, the woman would carry the straw home, but the bale would become incredibly heavy until she put it back down. At this point, the bundle would stand up and shuffle away, vanishing with a snickering horse-like laugh (1879: 270).

The Hedley Kow could even appear as two figures, not just one. According to local legend, in 1880, two young men in Hedley set off to meet their girlfriends. They’d agreed to meet on the way to Prudhoe. But the men were half a mile from the agreed meeting place when they saw the girls already waiting. The pair sped up, but as they did so, the girls started walking away from them. They also ignored the men’s calls, so the men broke into a faster pace.

Every time the men sped up, the girls also hurried up until both pairs were almost running. Inexplicably, the girls veered off the path and headed off across a field. The boys hurried after them, but within minutes, found themselves in a bog, their legs soaked up to their knees. The girls finally moved towards them, morphing into a single beast, believed to be horse-shaped, as it reached them. The Hedley Kow, as they realised it was, gave its trademark laugh and disappeared (Matthews 2009: 22).

The Picktree Brag

We could also look at the Brag, a shapeshifting creature found in the hobgoblin family. The Picktree Brag could apparently change its form, being a calf, a headless naked man, and “four men holding a white sheet” (Briggs 1976: 36). It does beg the question how anyone knew each of these different entities was the same brag.

As with the Hedley Kow, shapeshifting allowed the Brag to persecute individuals and carry out its mischief. There seems to be little real reason for it to target anyone, other than the fact it found it funny. Much like tricksters we find elsewhere in folklore, the shapeshifter in this category likes to disrupt order and play pranks, purely because it can.

Fairies as Pet Cats

There was an incident recorded at Beggar Bush Farm near Easington in County Durham. The farmer, John Bonner, was heading home one night when something leapt out of the hedge into the back of his cart. It cried, “Johnny Bonner, Johnny! When thou gets hyem, tell your cat Catherine Curley’s deed.” Hyem is home, and deed is dead.

John turned to see who was speaking to him and found a big cat in the back of his cart. It leapt back into the hedge and John drove home in a panic. When he got home, his wife asked why he was so terrified, so he told her what had happened, repeating the big cat’s words. As soon as the words left his mouth, their pet cat jumped up and cried “Aw mun awa” and ran out of the door. They never saw her again.

A similar story happened in Staindrop, and people generally assumed the cats were fairies in feline form. They rushed to leave so they could attend a family funeral (Westwood 2005: 223). Sadly the stories don’t explain why the fairies were in feline form and living with farmers, but this suggests that for these fairies, being able to adopt another form indefinitely was well within their remit. Were it not for the death announcement, you have to wonder how long they would have stayed as family pets.

Ghosts

Yes, I’m putting these under supernatural creatures because there are some tales of beings described as ghosts that shift their form. The barguest, that friend of Fabulous Folklore, would be an excellent example. A barguest apparently haunted the area near Darlington that shifted forms between a black dog, a white cat or rabbit, a headless woman, and a headless man who disappeared in a flash of flame (Henderson 1879: 275). Like the Picktree Brag, it’s unclear how people knew these forms were the same barguest.

Barguests already straddle that line of “Are they black dogs?” and “Are they bogey beasts?” Black dogs are more spectral in nature, but some of the barguest stories see them playing tricks on people. Check out the article for more details, but whether the barguest is a black dog or a bogey beast, the result is the same. A spectral black dog is still a ghost that has changed form, while a bogey beast is a shapeshifter by its very nature.

The Northumbrian Dunnie

The Northumbrian Dunnie is often believed to be a Border reiver ghost on Belford Moor. According to legend, he hid his treasure in a cave but died before he could tell anyone where it was. This, surprisingly, was once a key reason for ghosts continuing to haunt. Once someone found their treasure, they could stop haunting. We see this in the tale of Meg o’ Meldon, who seemed to roam her local area in Northumberland until her hidden money caches were found.

Yet the Dunnie appears no mere ghost, which explains his inclusion here.

The Dunnie could also shift forms, appearing in stories as a horse or a donkey. He’s described as a dun-coloured pony, which perhaps explains his name. A favourite trick involved him appearing as the farmer’s horse when the farmer needed to fetch the midwife. He’d carry the midwife and the farmer to the mother-to-be, but when the farmer took the midwife home, the Dunnie would disappear at the moment he carried them over a stream, depositing them in the water (Briggs 1976: 114).

Given other supernatural creatures enjoyed this trick, including the Hedley Kow, there was a tendency to try and keep pregnant women away from unknown horses in the area.

What do we make of these shapeshifters?

For these shapeshifters, changing their form is intrinsic to who and what they are. Whether they’re selkies discarding their skin to appear human, or bogey beasts seeking to wreak havoc, shifting their form is a simple thing for them to do. As Kruse notes, it points out the fluidity of the boundary between ‘humanoid’ and ‘other’ for some of the fairies. As nature spirits, changing their form into an animal, bird, or insect makes sense for them.

The bogey beasts are slightly different since their shifting depends on the prank they want to play. For the Hedley Kow, appearing as a horse to the two men meeting their girlfriends would have made little sense. The men would likely have ignored it. But appearing as their girlfriends they were on their way to meet? Clearly, the men would follow them, making it easier to lure them into the bog. It’s unclear if the bogey beasts play their pranks with a genuine wish to harm humans, or if they just like causing chaos. But being able to appear as one thing and then another makes playing pranks a lot easier.

And shapeshifting also appears in popular culture. Look at Mystique in The X-Men. She might not be able to change form into a different species, instead transforming into different people, but her shapeshifting ability aligns her with the bogey beasts, out to cause mischief by fooling others.

So perhaps speak kindly to your cat this evening. Who knows if it’s really just a cat?

Who is your favourite folklore shapeshifter? Let me know below!

References

Briggs, K. M. (1957), ‘The English Fairies’, Folklore, 68:1, pp. 270-287.

Briggs, Katharine (1976), A Dictionary of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures, London: Penguin Books.

Henderson, William (1879), Notes on the folk-lore of the northern counties of England and the borders, London: W. Satchell, Peyton and Co.

Kruse, John (2018), ‘“In the likeness of a crab”- fairy shape shifters’, British Fairies, https://britishfairies.wordpress.com/2018/12/02/in-the-likeness-of-a-crab-fairy-shape-shifters/.

Kruse, John (2022), ‘Shapeshifting faeries’, British Fairies, https://britishfairies.wordpress.com/2022/05/29/shapeshifting-faeries/.

Matthews, Rupert (2009), Mysterious Northumberland, Derby: Breedon Books.

Westwood, Jennifer, Simpson, Jacqueline (2005) The Lore of the Land: A Guide to England’s Legends, London: Penguin.