Shetland Folklore
Crofthouse Museum, South Mainland
Folklore has played a huge part in Shetland’s society and culture. These islands are a place that has inspired generations of storytellers, and that tradition of storytelling has continued, with mysterious tales being retold and passed through generations.
The dramatic coastline and rich moorland expanses have given rise to a deep-rooted culture of folklore, superstition and deeply-embedded traditions.
In the past, education, literature and access to news was limited. Travel for pleasure was almost unheard of, and a venture out into the neighbouring parish or district was a novelty. Friends and neighbours, particularly throughout the long winter, would gather together by the fireside and share stories and tales to occupy the long winter nights.
Here are a few favourite characters from Shetland folklore:
Trow illustration by Davy Cooper
Trows
One of the most common and best-loved tales from Shetland’s folklore are those about the trows, or little people, who live in the hills. These hill-folk are much revered across the isles, and even today appear in stories and popular culture.
Trows are creatures, similar to humans but smaller and uglier, who live in the hills, particularly the heathery peatlands inland from the sea. They would come out only at night to work mischief in the human world, and if a trow were to get caught out by the rising sun, it would turn to stone before it was able to get back to its underground lair. Many of Shetland’s standing stones are said to be petrified trows, including the Haltadans stone circle in Fetlar (see area guide in the guidebook for more).
Trows particularly loved fiddle music, and much of our traditional music is thought to have been learned from the trows or from the people who were taken by them or heard the music emitting from their underground knowes (a small hill or knoll). Trows are said to have snatched up fiddlers on many occasions, usually when the person was travelling to or from a musical engagement, particularly weddings, to play at trowie gatherings. The musician would sometimes be gone for days, months, years or even decades and, on returning, would believe their absence to be no more than a few hours. (For more about music, check out the music section in the guidebook.)
Njuggles were often associate with water mills - these mills are in Papa Stour
Njuggles
Njuggles are another feature of Shetland’s folklore, but much more feared than the trow. A njuggle is a mythical horse-like creature, similar to the Scottish kelpie, who lures unsuspecting people onto their winged backs before careering off, carrying them to a watery grave. Njuggles are almost always associated with water – burns and lochs, or damp areas such as meadows and marshes. Njugals Water, close to Scalloway, takes its name from the njuggle that is said to have been turned to stone in the Tingwall Valley (see Central Mainland area guide in the guidebook).
Njuggles were a particular threat to milling – they were thought to get into the mill’s underhouse and stop the tirl (the mechanism that drives the mill). The only way to rid the mill of the njuggle was to throw down a burning peat. The njuggle would then disappear with a roar of thunder, a blinding flash and a blue flame.
Where trows were generally just mischievous, the arrival of a njuggle was almost always a dangerous encounter and these creatures were very much feared for they always meant ill.
Sea creatures
It’s unsurprising that, given Shetland’s reliance on the sea, sea creatures are a prominent feature in stories from folklore. The sea was a food source, plentiful and abundant, but it was also a dangerous mistress, shrouded in mystery with unknown monsters lurking below the waters. In days before modern weather forecasting, fishermen depended entirely on their senses and freak weather was often blamed on witchcraft, or the work of someone who wished to do the boat, or a member of the crew an “ill turn”. Fishermen were terribly superstitious and very much believed in other-worldly beings.
Creatures from the deep include the Midder o’ da Sea (Sea Mother) – a sea serpent, similar to the Jörmungandr from Norse mythology who controlled the tides with its breaths. The Bregdi was one of the most feared, for it would chase boats before engulfing them, sending the crew to a watery grave. Interestingly, the dialect name for a basking shark is brigdi.
Ash from the Gallow Hill cremation site on display in Scalloway Museum
Witches
Witches were women in the community believed to have powers. No favour that these women asked of a neighbour was ever refused for fear of repercussions. They were often avoided, sometimes shunned and periodically sought out in a family’s hour of need but, generally, they were quietly respected and feared in equal measures.
There are many stories across Shetland of women with healing powers, those who were able to help an ailing child or animal, particularly if they had come under a trowie spell or curse. These women are generally portrayed in folklore as older spinsters who live alone and have powers greater than the everyday being.
Throughout the 17th century, a particularly bleak period in our history, many women were tried and executed for witchcraft. The last witches are thought to have been executed around 1700 in Scalloway (see Central Mainland area guide for information about how to visit the cremation site on Gallow Hill).
to get a deeper insight to the folklore of the islands, pick up a copy of our guidebook.
Giants
Giants are another prominent player in tales of Shetland’s lore. Many of the features of our landscape that today we explain with science and geology were, in the past, explained in far more imaginative ways.
A favourite giant story comes from Petta Water, in the Central Mainland. It’s said that a giant once lived there, alongside the trows. The trows were harassing the giant, endlessly hounding him as he tried to sleep, whispering in his ears and pulling at his whiskers. The giant resolved to rid the area of the trows. He made a kishie (a straw basket, carried on the back) and began gathering the trows up, loading them carefully into the basket. Once he was happy that they were all rounded up he began to carry them along, with the intention of tossing them out to sea. Unfortunately for the giant, the cumulative weight of the trows was enough to cause the bottom to fall out of the kishie, and they fell to the ground and dispersed in all directions. Utterly fed up, the giant packed up his bits and pieces and left. It’s said he crossed the North Sea and went to Norway, leaving only his footprint in the form of Petta Water and a hollow in the hill where he stooped down, landing on his knee, to gather the trows.
(For more stories about giants, check out Herman and Saxa in the Unst area guide in the guidebook.)
Selkies
There was a widespread belief that selkies – the local name for seals – could take the form of a human by casting off their seal-skins, which they left concealed on the beach until their return. Often selkies would come ashore and dance by the moonlight on secluded beaches, particularly at midsummer. Sometimes they would use their powers to lure a human mate back to sea.
Posing as a handsome shipwrecked sailor, a selkie would knock at the door of a house, usually on a dark and stormy night. They would gain entry to the house by seeking shelter and a bed for the night and, invariably, seduce the maiden of the house, before disappearing with the woman, and heading back out to sea in the form of seals once more.
Similarly, stories exist that tell of how a selkie’s skin is stolen from a beach and hidden away somewhere so that the selkie, in the guise of a maiden of exceptional beauty, can be kept in the human world and married. These women always long to return to the sea and usually find a way to go back home, even if it is many years later, abandoning their human family.
Burrafirth from Saxa Vord, the home of giant, Saxa
Mermaids
There are several tales of mermaids who sought the love of a mortal man, and they would seek them out to marry. Mermaids were always very beautiful women when they appeared in any of the tales from folklore. The most famous mermaid comes from the north of Unst (see area guide). She lured the two bickering giants, Herman and Saxa (of Hermaness and Saxa Vord), into the sea, challenging them to follow her to the North Pole – both giants drowned trying.
Best folklore books:
Shetland Folklore by James. R. Nicolson (1981)
Shetland Folklore by John Spence (1899)
Shetland Folk Tales by Lawrence Tulloch (2014)
