From bothersome boggarts to rancorous redcaps, the legendary British landscape is home to a whole menagerie of magical creatures. Here’s how to hunt them down - if you dare…
Photo: Glen Coe (Ian Cylkowski on Unsplash). Illustrations: Tom Morgan-Jones
Where in Britain can you spot Bigfoot? What’s a hob when it’s at home? And did you know that Nessie isn’t Scotland’s only lake monster? Mosey into the magical world of Britain’s mythical creatures with this handy spotter’s guide…
Hob
Small, helpful, wrinkled creatures that must be appeased or else they quickly become malevolent. They are proud nudists, who will make your life miserable if you dare offer them some clothes.
Find them: in Yorkshire, Lancashire and across the northern counties. At Barcroft Hall in Burnley, a hob-turned-boggart (see below) gave the resident farmer a shoeing after he thoughtfully presented it with a pair of clogs.
Boggart
A slighted hob becomes a boggart, an agent of chaos with a penchant for making belongings disappear. They’re known to crawl into your bed at night and put their clammy little hands on your face - the epitome of cruelty.
Find them: See above. There’s a bevvy of boggart-inspired place names sprinkled around Lancashire and Yorkshire, including Boggard Wood in Dodsworth, Boggard Lane in Penistone and Boggard Stones in Saddleworth.
Kelpie
They might look like magnificent horses, but don’t be fooled. Kelpies have an appetite for human flesh that simply can't be reined in - what a mare.
Find them: in lochs all over Scotland. One of the most famous kelpie stories hails from Loch Sunart, where the tail goes that nine children stumbled on a horse grazing near the loch and decided to ride it. Its back grew longer until eight of them were mounted on it. The ninth boy cautiously touched the horse and found his finger stuck to its back. He cut off his finger as the horse rushed into the loch, drowning the eight other children.
SELKIE
Shapeshifters who can move between seal and human form by shedding their seal skin. They often have a rather choppy relationship with hu-manatee.
Find them: around the northern islands of Scotland. Try Orkney, where legend has it that a young woman had a baby boy by a selkie who lived on the island of Sule Skerry. The father arrived at the birth, placed a gold chain around the boy’s neck and took his son to live with him in the waters. However, before he left he predicted that the woman would marry a whaler who would one day kill both him and his son. The woman did indeed go on to marry a gunner, who one day returned from a hunting trip with a gold chain found around a seal’s neck, much to his wife’s devastation.
Fed Felen
Looks that can kill, literally. Those who have the misfortune of seeing the yellow eyes, teeth and hair of the Welsh Fad Felen ('Yellow Plague') will soon encounter death.
Find it: The most famous tale hails from Llanrhos church, where Maelgwn Gwynedd, King of North Wales, died after reportedly seeing the Fad Felen through a keyhole. Spookier still, Maelgwn Gwynedd’s death was prophesied by Taliesin the poet. “A strange creature will come from the marsh of Rhianedd,” he said, “to punish the crimes of Maelgwn Gwynedd; its hair, its teeth, and its eyes are yellow, and this will destroy Maelgwn Gwynedd”.
Knocker / bluecap
The Scottish-English bluecaps and the Cornish-Welsh knockers are mining spirits that make knocking sounds to warn miners of impending collapse. What a rocking coal-ition.
Find them: Pretty much any mining landscape across England and Wales - although Cornwall has some of the most impressive knockers in the country (okay, we’re done with the knock-knock jokes now). Take a stroll around the region of Ransom mine, where a father and son duo reputedly met a sticky end after trying to cheat the magical mini-miners.
Afanc
Devours anyone who enters its waters. This demonic lake monster has been described as a crocodile, a beaver and a dwarf-like creature - whichever floats your boat.
Find it: Where better to track down the Afanc than at the lake that bears its name? Llyn yr Afanc in the River Conwy is the original home of this many-toothed mythical beastie. Legend has it that the Afanc’s demonic thrashings once drowned all but two people in Britain… so clearly Brits hail from a rather narrow gene pool.
Wulver
A lone wolf who leaves fish on the windowsills of the poor and old of Shetland. A sort of canine Robin Hood minus his merry mutts...
Find it: on the Isle of Unst, where the Wulver lives alone in a secluded cave - although the exact location of his underground home is shrouded in mystery. Maybe that’s why they call him a where wolf.
Redcap
These murderous creatures have blood on their heads as well as their hands - they dye their caps with human blood! But if you brandish a cross, they go up in flames, leaving only an old tooth behind. To be displayed as a victory plaque perhaps?
Find them: all around the Scottish-English border. Perhaps the most atmospheric spot with redcap associations is Hermitage Castle in Roxburghshire, where evil 14th-century familiar Robin Redcap wreaked havoc under the aegis of his master William de Soulis. Some legends say that he remains at the castle guarding a horde of underground treasure…
Marool
These flaming fish demons have eyes all over their head - no chance they won’t sea you. When storms rage, they can be heard ferociously singing for joy as they lurk under the swirling waters. If a ship capsizes, you can be sure they’ll gobble up the hull thing.
Find it: off the shores of Shetland, which seems to have more than its fair share of supernatural sea monsters. Shetland’s sailors also have the boat-munching Bregdi to contend with - a tentacled terror, which can only be deterred by cold steel… or a strategically-thrown amber bead.
And that’s not all…
This motley collection of mythical beasts is just a small part of British folklore’s magical menagerie. From the familiar (unicorns, werewolves, Bigfoot) to the bizarre (water leaper, grindylow, Beast of the Lowering Horn) there are hundreds of magical critters roaming the wilds of legendary Britain.
You’ll find most of them dotted around our Craftily Conjured Great British Folklore & Superstition Map (the perfect pocket-sized guide for hunters of mythical creatures). Another rather lovely source of information is A Book of Creatures, an online encyclopaedia of folkloric beasts from around the world. Happy spotting - and don’t forget to keep us up to date with your supernatural encounters on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook or via hello@marvellousmaps.com.
