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The Nuckelavee is a being much dreaded in the Orkney Isles. A sea demon whose breath blights crops, yet even more terrifying on land. Skinless, veins pulsing with black blood, muscles writhing, some say it rides a horse. Others that the horse-thing is part of it

In her book The Fairies in Tradition and Literature, the renowned Folklorist Katharine Mary Briggs proclaimed the Nuckelavee the nastiest of all the demons of Scotland’s Northern Isles. Living in the sea which surrounds the Isles of Orkney, the Nuckelavee was once often blamed for crop failures (Nuckelavee’s Blight), and animal and human illnesses, all caused by the demon’s foul, and poisonous breath.  

This Orcadian Devil’s direct opposition is The Mither O’ the Sea – a life-giving Mother Goddess who bestows the blessings of Spring and of the fruits of Summer upon the islanders. Much more powerful than the Nuckelvee, she generally keeps the demon in check. Sometimes however, the Nuckelvee is able to venture on to land and it is then that the true horror of the creature may be glimpsed.  

In 1891, the Orkney Folklorist Walter Traill Dennison tracked down an islander named Tammas who had seen the Nuckelvee in the flesh, and lived to tell the tale. Tammas was, apparently, reluctant to tell his tale to Dennison, but with much encouragement did so in the end.  

The lower part of this terrible monster, as seen by Tammie, was like a great horse, with flappers like fins about his legs, with a mouth as wide as a whales, from which came breath like steam from a brewing-kettle. He had but one eye, and that as red as fire.  

On him sat, or rather seemed to grow from his back, a huge man with no legs, and arms that reached nearly to the ground. His head was as big as a clue of simmons [straw ropes, a clue of which was generally about three feet in diameter], and this huge head kept rolling from one shoulder to the other as if it meant to tumble off.  

But what to Tammie appeared most horrible of all, was that the monster was skinless; this utter want of skin adding much to the terrific appearance of the creatures naked body.  

The whole surface of it showing only red, raw flesh, in which Tammie saw blood, black as tar, running through yellow veins, and great white sinews, thick as horse tethers, twisting, stretching, and contracting, as the monster moved. Tammie went slowly on in mortal terror, his hair on end, a cold sensation like a film of ice between his scalp and his skull, and a cold sweat bursting from every pore.  

Tammas eventually escaped the nightmarish creature by crossing over a rivulet running from a nearby loch – the demon, like many folkloric beasts having a strange aversion to flowing fresh water.  

Originally it is thought that the horse-thing which the Nuckelvee rode on land may have been a local variation of the Kelpie, Ceffyl Dŵr, or Bäckahäst – water-creatures which appears as horses on land to trick humans into mounting them so that they can drown and eat them. As the tales were told and re-told however, the Nuckelvee and its steed appear to have become permanently fused, resulting in monster much more bizarre and terrifying than before.  

Long ago a pregnant sow escaped butchery in Hampstead, fleeing into the sewers below. Nourished on refuse, her hoglets interbred, each generation growing more monstrous and ferocious. Only the constant flow of the subterranean river Fleet prevents their escape.

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In Volume Two of Henry Mayhew’s London Labour, and the London Poor, published in 1851, the author recorded a very odd piece of of London Folklore, or Urban Legend:

“There is a strange tale in existence among the shore-workers, of a race of wild hogs inhabiting the sewers in the neighbourhood of Hampstead.  

The story runs, that a sow in young, by some accident got down the sewer through an opening, and wandering away from the spot, littered and reared her offspring in the drain, feeding on the offal and garbage washed into it continually. Here, it is alleged, the breed multiplied exceedingly, and have become almost so ferocious as they are numerous.  

This story, apocryphal as it seems, has nevertheless its believers, and it is ingeniously argued, that the reason why none of the subterranean animals have been able to make their way to the light of day is, that they could only do so by reaching the mouth of the sewer at the river-side, while, in order to arrive at that point, they must necessarily encounter the Fleet ditch, which runs towards the river with great rapidity, and as it is the obstinate nature of a pig to swim against the stream, the wild hogs of the sewers invariably work their way back to their original quarters, and are thus never to be seen.  

What seems strange in the matter is, that the inhabitants of Hampstead never have been known to see any of these animals pass beneath the gratings, nor to have been disturbed by their gruntings. The reader of course can believe as much of the story as he pleases, and it is right to inform him that the sewer-hunters themselves have never yet encountered any of the fabulous monsters of the Hampstead sewers.”

Charles Dickens himself  (briefly) mentioned the monster pigs in a piece published in his own periodical Household Words, in 1852:  

“We have traditions and superstitions about almost everything in life, from the hogs in Hampstead sewers to the ghosts in a shut-up house.”

An article published in the Daily Telegraph, on the 10th of October 1859, also mentioned the legend:

“It has been said that beasts of chase still roam the verdant fastness of Grosvenor Square, that there are undiscovered patches of primeval forest in Hyde Park, and that Hampstead sewers shelter a monstrous breed of black swine, which has propagated and run wild against the slimy feculence, and whose ferocious snouts will one day up-root Highgate archway, while they make Holloway intolerable with their grunting.”

Tales of Hamsptead’s subterranean monster pigs seem to be the English, Victorian predecessor of the American Urban Legends of alligators living and breeding in the sewers beneath various cities. It is worth noting however, that in March 1984 a living Nile crocodile was pulled out of a sewer in Paris (a city famed for its labyrinthine catacombs). The crocodile, named Elenore, currently lives at the Aquarium in Vannes. So, perhaps the swine are still down there somewhere, running wild against the slimy feculence…  

THIS time I’ve got it with the lettering on there. Ugh!

Chronos was the Ancient Greek word for time, Cronos their sickle carrying God of Agriculture. Romans related Cronos to their own Saturn, and made him an old man. His sickle became a scythe, and Cronos became Old Father Time who, in turn, became The Grim Reaper.

Cronos, or Cronus, or Kronos, was an Ancient Greek God; one of the original Titans, who were the divine descendants of Uranus, the sky, and Gaia, the earth.   In Athens, on the twelfth day of the Attic month of Hekatombaion, a festival called Kronia  was held in honour of Cronus to celebrate the harvest, suggesting that,  as a result of his association with the virtuous Golden Age, Cronus  continued to preside as a patron of the harvest. The sickle Cronos is usually depicted holding however, is nothing to do with the harvest. It was used as a weapon to castrate Uranus (his father) at the behest of his mother.  Uranus’ testicles were then cast into the sea and out of the sea-foam came the goddess Aphrodite.

Cronus was also identified in classical antiquity with the Roman deity Saturn, who was also (amongst other roles) a harvest deity, and who also carried a sickle. Saturn was depicted as an older, bearded man and in time his sickle was replaced with a more modern tool: a scythe. Saturnalia – Saturn’s own festival – was held each December and was associated the temporal transition of the New Year, and with the passing of time in general. His increasingly aged appearance came to represent the old year about to meet its end. 

Between the 16th and 18th centuries, the figure of a Father Time became a popular subject in art. Father Time is time personified – an old man with a long beard who carries a scythe.  During the Renaissance he was also often depicted with an hourglass, and sometimes even with wings. 

The skeletal image of Death personified goes back centuries (if not longer), but the Grim Reaper with his scythe is a direct descendant – or perhaps more evolution – of Father Time. During Victorian times, when the concept of Momento Mori  (Latin for ‘remember that you must die’) became popular, the Gothic figure of the skeletal Grim Reaper fitted the aesthetic perfectly. 

time waits for no man…

(this is a wip..)

In the grand Irish epic of the Tain Bo Cuailnge, Nemain –  personification of the frenzy and havoc of warfare – confuses the soldiers on the field of battle, causing them to fight and kill their own.  

The Morrigan. Phantom Queen. Shape-shifting Triple Goddess. As Battle Crow she flies as a harbinger of death and defeat. As the hag she is the crafty and cunning old witch of Fairy Tale. And as Nemain she is Goddess of War, able to kill 100 men with a mere cry.

The Morrígan is one of the strangest deities in Irish Celtic mythology. Tripartite goddess of war: she is made up of three separate personalities or aspects. These three are known as Morrígu, Badb, and Nemain, but also sometimes Macha, and Anann,. There is some debate as to whether “Morrigan” is merely a title these separate Goddesses, or heroines held (like The Gorgons of Greek Mythology), or whether they were genuinely all different forms taken by The Morrigan.  

The “mor” in Morrigan comes from the same route as the Old English word “maere”, meaning terror or monstrousness and which survives in modern English in the context of “nightmare”. The “rígan” translates as “queen”, giving the Godess the title of Terror Queen, Phantom Queen, Mare Queen, or simply Great Queen.  

Badb (“crow”) is more often known as “Badb Catha” (meaning “Battle Crow”) and as such is associated with war and death. Her appearance would foreshadow imminent bloody battle, and on the field of war the Battle Crow would create deliberate fear and confusion among enemy soldiers. Possibly because of this, the battlefield is referred to some Celtic literature as “the garden of the Badb” (although crows do like carrion, so there may be a rather obvious dual meaning there).  

Badb, Macha and Morríga were there daughters of the Farming Mother Goddess Ernmas, according to the 4th century CE text preserved in Lebor Gabála Érenn (The Book of the Taking of Ireland, more widely known as The Book of Invasions).  

Macha was a Sovereignty Goddess of ancient Ireland associated with the province of Ulster, and particularly with the sites of Navan Fort (Eamhain Mhacha) and Armagh (Ard Mhacha), which are both named after her. To make things slightly more complicated however, there seem to be several different Goddesses sharing the name.  

In the grand Irish epic of the Tain Bo Cuailnge, Nemain –  personification of the frenzy and havoc of warfare – confuses the soldiers on the field of battle, causing them to fight and kill their own.  

“Then the Neman attacked them, and that was not the most comfortable night with them, from the uproar of the giant Dubtach through his sleep. The bands were immediately startled, and the army confounded, until Medb went to check the confusion.”

Morrígan was also the Goddess of divination and prophecy who, in the guise of an elderly washerwoman, foretold the fate of the hero God Dagda when he encountered her by the river on eve of the Samhain festival.  

In later medieval period, the title “Morrígan” was associated with Morgan le Fay, the sorceress Avalon, in the Arthurian legends. Morgan is said to have also appeared as a fair maiden, a hag, and in various animal forms at different times.  

Guess what it is!

Adding some colour. Spend ages flatting a thing, then decide to just do it as simple blue. 

This week’s folklore thursday features a bonus strip. And the reason is, well, we’re working on an advanced list of folklore topics for twitter, and they changed one without us knowing.

Being pros (which is what it says in most of my bios, so it must be true) we decided to do another (this is particular ironic given this weeks was the first I’d done well in advance) so John emailed – said he had something interesting about bees and a lion and I started thinking about what to do.

I knew it’d be a single image, I figured I’d sketch a pencil drawing of a lion lying there would do. (one of my favourite jokes Man walks into a bar with a giraffe. Man and giraffe get drunk. Man walks out, giraffe falls down drunk on ground. Barman shouts “Oi! You gonna leave that lyin’ there?” Man “that’s not a lion, that’s a giraffe”.) 

Anyway, John tweets:

“Out of the eater came something to eat, and out of the strong came something sweet.” Sampson’s riddle refers to the lion which the hero killed bare handed. Bees are said to have spawned from its dead flesh. Making their home, and their honey, within the corpse. #FolkloreThursday

And I think “cor, Sampson!*” (Later, after doing a lot of work, I find out it’s “Samson” – you live and learn)

So now I wanted to do a big pic of Samson walking away from the Lion. But it felt too empty – and I thought, well if I ink it simple enough it’ll be quick – and could be nice to colour as a two colour animated thing. But then the background would need to be painterly.

So I googled up some images of Prince of Egypt, nabbed one to use for some colour inspiration (and er… colour picking). Coloured Samson and the lion as flat (I actually flatted them to fully colour them, but given I had a nice red/yellow background I wanted a blue foreground for the figures

I colourised the lineart in clip studio by setting the lineart alpha lock to ON, and then changing the layer from b&w to colour. Then I can draw over the black lineart with anycolour, and that’s how I did the orange colour holds below…

And then scumbled up a background using the various tools in clip studio, shunting colours around trying to make it work (and then, finally using the watercolour brush to add a red wash over the background, and and orange circular gradient to do a sun behind Samson.

Total time? Between 2-3 hours. Not bad. And I’m fairly happy with it. Not everything needs to be complicated.