Each Uisge: The Scottish Water Horse.

 

 

 

 

 

The each-uisge, is a supernatural water horse that can  be  found in the Scottish Highlands, it's an extremely aggressive  and possible the fiercest and most dangerous of the water-horses fay.

Often mistaken for the kelpie (which inhabits streams and rivers), the each-uisge lives in the sea, sea lochs, and fresh water lochs.

 

 This creature  is a shape-shifter just like the kelpie, it will often  disguise itself as a beautiful horse, pony, a handsome man or an enormous bird such as a boobrie.

 

If you try to ride it while in horse form,  you will  only be safe as long as its ridden on land. However, the moment it see's even small amount of water it's  skin becomes as sticky as a strong adhesive and it will immediately go to the deepest part of the loch with its victim. After you have been dragged to the bottom and  drowned, the each-uisge will  tear you apart and eat your entire body except for the liver, which later  floats to the surface.

 

 

 

In its human form it often  appears as a handsome man, but can still  be recognized as a water  creature by the water weeds or sand and mud in its hair.

 Because of this, people in the Highlands were usually couscous around a lone animals and strangers by the water's edge, near where the each-uisge was sighted. 

 

The each-uisge has a desire for human women.

 Any woman that it sets its sights on is almost certain  to become its victim.

One old story tells of a  young woman who  encountered a water horse in the form of a handsome young man while she was herding cattle,  he laid his head in her lap and fell asleep. 

When he stretched himself she discovered that he had horse's hooves and quietly made her escape (in an alternate variations of the tale she finds the presence of water weeds or sand in his hair). 

In another account a water horse in human form come's to a woman's house where she was alone and attempted to court her, (other versions claim he tried to rape her) but all he got for his unwanted advances was boiling water thrown in his crotch. He ran from the house roaring in pain. In a third tale a father and his three sons conspired to kill a water horse that came to the house to see the daughter. When they grabbed the young man he reverted to his horse form and would have carried them into the loch, but in the struggle they managed to slay him with their dirks.(daggers)  Despite its amorous tendencies, however, the each-uisge is just as likely to simply devour women in the same manner as its male victims.

 

Cnoc-na-Bèist ("Hillock of the Monster") is the name of a knoll on the Isle of Lewis where an each-uisge was slain by the brother of a woman it tried to seduce, by the freshwater Loch a’ Mhuileinn ("Loch of the Mill").

Along with its human victims, cattle and sheep were also often prey to the each-uisge, and it could be lured out of the water by the smell of roasted meat.

There are also tales of the   each-uisge in the  River Spey in the Cairngorms. The An t-Each Ban was a white water-horse, which despite not being the usual black color was otherwise "traditional", seeking out travelers on stormy nights in its horse form, and leaping with its victims into deep water. 

The yellow horse of the Spey was an even more unusual color and its preferred victims were married couples. Legends also claim  that if a woman could get a hold of the rich bridles and replace it with a cow shackle then she would have power over the each uisge for the rest of her life and that the bridle would bring her good fortune.

 

The aughisky or Irish water horse is similar in many respects to the Scottish version. It sometimes comes out of the water to gallop on land and, despite the danger, if the aughisky can be caught and tamed then it will make the finest of steeds provided it is not allowed to glimpse the ocean.

The cabyll-ushtey (or cabbyl-ushtey), the Manx water horse, sometimes confused or conflated with the glashtyn, is just as ravenous as the each-uisge though there are not as many tales told about it. One of them recounts how a cabbyl-ushtey emerged from the Awin Dhoo (Black River) and devoured a farmer's cow, then later it took his teenage daughter.

 A blacksmith from Raasay lost his daughter to the each-uisge. In revenge the blacksmith and his son made a set of large hooks, in a forge they set up by the loch side. They then roasted a sheep and heated the hooks until they were red hot. At last a great mist appeared from the water and the each-uisge rose from the depths and seized the sheep. The blacksmith and his son rammed the red-hot hooks into its flesh and after a short struggle dispatched it. In the morning there was nothing left of the creature apart from a jelly-like substance

 

 

Each Uisge Skeleton 

If you happen to be traveling through the Highlands be weary of any overly friendly horse especially near water.  You Never know when your luck may run out..