Auld Bluidie-cowl ga’ed a girn,
It was a girn indeed;
Syne my flesh it grew mizzled for fear,
And I stood like a thing that is dead.
Last Redcowl gave a laugh,
It was a laugh indeed;
’Twas mair like a hoarse, hoarse scrough,
Syne a tooth fell out o’ his head.
In East Lancashire stands a public-house called Mother Redcap, doubtless in allusion to some local tradition of a witch.
There are Redcaps in Holland too, but they have little in common with the Scottish Redcap, except the name. They are nearer akin to the Brownie, whom they resemble in their attachment to certain homesteads, in the diligence with which they perform manual labour, and in their abrupt departure on receiving a guerdon in the form of clothing. The Dutch Redcaps light fires during the night, which are invisible save to themselves, but warm the house; and the few sticks they leave of the Hausfrau’s stock of brushwood serve her as long as a great bundle, and give double the warmth. They are clad in red from head to foot, and have green hands and faces. A Redcap once made the fortune of a poor man by doing all the work of his little farm, and especially by churning at night more butter than any one else could get from the milk. The man became possessor of a whole herd of cows, and laid up a stocking-full of shining dollars. But, prosperity corrupting him, he grew idle and dissolute, and finally abused Redcap, and threw the bundle of firewood prepared for him by the gudewife into the well. On this the sprite disappeared: the wife was seized with illness, the stocking was only filled with coals, the cows died, and all went to ruin. The peasant begged and prayed that Redcap would return, but to no purpose; he was only answered by the laughs and jeers of the goblin outside the cottage.[1]
Powries, or Dunters, are also sprites who inhabit forts, old castles, peel-towers, or dungeons; and they constantly make a noise there as of beating flax, or bruising barley in the hollow of a stone. If this sound is longer or louder than usual, it portends
- ↑ Thorpe’s Mythology, vol. iii. p. 181.
