The Blue Men of the Minch
The Blue Men of the Minch, also known as Storm Kelpies, are mythological creatures inhabiting the stretch of water between the northern Outer Hebrides and mainland Scotland, looking for sailors to drown and stricken boats to sink.
Description[]
The blue are thought to be the "personifications of the sea itself" as they took their blue colouration from the hue of the sea. Their faces are grey and long in shape and some have long arms, which are also grey, and they favour blue headgear; at least one account claims they also have wings. Apart from their blue colour, the mythical creatures look much like humans, and are about the same size.
They have the power to create storms, but when the weather is fine they float sleeping on or just below the surface of the water. The blue men swim with their torsos raised out of the sea, twisting and diving as porpoises do. They are able to speak, and when a group approaches a ship its chief may shout two lines of poetry to the master of the vessel and challenge him to complete the verse. If the skipper fails in that task then the blue men will attempt to capsize his ship.
Overview[]
Contrary to belief, the blue men are not apart of the merfolk for they are in fact spirits or water sprites. In regards to their origins there are a handful of accounts as to where they originated from. The first is that the the blue men were among the Tuatha Dé Danann who defected from the pantheon and split into two tribes; one where they joined the fairies beneath the earth and the other in the sea where they became the mythical blue men.
Another account details that they were also fallen angels, specifically a host of angels that acted under Rahab the Angel of the Deep. However, after Rahab's fall from grace due to destroying Hyperborea, these angels fell into the sea and evolved into water spirits much like how Mermaids and Tritones were seen as the spirits of those who died at sea and taken by Rahab. An alternate detail instead says that these fallen angels turned into "Merry Dancers" of the Northern Lights in the sky.
The tempestuous water around the Shiant Isles 19 kilometres (12 mi) to the north of Skye, an area subject to rapid tides in all weathers, flows beside the caves inhabited by the blue men, a stretch of water known as the Current of Destruction owing to the number of ships wrecked there. Although other storm kelpies are reported as inhabiting the Gulf of Corryvreckan, described by poet, writer and folklorist Alasdair Alpin MacGregor as "the fiercest of the Highland storm kelpies", the blue men are confined to a very restricted area.
They are said to have no counterparts elsewhere in the world or even in other areas of Scotland; such limited range is rare for beliefs in spirits and demons. A tale is recounted by a sailor of what may have been a blue man in the waters around the island, taking the the form of a bearded old man it rose out of the water, terrifying the passengers and crew of a boat it was following.