The Bogle

: Folk-lore And Legends Scotland

This is a freakish spirit who delights rather to perplex and frighten

mankind than either to serve or seriously hurt them. The Esprit Follet

of the French, Shakespeare's Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, and Shellycoat, a

spirit who resides in the waters, and has given his name to many a rock

and stone on the Scottish coast, belong to the class of bogles. One of

Shellycoat's pranks is thus narrated:--Two men in a very dark night,
br /> approaching the banks of the Ettrick, heard a doleful voice from its

waves repeatedly exclaim, "Lost! lost!" They followed the sound, which

seemed to be the voice of a drowning person, and, to their astonishment,

found that it ascended the river; still they continued to follow the cry

of the malicious sprite, and, arriving before dawn at the very sources of

the river, the voice was now heard descending the opposite side of the

mountain in which they arise. The fatigued and deluded travellers now

relinquished the pursuit, and had no sooner done so, than they heard

Shellycoat applauding, in loud bursts of laughter, his successful

roguery.



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