EPISODE FIVE : THE KELPIE

Haunting the lakes and streams of the Celtic isles is a malevolent shape shifting spirit : the Kelpie. Join Chris and Spence as they unlock the myths and legends which surround this fantastic beast, and maybe you'll be able to find them!  

The Irish Gothic Podcast explores the origins of Irish Folk tales. myths and legends in all their dark, fantastical glory and how these vivid yarns continue to resonate across the world to this very day. 

Join Hosts Chris Patterson and Spence Wright as they fuse their love for all thing's horror with a wellspring of Irish lore. 

From the terrifying figure of the Dullahan to the origins of Halloween itself, if it’s a yarn you’re after, pull up a chair and let ‘Irish Gothic’ fill your ears. 

Hosts: Chris Patterson & Spence Wright 

Producer: Rebecca Alcorn 

Production Company: Causeway Pictures 

Bibliography: 

Learn more about the legend of the Kelpie here ! https://www.scotclans.com/pages/the-kelpie-s-last-battle-by-lari-don
https://mandybaker86.medium.com/the-legend-of-the-kelpie-981f61e4792d

Rabbie Burns - Address to the Deil 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/robertburns/works/address_to_the_deil/

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Checkout our other podcast - Hostage to the Devil, real life stories of exorcism and possession. Wherever you get your podcasts.

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Transcript

0:17

I know all the folks round these arts and parts. Can't say I know you. Leastways. Not yet. But I dare say I know what you'll be wanting. Some of the crack, maybe. How we yarn with your sup, is it? No harm in that. Come on over. Warm yourself, hmm? I'll warn you though. If it's the old Begara and Blarney shenanigans you're after, you'll not hear them from me. Well, if such, like, pleases you, you sit on. I'll fill your ears. And see what story is meant for you. On this dark old night.

chris-patterson_2_10-23-2024_181531 1:22

I'm Chris

spencey-guest437_2_10-23-2024_181541 1:23

I'm Spence

chris-patterson_2_10-23-2024_181531 1:24

And this is the Irish Gothic Podcast.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 1:35

How you doing, Spence?

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 1:36

I'm good, Chris. How have you been, sir?

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 1:38

I've been doing alright as we record is the first week of December.

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 1:42

Yes, I must start with a confession, Chris. At the end of our last episode, I said I would climb Slemish. You know the mountain that looks a wee bit like the mountain from Close Encounters

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 1:52

how are your

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 1:53

Well, in my defense, Christopher, you know, the Weller has been very, very bad. We've had storms, storms with actual names attached to them, so I chickened out.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 2:00

Was that storm called Lazy Bugger?

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 2:02

storm, lazy bugger head So I didn't get the mish onto that old cousin Encounters mountain, but it definitely will. So the New Year's resolution, that's the promise.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 2:11

speaking of close encounters, did you see in the news this week that they were expecting an alien invasion?

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 2:17

Didn't, who's there? What do you mean?

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 2:18

Well, generally some guy said he predicted that there was going to be an alien invasion. But of course, it might be next week now because it didn't come this week. But oddly enough, there was a UFO at Manchester airport.

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 2:30

Right.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 2:31

It was spotted by everybody. That's sort of metal ball down from on high and just hovered about six or seven feet off the runway.

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 2:41

Goodness, I've got to Google that. hear the paper about

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 2:44

no, they don't call them UFOs anymore, Spence,

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 2:47

Oh, why not?

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 2:47

the Americans have had hearings in Congress and they've decided to call them UAPs. They are Unidentified Unidentified aerial phenomena

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 2:56

Ah, well.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 2:57

instead of UFOs because apparently the term UFOs comes with a lot of connotations comes with a lot of baggage so they thought they'd put that out the window in one of these congress meetings they actually said that there was UFOs and they're not from above they're from below so apparently in some of the deepest trenches in the sea That's where they are.

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 3:19

oh, oh.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 3:20

no, I haven't seen any. the fact that, the government investigation team can announce that there is UFOs and nobody really cares, shows the way the world is right

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 3:29

That's phenomenal, man. In the sea, you say, yeah?

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 3:32

in a sea, apparently they know where they

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 3:34

So you think now, man, with all the technology, It's gotta be the age where we'll know. Do you know what I mean, man? Like, the way we can capture so much footage and, Infrared and, deep sea scanners, I don't know.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 3:46

See, you'd think so but every time I see a picture that somebody's taken from an iPhone, it's bloody blurry,

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 3:51

yeah, it's also part of the tech.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 3:54

I mean, there was a thing earlier this week were they say they're drones, but apparently like 10, 15, 20 lights were over American bases in the UK one of the American bases, and I can't remember the name of it, it was working with nuclear weapons at that point,

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 4:11

Oh,

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 4:11

deploying nuclear weapons to RAF Larkin Heath,

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 4:15

okay.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 4:16

them off the plane when all these lights turned on,

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 4:18

No way. and they're not thinking spies, you know, foreign actors.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 4:23

you see, they are thinking that there could be drones and all that, but, to be honest, I think that the aliens could land on the White House lawn and, you know, You know, or they wouldn't believe it. But, talking about things being under the sea, let's just say it's the Kelpie Spence.

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 5:04

The Kilpie. Nicely done there, Chris. Nicely done. I thought your ramblings were just ramblings. That's beautiful. so yeah, the Kilpie,, a quick overview. Very, very, big deal in Irish and Scottish folklore as well, actually. But, it's known as a fierce shapeshifting. Water Sprite, Water Demon, I guess. And it's known to hunt streams and lakes, preying on the unsuspecting, the unwary. They say it has a kind of devious, dangerous nature, so it was often accused and blamed of even wee small misdemeanors like, breaking and busting up mill wheels, you know, water wheels, or causing streams to swell, and banks to burst, and cattle to, to die. to, not birth or horses not to foal and, things like that all the way up to actually committing really quite ghastly murders.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 5:52

I mean, I get this shapeshifting entity. Well, there's a number of forms it takes. I mean, a magnificent, beautiful white horse. And I think it was, it was one of the Harry Potter films or maybe the spinoffs. That he actually had a Kelpie in his cellar he rode this Kelpie around. Um, it wasn't Harry Potter.

rebecca_1_12-04-2024_190707 6:11

Fantastic beasts and where to find them, sorry.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 6:14

that's perfect. that's perfect. Fantastic beasts and where to find them. That was our, uh, producer coming in There

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 6:20

Was not the voice of the Mysterons

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 6:22

that was the voice of God.

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 6:24

Keeping us right.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 6:25

But certainly fantastic beasts and where to ride them where he had a Kelpie in that sort of Tardis like case that he could get into. A beautiful white horse. I think I read somewhere Spence where they are beautiful women as

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 6:39

Yep.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 6:40

that can attract or a beautiful

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 6:42

Yeah occasionally women's mostly, I think, a horse and a male form, and as you rightly say, in either of those forms, it would entice travelers or people by the watersides to, to ride the horse or come closer to the man, and then they would dash into the water and drown them.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 6:57

Usually you find the main sign is this horse is by, a river or a lake and it's actually a kelp and it's main is soaking wet because obviously it's come out of the water. So you have to be on the lookout for a basically dripping wet horse

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 7:12

Ha, Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 7:16

and the problem is these days that people do a lot of swimming. So, you know,

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 7:21

Exactly.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 7:21

you know, you can't believe your own

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 7:23

Well, I did read something in the news actually this week about the water quality around the shores of some of the places in the north of Ireland.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 7:29

You wouldn't want to, you wouldn't want to be swimming. You come out with

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 7:31

I think I'd rather take a chance with a kelpie, but, you mentioned there about how, that spotting the kelpie when it's in its horse form, being that dripping wet mane, and the legend goes as well that when it does take the form of the handsome man, if you're careful enough and you're watchful enough, you'll notice that it's His feet are actually backward facing hooves,

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 7:49

Like the devil.

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 8:05

Yeah that plays into connections with the devil. And this man has got a particularly twisted and dark intent towards women, and would lure them into the water, drown them, and devour them in his underwater lair. But you're quite right, because I think that's where the devil connotations start coming in.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 8:22

Well, you see the kelpie is one of these strange creatures got Celtic lore behind it, not just Irish lore. So there are versions of it in Scotland and there are versions of it in different parts of the Celtic triangle of France, Cornwall, Wales. But It's definitely prevalent in Scotland and one of the reasons it was mixed in with the devil was because of a, work by Robbie Burns and it was called Address to the Devil, which was 1789 and I'm going to give it a So,

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 8:55

Oh, good.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 8:56

any sort of, you know, it's sounding so I'm going to give it a go here. When throes devolve the sunny horde and float and jingle icy board. Then water kelpies hunt the ford, and night travellers are allured to their destruction.

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 9:15

Oh, that's wonderful.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 9:17

know Robscene is, but, but,

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 9:19

ha ha ha ha ha ha. Well, with Christmas just around the corner and Auld Lang Syne when you could get a, you could get a roll there. Doing a bit of Robbie Burns night speaking.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 9:27

That was my Ewan McGregor coming out there. My Obi, my Obi Wan.

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 9:48

Brilliant that ties in. That poem is an address to the devil, and there the Kelpie is in it. And as you rightly say, the Kelpie is very popular here in Ireland. It's popular very much so in Scotland. It's probably the biggest in every respect. Counterpart of the Kelpie, people would say that the Loch Ness Monster, Nessie, is actually a variant of a Kelpie I know you've talked about the Medusa and the Gorgon in other episodes, Chris, so I think in Aberdeenshire, their version is a horse, but its main is all serpents it's fearsome stuff.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 10:21

I find that, when you talk about, I guess it's any lake in the world you've got the American Great Lakes and you've got, obviously the lakes like, Loch Ness and all the rest of it. They all have a monster or a folklore behind them. And you may agree with me in this, Spencer, it's sort of a warning, legend, you know, in Lough Neagh, that means you don't want to go swimming in Lough Neagh, so really does that mean that these stories are to keep maybe children away from being drowned or people out of harm's way?

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 10:56

I think so, Chris, again, it's familiar themes that we see in these episodes. I think it's very much about trying to warn children and and the dangers of being near the water it's also about trying probably to make sense of the environment because we mentioned earlier there that the Kelpie can be blamed for, rivers flooding and damming and water mills breaking so again it's making sense of things that are going on in nature but I think absolutely it's a cautionary tale. About Staying away from the water, staying away from danger.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 11:32

I think with the cautionary tale, Spence, there's an often told yarn about a group of children, isn't there?

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 11:38

Yeah, aye, there's variations of this, the detail changes slightly, but in essence the story quite often told is there's usually a group of children and they encounter the Kelpie, be it by a lake. And the Kelpie appears in its horse form on some lonely waterside. And all the children are entranced and they climb onto the creature's back. And there's usually one child who's a wee bit hesitant. I suppose in a modern horror film that would be the protagonist. You know, that would be the person whose sixth sense is tingling and this isn't quite right.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 12:09

not go into the house.

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 12:10

Yeah, the one who says don't split up. And it's usually a boy, for whatever reason, but usually this little boy then does succumb and begins to pet the horse, at which point his hand gets stuck to the horse, which is the Kelby's stick, that's how it works. And then they all get dragged in, stuck on this horse, into the water. But to come back to what you were mentioning there, Chris, about, The connection to the devil, and therefore the connection to Christianity. Quite often, how that wee boy survives, there's one of two ways. One version, he will have a penknife, and he will literally sever his hands and fingers to release himself from the horse. And in the other version, it's because he has a Bible in his pocket. And he touches the Bible. So, again, you see those worlds clashing. So the boy makes it back to shore, and the entrails of his friends are washed on the bloody shoreline,

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 12:59

that is is some, scene that, the entrails all see. But also I did during this research look at it's like a form of exorcism that comes into this Removing the Kelpie's bridle could be seen as a form of exorcism, and the Kelpie bridle was believed to possess the magical properties that were capable of transforming someone into a horse or a pony. Now, why you'd want to be transformed into a horse or a pony, I don't know. But those legends especially in America of the skinwalkers and people like that, it's comes across that if you want to steal this bridal, you could turn yourself into a horse or a pony for A particular reason,

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 13:41

Yeah, or maybe turn your enemies into one, you know? It gives people that power it's, again, it's those magical weapons and magical properties. For instance, they said it's silver bullets, which we would always associate werewolves. Iron spears, heated and red hot fires. These are all said to kill a kelpie. And when you do kill a Kelpie, it's reduced to turf and a soft mass like jellyfish. So again, we're seeing that fear of the unknown. And how those folks were trying to combat it in those days, be it via the belief that the Bible will save you, exorcism via removing the bridle, or by arming yourselves with magic weapons. So yes, there's fear, yes, there's terror, yes, there's unknown, but there's always a solution. There's always a way to protect yourself against it in all these stories, which I find so fascinating.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 14:54

Kelpie is one of our most, I would say simple, legends that we've covered because it pretty much has it's rules don't go near the water but like jaws, was the Kelpie used to scare, unruly children away from dangerous waterways? Back in the late 70s, I think there was some videos with Donald Pleasence shrouded in mist as the Grim Reaper.

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 15:14

That's right, they were those public broadcasting ads, Chris, they were terrifying. I remember, I don't know what age I was when I saw them, there were different versions of them, you know. But they were creepy. And you're talking about Donald Pleasance as the Grim Reaper by the river? He was the spirit of the dark and lonely water. And, I can't remember exactly the line, but if you can imagine folks that, creepy dumb unpleasant voice, and he's just this grim reaper figure standing in the mist by a riverside while these kids are playing, and he delivers these great lines to camera, and he's describing the children as foolish, they're unwary, they're overconfident, and, when you put it like that, Chris Is that a modern outworking of what the Kelpie Tale was? Stay away from the water?

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 15:54

think it could be, you know, when people are sitting around a fire and they're telling stories, they're going to not just say don't go down by the water there or, there's riptides that. It's easier to say there's something bad in that water. And if

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 16:08

Yeah.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 16:09

it, it's going to drag you in and you're going to die and like most of the stuff that we do, just talking about Donald Pleasant, sir, you might want to tell people, I know that I hate to say this because I try not to believe it, but there might be some people out there that don't know who Donald Press was.

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 16:25

Oh, goodness, yeah, I sort of think that those people would walk amongst us, wouldn't they?

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 16:29

they?

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 16:29

Surely not.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 16:30

so I suppose you better give them a

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 16:31

Okay, well, English actor most famous role Dr. Loomis in the Halloween franchise.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 16:36

He's done a lot, but in the original John Carpenter Halloween, he was the doctor. So, if you haven't seen the original John Carpenter Halloween, just Turn off your podcast right now. Um,

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 16:48

Well, he was a Bond baddie, wasn't he? Which one was

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 16:52

he was, a Bond baddie but I can't remember which Bond it was. Was it a Roger Moore? He was upstroke the cat and all the rest of it.

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 16:58

The Austin Powers kind of rip off, isn't it?

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 17:01

yeah.

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 17:01

His voice delivering those lines is very, very effective on children, you know, and, again, Christy as well as warning people to stay away from the water, it's also a warning to women or Irish maidens of the time to be wary of strangers and strange men and stranger danger. And I think a lot of the werewolf myths that had their origins, exactly what you just said. It was an easy way for people in Europe to warn their children about the risks of murder and being abducted. There

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 17:28

Yes, don't go, don't go off into the forest because

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 17:31

Yeah.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 17:31

forget you or,

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 17:32

The world will forget you, yeah.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 17:34

and I know, Europe had a massive belief in vampires and, we were having a chat today, Spence, about some of the stuff we might do, in the coming episodes about some of the original Irish vampire

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 17:45

yeah. yeah.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 17:46

I'm looking forward to doing some of

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 17:47

Some great stuff to come.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 17:49

but the Kelpie is most definitely one of the most interesting and the fact that, it's not just Ireland, it's Scotland. And we sort of have to say that out loud because our Scottish listeners might not be too happy if we just claimed it fully, but I like to think of it as a Celtic, legend that sort of pulls us together in that brotherhood. But it also tells us, don't trust, don't trust. a soaking wet woman by a lake.

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 18:15

Or a man with hooves for feet.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 18:18

Yeah, I mean, it might be a giveaway, but hey, could be Halloween.

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 18:21

Well, I don't know about you, but as much as I'm enjoying this, I'm very, very tempted to go have a look at the night skies, after what you told me at the start of this.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 18:29

Well, you know it's, it's, if they were going to invade or I don't think it would matter. I think people are just like, yeah, go away. I think, you know, people are like, yes, I'm here. And then they're like, I

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 18:37

Yeah, Yeah, next.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 18:39

so that's the Kelpie. There's not much more to say about it. If you do happen to come across a soaking wet horse, you've been warned. I think that's it Spence. What do you

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 18:49

I think so, or, trusty producer Rebecca will put stuff in the show notes for you folks, some more information, some great imagery, and, as ever, thanks for listening.

chris-patterson_1_12-04-2024_190707 18:57

Next week is a special. Next week you will be hearing our Christmas episode and we have got a humbinger for you.

spence_1_12-04-2024_190707 19:07

ho, ho, ho. Bye, folks.

19:15

Looks like your story has found you. I wish It were another. But what's meant for you, won't go by you. I'm sorry. Ach, now. No need to look so scared, eh? Enjoy the fire. Have a sop. Sure. Is it all just Irish Gothic? All just Irish Gothic.

chris-patterson_10_10-17-2024_205438 19:56

You can find us at iris gothic pod on Instagram or X, or if you want to support us, please buy us a coffee

spence_9_10-17-2024_205215 20:04

and look, while you're there, give us a follow to keep up with all things in the Irish Gothic Podcast. Send us any Irish myths, legends, stories that you'd like us to delve into next.

chris-patterson_10_10-23-2024_190653 20:14

The Irish Gothic Podcast was brought to you by Causeway Pictures. It's hosted by Chris Patterson and Spence Wright. And was produced by Rebecca Alcorn. All rights reserved.

chris-patterson_10_10-17-2024_205438 20:28

Check out our other podcast, Hostage to the Devil, which delves into the dark world of possession and exorcism. You can get it wherever you get your podcasts.