The Water Bull and The Kelpie

Living in any loch of note, the mythical Tarbh Uisge or Water Bull often appears as a huge black bull conspicuously lacking any ears. They’re said to come out at night to bresithed with regular cows and their offspring can be recognised by their curiously small, half-ears.

Most people considered them terrible luck and would kill the calf immediately. However, a wise woman from Islay once intervened with a farmer, advising him that he might need the help of his own Water Bull in the future. She told him to fatten it up on the milk of three different cows, but always keep it hidden in a barn away from his herd.

The farmer obliged for years, wondering if the trouble he was going to would ever prove necessary. One day, his daughter was sitting by the river when a handsome man approached and struck up a conversation. The girl was won over by the stranger’s charms until he laid his head down on her lap and she saw the seaweed tangled in his hair.

It was a well-known sign that this was a dangerous, shape-shifting Kelpie in disguise, attempting to lure her down to his lair. She gently placed his head on the grass before sprinting back to the farm as fast as she could. The girl had a good head start, but when the man transformed into a powerful horse and chased her, it was clear she wouldn’t make it home in time.

She screamed at the top of her lungs, the sound reaching over the fields to the farm. Before her father could react, the barn doors burst open, and the Water Bull thundered out into the open. It raced past the screaming girl and crashed into battle with the Kelpie. The pair fought wildly for hours, evenly matched until eventually they both fell into the loch. Neither creature was ever seen again.