A trow[trʌu][a](also trowe, drow, or dtrow) is a malignant or mischievous
fairy or spirit in the
folkloric traditions of the
Orkney and
Shetland islands. Trows may be regarded as monstrous giants at times, or quite the opposite, short-statured fairies dressed in grey.
Trows are nocturnal creatures, like the
troll of Scandinavian legend with which the trow shares many similarities. They venture out of their 'trowie knowes' (earthen mound dwellings) solely in the evening, and often enter households as the inhabitants sleep. Trows traditionally have a fondness for music, and folktales tell of their habit of kidnapping musicians or luring them to their dens.
Terminology
The trow [trʌu], in the
Scots language, is defined as a ‘sprite or
fairy’ of mischievous nature in dictionaries of Scots, particularly
Orcadian and
Shetland dialects.[2][3]
Etymology
The standard etymology derives the term trow from troll (
Norwegian: trold;
Old Norse: troll) of Scandinavian folklore.[2] Norwegian trold (troll) can signify not just a 'giant', but a 'specter, ghost' (spøkelse) as well.[4][5]
As an alternate etymology,
John Jamieson's Scottish dictionary conjectured that the word trow may be a corruption of Scandinavian draug.[6][b] It may be worth noting that the Norwegian "sea-draug" (
Norwegian: draug;
Danish: søe-drau,[10]søe-draul[11]) was either a sub-type or equivalent to the sea-troll/sea-trold, according to 18th century tracts by
Dano-Norwegians.[10][11][c]
drow
The trow is also called drow under its variant spelling in the
Insular dialects of Scots;[12] the "drow" being mentioned by
Walter Scott.[d][13] However, the term "drow" could also be used in the sense of ‘the
devil’ in Orkney.[12][15]
The word drow also occurs in the Shetland
Norn language, where it means ‘huldrefolk’("the hidden people", fairies), ‘troll-folk’,[14] or ‘ghost’.[16] As drow is not a Norse language spelling, linguist
Jakob Jakobsen proposed it was taken from the common (Scots) term "trow" altered to drow by assimilation with
Old Norsedraugr or Norwegian draug.[14] The reconstructed Shetland word would be *drog if it did descend from Old Norse draugr, but this is unattested, nor was it adopted into the
Nynorn vocabulary to supersede the known form.[16]
General description
It was considered
taboo to speak about trows.[e] It was also considered unlucky to catch sight of a trow, though auspicious to hear one speaking.[18]
Their portrayed appearance can vary greatly: in some telling gigantic and even multi-headed, as are some giants in English lore;[19] else small or human-sized, like ordinary fairies, but dressed in grey.[20]
Trows consist of two kinds, the hill-trows (land trows) and sea-trows,[21] and the two kinds are said to be mortal enemies.[22]
Of the hill-dwelling types, it is said they can only appear out of their dwellings ("knowes"=knolls; "trowie knowes") after sunset, and if they miss the opportunity to return before sunrise, they do not perish but must await above ground and bide his time until "the Glüder (the sun) disappears again".[23]
The trows are fond of music and constantly play the
fiddle themselves.[18] Sometimes a human learns such tunes, and there are traditional tunes purported to have been learned from the supernatural creatures (cf.
§Trowie tunes below).
Tales are also told of human fiddlers being abducted by trows to their mounds, and although released after what seems a brief stay, many long years have elapsed in the outside world, and the victim turns to dust,[24][25] or chooses to die.[28]
There are varying descriptions concerning the sea-trow.
An early account is that of the trow (
Latin: TroicisrectéTrowis)[f] of
Stronsay, as described by Jo. Ben (i.e., John or Joseph Ben)'s[g]Description of the Orkney Islands (1529); it was a maritime monster resembling a
colt whose entire body was cloaked in seaweed, with a coiled or matted coat of hair, sexual organs like a horse's, and known to engage in
sexual intercourse[h] with the women of the island.[31][35]
The sea-trow of Orkney is "the ugliest imaginable" according to
W. Traill Dennison, who says that it has been represented as a scaly creature with matted hair,[36] having monkey-like face and sloping head. It was said to be frail-bodied with disproportionately huge sets of limbs, disc-shaped feet ("round as a millstone") with webbings on their hands and feet, causing them to move with a lumbering and "wabbling" slow gait.[22][37]
However, in Shetland, "da mokkl sea-trow", a great evil spirit that dwelled in the depths,[39][38] was said to take on the shape of a woman, at least in some instances.[41]
It is blamed for awaiting in the depths and stealing from the fish caught on fishermen's lines,[22] and otherwise feared for causing storms or causing ill luck to fishermen.[38] In the form of the wailing woman, she portends some misfortune befalling the witness/audience.[38]
According to
Samuel Hibbert the sea-trow was a local version of the neckar, and he specified that it was reputed to be decked with various stuff from out of the sea, especially fuci (Fucus spp. of seaweed),[42] whose larger forms near shore are known as "tang" in Shetland.[43][44] And though Hibbert does not make the connection, E. Marwick equated the sea-trow with the "
tangy", as already noted.[45]
Landmarks
Most mounds in Orkney are associated with "mound-dweller[s]" (hogboon;
Old Norse: haugbúinn;
Norwegian: haugbonde) living inside them,[46] and though local lore does always specify, the dweller is commonly the trow.[47]
A reputedly trow-haunted mound may not in fact be a burial mound. The Long Howe in
Tankerness, a
glacial mound, was believed to contain trows, and thus avoided after dark.[48] A group of mounds around Trowie Glen in
Hoy are also geological formations, but feared for its trows throughout the valley,[49] and also unapproached after dark.[50]
The
stone circle on
Fetlar has been dubbed the
Haltadans (meaning ‘Limping Dance’) since according to legend, they represent a group of petrified music-loving trows who were so engrossed by dancing to the trowie fiddler's tunes that they failed to hide before dawn's break.[51]
On the mainland in
Canisbay, Caithness is a "Mire of Trowskerry" associated with trows.[1]
Trowie tunes
Some Shetland
fiddle tunes are said to have come to human fiddlers when they heard the trows playing, and are known as "Trowie Tunes".[51][52][53] A selection is offered in the anthology Da Mirrie Dancers (1985).[54]
"Da Trøila Knowe" ('The Knoll of the Trolls') is one example.[55] "Da Trowie Burn" is also an alleged trowie tune, though its composition is attributed to Friedemann Stickle.[56] This apparent contradiction is resolved in the case of "Da Trow's Reel", which was allegedly a tune that another man reputedly obtained from a trow, and he had whistled the tune over to Stickle on a different boat for him to set down the score.[55] "Da Peerie Hoose in under da Hill" ('The Little House under the Hill') is yet another trowie tune as well.[51]
Another trowie tune "Winyadepla", performed by
Tom Anderson on his album with
Aly Bain, The Silver Bow.[i][53]
Kunal trows
A Kunal-Trow (or King-Trow) is a type of trow in the lore of Unst, Shetland. The Kunal-Trow is alleged to be a race without females, and said to wander after dark and sometimes found weeping due to the lack of companionship. But they do take human wife, once in their lives, and she invariably dies after giving birth to a son. The Kunal-Trow would subsequently require the service of a human wet-nurse, and may abduct a midwife for this purpose.[57][58]
They are said to consume earth formed into shapes of fish and fowl, even babies, which taste and smell like the real thing.[57]
One (a King-Trow) famously haunted a
broch ruin. Another married a witch who extracted all the trow's secrets, and gave birth to Ganfer (
astral body) and Finis (an apparition who appears in the guise of someone whose death is imminent), yet she has cheated death with her arts.[57]
Parallels
Ben's sea-trow (trowis) bore resemblance to the anciently known
incubus, as it "seems to have occupied the visions of the female sex", as noted by
John Graham Dalyell (1835).[29]
The learning of music from fairies is recognized as a recurring theme in Scandinavian and Celtic folklore. Examples in Irish tradition relate how a lutharachán (dialect form of
leprechaun) or púca teaches tunes,[59] like the Shetlandic trow who lets his music be heard from his fairy mound or otherwise; such tales classifiable as Migratory Legends "Type 4091, Music Taught by Fairie (Fiddle on the Wall)" under
Bo Almqvist's modified system[60][j]
The tale of a fiddler being taken to a fairy mound by fairies or trows is known by several versions in Shetland, but has also been collected from Orkney and the Scottish mainland (Inverness), and the group is assigned "F24. Fiddler Enlisted to Play for Fairy Dancers" under Alan Bruford's provisional classification scheme.[24]
Origins
Book author Joan Dey (1991) speculates that the tradition concerning the trows[k] may be based in part on the
Norse invasions of the
Northern Isles. She states that the conquest by the
Vikings sent the indigenous, dark-haired
Picts into hiding and that "many stories exist in Shetland of these strange people, smaller and darker than the tall, blond Vikings who, having been driven off their land into sea-caves, emerged at night to steal from the new land owners".[62][l]
Shetland folklore spoke of the presence of the Pechs (mythologized version of the Picts) inside the fairy knolls ("trowie knowe"), who could be heard clinking their tools on silver and gold.
Saxby (1932), pp. 89, 186
^Australian female writer
Henry Handel Richardson (aka Ethel F. L. Robertson) in her uncredited 1896 translation of
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's Fiskerjenten (tr. The Fisher Lass) rendered the Norwegian draug as "bogies", and defended this to her critical reviewer by noting ON draugr and Scots "drow" as the word's cognates.[7] In her letter (writing as Miss Robertson) to Athenaeum, she gives herself credit, as translator of the Fisher Lass.[8] Cf. her chronology of year 1896.[9]
^Pontoppidan wrote
Danish: "..Søe-Folke ogsaa kalde Søe-Draulen, det er Søe-Trolden", so 'Sea-mischief' was the English translator's insertion. The form Draulen contains the definite article suffix -en but this may be dropped.
^Scott (1835) Demonology, p. 122: "Possession of supernatural wisdom is still imputed by the natives of
Orkney and
Zetland Islands, to the people called Drows, who may, in most other respects, be identified with the
Caledonian fairies".[12]
^Briggs's entry on "trows" explains that a special exemption to the taboo was extended to Shetlander
Jessie M. E. Saxby who, as the ninth child of a ninth child, was able to learn the lore.[17]
^Ben's "trowis" is mentioned by
Dalyell in 1835,[29] but read as "Troicis" and recognized as "trow" by
Samuel Hibbert (1822).[30] The word was later also misread or misprinted as Troicis in MacFarlane & Mitchell edd. (1908),[31] though emended back to Trowis against three manuscripts in Calder & MacDonald (1936).[32]
^Jo. being an abbreviation for "John"[33] or "Joseph".[34] He was said to be a non-local itinerant, a Scottish ecclesiastic making a tour of Orkney.[33]
^"... a troop of
peerie folk came in. A woman took off the nappie from her baby and hung it on Gibbie's leg, near the fire, to dry. Then one of the trows said, "What'll we do ta da sleeper?" "Lat him aleen," replied the woman, "he's no a ill body. Tell Shanko ti gie him a ton." Said Shanko, "A ton he sall hae, an we'll drink his
blaand." After drinking, they trooped out of the mill, and danced on the green nearby ...".
^Reidar Thoralf Christiansen's original Migratory Legends established "Type 4090, Watersprite Teaches Someone to Play", and included Shetland as having this tale type; so a Shetlandic tale of some water-sprite teaching music is assumed to exist.[61]
^Kvam, Lorentz Normann[in Norwegian] (1936), "krekin, krechin",
Trollene grynter i haugen (in Norwegian), Nasjonalforlaget, p. 131, Den sier at med ekte troll forståes : a ) jutuler og riser , b ) gjengangere og spøkelser , - c ) nisser og dverger , d ) bergtroll
^"troll". Bokmålsordboka | Nynorskordboka. Retrieved 6 February 2022.
^Jamieson, John (1882),
"Trow", An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, vol. IV (New ed.)
^Briggs (1977), p. 413: "others of human size, and .. clothed in grey";
Briggs (1977), p. 413 and
Saxby (1932), p. 132: "Our Shetland Fairies are.. unlike Lover's Irish 'good people'.. They are small, grey-clad men".
^"The Fiddler o Gord", told by George P. S. Peterson, Brae, Shetland. Recorded by Alan Bruford 1974 (
School of Scottish Studies recording SA 1974/204B1). Transcript by Bruford (1977);[26] summarized with excerpt by Hillers (1994).[27]
^
abBen, Jo. (1908).
"Ben's Orkney". In MacFarlane, Walter; Mitchell, Arthur (eds.). Geographical Collections Relating to Scotland. Vol. 3. Edinburgh: Scottish History Society. pp. 303–304, 315. (in Latin and English)
^Ernest Marwick restates the same physical description, and remarks that the seaweed-covered, monstrously large creature is also known as "tangy" (
tangie), in contrast to the Norse merman which is human-sized if not a bit smaller.[21]
^Translated as "the big sea-troll" by Teit, with the reminder that Scots trow is defined as‘sprite or fairy’, and Teit himself notes:"'trow' 'trou' or 'troll' seems to be applicable to any kind of super-natural being, but particularly to fairies or elves".[38]
^Charlton, Edward, M. D. (1920), Johnston, Alfred Wintle; Johnston, Amy (eds.),
"A Visit to Shetland in 1832", Old-lore Miscellany of Orkney, Shetland, Caithness and Sutherland, vol. 8, London: Viking Society for Northern Research, p. 124{{
citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
^Edward Charlton (historian) remarks that a piece of coral from the deep "which bore a rude though striking resemblance to the human face and figure... was no doubt, regarded with awe by the.. Shetlanders, who would .. believe it to be a petrified mermaid or a great sea-trow converted into cranzie (coral)".[40]
^Muir (1998) and Lee, D. (2010), Roeberry Barrow, Cantick, South Walls, Orkney, with Additional Survey in Hoy. Manuscript, Data Structure Report apud
Lee (2015), pp. 139–140
^Johnston, Alfred W. (1896), "The' Dwarfie Stone' of Hoy, Orkney", The Reliquary and Illustrated Archæologist, new series, 2: 100
Dennison, W. Traill (1891),
"Orkney Folklore, Sea Myths", The Scottish Antiquary, or, Northern Notes and Queries, 5 (20), Edinburgh University Press: 167–171,
JSTOR25516381, archived from the original on 15 February 2022, retrieved 14 February 2022{{
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—— (2003). "The Creatures in the Mound". In Downes, Jane; Ritchie, Anna (eds.). Sea Change: Orkney and Northern Europe in the Later Iron Age AD 300-800. Balgabies: Pinkfoot Press.
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Tait, E. S. Reid (ed.), "When the Trows Danced", Shetland Folk Book, vol. 2, Shetland Folk Society, pp. 17–25