Case file · Folklore / legend
The kelpie
In Scottish folklore, a shape-shifting water horse that haunts lochs and can take human form, usually to drown its victims.
1674 CE · 54.84, -4.05 · status: legend
The account
The places 'Kelpie hoall' and 'Kelpie hooll' appear in Kirkcudbright burgh records of 1674, and the poet William Collins used the word for the creature before 1759. Robert Burns tied it to the Devil in 1786.
The sceptical view
A folklore creature found, under various names, across the British Isles.