John Heyrick, who lived in the eighteenth century, describes Black Annis thus:
Tis said the soul of mortal man recoil’d,
To view Black Annis’ eye, so fierce and wild;
Vast talons, foul with human flesh, there grew
In place of hands, and features livid blue
Glar’d in her visage; while the obscene waist
Warm skins of human victims close embraced.
This flesh-eating, blue-faced hag lived in a cave in the Dane Hills near Leicester. She was supposed to have excavated it with her bare hands, using only her long, clawlike iron nails. She was partial to a diet of children and lambs, and when she had devoured them, their skins were spread over the branches of the giant oak tree at the mouth of the cave.
Black Dogs
See Barguest, Capelthwaite, Cù Sith, Cwn Annwn, Yeth Hound.
Blodeuedd
Literally, “Flower Face,” taking her name from the Welsh blodeu, “flower” or “blossom,” and gwedd, “face” or “appearance,” Blodeuedd is one of the main female figures in the fourth branch of the Mabinogion, a collection of ancient epic Welsh stories, which relates how she was made from oak, broom, and meadowsweet as a magical bride for Lleu Llaw Gyffes, “Lleu the Fair of the Steady Hand,” son of Arianhod.
Bloody Bones
Blud
A malevolent fairy in Slavic mythology who causes confusion and disorientation.
Blue Burches
A folk tale from Somerset describes the pranks of Blue Burches (breeches), a hobgoblin of a mischievous but harmless disposition whose tricks were endured with forbearance by the cobbler in whose house he lived. In time, the local clergymen heard of the hobgoblin and came to the conclusion he was an incarnation of the Devil, whereupon they set out to exorcise him. The cobbler’s son unwittingly betrayed Blue Burches in the guise of an old white horse grazing nearby and the parsons cried out, “Depart from me, you wicked—!” The hobgoblin dived into the duck pond and was gone.
Blue-Cap
A spirit of the mines in the north of England, manifesting as a small, flickering blue flame. The diligent blue-caps expected and received their modest wages in a far-flung corner of the mine and were helpful to respectful miners, warning them of prospective dangers.
See also Coblynau, Knockers, Kobold.
Blue Men of the Minch
“The Blue Men of the Minch,” a tale relating particularly to that stretch of water in the Hebrides between Lewis and the Shiant Islands, is related in J. G. Campbell’s Superstitions of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (1900), in which an eyewitness “who was very positive he had himself seen a one” describes his encounter: “A blue-coloured man with a long grey face and floating from the waist out of the water, followed the boat he was in for a long time, and was occasionally so near that the observer might have put his hand upon him.”
The Blue Men were held responsible for the stormy waters of the Minch, leaving their undersea cave-dwellings to swim toward passing ships to wreck them and only being thwarted in their intent by canny captains who could outwit them with rhyme and a sharp tongue. They are variously described as fallen angels or, as in D. A. Mackenzie’s Scottish Folk-lore and Folk Life (1935), as being based on historical accounts of captured Moors in Ireland, called “Blue Men,” who were abandoned in the ninth century by Norse seafarers.
Bodach
Literally, “old man” or “specter,” this name is found in numerous place names in Scotland. Tigh nam Bodach or “House of the Specter,” is an example of an ancient pagan site in a remote glen, where a “family” of curiously shaped stones bears the names of the Bodach, his wife Cailleach, and their children. These supernatural beings, as folk tales relate, were responsible for the fertility of the area and, being treated kindly by the local population, left the stones to be moved out of the shelter each year during the summer to ensure continuing abundance.
However, a different creature altogether, the Bodach Glas, or Dark Gray Man, is described in Waverley by Sir Walter Scott as being a gray specter warning of impending death or catastrophe.
Bodachan Sabhaill
A helpful barn brownie, the Little Old Man of the Barn “will thresh with no light in the mouth of the night” while the old farmer sleeps, according to a verse in D. A. Mackenzie’s Scottish Folk-lore and Folk Life (1935).
Bogan
See Bauchan.
Bogeyman
Tales of the Bag-man, or Man with the Sack, are told in many cultures to frighten children into good behavior. They generally portray him as a nebulous, threatening spirit carrying a bag or sack on his back in which he puts children who misbehave.
Boggart
There are many local tales of this mischievous, sometimes malevolent, brownie, either in the guise of a household spirit who steals the food from the table and torments the family or as a tricksy field-dweller.
In an old Lincolnshire
