Trow (folklore)

Template:Short description Template:Distinguish Template:Use dmy dates A trow (Template:IPAc-en,Template:Refn 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.

TerminologyEdit

The trow {{#invoke:IPA|main}}, in the Scots language, is defined as a ‘sprite or fairy’ of mischievous nature in dictionaries of Scots, particularly Orcadian and Shetland dialects.<ref name="snd-trow"/><ref name="edmonston"/>

EtymologyEdit

The standard etymology derives the term trow from troll (Template:Langx; Template:Langx) of Scandinavian folklore.<ref name="snd-trow"/> Norwegian trold (troll) can signify not just a 'giant', but a 'specter, ghost' ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}) as well.<ref name="kvam"/><ref name="UIB-troll"/>

As an alternate etymology, John Jamieson's Scottish dictionary conjectured that the word trow may be a corruption of Scandinavian draug.<ref name="jamieson-dict-trow"/>Template:Efn It may be worth noting that the Norwegian "sea-draug" (Template:Langx; Template:Langx,<ref name="egede"/> {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}<ref name="pontoppidan-eng"/>) was either a sub-type or equivalent to the sea-troll/sea-trold, according to 18th century tracts by Dano-Norwegians.<ref name="egede"/><ref name="pontoppidan-eng"/>Template:Efn

drowEdit

The trow is also called drow under its variant spelling in the Insular dialects of Scots;<ref name="snd-drow"/> the "drow" being mentioned by Walter Scott.Template:Refn<ref name="scott"/> However, the term "drow" could also be used in the sense of ‘the devil’ in Orkney.<ref name="snd-drow"/>Template:Refn

The word drow also occurs in the Shetland Norn language, where it means ‘huldrefolk’("the hidden people", fairies), ‘troll-folk’,<ref name="jakobsen-drow"/> or ‘ghost’.<ref name="korobzow"/> 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 Norse {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} or Norwegian {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}.<ref name="jakobsen-drow"/> 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.<ref name="korobzow"/>

General descriptionEdit

It was considered taboo to speak about trows.Template:Refn It was also considered unlucky to catch sight of a trow, though auspicious to hear one speaking.<ref name="saxby-music&mound">Template:Harvp quoted by Template:Harvp.</ref>

Their portrayed appearance can vary greatly: in some telling gigantic and even multi-headed, as are some giants in English lore;Template:Sfnp else small or human-sized, like ordinary fairies, but dressed in grey.<ref>Template:Harvp: "others of human size, and .. clothed in grey"; Template:Harvp and Template:Harvp: "Our Shetland Fairies are.. unlike Lover's Irish 'good people'.. They are small, grey-clad men".</ref>

Trows consist of two kinds, the hill-trows (land trows) and sea-trows,Template:Sfnp and the two kinds are said to be mortal enemies.Template:Sfnp

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".<ref>Template:Harvp and p. 414, quoting from Template:Harvp</ref>

The trows are fond of music and constantly play the fiddle themselves.<ref name="saxby-music&mound"/> 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,Template:Sfnp<ref name="bruford-vanwinkle"/> or chooses to die.Template:Refn

Sea-trowEdit

Template:See also

There are varying descriptions concerning the sea-trow.

An early account is that of the trow (Template:Langx Template:Linktext {{#invoke:Lang|lang}})Template:Refn of Stronsay, as described by Jo. Ben (i.e., John or Joseph Ben)'sTemplate:Efn 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 Template:Efn with the women of the island.<ref name="ben-macfarlane&mitchell-edd"/>Template:Sfnp

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,Template:Sfnp 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.Template:Sfnp Template:Refn

However, in Shetland, "da mokkl sea-trow", a great evil spirit that dwelled in the depths,Template:Refn<ref name="teit"/> was said to take on the shape of a woman, at least in some instances.Template:Refn

It is blamed for awaiting in the depths and stealing from the fish caught on fishermen's lines,Template:Sfnp and otherwise feared for causing storms or causing ill luck to fishermen.<ref name="teit"/> In the form of the wailing woman, she portends some misfortune befalling the witness/audience.<ref name="teit"/>

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),Template:Sfnp whose larger forms near shore are known as "tang" in Shetland.Template:Sfnp<ref>Dictionary of the Scots Language (2004) s.v. "Tang n.1"</ref> And though Hibbert does not make the connection, E. Marwick equated the sea-trow with the "tangy", as already noted.<ref>Template:Harvp; Template:Harvp</ref>

LandmarksEdit

Most mounds in Orkney are associated with "mound-dweller[s]" (hogboon; Template:Langx; Template:Langx) living inside them,Template:Refn and though local lore does always specify, the dweller is commonly the trow.<ref>Template:Harvp and Template:Harvp [1975], "Ch. 2: Folk of Hill and Mound", {{#invoke:URL|url}}{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:URL with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y | 1 | 2 }} apud Template:Harvp.</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Harvp apud Template:Harvp.</ref> A group of mounds around Trowie Glen in Hoy are also geological formations, but feared for its trows throughout the valley,<ref>Template:Harvp and Lee, D. (2010), Roeberry Barrow, Cantick, South Walls, Orkney, with Additional Survey in Hoy. Manuscript, Data Structure Report apud Template:Harvp</ref> and also unapproached after dark.<ref name="johnston1896"/>

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.<ref name="larrington"/>

On the mainland in Canisbay, Caithness is a "Mire of Trowskerry" associated with trows.<ref name="mowat"/>

Trowie tunesEdit

Some Shetland fiddle tunes are said to have come to human fiddlers when they heard the trows playing, and are known as "Trowie Tunes".<ref name="larrington"/><ref>Template:Harvp apud Template:Harvp</ref><ref name="fiddlers-companion"/> A selection is offered in the anthology Da Mirrie Dancers (1985).<ref name="cooke"/>

"Da Trøila Knowe" ('The Knoll of the Trolls') is one example.Template:Sfnp "Da Trowie Burn" is also an alleged trowie tune, though its composition is attributed to Friedemann Stickle.Template:Sfnp 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.Template:Sfnp "Da Peerie Hoose in under da Hill" ('The Little House under the Hill') is yet another trowie tune as well.<ref name="larrington"/>

Another trowie tune "Winyadepla", performed by Tom Anderson on his album with Aly Bain, The Silver Bow.Template:Efn<ref name="fiddlers-companion"/>

Kunal trowsEdit

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.<ref name="saxby-kunal">Template:Harvp, quoted by Template:Harvp.</ref><ref>Template:Harvp [1975], "Ch. 2: Folk of Hill and Mound", {{#invoke:URL|url}}{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:URL with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y | 1 | 2 }}</ref>

They are said to consume earth formed into shapes of fish and fowl, even babies, which taste and smell like the real thing.<ref name="saxby-kunal"/>

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.<ref name="saxby-kunal"/>

ParallelsEdit

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).<ref name="dalyell"/>

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,<ref name="ui-ogain"/> 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 systemTemplate:Sfnp Template:Refn

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.Template:Sfnp

OriginsEdit

Book author Joan Dey (1991) speculates that the tradition concerning the trowsTemplate:Efn 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".Template:Sfnp Template:Efn

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.Template:Harvp