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Name
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The Cabbyl-Ushtey
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Description
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The water-horse of Manx folklore. A shape-shifting creature who could appear as an ordinary horse grazing by a lake or river. Anyone who mounted it would find themselves unable to dismount as the creature plunged into deep water. In 1859 it was reported that such an animal was to be seen in a field near Ballure Glen, and hundreds of people left Ramsey to catch sight of it. Campbell, writing of the same tradition in Scotland, concluded that the old Celts must have had a destroying water-god to whom the horse was sacred. The Manx water-horse was sometimes identified with the Glashtyn.
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Manx Name
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Cabbyl-Ushtey
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Type
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Creature
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Water Spirit
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Source
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Moore, Folk-lore (1891), Ch. IV
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Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands
