Description and attributes The each-uisge, a supernatural
water horse found in the
Scottish Highlands, has been described as "perhaps the fiercest and most dangerous of all the water-horses" by the folklorist
Katharine Briggs. Often mistaken for the kelpie (which inhabits streams and rivers), the each-uisge lives in the sea,
sea lochs, and fresh water lochs. or profuse sand and mud in its hair. Because of this, people in the Highlands were often wary of lone animals and strangers by the water's edge, near where the each-uisge was reputed to live. Cnoc-na-Bèist ("Hillock of the Monster") is the name of a
knoll on the
Isle of Lewis where an each-uisge was slain by the brother of a woman it tried to seduce, by the freshwater Loch a’ Mhuileinn ("Loch of the Mill"). Affleck Gray records two each-uisge tales relating to the
River Spey in the Cairngorms. The
An t-Each Ban was a white water-horse, which despite not being the usual black colour was otherwise "traditional", seeking out travellers on stormy nights in equine form, and leaping with its victims into deep pools. The yellow horse of the Spey was an even more unusual colour and its preferred victims were married couples. Gray also notes that highland each-uisges "appear to have been richly caparisoned", and that if a woman could get ahold of the rich bridles and replace it with a cow shackle then she would have power over the each uisge for the rest of her life and that the bridle would bring her good fortune.
Water horses and women The each-uisge also has a particular desire for human women. Campbell states that "any woman upon whom it set its mark was certain at last to become its victim." A young woman herding cattle encountered a water horse in the form of a handsome young man who laid his head in her lap and fell asleep. When he stretched himself she discovered that he had horse's hooves and quietly made her escape (in variations of the tale she finds the presence of water weeds or sand in his hair). In another account a water horse in human shape came to a woman's house where she was alone and attempted to court her, but all he got for his unwanted advances was boiling water hurled between his legs. He ran from the house roaring in pain. In a third tale a father and his three sons conspired to kill a water horse that came to the house to see the daughter. When they grabbed the young man he reverted to his equine form and would have carried them into the loch, but in the struggle they managed to slay him with their
dirks. Despite its amorous tendencies, however, the each-uisge is just as likely to simply devour women in the same manner as its male victims.). William Sayers (1985) thought it may be connected to the Irish water horse () despite lack of connection with water. ==Variants==