Picture yourself walking through the moonlit ruins of Scottish border fort - the air is crisp and cool, the only sound is that of wind ruffling the heather... and the faint grind of stone shifting. You'd better hope that's only the masonry continuing to crumble - because if it's a redcap, your skull is in serious peril!
Here we take a look at these strange and malevolent fairies, covering...
- What Is a Redcap?
- Where Do Redcaps Make Their Lairs?
- Why Do Fairies Normally Avoid Iron?
- How Do Redcaps Use Iron?
- How Do You Ward Off a Redcap?
- Why Do Redcaps Wear Red Caps?
- The Twisted Tale of Lord Soules and His Redcap
- The Cheviot Redcaps of Northumberland
- The Blacket Tower Redcap
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| Fortunately, folklore portrays redcaps as solitary... (tassilo111) |
What Is a Redcap?
The redcap (other names include redcomb, bloody-cap and sometimes powrie or dunter) appears as a short and stout wizened old man, gnome or goblin, wearing iron boots and the namesake blood-red cap. It has prominent teeth, large blazing red eyes, a grizzled mane of hair and long fingers that terminate in wicked talons - which it frequently uses to hold a pikestaff.
Where Do Redcaps Make Their Lairs?
It might be apparent by now that redcaps are not nice fairies, something also reflected in their choice of abode. Legend has it that they lurk in places where dark deeds and tyranny once took place - especially in the castles, towers and peelhouses (small fortified houses that could help guard a family and livestock against reivers) that dot the Anglo-Scottish border.
Should a wanderer enter the lair of a redcap, the murderous fairy takes the opportunity to pry masonry from the crumbling ruins and hurl it down up the unsuspecting guest. If it manages to kill its victim, the redcap soaks his cap in fresh blood - which grants it the crimson hue the fairy is known for.
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| Pre-iron, stone had to suffice... (Juergen_Sieber) |
Why Do Fairies Normally Avoid Iron?
You may have noticed that the redcap wears iron boots... which makes them a bit unusual, since folklore claims most fairies hate or are even harmed by the touch of iron.
It's not actually clear why iron got this magically-active reputation, but the idea has been around for a long, long time. Pliny the Elder's Natural History (a book written nearly two millennia ago) contains a number of protective rituals using iron, including how...
- Tracing a circle with iron or carrying a pointed weapon three times around someone will protect them from all noxious influences
- Nails taken from a tomb and driven into the threshold of a door will prevent Nocturnas lymphationes, or nightmares brought on by water nymphs
There's also the fact that iron occasionally fell form the sky in meteorites and has been used to make special weapons - for example a knife found in the tomb of Pharoah Tutankhamun. Maybe this otherworldly connection hinted at an ability to deal with otherworldly opponents?
Stepping aside from the magical pedigree of the metal, another suggestion is that iron represented the rise of industry and humanity taming the wilderness. Folklore usually paints fairies as beings of the untouched wild, so the mined, smelted and forged nature of the metal would represent the opposite of everything they were.
Such a belief may have been supported by the fact that ancient fortifications (sometimes viewed as the work of fairies) often have flint arrowheads nearby. Elevated ground has been desirable throughout human history, so some sites were continuously used through the Stone, Bronze, Iron Age and beyond.
People living discovering flint arrowheads often thought of them as elf-shot, the arrows used by fairies. Rather than being ancient relics, many thought that these arrowheads were fresh - and that cattle or humans struck by such a missile would fall victim to an illness (also called elf-shot.) Being touched again by the offending arrowhead could reverse the malady, as could drinking water in which it had been dipped.
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| It'd be hard to avoid iron near Iron-Age and later humanity... (juliacasado1) |
How Do Redcaps Use Iron?
While it's true that most fairies in folklore avoid iron, those that live like or amongst humans tend to be a bit more tolerant. Take brownies for example - these helpful household fairies would clean, perform chores and even cook... which would have been difficult given the presence of cast iron kitchenware!
If fairies like the brownie can tolerate the presence or iron, it follows that a redcap might have the same capacity. The two actually have more in common than you might think - both live in human dwellings (though they're usually ruins in the case of the redcap) and both seek out interactions with mortals (though again, the redcap's motivations differ a great deal from the helpful brownie. Interestingly, folklore claims that a brownie can turn into a dangerous boggart if mistreated!
Given the redcaps choice of abode, the use of a pikestaff (polearm) and iron boots might also be a take on the outfit of a soldier. Before the invention of the modern combat boot, hobnailed boots (with metal studs or spikes driven into the sole) served as a tough and high-grip bit of footwear. Even the Romans made use of hobnailed sandals, which would have given their marching an intimidating clatter - something that a malicious redcap might relish, especially since they were said to be eerily quick and impossible to outrun!
How Do You Ward Off a Redcap?
Despite the ineffectiveness of iron, there were still a few ways to drive off a redcap... that's if you survived the initial ambush without being brained by a rock.)
Quoting scripture was said to be able to banish these fairies, but a simpler method was holding up a cross. In both cases, the redcap would yell and vanish in a puff of flame, leaving only a large tooth behind to mark his presence.
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| A lot less friendly than this... (brisch27) |
Why Do Redcaps Wear Red Caps?
As was mentioned above, redcaps soak their caps in the blood of their victims. Folklore has it that if the blood on a a redcap's cap completely dries the fairy will also with and die - which seems to make them almost vampiric.
Surprisingly, this dependence on blood isn't unique in fairy folklore. The Scottish baobhan-sith were bloodthirsty creatures who seduced the unwary and sipped the liquid directly from their veins, while the Irish leannán sidhe collected blood in a cauldron to fuel her occult powers.
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| Blood often carries "life force" in folklore... (geralt) |
The Twisted Tale of Lord Soules and His Redcap
On the Scottish border lies the grim-looking Hermitage Castle, otherwise known as "the guardhouse of the bloodiest valley in Britain.” The earliest known records of a fortification at the site are those of the de Soules family, dating back to 1240s... and folklore paints a scion of that line in a most unflattering way.
William de Soules is thought to have lived between 1280 and 1320 (give or take a year) becoming Lord of Hermitage Castle in 1318. He was deeply unpopular amongst his subjects, ruling cruelly from the wooden precursor to the castle of today.
The historical William de Soules seems to have played fast and loose with his allegiances. Initially fighting for the English, but after the Battle of Bannockburn he switched sides. He then shows up as a signatory on the Declaration of Arbroath (a 1320 document that asked the Pope to support an Independent Scotland) and by that point has become the "Butler of Scotland" - a hereditary court position that put him in charge of the royal wine-cellar. The same year, he was found guilty of conspiracy against King Robert the Bruce of Scotland and imprisoned in Dumbarton Castle... where he would soon die in mysterious circumstances.
The folklore version of de Soules was much, much worse. The anthology "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border" curated by Sir Walter Scott contains the ballad "Lord Soulis" (spellings vary) which paints the titular character as a physically powerful, cruel and treacherous witch.
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| Ineffective... (Didgeman) |
Encouraged by the redcap, the misdeeds of de Soules (including murder and abduction) brought the wrath of his neighbors. Unable to wound him and unable to restrain him with rope or chain, the group instead elected to boil de Soules alive in molten lead - something the redcap hadn't accounted for!
There are actually a few different versions of this story. One has an abduction attempt by de Soules foiled by the girl's father - and though de Soules kills him, a mob are about to overwhelm him when another noble turns up and diffuses the situation. The noble's efforts on his behalf infuriate de Soules, who lures him to Hermitage Castle for a banquet then kills him. Other versions have the locals (on the advice of Thomas the Rhymer, a figure of some mystery himself) rise up and bind de Soules in hollow belts filled with sifted sand, or even misinterpret an exasperated exclamation by King Robert the Bruce "Soules! Soules! Go boil him in brew!" as a royal command. No matter the version, de Soules is portrayed as an awful excuse for a human being with his excesses being enabled by the redcap... who delighted in the resulting carnage.
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| Could these Northumberland ruins be the home of a redcap? (wenzlerdesign) |
The Cheviot Redcaps of Northumberland
Northumberland sits on the English side of the Anglo-Scottish border - in fact it's not incredibly far from the the ill-fated Hermitage Castle mentioned above. Local legend has the Cheviot Hills haunted by Redcaps, claiming that they'll take to the ruins of castles, ancient hill forts and even those sites where a massive amount of blood has been shed.
Given the astounding amount of battles, raids and banditry that occurred on the border, they'd have their pick of locations in which to lurk - many of which would be fine places to ambush unsuspecting humans hiking through the picturesque scenery!
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| Cattle rustling was a common and potentially bloody affair... (SimoneVomFeld) |
The Blacket Tower RedcapBlacket Tower in Dumfriesshire was the home of the Bells, a clan with a reputation as Border Reivers (I'm not having a go at the Bells here - I have some MacFarlane blood and they were renowned cattle rustlers.) Though Blacket House Tower was destroyed by the English, one resident remained - "Old Red-Cap" or "Bloody Bell." Folklore claims that this spectral figure appears on the walls on moonlit nights and howls from the battlements, clutching a bloody dagger in its hand.
One tale paints this redcap as more of a ghost than a fairy. The story goes that a particularly vicious Bell stole cattle from a farmer named Johnstone, who mounted up tracked his missing animals. By the time he reached Blacket House, he'd had time to realize the folly of assaulting a fortified house filled with a raiding party by himself, so he attempted to reason with the raiders. They seemed cordial enough, they invited him in to have a bite of food and a drink, then offered to help him recover some of his losses.
When the farmer and raider rode out after the meal, they'd ridden only a short distance when Bell turned and stabbed Johnstone through the heard with a dagger - it seemed he'd had no intention of following through with his offer. Johnstone died, but not before cursing Bell to an eternity haunting the tower and his kin.
No matter the interpretation, "Bloody Bell" was a figure to be feared - and a murderous, dagger-wielding ghost is probably just as bad as a bloodthirsty fairy!