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Nicneven, Nicnevin or Nicnevan is a witch or fairy queen from Scottish folklore. She is often said to be the same figure as the Gyre-Carling or Hecate, but some scholars disagree with this. It is debated whether the name originally referred to a real woman or a mythical goddess. [1] [2]
In 1801, John Leyden identified the Scottish queen of the fairies with Nicneven, the "gyre-carlin," or Hecate. [30] This was accepted by authors such as Sir Walter Scott, [31] but has baffled later scholars; Nicneven is, properly, a witch in the 16th-century poetry of Alexander Montgomerie. She is a worshipper of Hecate and a separate person ...
Fairyland may be referred to simply as Fairy or Faerie, though that usage is an archaism.It is often the land ruled by the "Queen of Fairy", and thus anything from fairyland is also sometimes described as being from the "Court of the Queen of Elfame" or from the Seelie court in Scottish folklore.
The baobhan sith (literally "fairy witch" or "fairy hag" in Scottish Gaelic) is a female fairy in the folklore of the Scottish Highlands, though they also share certain characteristics in common with the succubus. [1] They appear as beautiful women who seduce their victims before attacking them and killing them. [1]
According to John Leyden in 1801, the Scottish fairy queen was called Nicneven, the Gyre-Carling, or Hecate. [13] Later scholarship has disputed this; Nicneven's earliest known appearance was in Alexander Montgomerie's Flyting (c. 1580) as a witch and worshiper of Hecate, and a separate character from the Elf Queen. [14]
Scottish mythology is the collection of myths that have emerged throughout the history of Scotland, sometimes being elaborated upon by successive generations, and at other times being rejected and replaced by other explanatory narratives.
The legends surrounding this creature are more common in Scottish folklore, but a few occur in Irish. Some common folklore suggested that the cat-sìth was not a fairy, but a witch that could transform into a cat nine times. [1] [2] [3] The cat-sìth may have been inspired by the Scottish wildcat itself. [4]
Robert Kirk (9 December 1644 – 14 May 1692) was a minister, Gaelic scholar and folklorist, best known for The Secret Commonwealth, a treatise on fairy folklore, witchcraft, ghosts, and second sight, a type of extrasensory perception described as a phenomenon by the people of the Scottish Highlands.