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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]
Queen of Elphame [1] or "Elf-hame" (-hame stem only occurs in conjectural reconstructed orthography [2] [3]), in the folklore belief of Lowland Scotland and Northern England, designates the elfin queen of Faerie, mentioned in Scottish witch trials. In ballads and contemporary texts, she is referred to as Queen of Elphane, Elphen, or the Fairies.
In Scotland in the 1530s, William Hay described Scottish witches meeting with "seely wights" or "Diana queen of the fairies". Julian Goodare clarifies that "[t]here is no reason to believe that there was a Scottish cult of Diana"; rather, the name was contemporary authorities' way of classifying such beliefs. [ 24 ]
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.
A possible equivalent to the Scottish "seelie" appears in the Welsh "sili," used in some individual fairy names. In a Welsh tale, "Sili go Dwt" was the name of a Rumpelstiltskin-like fairy whose name had to be guessed. [14] In a possibly related fragmentary story, a fairy woman was heard singing the words "sili ffrit" while she spun thread.
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 early modern period saw the Scottish courts trying many cases of witchcraft [3] and witch hunts began in about 1550. [4] The parliament of Mary, Queen of Scots, passed the Scottish Witchcraft Act in 1563, [5] making convictions for witchcraft subject to capital punishment. [6]
Ben Cruachan, highest point in Argyll and Bute, home of the Cailleach nan Cruachan. In Scotland, where she is also known as Beira, Queen of Winter (a name given by 20th-century folklorist Donald Alexander Mackenzie), she is credited with making numerous mountains and large hills, which are said to have been formed when she was striding across the land and accidentally dropped rocks from her ...