kimurho

Sleigh Beggey is Manx Gaelic for "Little People".

Manx Gaelic always gives me pause; I suppose Irish Gaelic does, as well, but Irish Gaelic uses the same spelling conventions as Scottish Gaelic so it "looks right" to me and I can usually suss out the words. Manx Gaelic uses English spelling conventions rather than Gaelic so I have to sound it out and try to work backwards.

A recent example is arkan sonney, Manx for "lucky piggy". Then entry for this creature in Encyclopedia of Fairies, Katherine Briggs, 1976

The name given to the Fairy Pig of Man. Walter Gill in A Manx Scrapbook (p. 444) mentions a fairy pig seen near Niarbyl by a child who told him about it some fifty years later as an old woman. It was a beautiful little white pig, and as the fairy pigs are supposed to bring luck, she called to her uncle to come and help her to catch it. But he called back to her to leave it alone, and it soon disappeared. Dora Broome has a tale of a little fairy pig in her Fairy Tales from the Isle of Man. Her little pig is white, with red ears and eyes like most Celtic Fairy Animals. It can alter its size, but apparently not its shape.

Something that Katherine Briggs doesn't mention is that the arkan sonney is supposed to have wings. Catching one brings good luck - as in something that happens "when pigs fly".

I did some digging and found the Scottish Gaelic for this creature is uircean sona which does, in fact, mean "Lucky Piglet". It is also one of the Highland names for the hedgehog.

But the entry the book opened on today was Little Folk which directed me to Sleigh Beggey.

A name given to the Fairies in the Manx tongue, though they are more usually spoken of as 'the Li'l Fallas', 'Themselves', or 'Them That's In', which covers Bugganes and other sinister characters as well as the fairies. Another Manx name for them is the Ferrishyn.

For once, it's fairly easy for me to see the Gaelic in the name. Sluagh is the Scottish Gaelic word for a multitude of people, a host. Beag is small, little. In Scottish Gaelic, however, the phrase daoine beaga is used - literally "little people". Sluagh is commonly reserved for the Host of Unforgiven Dead (this is the next entry after Sleigh Beggey in the Encyclopedia).

Common names for those of Faerie in English include "The Little People", "The Good Neighbours", "Lords and Ladies", "The Gentry", "The Hill Folk", "The Hidden Ones", "Ellefolk", "Huldrafolk", and "Men of Peace". This last I've only ever seen in Gaelic - daoine sìth. For that matter, the word I've seen most often in Gaelic stories for the Otherfolk is sìthichean, which I suspect literally refers to one who comes from the faerie hill, an sìthean.

The terms "Elves" and "Fairies" are often used interchangeably, though I have to confess the thought gives me the cald grues, though I can't say why exactly. It might have something to do with my utter distaste for the word "fairy" - though Faerie is acceptable when it is used to refer to the land from which the Otherfolk come or originate.

For myself, I prefer to use the term "Otherfolk" as a general referent, "Little People" for more solitary members (Leprechauns, bucca, brownies, &c), and "Lords and Ladies" when talking about the Courtly elves.

Yesterday, I posted about grindylow, claiming that Jennie Greenteeth, Peg Powler, and Nellie Long-arms (of whom I had never before heard) were individual, named members of the the same species. But what if "Grindylow" IS a named member of the same species.

Imagine if Otherfolk classified humans by the ones they knew. So there would be Donalds - low IQ beasts that build large empty buildings for no reason except to travel from one empty dwelling to another and who attempt to accumulate wealth. They steal beautiful young women, discarding them when they are bored. Dangerous because they lack understanding, occasionally actively malicious.

There would be Simmons, brightly clad beings with wild hair that are in perpetual motion, generally pleasant and smiling. Simmons are well-disposed to others and like to bless others with health and well-being.

... and so forth.