Commonplace Folklore: Day X

Walter Traill Dennison

“There was not a hair on the monster’s body, for the very good reason that he had no skin. The whole surface of the monster appeared like raw and living flesh, from which the skin had been stripped. You could see the black blood flowing through his veins, and every movement of his muscles, when the the horrid creature moved, showed white sinews in motion. What a study for an anatomist!”

Walter Traill Dennison (writing about the Nuckelavee), Orkney Folklore and Sea Legends, this particular collection first published in 1995. Dennison was born in 1825 and died in 1894.