Water horse

The term "water horse" originally refers to a kelpie , a horse-like creature similar to the hippocampus, with the head, neck, mane and legs of an ordinary horse, webbed hooves and a long two-lobed whale tail. The term has also been used as a nickname for lake monsters, especially Ogopogo and Nessie . ^[1] In addition, the name “kelpie” is often used as a nickname for other Scottish lake monsters, such as eh- ushkie and the morach from Loch Morar and Lizzie from Loch Lomond . Other names for these aquatic monsters include “sea horse” (not related to seahorse ) and hippocampus (also the generic name of the latter).

The use of the terms “water horse” and “kelpie” often causes some confusion; some consider them to be minonyms; some distinguish water horses as inhabitants of lakes from kelpies inhabiting flowing waters, such as rivers, streams and waterfalls. Different authors call the same creature of a certain Kelpie reservoir and a water horse. For those and for others, the term “ water bull ” can also be used, although, strictly speaking, this is a completely different animal. A water bull can be at odds with a water horse, as happened, for example, on the island of Islay (see the corresponding story in the article about the water bull).

About the magical “sea horse” Morvark of the Breton king Gradlon said that he knows how to ride on the sea waves, like Cornish water horses.

Water horses became the basis for describing other lake monsters, such as Ogopogo from Lake Okanagan in Canada or Shampa from Lake Champlain . Loch Morar Lake is the habitat of morag , a lake monster, also depicted in the form of a water horse.

While Scottish / Celtic folklore places water horses in suckers or rivers, some Breton and Cornish tales of water horses inhabit them in the ocean , making them already sea monsters.

Most Highland suckers are somehow connected with water horses, although one study of the literature of the XIX century. showed that out of thousands of reservoirs in Scotland, only about 60 suckers and lohans (small lakes) were worth mentioning. The most mentioned was the water horse that lives in Loch Ness. ^[2]

Tales of observations of water horses regularly appeared during the 18th century, but only in the 19th century. they began to record.

• In 1846, the captain of the Danish fleet, Christmas reported seeing an “enormous long-necked beast chasing a flock of dolphins” somewhere between Iceland and the Faroe Islands . He described this creature as having a horse’s head and neck as thick as a man’s waist, which it “moved gracefully, like a swan”.
• At 5 o'clock in the afternoon of August 6, 1848, an officer of the British fleet in the corvette HMS Daedalus noticed an unusual animal floating towards the ship. It has been said that it looks like a sea ​​snake with a four-foot neck. The head reached 15 or 16 inches in length. It was reported that no fins, fins or tail were visible, and there was something like a horse mane on the neck, with algae hanging down to the back.
• In the fall of 1883 a message appeared about two animals with horse heads, one of which was smaller than the other (presumably a cub) off the southern coast of Panama . The crew of the American whaler Hope On saw a dive of a creature 20 feet long. It had a brownish color with black dots, and four legs / fin, with a tail that “seemed bifurcated” (implying a cetacean appearance), and all four limbs and tail were visible when it was near the surface. The second creature was exactly like the first, only much smaller, and followed. In the same year, a similar creature was met in the Gulf of Bristol . It was said that it left behind a greasy mark like a slug or snail.