his own horse-whip.  Such an important service excited the gratitude of the laird; who, understanding that Brownie had been heard to express a wish to have a green coat, ordered a vestment of that colour to be made, and left in his haunts.  Brownie took away the green coat, but never was seen more.  We may suppose, that, tired of his domestic drudgery, he went in his new livery to join the fairies.—­See Appendix, No.  VI.

The last Brownie, known in Ettrick forest, resided in Bodsbeck, a wild and solitary spot, where he exercised his functions undisturbed, till the scrupulous devotion of an old lady induced her to hire him away, as it was termed, by placing in his haunt a porringer of milk and a piece of money.  After receiving this hint to depart, he was heard the whole night to howl and cry, “Farewell to bonny Bodsbeck!” which he was compelled to abandon for ever.]

A being, totally distinct from those hitherto mentioned, is the Bogle, or Goblin; a freakish spirit, who delights rather to perplex and frighten mankind; than either to serve, or seriously to hurt, them.  This is the Esprit Follet of the French; and Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, though enlisted by Shakespeare among the fairy band of Oberon, properly belongs to this class of phantoms. Shellycoat, a spirit, who resides in the waters, and has given his name to many a rock and stone upon the Scottish coast, belongs also to the class of bogles[55].  When he appeared, he seemed to be decked with marine productions, and, in particular with shells, whose clattering announced his approach.  From this circumstance he derived his name.  He may, perhaps, be identified with the goblin of the northern English, which, in the towns and cities, Durham and Newcastle for example had the name of Barquest; but, in the country villages, was more frequently termed Brag.  He usually ended his mischievous frolics with a horse-laugh.

[Footnote 55:  One of his pranks is thus narrated:  Two men, in a very dark night, approaching the banks of the Ettrick, heard a doleful voice from its waves repeatedly exclaim—­“Lost! lost!”—­They followed the sound, which seemed to be the voice of a drowning person, and, to their infinite astonishment, they found that it ascended the river.  Still they continued, during a long and tempestuous night, to follow the cry of the malicious sprite; and arriving, before morning’s dawn, at the very sources of the river, the voice was now heard descending the opposite side of the mountain in which they arise.  The fatigued and deluded travellers now relinquished the pursuit; and had no sooner done so, than they heard Shellycoat applauding, in loud bursts of laughter, his successful roguery.  The spirit was supposed particularly to haunt the old house of Gorrinberry, situated on the river Hermitage, in Liddesdale.]

Shellycoat must not be confounded with Kelpy, a water spirit also, but of a much more powerful and malignant nature.  His attributes have been the subject of a poem in Lowland Scottish, by the learned Dr. Jamieson of Edinburgh, which adorns the third volume of this collection.  Of Kelpy, therefore, it is unnecessary to say any thing at present.