The serpent, known in Scotland as nathair challtuinn ("snake of the hazel grove"), had evidently a mythological significance. Leviathan is represented by the Gaelic cirein cròin (sea-serpent), also called mial mhòr a chuain ("the great beast of the sea") and cuairtag mhòr a chuain ("the great whirlpool of the sea"); a sea-snake was supposed to be located in Corryvreckan whirlpool. Kelpies and water horses and water bulls are forms assumed by the Scottish dragon. There are Far Eastern horse-and bull-dragons.
In ancient British lore there are references to souls in serpent form. A serpent might be a "double" like the Egyptian "Ka". It was believed in Wales that snake-souls were concealed in every farm-house. When one crept out from its hiding-place and died, the farmer or his wife died soon afterwards. Lizards were supposed to be forms assumed by women after death.[176] The otter, called in Scottish Gaelic Dobhar-chù ("water dog") and Righ nàn Dobhran ("king of the water" or "river"), appears to have been a soul form. When one was killed a man or a woman died. The king otter was supposed to have a jewel in its head like the Indian nāga (serpent deity), the Chinese dragon, the toad, &c. The king otter was invulnerable except on one white spot below its chin. Those who wore a piece of its skin as a charm were supposed to be protected against injury in battle. Evidently, therefore, the otter was originally a god like the boar, the image of which, as Tacitus records, was worn for protection by the Baltic amber searchers of Celtic speech. The biasd na srogaig ("the beast of the lowering horn") was a Hebridean loch dragon with a single horn on its head; this unicorn was tall and clumsy.
The "double" or external soul might also exist in a tree. Both in England and Scotland there are stories of trees withering when some one dies, or of some one dying when trees are felled. Aubrey tells that when the Earl of Winchelsea began to cut down an oak grove near his seat at Eastwell in Kent, the Countess died suddenly, and then his eldest son, Lord Maidstone, was killed at sea. Allan Ramsay, the Scottish poet, tells that the Edgewell tree near Dalhousie Castle was fatal to the family from which he was descended, and Sir Walter Scott refers to it in his "Journal", under the date 13th May, 1829. When a branch fell from it in July, 1874, an old forester exclaimed "The laird's deed noo!" and word was received not long afterwards of the death of the eleventh Earl of Dalhousie. Souls of giants were supposed to be hidden in thorns, eggs, fish, swans, &c. At Fasnacloich, in Argyllshire, the visit of swans to a small loch is supposed to herald the death of a Stewart.
"External souls", or souls after death, assumed the forms of cormorants, cuckoos, cranes, eagles, gulls, herons, linnets, magpies, ravens, swans, wrens, &c., or of deer, mice, cats, dogs, &c. Fairies (supernatural beings) appeared as deer or birds. Among the Scottish were-animals are cats, black sheep, mice, hares, gulls, crows, ravens, magpies, foxes, dogs, &c. Children were sometimes transformed by magicians into white dogs, and were restored to human form by striking them with a magic wand or by supplying shirts of bog-cotton. The floating lore regarding were-animals was absorbed in witch-lore after the Continental beliefs regarding witches were imported into this country. In like manner a good deal of floating lore was attached to the devil. In Scotland he is supposed to appear as a goat or pig, as a gentleman with a pig's or horse's foot, or as a black or green man riding a black or green horse followed by black or green dogs. Eels were "devil-fish", and were supposed to originate from the hairs of horses' manes or tails. Men who ate eels became insane, and fought horses.
In Scotland butterflies and bees were not only soul-forms but deities, and there are traces of similar beliefs in England, Wales, and Ireland. Scottish Gaelic names of the butterfly include dealbhan-dé ("image" or "form of God"), dealbh signifying "image", "form", "picture", "idol", or "statue"; dearbadan-dé ("manifestation of God"); eunan-dé ("small bird of God"); teine-dé ("fire of God"); and dealan-dé ("brightness of God"). The word dealan refers to (1) lightning, (2) the brightness of the starry sky, (3) burning coal, (4) the wooden bar of a door, and (5) to a wooden peg fastening a cow-halter round the neck. The bar and peg, which gave security, were evidently connected with the deity.
In addition to meaning butterfly, dealan-dé ("the dealan of God") refers to a burning stick which is shaken to and fro or whirled round about. When "need fires" (new fires) were lit at Beltain festival (1st May)—"Beltain" is supposed to mean "bright fires" or "white fires", that is, luck-bringing or sacred fires—burning brands were carried from them to houses, all domestic fires having previously been extinguished. The "new fire" brought luck, prosperity, health, increase, protection, &c. Until recently Highland boys who perpetuated the custom of lighting bon-fires to celebrate old Celtic festivals were wont to snatch burning sticks from them and run homewards, whirling the dealan-dé round about so as to keep it burning.
Souls took the form of a dealan-dé (butterfly). Lady Wilde relates in Ancient Legends (Vol. I, pp. 66-7) the Irish story of a child who saw the butterfly form of the soul—"a beautiful living creature with four snow-white wings"; it rose from the body of a man who had just died and went "fluttering round his head". The child and others watched the winged soul "until it passed from sight into the clouds". The story continues: "This was the first butterfly that was ever seen in Ireland; and now all men know that the butterflies are the souls of the dead waiting for the moment when they may enter Purgatory, and so pass through torture to purification and peace".
In England and Scotland moths were likewise souls of the dead that entered houses by night or fluttered outside windows, as if attempting to return to former haunts.
The butterfly god or soul-form was known to the Scandinavians. Freyja, the northern goddess, appears to have had a butterfly avatar. At any rate, the butterfly was consecrated to her. In Greece the nymph Psyche, beloved by Cupid, was a beautiful maiden with the wings of a butterfly; her name signifies "the soul". Greek artistes frequently depicted the human soul as a butterfly, and especially the particular species called ψυχη ("the soul"). On an ancient tomb in Italy a butterfly is shown issuing from the open mouth of a death-mask. The Serbians believed that the butterfly souls of witches arose from their mouths when they slept. They died if their butterfly souls did not return.[177] Evidence of belief in the butterfly soul has been forthcoming in Burmah, where ceremonies are performed to prevent the baby's butterfly soul following that of a dead mother.[178] The pre-Columbian Americans, and especially the Mexicans, believed in butterfly souls and butterfly deities. In China the butterfly soul was carved in jade and associated with the plum tree;[179] the sacred butterfly was in Scotland associated apparently with the honeysuckle (deoghalag), a plant containing "life-substance" in the form of honey (lus a mheahl: "honey herb") and milk (another name of the plant being bainne-ghamhnach: "milk of the heifer"). As we have seen, the honeysuckle was supposed to be more powerful than the tree to which it clung; like the ivy and mistletoe, it was the plant of a powerful deity. Its milk and honey names connect it with the Great Mother goddess who was the source of life and nourishment, and provided the milk-and-honey elixir of life.
Bee-souls figure in Scottish folk-stories. Hugh Miller relates a story of a sleeping man from whose mouth the soul issued in the form of the bee.[180] Another of like character is related by a clergyman.[181] Both are located in the north of Scotland, where, as in the south of England, the custom was prevalent of "telling the bees" when a death took place, and of placing crape on hives. The bee-mandible symbol appears on Scottish sculptured stones. Both the bee and the butterfly were connected with the goddess Artemis. Milk-yielding fig trees were fertilized by bees or wasps, and the goddess, especially in her form as Diana of the Ephesians, was connected with the fig tree, the figs being "teats".