ven 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.

Of all these classes of spirits it may be, in general observed, that
their attachment was supposed to be local, and not personal. They
haunted the rock, the stream, the ruined castle, without regard to
the persons or families to whom the property belonged. Hence, they
differed entirely from that species of spirits, to whom, in the
Highlands, is ascribed the guardianship, or superintendance of a
particular clan, or family of distinction; and who, perhaps yet more
than the Brownie, resemble the classic household gods. Thus, in an
MS. history of Moray, we are informed, that the family of Gurlinbeg
is haunte