I’ve written a lot about Celtic fairytales and the Sidhe and, for the most part, the stories are quite terrifying. Many of these tales are dark, morally and emotionally, and talk about headless horseman, devils and jack-o-lanterns, werewolves, witches, and revenge-seeking ghosts. But one of the scariest folktales are about The Sluagh Sidhe aka “fairy hosts” of “The Unseelie Court” (the Scottish version of the court of the fairies). Sluagh is short for Sluagh na marbh which is early Scottish Gaelic for “‘host of the dead”.

Ravens in a night sky

The Sluagh are spirits of the restless dead who were unforgiven in life. They are so angry and bitter that they fly threw the night skies looking for easy human prey. Some historians call them Fallen Angels, others believe they are demons. Still some folklorists believe they are unbaptized children who went to limbo instead of Heaven after their deaths. These children are now ghosts desperate for revenge.

Some of the earliest accounts of Sluagh spirits come from the Scottish Highlands where the spirits were part of the great fairy armies that held battles in the sky. On the Isle of Barra, supposedly these vengeful spirits fought such a huge battle that their blood stained the rocks which is why the rock formations on the isle are crimson red.

But the Sluagh Spirits didn’t just fight each other. During the middle ages, the Sluagh were considered a scourge that took for the form of wind gusts, terrible sunburns, and blistering skin. Since they were deceased, these spirits could take any ghostly form they wanted. And many folktales describe these spirits as black birds, some as large as ravens and others as small as starlings. These Sluagh spirits would fly from the west, also known as “the mouth of the night”, searching for souls. They’d steal them from people wandering the moors who were late getting home. They’d also search for people who were dying with their windows open which is why, in traditional Celtic homes, all the windows and doors on the west side of the house were always kept closed and locked from dusk until dawn.

But Samhain, aka Halloween or Liminal Time, was when people truly feared the Sluagh. That was the time of year when the gates of Hell would open and demons would encourage the Sluagh to fly forth, seeking anyone who was unlucky to be out alone. Sometimes the Sluagh would kill and steal the souls back to Hell. But there are other tales of the Sluagh stealing people off into the night skies and then returning them at dawn “exhausted and prostrate”, unable to speak or sleep, and these poor people were never the same again.

One folktale tells a story of the beautiful princess of France who was abducted on Samhain by the Sluagh and carried through the air, over lands, seas, continents, and islands, until they dropped her on the tiny island of Heistamal in the Outer Hebrides. The Sluagh threw her to the ground, injuring her badly. But before she died, she told the people who found her about her journey and the how brutally the Sluagh treated her. After her death, the islanders supposedly buried her near when she’d been dropped. They then covered her burial spot with a cairn–a pile of stones–to prevent the Sluagh from ever coming back and taking her body again.

But the oral stories of the Sluagh didn’t end with the modern era. The most recent about comes from the early twentieth century and tells the tale of a young boy who was abducted by black ravens on Halloween. When he was returned the next day, he was both death and mute. He never fully recovered, but spent his life drawing pictures of black birds flying through the night sky.

So this Halloween, avoid being out alone in the middle of the night. And if you see a murder of crows flying through the darkness, run!

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