Bauchan

Also Known As: English spelling of Scottish Gaelic bòcan, “hobgoblin, sprite, spectre”; also Bauchkan, Buckawn, Bogan and Bocan; in Lowland Scots Bawcan or Bockan
Region/Culture: Northern Europe
Mythos: Scottish Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Fairy Folk and Spirit Beings
Mythical Attributes: The Bauchan has strength far beyond a man’s, can carry a felled tree or a full tanning barrel across miles of rough ground in a night, and can take the shape of a goat.
Role in Mythos: He is the Highland hobgoblin who attaches himself to one farm or one family, helping and tormenting his chosen people by turns.
Relation to Humans: A Bauchan fights his own farmer hand to hand one week and hauls his firewood through the snow the next. One haunted a road at Morar and killed lone men after sunset, while another followed a Lochaber crofter across the Atlantic and helped him clear his new land.

The snow came down on Lochaber and shut the glens. In a small farmhouse near Loch Treig the last birch branch was burning to ash, and Callum Mor MacIntosh sat watching the fire sink. He had felled a whole tree in the forest before the weather turned and had left it lying where it fell. Now there was no road to it. He said aloud to his wife that he wished they had that tree at the door. The words were hardly out when the house shook and the latch rattled, and something very heavy landed outside. Callum opened the door on the cold. There lay the birch, trunk and branches, and beside it stood the Bauchan, grinning at him.

That is the creature in a single evening. A Bauchan is a Highland hobgoblin who belongs to a house. The word is the Gaelic bòcan, which the old dictionaries gloss as a hobgoblin, a sprite, a spectre or a ghost, and which travelled into Lowland Scots as bawcan, a bogle used to frighten children. The folklore collector John Francis Campbell, who printed the Lochaber story in 1860, thought the name might also mean a little buck, a young he-goat. He had it from a dancing master, a north country Highlander, whose telling was written down by John Campbell of Kilberry in Argyll.

Nobody says how Callum and his Bauchan first met. The story admits as much. There were only rumours that the farmer kept company with a mysterious personage, and the plain fact that the two could not leave each other alone. Some seasons the Bauchan helped him beyond anything a hired man could do. In others, offended over something the tale never names, he blocked every scheme Callum tried, and more than once they came to blows. Callum never took much hurt from it. The Bauchan seems to have enjoyed the exercise.

The worst of their quarrels began on the road home from Fort William market. They met a short way from the house and fought, and when Callum got indoors he found his pocket handkerchief gone. It was no common handkerchief. The priest had blessed it and given it to him, and it carried a charm. He and his wife turned the house over and found nothing, so he went back up the road in the dark. The Bauchan was there, busy at a flat stone, rubbing the cloth hard against the rock. He looked up and told Callum he was lucky to have come. Had he worn a hole through it, Callum would have been a dead man, and no doctor or power on earth could have saved him. Then he added that the handkerchief had to be won in a fair fight. Callum agreed. They went at it again on the cold road, and Callum walked home with his handkerchief.

After that the help came more often than the trouble. The birch tree arrived on the night of the snowstorm, and Callum’s wife, looking at it, said that the Bauchan was still kind, though the priest should burst. Later the family moved to a neighbouring farm and lay down the first night with everything they owned around them, except one thing. They had forgotten the hogshead in which the hides were steeping in bark to tan. It could wait, the wife said. In the morning Callum walked round the end of the house and found the barrel standing there, hides and all. It had come five miles over ground so broken that the teller reckoned only a goat could cross it.

He is never properly described. He grins, he grips like a wrestler, and he can carry a tree. Beyond that the story gives only the goat, and the goat comes at the very end. In the end Callum was obliged to leave Lochaber, as many of his neighbours were, and he was among the first to take ship at Arisaig for New York. The crossing was long and dull. On arrival the passengers were held in quarantine for many days. When they were finally let ashore Callum was in the bow of the first boat, and he was the first to jump ashore. A goat was waiting for him. It spoke in Gaelic and said, “Ha, Callum, I am here before thee.” The rumour that followed him says the Bauchan helped clear the new land and left off teasing him until the farm was on its feet.

The same informant knew of a darker one. At Morar, on the mainland across from Skye, a Bauchan called Coluinn gun Cheann, the Headless Trunk, watched over the Macdonalds of Morar and hated everyone else. He kept to a stretch of road called the Smooth Mile, and lone men who walked it after sunset were found dead in the morning. He never showed himself to a party. Women and children he left alone. It ended when Ian Garbh of Raasay, a famous strong man, wrestled him through a night, tucked him under one arm to carry him to a light, and let him go only when he swore to leave that country for good. He went off singing a lament.

So a Bauchan has the strength of several men and a way of covering distance that has nothing to do with roads. He can hear a wish spoken at a hearth. He can change his shape, and salt water does not stop him, which sets him apart from most house spirits, who stay with the building when the family leaves. He attaches himself to people.

His limits come from the same closeness. He can be beaten in a fair fight by a man who stands his ground, and he keeps his word once he has lost. The Morar one could not bear to be seen in daylight and was bound by an oath. And the Lochaber one, for all his threats over the handkerchief, never did his farmer real harm. He needed someone to quarrel with.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Bauchan in Scottish folklore?

A Bauchan is a hobgoblin of the Scottish Highlands that attaches itself to a particular farm or family. It is mischievous and sometimes dangerous, but it also helps its people with heavy work. The name is an English spelling of the Gaelic word bòcan, which means a hobgoblin, sprite or spectre.

What is the story of Callum Mor MacIntosh and the Bauchan?

Callum Mor MacIntosh farmed near Loch Treig in Lochaber and had a Bauchan that fought him and helped him by turns. The Bauchan stole his blessed handkerchief and made him win it back in a fight, then later brought a felled birch tree to his door in a snowstorm and carried a forgotten tanning barrel five miles over rough ground. John Francis Campbell published the tale in 1860 in Popular Tales of the West Highlands.

Did the Bauchan really follow Callum to America?

In the tale, yes. When Callum Mor MacIntosh emigrated from Arisaig to New York, the Bauchan was waiting on the shore in the shape of a goat and told him in Gaelic that he had got there first. The story says the Bauchan then helped him clear his new land.

Can a Bauchan change its shape?

The Bauchan in the Lochaber tale appears as a goat when it meets Callum Mor MacIntosh on the American shore. John Francis Campbell also noted that the Gaelic name could be read as “little buck”, meaning a young he-goat. No other animal shape is recorded for it in that story.

Is a Bauchan dangerous?

It can be. The Bauchan of Morar, called Coluinn gun Cheann or the Headless Trunk, killed lone men on a road after sunset until Ian Garbh of Raasay out-wrestled it and made it swear to leave. The Lochaber Bauchan fought its farmer often but never seriously hurt him.