Cabyll-ushtey

Also Known As: more often spelled Cabbyl-ushtey; Manx Gaelic for “water horse”, from cabbyl, horse, and ushtey, water; sometimes treated as the same being as the Glashtyn
Region/Culture: Northern Europe
Mythos: Manx Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Monsters and Beasts
Mythical Attributes: The Cabyll-ushtey lives in the deep pools, rivers and marshes of the Isle of Man and comes out looking like an ordinary grey horse that wants a rider.
Role in Mythos: It is the Manx water horse, the island’s own member of the family that includes the Highland each uisge and the Welsh ceffyl dwr, and the reason given for a drowning or a lost animal near water.
Relation to Humans: It tempts late travellers to climb on its back and then carries them into the water to die, and in one tale it takes a farm’s calves and then the farmer’s daughter. The Manx record also holds a remedy, a bridle dressed with protective herbs that could be thrown over its head.

Late on a lonely Manx road a man finds a grey colt standing in his way. It is quiet. It has no halter and no owner in sight, the night is cold, and he has miles still to walk. The colt lowers its head and waits, as a horse does when it is used to being ridden.

That is the Cabyll-ushtey at its ordinary work. The name is plain Manx Gaelic and means water horse, cabbyl for the horse and ushtey for the water, and the creature belongs to the wet places of the Isle of Man: deep pools, rivers, lakes, and the wide marshland in the north of the island called the Curraghs. A note printed in Manx Notes and Queries in 1904 sets out its method without fuss. It shows itself to the traveller who is out too late, coaxes him onto its back, and then bolts for the marsh or the stream and carries him to his death.

Its looks are the whole of the trap. The same note says that on the island it appears “invariably” as a grey colt or a grey horse. No source gives it fins, weeds in the mane, or a back that stretches to seat a row of children, though its cousins in Scotland have all of these. In the Highlands the water horse can turn into an old man with long grey hair, and the Manx writer says straight out that no such change is told of the island’s animal. It stays a horse. It is a grey one, at night, near water, and by the time anyone knows more than that they are already on it.

Nobody records where it came from. There is no first Cabyll-ushtey and no story of how the breed began. It is simply in the water, as trout are. The nearest thing to a history comes from Joseph Train, who wrote in 1845 that the water horse used to leave its own element to keep company with the island’s land horses, and that it bred with the native ponies. It stopped coming, he was told, once the islanders began crossing their stock with horses brought in from outside. A monster put off by imported bloodlines is a very Manx kind of monster.

The best known death happened at Glen Meay, on the west coast, where a stream drops over a waterfall and runs down a narrow glen to the shore. A man found a horse there and took it for an ordinary one. He mounted. The horse went down the glen at a gallop, straight into the sea, and he drowned. A. W. Moore, who set the story down in 1891, adds that people afterwards held the glen below the fall to be haunted by the drowned man’s spirit. The horse is not mentioned again.

A darker tale was collected by Walter Gill and printed in 1929. It belongs to Kerroo Clough, a farm beside the Awin Dhoo, the Dark River. The farmer’s wife found a calf missing one morning, with no mark to show where it had gone. The next day her husband watched something huge rise out of the river, take another calf, and tear it apart. They drove the herd to pasture well away from the water and thought that was the end of it. A few days later their only daughter vanished. She was never found, and the thing in the river never troubled the farm again.

It had what it came for.

The Cabyll-ushtey had its known haunts. The 1904 note places one at Surby in the south, where the animal was said to head for the marsh, and another at Ballure Glen near Ramsey. In 1859 word went round Ramsey that the creature had been seen at Ballure, and people walked out in their hundreds to have a look at it. They saw a glen.

There is a tangle over its name. Because the horse is grey, and glas is the Manx word for that colour, many islanders called it the Glashtyn. Others used Glashtyn for a different being, a hairy, hard-working goblin that threshed corn at night. The scholar John Rhys, asking around the island at the end of the nineteenth century, found his informants split on the point, some describing a kind of brownie and some a grey colt that kept to the banks of lakes after dark. Both were right about what they had been told.

Its strength is narrow and complete. On land it has only patience and a tame look, and neither would hurt anyone who kept walking. Everything changes once a rider is up, because nothing in the stories suggests he can get down again or turn the animal’s head. In the water it is the stronger by far, strong enough to pull a calf to pieces.

Its limits are just as clear. It cannot make anyone mount. It needs the dark, the lonely road, the tired walker, and water close by to run to, and a farmer who moves his cattle away from the river has at least cost it some trouble. The record even describes a way to catch one: a bridle dressed with sprigs of yarrow, woodbine, rowan and rosemary, thrown over its head, with a circle drawn round the animal and the right words spoken. No tale tells of anyone on the island who managed it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Cabyll-ushtey?

The Cabyll-ushtey is the water horse of Manx folklore, from the Isle of Man. It lives in deep pools, rivers and marshes and appears on land as a grey colt or grey horse. It tempts people to ride it and then carries them into the water to drown.

What does Cabyll-ushtey mean?

Cabyll-ushtey means “water horse” in Manx Gaelic. Cabbyl is the Manx word for a horse and ushtey is the word for water. The name is more often spelled Cabbyl-ushtey.

Is the Cabyll-ushtey the same as the Glashtyn?

Sometimes. The Cabyll-ushtey is grey, and glas is the Manx word for grey, so many islanders called the water horse the Glashtyn. Other islanders used Glashtyn for a hairy goblin that threshed corn at night, and John Rhys found people on the island divided between the two meanings.

What happened at Glen Meay?

At Glen Meay on the west coast of the Isle of Man, a man found the Cabyll-ushtey and mistook it for an ordinary horse. He climbed on its back, and it galloped into the sea and drowned him. A. W. Moore recorded in 1891 that the glen below the waterfall was afterwards said to be haunted by the man’s spirit.

How is the Cabyll-ushtey different from the Scottish each uisge?

The Cabyll-ushtey is the Manx relative of the Scottish each uisge, and both drown their riders. The Manx water horse always appears as a grey colt or horse and is not said to change into a man, as the Highland water horse does. Far fewer stories are told about the Cabyll-ushtey.