Blue men of the Minch

They are able to speak, and when a group approaches a ship its chief may shout two lines of poetry to the master of the vessel and challenge him to complete the verse.

The genesis of the blue men may alternatively lie with the North African slaves the Vikings took with them to Scotland, where they spent the winter months close to the Shiant Isles in the Minch.

[3][4] The most common water spirits in Scottish folklore,[5] kelpies are usually described as powerful horses,[6] but the name is attributed to several different forms and fables throughout the country.

[17] In traditional tales the blue men have the power to create severe storms, but when the weather is fine they sleep or float just under the surface of the water.

[23] The blue men may alternatively board a passing vessel and demand tribute from its crew, threatening that if it is not forthcoming they will raise up a storm.

[11] No surviving tales mention attempts to kill the spirits, but a Gregorson Campbell story tells of the capture of a blue man.

[24] Mackenzie's explanation of the legend of the blue men was based partly on research into the Annals of Ireland and goes back to the times of Harald Fairhair, the first Norse king, and his battles against the Vikings.

The Vikings spent winter months near the Shiant Isles, and Mackenzie attributes the story of the blue men to "marooned foreign slaves".

[30] He quotes an excerpt from historian Alan Orr Anderson's Early sources of Scottish history, A.D. 500 to 1286:[31][32] These were the blue men [fir gorma], because Moors are the same as negroes; Mauritania is the same as negro-land [literally, the same as blackness].More recent newspaper reports have repeated Mackenzie's hypothesis.