Nicneven, Nicnevin or Nicnevan is a witch or

fairy queen In folklore and literature, the Fairy Queen or Queen of the Fairies is a female ruler of the fairies, sometimes but not always paired with a king. Depending on the work, she may be named or unnamed; Titania and Mab are two frequently used name ...

from

Scottish folklore Scottish folklore (Scottish Gaelic: ''Beul-aithris na h-Alba'') encompasses the folklore of the Scottish people from their earliest records until today. Folklorists, both academic and amateur, have published a variety of works focused specifically ...

. She is often said to be the same figure as the Gyre-Carling or

Hecate Hecate or Hekate, , ; grc-dor, Ἑκάτᾱ, Hekátā, ; la, Hecatē or . is a goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, most often shown holding a pair of torches, a key, snakes, or accompanied by dogs, and in later periods depict ...

, but some scholars disagree with this. It is debated whether the name originally referred to a real woman or a mythical goddess.

Etymology

The name may derive from a

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well ...

surname Neachneohain, meaning "daughter(s) of the divine," and/or "daughter(s) of Scathach," or NicNaoimhein, meaning "daughter of the little saint"."nic" meaning "daughter" and "naoimhein" meaning "of little saint" ( > the proper name Niven) http://www.dsl.ac.uk/ Other theories propose that the name derives from the Irish war goddess Neamhain, or is connected to water-spirits such as the Nixie, Nokke or even Neptune.

Legend

The first known mention of Nicneven was by

Alexander Montgomerie Alexander Montgomerie (Scottish Gaelic: Alasdair Mac Gumaraid) (c. 1550?–1598) was a Scottish Jacobean courtier and poet, or makar, born in Ayrshire. He was a Scottish Gaelic speaker and a Scots speaker from Ayrshire, an area which wa ...

around 1580. Montgomerie and

Patrick Hume of Polwarth Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth and Redbraes (c.1550– June 1609) was a Scottish courtier and makar (court poet). Family background He was the eldest son of Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth & Redbrayes (d. May 1599) and his spouse Agnes, daughter of ...

were two court poets under

King James VI of Scotland James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until hi ...

. In a "flyting" or exchange of comical insults in verse, Montgomerie described the birth of Patrick Hume (referred to as Polwart throughout the poem). In his story, Polwart is the hideous offspring of an elf and an ape, conceived during the Halloween procession of the King and Queen of the Fairies. The infant Polwart is found by the

Weird Sisters The Three Witches, also known as the Weird Sisters or Wayward Sisters, are characters in William Shakespeare's play '' Macbeth'' (c. 1603–1607). The witches eventually lead Macbeth to his demise, and they hold a striking resemblance to t ...

and then passed on to Nicneven and her group of nymphs or witches, who dedicate him to Hecatus (Hecate) and

Pluto Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest ...

in an unholy ritual. Nicnevin with her nymphes, in number anew With charms from Caitness and Chanrie of Ross Whose cunning consists in casting a clew.After Montgomerie’s poem, the next known mentions of Nicneven date from the early 1800s. In 1801, John Leyden wrote that Nicneven was one of the "popular appellations" of "the gyre-carlin, the Queen of Fairies, the great hag, Hecate, or mother-witch of the peasants." Robert Cromek gave a more colorful description:

"We will close our history of witchcraft with the only notice we could collect, of a celebrated personage, called the Gyre Carline; who is reckoned the mother of glamour, and near a-kin to Satan himself. She is believed to preside over the ‘Hallowmass Rades’ and mothers frequently frighten their children by threatening to give them to McNeven, or the Gyre Carline. She is described as wearing a long gray mantle, and carrying a wand, which, like the miraculous rod of Moses, could convert water into rocks and sea into solid land."

Writers such as

Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy' ...

conflated Nicneven not only with Hecate but with other queens of fairies and witches like Diana and Herodias.

Gyre-Carling

The Gyre-Carling is a witch- or ogress-like figure, with variants such as Gyre-Carlin, Gy-Carling, and Gay-Carlin. ''Gyre'' is possibly a cognate of the Norse word ''geri'' and thus has the meaning "greedy,"''An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language: Illustrating the Words in Their Different Significations by Examples from Ancient and Modern Writers, Volume One'' by John Jamieson, Printed at the University Press for W. Creech, 1808, p. 374 or it may be from the Norse ''gýgr'' meaning "ogress"; ''carling'' or ''carline'' is a Scots and Northern English word meaning "old woman" which is from, or related to, the Norse word ''kerling'' (of the same meaning). One satirical depiction from the 16th-century

Bannatyne Manuscript The Bannatyne Manuscript is an anthology of literature compiled in Scotland in the sixteenth century. It is an important source for the Scots poetry of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The manuscript contains texts of the poems of the gr ...

described "an grit Gyre-Carling," who " levit vpoun Christiane menis flesche.” After a love-quarrel with her neighbour, she left Scotland to become wife of " Mahomyte" and queen of the " Jowis." In Fife, the Gyre-Carling was associated with spinning and knitting, like Habetrot. There it was believed to be unlucky to leave a piece of knitting unfinished at the New Year, lest the Gyre-Carling steal it. It was also frequently a generic term for witches. In his response to Montgomerie, Polwart wrote "Leave boggles, brownies, gyr-carlings and gaists." Similarly in 1793, Robert Heron wrote that fairies and "Gyar-Carlins" roamed on Halloween and other nights to stop those they were displeased with, and could be heard

curling Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns slidi ...

on the ice on winter nights.

Nicneven as Historical Figure

One possibility raised by scholars is that Nicneven was inspired by a real woman condemned to death for witchcraft. Another theory, as seen in Sir Walter Scott and C. K. Sharpe, is that multiple women were nicknamed in honor of the legendary figure. In May 1569, an accused witch known as Nicneven or Nic Neville was condemned to death and burnt at the stake at St. Andrews. She told her interrogators that the apothecaries had caused her arrest because of her superior healing powers. This woman may have been the same as Nikneveing of Monzie, mentioned in the 1643 witchcraft trial of John Brughe of Fossoway. Brughe’s teacher, Neane NcClerith, was Nikneveing’s niece. Several legends surround a nurse, Catherine Niven or Kate McNiven of Monzie, who was also burned to death for witchcraft. Sources give widely varying dates including 1563, 1615, or 1715.

Analysis

Some scholars such as Alison Hanham have expressed skepticism that Nicneven is the same as the Gyre-Carlin or that she was meant to be understood as a queen of the fairies. Hanham refers to Montgomery’s ''Flyting'' as “Nicneven’s earliest, and indeed only authentic, literary appearance," dismissing the views of Scott, Cromek, and others who call Nicneven "the Scottish Hecate." In the ''Flyting,'' Nicneven is a worshipper of Hecate. Jacqueline Simpson pointed out that the term “gyr-carlings” does appear in Polwart’s response to Montgomerie and could possibly refer to Nicneven and her witches, but also noted the extreme gap of "over two hundred years" between Montgomerie's poem and the much later sources describing Nicneven as a fairy queen or goddess.

References