Folklore & legend

John Herculeson and the Two Days in the Hill

Hill of Wormadale, Whiteness

Undated; recorded by 1899

Spence gives the story among his notes on the love the trows had for music. A noted fiddler named John Herculeson had been asked to a wedding at Whiteness and was expected early on the bridal eve. The company waited long and patiently, but John did not come, and it was only on the eve of the sindering day, when the party broke up, that he reached the house.

It turned out that while crossing the Hill of Wormidale, now Wormadale Hill, he had been taken into a trowie dwelling and made to play for two whole days. People held that it was unwise to accept any reward from the trows or to eat their food.

Spence says the fiddlers of old could play lilts called fairy reels that they had learned from the hillfolk. The same collection tells of a man who sat at the foot of Gulla Hammar on Valafell and heard music in the rocks, learned it, and passed it to a fiddler as The Trowie Reel. The place of that second tale is not clear enough to pin.

Evidence
Long-standing local tradition
Access
Open ground
Location
60.204, -1.271 (Parish-level only, treat as an area)

Sources: John Spence, Shetland Folk-Lore (Lerwick, 1899) [public-domain]

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