The Gruagach

We first were introduced to the gruagach (GROO-ghee) when we read C.J. Cherryh's fantastic The Dreaming Tree. In that book, we discovered gruagachs were a type of hairy brownie who attached themselves to farms (the gruagach is pictured on the left) and traditionally helped with chores. 

We found information on the gruagach in Katharine Briggs' An Encyclopedia of Fairies, C.J. Cherryh's The Dreaming Tree, and a book we inherited from our father, Dwelly's Illustrated Gaelic to English Dictionary, compiled by Edward Dwelly, in which gruagach or gruagaich refers to a brownie or a man with long hair.    

The gruagach is a Highland creature. In the Highlands, they were also called grogans or grogachs; in northern Ireland, they were known as grogans. In the Highlands, male gruagachs were sometimes handsome, slender youths, and richly dressed in green and red, but more often they were naked and shaggy. In Ulster, they were also naked and hairy, and about four feet tall. 

In the Highlands, gruagachs often had golden hair and watched over cattle; the females were faeries with long, golden hair, dressed in green. Sometimes they were beautiful, other times pale and haggard. They, too, watched over cattle; they were connected with water, and travelled extensively. However, it has been suggested that this type of gruagach is actually a glaistig, and that the term gruagach is an epithet attached to her. Offerings of milk were made to both the female and the male gruagachs. In The Dreaming Tree, food was also given as an offering to keep the gruagach happy. 

Just for a change of pace, the gruagach in southern Ireland was actually a supernatural wizard, often a giant.