science

Water horse

Water horse is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Water horse rather than just read about it. In short: A water horse (also compounded as: waterhorse) is a mythical creature that appears in multiple forms in Celtic and Nordic folklore. Celtic incarnations includes: the Welsh Ceffyl Dŵr, Irish Capaill Uisce, the Scottish each-uisge and kelpie.

Key takeaways

Water horse belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Water horse to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Water horse from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

A water horse (also compounded as: waterhorse) is a mythical creature that appears in multiple forms in Celtic and Nordic folklore. Celtic incarnations includes: the Welsh Ceffyl Dŵr, Irish Capaill Uisce, the Scottish each-uisge and kelpie. In Nordic folklore, the water horse is a shape taken on by the nixie, in Swedish called bäckahästen ("the brook horse"), in Faroese nykur ("nixie").

Etymology

The term "water horse" was originally a name given to the kelpie, a creature similar to the hippocamp, which has the head, neck and mane of a normal horse, front legs like a horse, webbed feet, and a long, two-lobed, whale-like tail. The term has also been used as a nickname for lake monsters, particularly Ogopogo and Nessie. The name "kelpie" has often been a nickname for many other Scottish lake monsters, such as each uisge and Morag of Loch Morar and Lizzie of Loch Lochy. Other names for these sea monsters include "seahorse" (not referring to the seahorse fish) and "hippocampus" (which is the genus name for seahorses). The usage of "water horse" or "kelpie" can often be a source of confusion; some consider the two terms to be synonymous, while others distinguish the water horse as a denizen of lochs and the kelpie of turbulent water such as rivers, fords, and waterfalls. Some authors call one creature of a certain place a kelpie while others call it a water horse. The name "water bull" has been used for either creature.

The Breton King Gradlon's magical "horse of the sea" Morvarc'h (whose name literally means "sea horse" in Breton) was said to have the ability to gallop upon the waves of the sea, in a similar fashion to the water horses of Cornish legend.

Other lake monsters The water horse has often become a basic description of other lake monsters such as the Nessie and the Lake Champlain monster known as Champ. Loch Morar is reputedly home to "Morag", a lake monster that has been portrayed as a water horse.

Settings While most Scottish/Celtic folklore places the water horse in a loch (particularly a loch that is famous for a lake monster, such as Loch Ness, Loch Morar or Loch Lomond), some Breton and Cornish tales of water horses place them in the ocean, making them sea monsters. Most Highland lochs have some kind of water-horse tradition, although a study of 19th-century literature of the time showed that only about sixty lochs and lochans merited a mention out of the thousands of bodies of water in Scotland. The water horse that was reputed to inhabit Loch Ness gained the most mentions in Highland literature.

Sightings Water horse sightings were reported regularly during the 18th century, but it was not until the 19th century that sightings were recorded.

In 1846 Captain Christmas of the Danish Navy reported sighting "an enormous, long-necked beast pursuing a school of dolphins" somewhere between Iceland and the Faroe Islands. He described the creature as having a horse-like head and a neck as thick as a man's waist "moving gracefully like a swan's". On 6 August 1848 an officer of the Royal Navy corvette HMS Daedalus noticed an unusual looking animal swimming towards the ship. It was said to look similar to a sea serpent with a 1.2-metre-long (4 ft) neck. Its head was about 38 or 41 cm (15 or 16 in) long. It was reported to have no visible fins/flippers or tail, and it had what appeared to be a horsy mane on its neck with seaweed washed over its back. In late 1883, two horse-headed beasts, one of them smaller than the other (suggesting or implying a juvenile), were reported off the southern coast of Panama. The crew of the American whaler Hope On reported seeing a 6-metre-long (20 ft) creature submerge. It was brownish coloured with black speckles and four legs/flippers with a tail "that seemed to be divided into two parts" (implying the whale-like tail appearance) and all four limbs and tail were exposed when it reached the surface. A second creature that looked just like it only much smaller tagged along behind it. In the same year, a sighting of a similar looking creature occurred in the Bristol Channel. This creature was reported as leaving behind a greasy slug/snail-like trail.

See also List of fictional horses Each-uisge Hippocampus (mythology) Kappa (folklore) Neck (water spirit) Nuckelavee Peg Powler Selkie Vodyanoi Horse symbolism

References

Citations

Bibliography

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Water horse

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Water horse claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Water horse before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Water horse ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Water horse

In research: Water horse appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Water horse in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Water horse is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Celtic legendary creatures, Horses in mythology, Lake monsters, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Water horse outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Water horse in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Water horse means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Water horse out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Water horse in simple terms?

Why does Water horse matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Water horse?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Water horse.