The Bogle

This is a freakish spirit who delights rather to perplex and frighten
mankind than either to serve or seriously hurt them. The _Esprit Follet_
of the French, Shakespeare's Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, and Shellycoat, a
spirit who resides in the waters, and has given his name to many a rock
and stone on the Scottish coast, belong to the class of bogles. One of
Shellycoat's pranks is thus narrated:--Two men in a very dark night,
approaching the banks of the Ettrick, heard a doleful voice from its
waves repeatedly exclaim, "Lost! lost!" They followed the sound, which
seemed to be the voice of a drowning person, and, to their astonishment,
found that it ascended the river; still they continued to follow the cry
of the malicious sprite, and, arriving before dawn at the very sources of
the river, the voice was now heard descending the opposite side of the
mountain in which they arise. The fatigued and deluded travellers now
relinquished the pursuit, and had no sooner done so, than they heard
Shellycoat applauding, in loud bursts of laughter, his successful
roguery.