Nuggle

A Nuggle, or Neugle, was a mythical water horse of primarily Shetland folklore where it was also referred to as a shoepultie or shoopiltee on some parts of the islands. A nocturnal creature that was always of a male gender, there were occasional fleeting mentions of him connected with the Orkney islands but he was more frequently associated with the rivers, streams and lochs of Shetland. He was easily recognised by his distinctive wheel-like tail and, unlike his evil counterparts the Each-uisge or the Nuckelavee, had a fairly gentle disposition being more prone to playing pranks and making mischief rather than having malicious intents.

Norsemen, predominantly from the west coast of Norway, began to settle in Shetland around the beginning of the 9th-century;Norn, the primary language spoken by islanders from then until the late 17th-century – or as late as the mid 18th-century, was heavily influenced by the settlers and, like the folklore of the islands, blended Norse and Scottish characteristics. The Norsemen's impact on the folklore of the Orkney and Shetland islands was to a much higher degree than that fused through the lore of the Highlands.

The Scottish National Dictionary attributes neugle and its variant spellings – ni(o)gle, nyogle, nyugl etc – as coming from the Old English nicor, the Old Norse nykr, the Middle Low German or the Middle Dutch water demon, necker. The same publication gives shoopiltee and its spelling variations as adaptations of the Old Norse sjó and piltr meaning sea added to boy or lad.

In An Etymological Glossary of the Shetland and Orkney Dialect Thomas Edmondston lists the creature as a niogle crediting a Gothic derivation from gner for horse and el for water; he also records shoupiltin but merely catalogues it as a triton from Shetland.

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