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Based solely on the two trailers I saw for it, the movie The Water Horse very clearly had nothing to do with a horse (the water part appeared to be accurate). A little Internet digging, however, turned up a surprising amount of legends of water horses, and much to my chagrin, I am forced to admit that The Water Horse appears to have stayed true to several interpretations of the fabled water horse.
Kelpie
Nuggle
A variant of Orkney's nuggle is also found in Iceland, where it is known as nykur. At one time, most lakes in Iceland were thought to house a nykur and, as such, considerably more lore surrounding this water horse has survived there. It appeared as a grey coloured horse, but its ears and hooves were turned backwards. It was also said to have a bladder under its left haunch. Although its favoured form was a horse, the nykur also had the power to shapeshift and could change itself into all forms, living or dead, with the exception of lamb's wool or peeled barley. The creature's favourite haunts were near rivers or lakes that were difficult to cross. Like the Orcadian nuggle and the Scottish kelpie, the nykur initially acted docile, tempting people to mount and ride across; however, as soon as the rider climbed upon the beast's back, the nykur galloped into the water, where it lay down, dragging the rider with him. The Icelandic nykur could also breed with horses, giving birth like a normal mare, albeit in the water. The offspring of these unions were indistinguishable from those of a normal horse, except that the offspring of a nykur had a tendency to lie down when splashed with water or when led through belly-deep water. One of the only defences against the attentions of the nykur was the fact that they could not stand the sound of their name or any other word that sounded like it. Where this happened, the nykurs gallop to the safety of the water. When ice cracks form on frozen lakes in Iceland, the noise produced is said to be the sound of the nykur neighing.
Nykur
Several sightings of creatures categorized as water horses have been reported throughout history, some as early as the 7th century. Some of the earliest sightings include:
- 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."
- At 5 p.m. on August 6, 1848 an officer of HMS Daedalus noticed as unusual-looking animal swimming towards the ship. It was said to look similar to a sea serpent with a four-foot-long neck. Its head was about 15 or 16 inches long. It was reported to have no visible fins/flippers or tail showing, and it had what appeared to be a horsy mane on its neck with seaweed washed over its back.
- In autumn 1883 two horse-headed beasts, one of them smaller than the other (suggesting a juvenile) off the southern coast of Panama. The crew of American whaler Hope On reported seeing a 20-foot-long 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 a 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.
Versions of the water horse appear in many European cultures. On the Isle of Man it is known as the cabbyl-ushtey (Manx Gaelic for "water horse") or the glashtin, a shapeshifter that can appear as a man, a hybrid or an animal (cow or horse), looking for someone to ride him; a journey which always leads back to the still waters he calls home, where riders discover they cannot jump from his back and consequently are pulled to their deaths. In Wales, a similar creature is known as the Ceffyl Dŵr, who may be seen above a pool or waterfall or occasionally grazing on the bank. He sometimes allows himself to be caught and mounted, but he is full of pranks and delights in tossing his rider to the ground. In Norway it is called nøkken, where the horse shape is often used but is not its true form. Another similar Scottish water horse is the each uisge, which also appears in Ireland.
Wherever the water horse exists, and no matter what the local variations, one thread remains common: this is not your average horse, and it's far more likely to want to eat a warm human than the finest timothy hay.
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