Trow
The Trow is the characteristic fairy-being of Shetland and the Northern Isles, a small, ugly, troll-like being whose name descends from Old Norse troll and the Shetland Norn word drow, the 'hidden people'. Grey-clad and strictly nocturnal, trows dwell underground in the green mounds and heathery peatland knowes, and a trow caught out by daylight is said to turn to stone, which is why many Shetland standing stones are still explained this way. Above all they are musicians: trows were believed to play the fiddle inside their knowes, and island fiddlers were said to have learned their tunes from