Silky is a fairy spirit of Northumberland in England, around the village of Black Heddon.
Behavior
Silky appeared only on the darkest of nights, and always with startling suddenness in front of travellers, or on horseback behind them, accompanying them for a short while, rustling her silks (reminiscent of the glaistig) before disappearing just as suddenly. Many a late traveller was left bewildered by this behavior.
Silky could also cause horses to stop dead in their tracks, and refuse to budge an inch. And, if she found a disorderly home, she might arrive to clean and tidy up the house in the midnight hour; or else, if she found an exceptionally orderly house, she might mischievously disorder it after the family had gone to bed.
William Henderson gives this beautiful note about her frequents:
"Silky had a favourite resort at Belsay, two or three miles from Black Heddon, on a romantic crag beautifully studded with trees, under whose shadow she would wander all night. The bottom of this crag wis washed by a picturesque little lake, at whose outlet is a waterfall, over which a fine old tree spreads its waving branches, forming by their intersection a sort of chair. In this Silky loved to sit, rocked to repose by the wild winds, and it is still called Silky's Chair."
Tale
Silky disappeared suddenly from her haunts, however, in the following manner, according to Henderson:
One day a female servant, being alone in one of the rooms of a house at Black Heddon, was terribly frightened by the ceiling above suddenly giving way, and a black mass falling through it with a crash upon the floor. She instantly fled out of the room, screaming at the pitch of her voice, "The devil's in the house!--the devil's in the house! He's come through the ceiling!"
The family collected around her in some alarm, and at first no one dared enter the room; when the mistress at last ventured to go in, she found on the floor a large rough skin filled with gold. From this time Silky was never more heard or seen, so it was believed that she was the troubled phantom of some person who had died miserable because she owned treasure, and was overtaken by her mortal agony before she had disclosed the hiding place.
Sources
Folk Lore of the North Counties by William Henderson.