The Bank of Nessie

What does it say about a nation that chooses the Loch Ness Monster as their second choice of subject for Scottish banknotes if independence was achieved?

A recent survey of 2000 Scots saw the national poet, Robert Burns, get a quarter of the vote and Nessie getting a tenth. So much for John Logie Baird, David Livingstone, Alexander Graham Bell and James Watt. Original story here.

On the other hand, Nessie is a natural treasure and if she ever was conclusively proven, even Robert Burns would be overtaken in the popularity stakes.

Nessie has appeared on money before. The best example is a one dollar coin minted by the Cook Islands government in 2009. 

Quite an interesting depiction which does not quite bear a true resemblance to what people see. I like the term "mystical" as opposed to "mythical", neither of which applies to the Loch Ness Monster apart form the older Kelpie stories. I have not found another legal tender coin depicting Scotland's second choice of banknote subject but some stamps do carry images. Some say that stamps are legal tender and can be used as a form of payment. Though I doubt they are legal tender, they can be accepted as a form of payment. This 1992 stamp from the Maldives Islands shows Nessie in her more plesiosaurian mode.

This 1991 example from the United Kingdom is actually aimed at dinosaurs but Nessie gets on to the actual first day cover. So no actual Nessie on the stamps themselves. If you know of any others, let me know.

The G.E. Taylor Film of 1938

On Steve Feltham's Facebook page, there seems to be some confusion about what is in this film. Unfortunately, the film is long lost but there is a surviving still which first featured in Maurice Burton's book "The Elusive Monster". That still is reproduced below for the clearing up of any doubts.

Regard this short blog as a "trailer" for the main "feature" as I will publish a fuller article on this film later this year. So, in the meantime, may I appeal to anyone who may have known G. E. Taylor from Durban, South Africa whether they have extra information on the man, his film or anything else related. It would be great if the film would enter the public domain and allow us all to finally see this piece of Loch Ness Monster lore.

I can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com

george gavin gregory graham gerald gordon glenn gareth guy gunther gary
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Fort Augustus Abbey School

This blog is not only interested in the Loch Ness Monster but the general history and folklore of the people and places around the loch. Unfortunately, that can also involve the darker side of human nature. I hope that whatever happens here, the truth will be found out and the necessary actions taken.

Police investigate allegations of sex abuse at Catholic boarding school

Former pupil claims monks at closed boys' school Fort Augustus Abbey committed 'systematic, brutal, awful torture'

Link to original story here.

What is in this postcard?

Here's an interesting postcard from 1916 which I noticed on eBay a while back. It was posted 17 years before the Nessie era began in 1933. The familiar backdrop of Urquhart Castle is there but what is that blob like thing in the water in front of the castle?

Is it our famous resident of Loch Ness on a jaunt or something more familiar? The castle is about 50 feet high which allows us to calculate the height of the object as about two feet out of the water and six feet wide.

Is it a rowing boat? Perhaps, but any presumed occupant of the boat is rather hard to see as are the expected oars. 

Opinions, please!

New Picture of Nessie?

A YouTube clip is now doing the rounds which shows something strange in Loch Ness. The photographer is Dan Sohan and you can view the clip below. Dan says he took the image on the 9th May or 13 days ago.

I have contacted him for further details and hope to say more but expect explanations such as it is a picture of a bird in flight in the tradition of the Jennifer Bruce picture taken in 1982. For now, I would prefer to get more info such as whether this is a still from a video clip. 

POSTSCRIPT:

Loch Ness researcher, Dick Raynor, got in touch with me and says the image was actually recorded somewhere between Onich and North Ballahulish which is over thirty miles south of Loch Ness. This is based on a comparison between the hills in the picture's background and what can be seen using Google StreetView.

Dan has also got back to me and says that the image was a single shot and he thinks he was actually driving along Loch Lochy at the time.

The Elf-Cattle of Caithness

I was going through some of my old emails when I came across this old newspaper clipping. I had found it as part of my earlier research into my book "The Water Horses of Loch Ness" but had not used it. So now is a good time a time as any to look at it. It is taken from the John O' Groats Journal dated the 31st December 1852.

Our story concerns a type of loch beast called the Water Bull of which Loch Ness itself was reputed to host one. However, this story is set in Caithness, the northernmost part of mainland Scotland (the green tip on our map below).

The lochs in question are not named, though my own research unearthed only one monster loch in Caithness and that is Loch Na Cloiche. Whether this was in mind or not, the elf-cattle pretty much follow the Water Bull type in inter breeding with land cattle but keep their abode in the waters of the loch. Other sources tell us that the hybrid product of land cows and water bulls were called "corcach" in the Gaelic whilst the aquatic beasts themselves were more docile than their more fearsome counterparts, the Water Horse and Kelpie.

The other interesting term is "elf-cattle" and one wonders if the locals were attempting to envisage a parallel world of creatures to those in the natural world. Just as there was the Cu-Sith or fairy-dog and the feline Cat Sith, was there also equivalent livestock in Scottish lochs?

Finally, you may wonder what the author means by the "much maligned development hypothesis"? It is in fact a precursor to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and pre-dates it by over ten years. You can read more about it here. As it turns out, the author of the article was arguing that the mythical beast may actually have some basis in the idea that a creature had developed in the Highland lochs from a more humble fish form.

Porpoises in Loch Ness?

It was assumed for a long time that seals never visited Loch Ness. However, it is now established that they do follow the salmon into the loch on rare occasions.

But what about the dolphins and porpoises that are a tourist attraction along the Moray Firth? Is it possible that they could get into Loch Ness? Until now, it was assumed this was a task too great and there was no record of such an event. Indeed, the only possibility was the famous attempt by the Robert Rines team to deploy a couple of equipped dolphins into the loch. This project never saw the light of day when one of the dolphins died.

However, some months back, Fortean Investigator, Paul Cropper sent me a clipping which suggested otherwise (Paul is a fan of the Australian Bigfoot called the Yowie). This small paragraph is from the London Daily Mail of the 16th September 1914 (click on all subsequent clippings for sharper images).

 

So we have the incredible sight of not one porpoise but a whole school of them swimming in Loch Ness! I forwarded Paul's find to Adrian Shine at the Loch Ness Centre in Drumnadrochit and he managed to find further details from the local archives. The first clipping from the Highland News of the 5th September tells us more about what was witnessed.

So we have eight or nine porpoises in Loch Ness. Now when I pondered on all this and the improbability of it, I wondered if the correspondent had actually seen the Loch Ness Monster in its multi-hump aspect? I mused that if there was a large beast in Loch Ness, it was more probable to see that than a school of porpoises! However, a second clipping from the 19th found by Adrian puts us back in the porpoise camp. This appears to be the original correspondent replying to someone who was incredulous of the whole event. Here we read how the familiar "blowing" activity of porpoises was observed (a habit never reported in monster reports).

The article continues to quote an as yet untraced article which speaks of a journalist going out to investigate the matter. Indeed, it seems our witness was as much believed as a modern day Nessie witness as the journalist concluded it was merely a shoal of fish skimming along the surface of the water.

So what do we make of this possibly unique event? The first is that so far we only seem to have one person claiming to have seen these animals. Considering the active surface life of porpoises, one would presume others must have seen them. This muddies the waters somewhat and (according to Adrian Shine) the Inverness Courier does not seem to have run the story.

Secondly, could it have been dolphins rather than porpoises? Now, how you can tell the difference between the two from distance is not clear to me but the porpoise has in its favour that they can be half the size of a Bottlenose dolphin and hence could negotiate a river spate into Loch Ness more easily. But whatever the species, it no lessens this remarkable event.

Thirdly, it may be asked whether there were any claimed stories about the Loch Ness Monster at that time (as told retrospectively by people after 1933)? There were actually two stories of something seen in 1914, but there were in July and I suspect may have been the same sighting.

All in all, it is a strange tale in its own right. Almost 100 years on, the implication is that there is a mass of porpoise skeletons lying at the bottom of Loch Ness somewhere, doubtless covered in silt by now.

How did they meet their end? Did they encounter the loch's most famous denizen and will such an event ever be witnessed again? It all adds to the lore and fascination of Scotland's most mysterious loch.

POSTSCRIPT

Adrian Shine sent me another clipping from the Northern Chronicle for the 16th September 1914 which adds one or two more details to this uniquely recorded event.