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January 21, 2019 by Alexander Meldrum
The Loch Ness Monster
The creature has been affectionately called Nessie (Scottish Gaelic: Niseag) since the 1940s.
In Scottish folklore, the Loch Ness Monster or Nessie is a creature said to inhab...The Loch Ness Monster
The creature has been affectionately called Nessie (Scottish Gaelic: Niseag) since the 1940s.
In Scottish folklore, the Loch Ness Monster or Nessie is a creature said to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands.
It is often described as large in size with a long neck and one or more humps protruding from the water. Popular interest and belief in the creature has varied since it was brought to worldwide attention in 1933.
Evidence of its existence is anecdotal, with a few disputed photographs and sonar readings. The creature commonly appears in Western media in a variety of ways. The scientific community regards the Loch Ness Monster as a phenomenon without biological basis, explaining sightings as hoaxes, wishful thinking, and the misidentification of mundane objects.
Origins
The word "monster" was reportedly applied for the first time to the creature on 2 May 1933 by Alex Campbell, water bailiff for Loch Ness & part-time journalist.
On 4 August 1933 the Courier published a report by Londoner George Spicer that several weeks earlier, while they were driving around the loch,he and his wife saw "the nearest approach to a dragon or pre-historic animal that I have ever seen in my life" trundling across the road toward the loch with "an animal" in its mouth Letters began appearing in the Courier, often anonymously, claiming land or water sightings by the writer, their family or acquaintances or remembered stories. The accounts reached the media, which described a "monster fish", "sea serpent", or "dragon" and eventually settled on "Loch Ness monster".
On 6 December 1933 the first purported photograph of the monster, taken by Hugh Gray, was published in the Daily Express; the Secretary of State for Scotland soon ordered police to prevent any attacks on it. In 1934, interest was further piqued by the "surgeon's photograph". That year, R. T. Gould published an account of the author's investigation and a record of reports predating 1933. Other authors have claimed sightings of the monster dating to the sixth century AD.
Saint Columba (565) The earliest report of a monster in the vicinity of Loch Ness appears in the Life of St. Columba by Adomnán, written in the sixth century AD.
According to Adomnán, writing about a century after the events described, Irish monk Saint Columba was staying in the land of the Picts with his companions when he encountered local residents burying a man by the River Ness.They explained that the man was swimming in the river when he was attacked by a "water beast" which mauled him and dragged him underwater.
Although they tried to rescue him in a boat, he was dead. Columba sent a follower, Luigne moccu Min, to swim across the river. The beast approached him, but Columba made the sign of the cross and said: "Go no further.Do not touch the man. Go back at once." The creature stopped as if it had been "pulled back with ropes" and fled, and Columba's men and the Picts gave thanks for what they perceived as a miracle.
Folklore
In 1980 Swedish naturalist and author Bengt Sjögren wrote that present beliefs in lake monsters such as the Loch Ness Monster are associated with kelpie legends.According to Sjögren, accounts of loch monsters have changed over time; originally describing horse-like creatures, they were intended to keep children away from the loch.Sjögren wrote that the kelpie legends have developed into descriptions reflecting a modern awareness of plesiosaurs. The kelpie as a water horse in Loch Ness was mentioned in an 1879 Scottish newspaper, and inspired Tim Dinsdale's Project Water Horse. A study of pre-1933 Highland folklore references to kelpies, water horses and water bulls indicated that Ness was the loch most frequently cited.
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