| ID | #1588145195 |
| Added | Wed, 29/04/2020 |
| Author | July N. |
| Sources | |
| Phenomena | |
| Status | Investigation
|
Initial data
Two centuries ago, near a small Scottish island, people saw a small mermaid. When someone threw a rock into the water, it hit her on the head and she disappeared, and a few days later her body washed up on the beach nearby...
Mermaids excited the imagination of people thousands of years ago, there are countless myths, legends and fairy tales about them.
There are also many stories from eyewitnesses who saw mermaids with their own eyes, but no one believes them, because only something physical is accepted as proof - a body or a skeleton.
One of these cases occurred two centuries ago on a small Scottish island.
This island is located in an archipelago called the Outer Hebrides, which is off the West coast of Scotland and in Gaelic has several names at once-Na h-Eileanan Siar, Na h-Eileanan a Iar or Innse Gall, the translation of which is approximately the same "Islands of strangers".
There are many prehistoric megaliths and remains of ancient buildings on the Islands, which are called the ancestral "castles" of such clans as MacLeod, MacDonald, Mackenzie and Macneilsbut. But one of the strangest legends of these places tells about a real mermaid.
In 1830, a group of local residents worked on the shore of the small island of Benbecula in the town of Sgeir na Dushad, collecting seaweed. Suddenly they saw what looked like a very small woman moving in the waves not far from the shore.
On closer inspection, it turned out that this was indeed a petite woman who was very adept at swimming, diving, and even doing somersaults in the water. News of this quickly spread around the area and in just half an hour almost the entire population of the island came running to the shore.
Several men decided to go into the water and catch the strange sea woman, but as soon as they did so, she deftly swam away from them and went out of their reach without boats.
But then, from the shore, a boy swung and threw a large stone at the mermaid. It hit her right on the head, and she gave a loud cry of pain and disappeared into the foaming waves. She did not appear again, and little by little the people returned to their former occupations.
A few days later, a strange body washed ashore in the Bay of Kalle, near the settlement of Nanton, a few miles North of Sgeir na Dushad. It looked like the "little woman", but now the creature could be seen much better, because it was dead.
"The upper part of the creature was the size of a well-fed child 3-4 years old, with incorrectly developed Breasts. Her hair was long, dark, and glossy, and her skin was very white, soft, and tender. The lower part of the body was exactly the same as that of a salmon, only without scales, " one of the documents described.
To see the little mermaid, people came here even from the most remote cities of Scotland. And they were all convinced that this was not an ugly man or a strange fish, but a mermaid. This happened until the body began to decompose significantly.
By this time, Mr. Duncan Shaw, who was the head of the MacDonalds of Clanranald and was the County Sheriff, had been called. He saw the body and also decided that it was a mermaid, and then ordered to wrap it in a cloth and put it in a small coffin, after which the mermaid was buried on the same Bank where the body was found.
Alas, even if there was originally a gravestone or something else that marked the place of the grave, by the twentieth century there was nothing there. However, even today, many local residents know this story and are sure that somewhere there on the shore are the remains of a mermaid. Someone even tried to dig in several places, but so far nothing has been found.
The problem is that the Bay of Calle is quite large and initially it was not specified where exactly the body was found, and therefore there are no landmarks about where the grave could be located.
Interestingly, around the same time, mermaids were also seen in other places in Scotland. In 1833, there was a story about how fishermen captured in the water a creature "with the face of a monkey and the body of a woman", which was kept in the boat for about three hours, but then decided to let go back to the sea, because the creature was weak and could die.
And in a newspaper called "advertising from the Paisley Herald and Renfrewshire" in 1869 there was a very interesting note:
"Mermaids were very common on the Caithness coast as early as 1809, and were often seen by the common people, but in addition to their testimony, we have evidence of the highest respectability - miss Eliza Mackay, daughter of Minister Reay, saw one of them when walking along the shore with her friend miss Mackenzie. She described her full account of it to Mrs. Innes, the widow Landside.
When they reached the shore, these young ladies watched the three men on the rock, who looked at the water with horror. When they reached them, they found that they were looking at a human figure floating nearby in the water, rising and sinking into the waves so that the head, neck, and arms were visible.
Her complexion was brilliant, her fingers long and thin, her eyes gray, and her hair long and greenish. When they fell on her face, she threw them back with her hand, and repeatedly waved her hand to ward off the gulls flying over her. People watched it for more than an hour in bright sunlight, and the creature swam only a few yards away.
RIA Bay seems to have been a favorite spot for these mermaids, despite the Northern chill, as Mr. William Munro, Thurso's schoolmaster, in support of the story of these two ladies, believes that when he lived in RIA, he saw a mermaid combing her hair, long and brown. He would have taken her for a human if she hadn't been sitting on a dangerous rock. He watched her for a while under the bright sun, but then she dived into the water and disappeared."
Original news
A group of crofters in an island were cutting seaweed when one of them stumbled across an animal “in the form of a woman in miniature” on the shore. The men in the party tried and failed to capture her, but as she tried to swim to safety a boy hurled a stone that struck her in the back.
Two days later, her dead body washed up two miles from where she had been seen, and a careful examination was made of it. “The upper part of the creature was about the size of a well-fed child of three or four years of age, with abnormally developed breasts.” The hair was long, dark, and glossy, while the skin was white, soft, and tender. The lower part of the body was like a salmon, but without scales. It was reportedly buried near the sea.
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While touring recently around the islands of the Outer Hebrides we came upon this strange story.
In 1830 people were busy cutting seaweed at Sgeir na Duchadh near Grimnis on the west coat of the island of Benbecula. One woman spotted a creature several yards out in the water. The creature looked like a woman in miniature. Alarmed she called to the others working on the shore who also saw this strange sight. Men went into the water to try to catch the creature but she evaded them. A boy aimed a rock at her which struck her on the back, she cried out in pain and disappeared beneath the waves.
A few days later a creature was washed up dead on the beach at Culle bay near the township of Nunton which lies a few miles north of this spot. The creature was said to have the upper shape of a well developed woman but was around the size of a 4 year old girl. She had long dark glossy hair and white skin, however her lower half was described as being ‘like a salmon’ but without the scales.
As the crowds gathered on the beach they all agreed that this was the body of a mermaid.
The factor for the chief of MacDonald of Clanranald who was also the local sherif was called. On seeing the creature he called for a shroud and coffin to be brought to the beach and the creature was layer into this and buried in the nearby churchyard. It was said that the funeral for this creature was one of the largest attended on the island and was carried out like any proper christian burial.
No grave marker related to the incident can be seen at the churchyard and others have said that the creature was buried near the dunes and not in the churchyard at all, in fact a recent survey of a large stone near the south end of the bay was carried out, suspecting that this may indeed be the resting lave of the mermaid but this was inconclusive.
So what do you think? evidence of mermaids or another ‘fishy tale’ from the islands. Certainly mermaid stories like this do bring in the tourists who were beginning to find their way to the islands in the mid 19th century. Many other tales of mermaids exist on the islands. A crofter from Barra called Colin Campbell spotted what looked like an otter fishing near the shore, he was about to shoot it but decided to check it though a telescope only to see what he described as a woman carrying a small baby in her arms. the creature then spotted him on the shore and disappeared. Whatever the truth is they do make great stories.
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1830 BY VILLAGERS IN BENBECULA
Within the outer Hebrides of west coast Scotland, there was a small woman spotted on the shore. The villagers tried to capture it and started throwing rocks. A few days later, its corpse washed ashore, according to Hidden Animals, and they examined it. Their account goes “The upper part of the body was about the size of a well-developed child of three or four years of age, with an abnormally developed breast. The hair was long, dark, and glossy, while the skin was white, soft, and tender. The lower part of the body was like a salmon, but without scales.”
The creature was buried in a coffin later on and many people attended.
Hypotheses
Investigation
On the site anomalyinfo.com specified:
Some contemporary accounts of this story claim that it actually took place in 1870, but this is nothing more than an error in the story.
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