by
Cole Herrold
Scotland is just teeming with loch (lake) monsters.
The most famous being the Loch Ness Monster, which has since been the poster
child for lake monsters since word of it hit the mainstream media. Yet other
lochs around it and all throughout Scotland are homes to other slithery slimy
aquatic beasts’ lochs such as Loch Oich, Loch Lochy, Loch Morar, Loch Shiel,
Loch Quoich, and Loch Awe, just to name a few. Yet, there is one loch that is
home to one of the most bizarre beasts ever conceived in an aquatic lair.
Loch Hourn, which name translates to the Loch of Hell,
is allegedly home to a bizarre water horse type creature that had plagued the
regions around the lake till at least the nineteenth century. The beast is as
bizarre as the united states Jersey Devil or Enfield Horror and surprisingly
bears some resemblance to both cryptid beasts. This bizarre beast is
semiaquatic and clamors on land, not on fins or flippers but on legs. This in
itself would not be unusual, but if reports are to be believed, this creature
does not have the typical two to four limbs that mammals, reptiles, birds have
but three legs. Two in the front and one solitary one in the back. The
absurdity of this creature does not end there as the creature also has a large
set of wings that it would use to fly around its home. This is a feature that
has never been described or reported with any other Scottish lake monster and
certainly not from any of the isle’s history of water horses. The creature,
while never officially described in the few encounters that were recorded, its
appearance was accepted to be a creature about the size of a donkey or larger
than a person and that it either had the head of a horse or a broad head with
no snout and an overhanging jaw. The creature's equestrian appearance would not
end there, however, though as it bore both a horse-like mane and a horse-like
tail.
The earliest known reported accounts of the strange
creature known as the Beast of Barrisdale, Loch Hourn Monster, and the Wild
Beast of Barrisdale occurs throughout the nineteenth century, and much of the
accounts were collected by the Scottish Folklorist Calum Maclean who received
these tales on May 20th, 1952 from Father Andrew Macdonell who while
residing in Inverie had gleaned and heard first-person and second-hand accounts
of encounters with this strange creature, its cries, and its tracks. The first
encounter the Christian collector of tales came across came from Alan
MacMaster, who told him of a bizarre encounter that occurred during a smearing
burn. It was during this time span that Alan and a group of his cohorts during
dinner one night outside of the smearing house near Loch Hourn. The group had
sat down on the stone dykes around the home's barn began to tell tales and sing
songs to pass the time and enjoy the night. The evening was in high spirits,
surely singing some old traditional song from the hills and hollows of the land,
when as the group began to reach the chorus, a strange sound chimed in as
though in response to their merrymaking. The sound was a loud howl that shook
the very hills that the group had been sitting in. The group's cheerful din was
caught short, and the silence broke out amongst the men. The group's canine
companions, who at this point were enjoying the night with their masters, had
begun to act up in a terrified manner going so far as the dogs were attempting
to hide under the seats of the men. The howling continued for some time until
just as quickly as it came, it left, leaving only the silence of the night.
The howling and roaring would be the most common
attribute of this beast, and in 1845, another case of this echoing entity would
occur. A 15yr old Alasdair Macdonald and several individuals had on one
particular day in 1845 would be firsthand ear witnesses to this strange
cacophony. Alasdair and his posse decided on this particular day to go fishing
on the Loch. The group whose boat was in Arnisdale had begun to go and set the
boat up to be shoved off into the dark water. Yet as the group began to push
the boat into the loch, the hills and air rang alive with the sound of a
tremendous roar. The men stopped in their tracks and held their breath as the
roaring seemed to stop. Yet much to the chagrin of the would-be fishermen, they
would continue to hear the creature's audible atrocity. The men, however,
fearing a potential attack, proceeded to drop the boat down and head back
inside for some semblance of protection from whatever was causing the
horrendous sounds. The area was alive for countless years as sounds of this
creature would be heard all around Loch Hourn as well as nearby Loch Nevis.
While sounds are the most common association with this
beast, they are not alone. Ronald MacMaster, a gamekeeper at Barrisdale, would
proceed to tell Father Andrew Macdonell about his encounter with physical
evidence left behind from the wild beast. MacMaster had left early one morning,
so early, in fact, that the sky was still dark and proceeded to go out onto the
moors above Barrisdale to go and acquire game birds to send to London. As he
arrived at a spot where he felt it would be a good section to hunt, he looked
up at the sky's darkening clouds in the just beginning sunrise. Being a man who
knew the sky and the formation of weather inducing clouds decided to hunker
down by a large rock and wait for the oncoming snow. The snow began to fall and
land on the ground. Ronald waited for the snow to end. The snow landed on the
ground to be about half an inch and soon ended. Ronald waited with the patience
that every hunter had come to known. He soon began to hear the birds that he
was after for this day. Ronald clutched his gun and waited for his prize when
all of a sudden, the birds began shrieking in terror and the sound of wings
flapping as the birds flew off out of gunshot of the hunter. Obviously
stressed, he stood up and pulled out his pipe and had a brief smoke, and
proclaimed, "My shot is lost today." When sunlight finally reached
and bathed the landscape in the warm glow, he moved pipe still in hand towards
where the birds had been roosting. There on the ground was the footprints of
various avians, yet amongst all of the local fauna was a strange footprint the
veteran gamekeeper had never seen before. At first, he thought that the
footprint came from a fox, yet the more he looked at the track, the more
bizarre he realized it was. The tracks were about 4" each way and had four
blunt toes. The most curious element about these tracks was that there was no
ball, but instead a cone of snow and then 4" behind that was a claw mark.
Seeing these odd tracks, the gamekeeper realized that after going through the
usual suspects that only one creature could be behind them, stating, "This
is the wild beast. It spoilt my shot today, and I'm going to give him something
before I finish him".
With his common sense most likely behind him, Ronald
proceeded to follow the tracks of the beast for several hundred yards. The
begrudged gamekeeper followed the bizarre tracks were as opposed to what is
often reported in connection to the beast four feet. The feet were
interconnected, and that made the creature seem to be bipedal. He followed the
tracks up to a 12-14ft rocky crag and realized that this creature continued its
path by leaping on top of the rock or by flying away. Upon seeing this
creature's apparent leaping or flying ability, it disturbed him to the point of
wanting to return home. While returning down the way, he encountered a shepherd
who possibly saw the beast and whistled to Ronald, crying out to him, "the
Wild Beast has gone into the woods." Ronald, in a foul mood from losing
both of his quarries, cared not for the shepherd's update on the beast's
whereabout and continued down the path and returned home. Roland would later
describe how the strange creature sounded by describing it as sounding like a
tin pail put on top of a wall and that when the wind whistles through it but as
loud as a steam whistle.
John MacMaster, another gamekeeper, believed that this
strange creature was preternatural, something that should the initial
description of the beast be accurate may not be off the chart. John had his own
encounter with this creature's traces but this time not in the cold of snow but
in a revealed section of peat. He, while going up a hill, noticed this section
and the large footprint, which possibly could have made it bare. Bending down,
he found that the print was larger than a dog's and, taking some measurements,
would find that it would match the same size of what Ronald had encountered
sometime earlier.
The MacMasters seemed to be in some sort of Fortean
connection as Ronald's wife would also experience the creature but not in such
a tangible way. One time at 2 o'clock in the morning when her husband was out
fetching a doctor for her when she was sick to the gills in bed. While trying
to stay warm and deal with her illness, she soon began to hear something that
made the house shake with a horrendous cry. The sick woman and everyone else in
the house huddled in fear as the strange noise rumbled through the house,
shaking the very foundation. When the noise ended, the group knew instantly
that this was the Beast that had come from its home on the mountaintop and
entered the valley past the house and head towards the other side.
The sound would continue in the village of Airer, and
the entire village was plagued by the horrendous noise. One particular person
who was deeply disturbed by the sound was a 16yr old girl who was residing in a
mental hospital in Invernesi who took fright upon hearing the terrible cry. The
noises would cause such fear that throughout the nineteenth century, people
would not leave outside at night unless in dire need, and even during the day,
people would leave only in groups.
While most of the accounts of this beast seemed to be
of strange tracks and cries, there are a few scant sightings that have been
accounted for. Murdoch Maclean and a friend and their dogs were out planning to
hunt foxes around in the area near Loch Hourn around 1845. While out on a small
hill around where he could see the valley below went and began to watch a group
of deer which were eating grass and biding their time on the ground. It was in
this bucolic scene that their attention was drawn to a strange figure seen
amongst the herd. The creature seemed to be coexisting with the hoofed
cervines. The dogs were terrified of this creature backing away from the
direction of this beast. Murdoch's friends looked over at him and said,
"I'm going to fire at this creature." Murdoch reached over to stop
his friend from taking the shot, but before he could bring his friend's gun
down, his friend took the shot and missed. The sound of the gun caused the
beast to run off with the rest of the herd of deer, who were also terrified by
the sound. The creature continued to go and roar all way out of sight.
A similar account had been seen by John MacMaster and
John MacGillvary, who in 1903 had climbed a mountain on the east side of Loch
Hourn and reached about 2,000ft up on the rocky crag. They, tired and exhausted
from the trek, decided to sit and began to look down into the valley. While at
that point, they looked down and saw a herd of deer grazing and resting down in
a valley. It was about noon, and the pair watched as a raven left a nearby
mountain and flew over the deer. The deer intelligently watched the black flier,
and it was at that moment that they heard a loud roaring that came from about
three miles across the valley. The men had much like Alan MacMaster, and his
friends at the smudge house brought several dogs with them. The six dogs were
terrified by the sound, and their hair began to raise on their backs. The
canine companions and were attempting to hide under the men. While the pets of
the men were behaving as though the end was near, the deer in the field behaved
as though this strange noise was the most mundane element ever.
Another more physical encounter with the creature that
also was seen around 1845 came from a man who, while out walking along the road
going towards the west along the North side of Loch Hourn near Arnisdale Way.
When reaching an area where the road was turning round and there coming up from
the other way was the beast. The two looked at each other, and both proceeded
to back away from each other, and as soon as the creature was out of sight, he
proceeded to run home and stayed in bed for a week from fright.
While these accounts are rather ambiguous that seem to
indicate something different than what was rumored to dwell in the vicinity,
there are still reports that seem to be of a flying creature. A Barrisdale
gotter claimed to see it fly high over the hills of Knoydart, which are near
the dark cliffs of Ladhar Bheinn on several occasions. The Knoydart hills were
believed to be where the creature had supposedly had a lair. On one particular
occasion, he saw the beast fly and unleash a loud roar and began to descend
slowly and in a fearsome chase; the man proceeded to run to the safety of his
cottage just in time to slam the door in the face of the beast which was just
outside his cottage.
The tales of the Beast of Barrisdale is something that
is extremely curious. When originally reading about this figure is Not of
This World: Creatures of the Supernatural in Scotland and on the exquisite
virtual bestiary A Book of Creatures, I thought that this was a pretty
bizarre creature that most likely was a figure of folklore, a kind of highland
boogeyman to keep the kids off the moors or loch. Yet upon finding the works of
Calum Maclean, I was intrigued at the fact that there does seem to be some kind
of biological aspect to the creature, especially when describing the effect it
has or, in the case of deer, lack there of with other animals. I was extremely
interested in the cases where a physical beast was actually seen, for, in many
ways, it adds an element of realism to the supposed appearance of the beast,
yet as with almost all cryptids, the real question is what could it have been?
The Beast of Barrisdale, if you look at its most
common description is something that biologically has no comparisons. It bears
some resemblance to some of the weirder cryptids reported in the United States,
namely the infamous Jersey Devil and outlandish Enfield Horror. The Beast bears
many features similar to the two as the Jersey Devil was described as horse
like with large wings, and the Enfield Horror was claimed to have three legs
which it traveled around on. Yet these creatures are on the fringe end of
cryptozoology when compared to other topics such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness
Monster, or Mongolian Death Worm for unlike the others which had something
similar or some hypothetical evolutionary track, the Devil and Horror do not
have anything that they could even be compared to. This, too, goes for the
beast, so if the official description is accurate, it is probably an entirely
new species that came about from some fluke mutation.
An interesting thing about a lot of the reports
associated with the Beast of Barrisdale is that most encounters are either
auditory or finding trace physical evidence of it. It could be possible that
the Beast of Barrisdale might, in fact, be a misidentified cryptid. Scotland
and England are well known for the elusive big cats that are supposed to dwell
on the moors and hills of the United Kingdom, the most famous being the Beast
of Exmoor. The fact that the creature is always reported to be roaring and
leaving four-toed prints could possibly be simply evidence of a big cat that
has not physically been seen. Thus, resulting from overactive imaginations
tales of a three-legged flying water horse type creature. Even the tracks found
by Ronald MacMaster when he described them stated that there were four
distinctive feet as opposed to three pointing to a less bizarre yet just as
remarkable creature. Yet even if this is evidence of a large, big cat, it is
still important to catalog as well as study. However, we do have physical
reports, granted they are extremely ambiguous and missing the juicy details
that could verify a three-legged beast but observing the local fauna, we can
hypothesize more about this creature, and it does not seem to indicate a big
cat.
In many of the cases of the Beast of Barrisdale, where
other animals are involved, deer seem unperplexed or disturbed by either the
sound or presence of the beast. If this creature is a predator like a big cat,
these animals would not be sticking around to be dinner, so that means that
whatever the beast is, it is something either herbivorous or that eats fish or
something smaller than a deer. Yet from what we know of these encounters, the
creature seems to be about the size of a deer at least, which leads me to
hypothesize the following that the Beast could be some kind of mutated or
cryptid elk or deer. It would fit in with other deer hence why they wouldn't be
afraid of it since it wouldn't pose a threat, much like how zebras and gazelles
coexist on the savannah. Many of the creature's features do seem to indicate an
equestrian or cervine form and observing elk, they can be very loud, which
could be why accounts describe a roar. While this seems to be the most
plausible answer and probably the most correct, there is another possibility
that appears at the end of the spectrum.
Scotland and Ireland's tales abound of supernatural
elemental faeries called Kelpies and water horses. These creatures are all
described basically the same strange beasts that reside in or near lakes and
appear as horse-like animals. They trick people into riding them and lead their
would-be owners on a wild ride into the lake they reside, leading their
would-be owners to a watery grave and their lunch for the day. Countless tales
exist of these creatures and those unfortunate enough to attempt to tame them.
Could it be that they are correct? Elementals and faeries are something few
would consider a possibility, but it could explain why the beast seems to
change appearance and why the local fauna is undisturbed by it, seeing as it is
a force of nature and not some opponent as man time and again has proven to be.
This possibility is extremely unlikely as opposed to a cryptid deer or elk or
even some bizarre biological mutation but is something based on the lore and
history, something that has a claim to be heard.
To Be Continued...
Quick Facts:
Species/Potential Species: Mammal
Location: All of the areas near Loch Hourn specifically Barrisdale, Scotland, UK
Year: 1800s - 1903 and before that time
Works Cited:
Fleming, Maurice. Not of This World: Creatures of the Supernatural in Scotland. Mercat. 2002.
Harrison, Paul. Sea Serpents and Lake Monsters of the British Isles. Robert Hale. 2001.
MacGregor, A. A. The Peat-Fire Flame: Folk-tales and Traditions of the Highlands and Islands. The Moray Press, Edinburgh. 1937.
Mitchell, W.R. It’s a Long Way to Muckle Flugga: Journeys in Northern Scotland. Futura 1990.
Selby, Lindsey “Loch Hourn Monster”. The Centre for Fortean Zoology. June 13, 2010. http://forteanzoology.blogspot.com/2010/06/lindsay-selby-loch-hourn-monster.html. Accessed February 1, 2021
“Beast of Barrisdale” A Book Of Creatures. November 30, 2020. abookofcreatures.com/2020/11/30/beast-of-barrisdale/. Accessed January 30, 2021
“The Beast of Barrisdale I”. The Calum Maclean Project. August 9, 2013. http://calumimaclean.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-beast-of-barrisdale-i.html. Accessed January 30, 2021.
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