Mermaids are one of those legendary creatures that occurs, in some guise or another, in nearly every culture throughout the world. They are also one of few beings of legend for which there are no shortage of semi-reliable reports. The Celts were a race which had lengthy traditions of creatures we would call merfolk. The Scots were no exception among the Celtic races, and reports of these merfolk were rife along the northwestern coast. The first sighting of the Scottish mermaids, or maigdean-mara, came in early 1809. On January 12 of that year, a young woman's face--"round and plump and of a bright pink hue"--was seen in the waters off Sandside, in the region known as Caithness (the northernmost peninsula of the Highlands). The face submerged, and when it resurfaced, the two witnesses saw that the creature had well-formed breasts. They also reported that occasionally, it would lift one of its arms out of the water and toss back its greenish hair. Soon enough, the London Times, which published the above account, received a letter from a William Munro, who claimed an earlier sighting. He claimed that his sighting had taken place in or around 1797, when he had been a teacher at a nearby school. Walking along the shore, he claimed, he saw a maigdean-mara sitting on one of the rocks of Sandside Head. He said that the creature resembled a human female. It is interesting to note that neither Munro or the earlier two witnesses said that the creature had the familiar fishy tail. The mermaid was evidently combing its lengthy hair, which was of a light brown color. The forehead was round, the face plump, the cheeks ruddy, the eyes blue, the mouth and lips of a natural form, resembling those of a man; the teeth I could not discover, as the mouth was shut; the breasts and the abdomen, the arms and fingers of the size of a full-grown body of the human species; the fingers, from the action in which the hands were employed, did not appear to be webbed, but as to this I am not positive. It remained on the rock three or four minutes after I observed it, and was exercised during that period in combing its hair, which was long and thick, and of which it appeared proud; and then dropped into the sea, from whence it did not reappear to me. In the November 16, 1822 issue of the London Mirror, there appeared a lengthy article summarizing reports of mermaids. Many of the reports cited in the article were from the seaside areas of northern Scotland. One such account was that of John McIsaac, who saw a mermaid near Corphine, in Kintyre. McIsaac's sighting took place on October 13, 1811. According to the article, he reported the sighting to Duncan Campbell, the Sheriff-Substitute. ...the upper half of it was white, and of the shape of a human body; the other half, towards the tail, of a brindled or reddish-grey color, apparently covered with scales; but the extremity of the tail itself was of a greenish-red shining color; that the head was covered with long hair; at times it would put back the hair on both sides of its head; at times it would also spread its tail like a fan; and, while so extended, the tail continued in tremulous motion, and, when drawn together again, it remained motionless, and appeared to the deponent to be about 12 or 14 inches broad; that the hair was very long and light brown; that the animal was between four and five feet long... Here followed the rest of McIsaac's sighting in minute detail. Although the details of this sighting can be called into question (after all, it seems McIsaac's description is a little too detailed), three others in the area--Rev. Dr. George Robertson, Norman MacLeod, and James Maxwell--stated in the boy's defense that "we know of no reason why his veracity should be called into question;...from the manner in which he delivered his evidence, we are satisfied that he was impressed with a perfect belief." A girl living in the same area, Katherine Loynachan, was herding her family's cattle near the shore on the afternoon of October 13 when she saw some sort of creature which leapt off a rock and swam about. This "boy" (as Loynachan called it) swam out nearly twenty feet, surfaced, and began to swim back towards the shore. It was then that she noticed that the "boy" had lengthy hair, whitish skin on its upper half, and dark brown skin on the lower. The lower half was fishlike. Loynachan's father was later interviewed by Duncan Campbell. Mr. Loynachan said that he recalled that his daughter had run home to tell him of the boy who was swimming offshore. But when he, Katherine, and Katherine's mother returned to the site, the "boy" was gone. In 1814, more sightings took place in western Scotland. The first of this wave of sightings is that of a young boy who saw a mermaid sometime in July. About a month later, some children saw what they at first believed was a woman drowning. The children sought the aid of some nearby farmers. By the time the farmers got there, the "woman" had swum close enough to shore that it was plainly visible that it was not a normal woman. The upper part was exactly like a woman, the skin appeared very white, and a good deal of color in the cheeks, and very long darkish looking hair; the arms were very well proportioned above, but tapered very much towards the hands, which were no larger than a child's of eight or 10 years old, the tail was like an immense cuddy fish. One of the farmers expressed a desire to shoot the creature, but others discouraged him from doing so. He nonetheless whistled at the mermaid, and it replied with a glance in the farmer's direction. Afterwards, it "remained in sight for two hours, at times making a hissing noise like a goose." Twice afterwards, the maigdean-mara was seen, "early in the morning and when the sea was calm." There was also a sighting on August 15 in Port Gordon. Thomas Johnstone and William Gordon were fishing offshore when they spotted the maigdean-mara. The creature had a "swarthy" countenance, small eyes, a flat nose, a large mouth, and long arms. Then it dove underwater, resurfacing with another of the same type--"whom the men assumed to be female, as they could perceive she had breasts, and her hair was not curled, but reached to a little below the shoulders; the skin of this last one too was fairer than the other's." The two fishermen rowed to shore, reporting that the two watched them. A local named George McKenzie wrote the account of the sighting which appeared in the Caledonian Mercury. A highly unusual sighting came in 1830, at Benbecula in the Hebrides. A maigdean-mara was seen offshore; the creature was notably small. It appeared to be playing in the water. Some men tried to capture it, but it would not be caught; finally, a young boy, throwing stones at it, struck it in the back and it vanished. A few days later, the body of the mermaid washed onshore. Duncan Shaw, the sheriff, examined the body and wrote a report. Shaw stated ...the upper part of the creature was about the size of a well-fed 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 Benbecula mermaid was buried in the cemetary at Nunton. Folklorist R. Macdonald Robertson wrote in 1961 that he, himself, had seen the grave of the maigdean-mara. Sightings of the Scottish mermaids continued until the middle of the twentieth century. In fact, several sightings took place near Craig Mor in August, 1949.

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page