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Did you spot Nessie??
The Loch Ness Monster has been a source of mystery and fascination for over a thousand years.
The first reported instance of Nessie spotting came in 565AD when St Columba took a swim in Loch Ness. It appears in the Life of St Columba by Adomnan. According to Adomnan, St Columba was staying in the land of the Picts 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. The beast approached Columba, but he 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.
BB-see? The BBC sponsored a search for Nessie in 2003 but no animals were found. Scientists involved in the BBC expedition later declared the Loch Ness Monster a myth.
The Loch Ness Monster has featured in Doctor Who twice, in 1975’s Terror of the Zygons, when Tom Baker’s Doctor met the creature. A second story, Timelash, in 1985 with Colin Baker’s Doctor, showed how the cruel alien Borad, ruler of the planet Karfel, escaped into the loch.
Further down the route on the south side of Loch Ness, sits Boleskine House, home-sweet-home to notorious occultist Aleister Crowley at the turn of the 20th century. Crowley was known to locals as the ‘Beast of Boleskine’ and named by the press as the ‘Wickedest Man in the World’, for the various rituals, black magic, and acts of debauchery he carried out from the house. Jimmy Paige from Led Zeppelin was a fan of Crowley and bought the house in the 1970s and kept it for around 20 years. Boleskine House has been a site of strange happenings ever since Crowley took up residence, and was recently destroyed in an unexplained fire. Spooky!
Now move fast as if Nessie is chasing after you!!
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