Down Memory Lane: Kelpies or not, there's been plenty of monster tales reported around Loch Ness down the centuries

This year is the 190th anniversary of an Inverness Courier report headed ‘Death of a Warlock’ in which the deceased, Gregor MacGregor, alias ‘Willox the Warlock’, was described as having an unusual possession.

It was “a piece of yellow metal resembling a horse’s bridle, which is the days of yore was sported by a mischieveous Water Kelpie, who haunted the banks of Loch Ness.”

This article, of October 16, 1833, is the first newspaper account of a creature in the loch. Water Kelpies, in Highland lore, would emerge to carry unsuspecting travellers into the water to be the main course at dinner. How valuable would that bit of metal be if rediscovered?

The Courier's 1852 headline, 'A Scene from Lochend’, reported two strange creatures swimming in the loch. The writer reported: "Some thought it was the sea serpent coiling along the surface, and others a couple of whales or large seals.” The alarmed locals armed themselves with pitchforks and axes until one reckoned they were just a pair of deer and raised his gun to fire.

Read more: DOWN MEMORY LANE: Dedication to the Highlands cost Duncan Forbes dearly in London

Then, his vision clearing, he lowered his gun and shouted in Gaelic: "God protect us, they are the Water Horses," believing they were Kelpies. The article, however, finished in anti-climax as the swimmers were found to be two horses from Aldourie estate!

As down the decades have tumbled, strange sightings with relatively mundane solutions have become relatively common from both sides of the loch.

This, for example, is the 155th anniversary of the 1868 discovery of a two-metre long ‘huge fish’ being washed up on the beach below Abriachan. Some locals reckoned it was the strange fish reported from ‘years back’ but the Courier revealed it to be a skinned dolphin, “possibly thrown overboard by the waggish crew of a passing fishing boat to fool the credulous natives of Abriachan.”

The first monster hoax?

Three years later, the Courier reported that a seven-foot long sturgeon had been captured at the Inverness entrance to the Caledonian Canal. It was reported another sturgeon had been caught some 35 years earlier while back in August 1661, a 12-foot long one had been netted nearby. Down the years, a sturgeon has been suggested as an explanation for the ‘Monster’ and this is evidence they were in the area.

This is the 135th anniversary of Abriachan stonemason Alexander Macdonald being taken aback at sighting “a large stubby-legged animal” which propelled itself to within 50 yards of shore.

Macdonald reported this experience to Alex Campbell, water bailiff at the loch, commenting that the creature resembled a salamander.

Campbell wrote articles for the Courier and this is the 90th anniversary of his May1933, report titled "Strange Spectacle in Loch Ness" – which was to spark the first recognised national and international focus on the loch’s alleged denizen of the deep.

John Mackay and his wife Aldie were driving on the A82 that April when Mrs Mackay saw what she described as a “large beast” in the loch. Campbell wrote: "The creature disported itself, rolling and plunging for fully a minute, its body resembling that of a whale, and the water cascading and churning like a simmering cauldron.

“Soon, however, it disappeared in a boiling mass of foam. Both onlookers confessed that there was "something uncanny about the whole thing”. The article went on to coin the term “monster” about what the couple had seen. The legend of the Loch Ness Monster was born…

This is also the 120th anniversary of Sir John Murray, in his ‘Bathymetrical Survey of the Scottish Lochs’, reporting that 1700 depth soundings he had taken in Loch Ness revealed a maximum depth of 754 feet. He was the first to state that the loch had the greatest volume of any lake in Britain.

So, in such depths, a mystery beast might sustain itself, some argued. But could it be found? Next week we look at the searches which began for Nessie.

– Sponsored by Ness Castle Lodges.