Casting about for a timely subject for today’s post, I learned a little something about one of the world’s most famous monsters. It turns out that one of the earliest reports of a creature living in Scotland’s Loch Ness originated from a sighting of the beast by a priest who’d go on to become a saint. But does this story relate one of the most important eye-witness accounts in cryptozoology or is it a better example of one of history’s first, best and longest lasting hoaxes? Here’s the word from Christianity…

On this day, August 22, 565, St. Columba is said to have encountered the Loch Ness Monster.

Revered as a saint, his life was written by Adamnan. In reporting Columba’s life, Adamnan gives what appears to be the first written account of the Loch Ness Monster.

Traveling in Scotland, Columba had to cross the Loch Ness. On its banks, he saw some of the Pict folk burying a man who had been bitten by a water monster while swimming. The body had been pulled from the loch with the aid of a hook by rescuers who had come to his assistance in a boat.

Despite the danger, Columba ordered one of his followers to swim across the loch and bring back a coble (boat) that was moored on the other side. This man’s name was Lugne Mocumin. Without hesitation, Lugne stripped for the swim and plunged in.
The monster, robbed of its earlier feast, surfaced and darted at Lugne with a roar, its jaws open. Everyone on the bank was stupefied with terror; everyone, except Columba, that is. A firm believer in the authority of the crucified Christ, he raised his hand, making the sign of the cross. Invoking the name of God, he commanded the beast, saying, “You will go no further, and won’t touch the man; go back at once.”

At the voice of the saint, the monster fled as if terrified, “more quickly than if it had been pulled back with ropes,” says Adamnan.

The heathen were amazed. Everyone who witnessed the sight gave glory to the God of the Christians.
Did the event really take place? A church historian may be permitted a few doubts.
To begin with, Adamnan’s account was written over a hundred years after the alleged events.
Furthermore, different versions of the story disagree with one another. One has Columba raising the monster’s first victim from the dead by laying his staff across his chest.

We also note that this is only one of many extraordinary events in Adamnan’s account. According to him, Columba dripped with prophecies and predictions that came true. He made water into wine like Jesus, drew water from a rock like Moses, calmed a storm at sea, provided a miraculous draught of fishes, multiplied a herd of cattle, drove a demon out of a milk pail, and cured the sick. A book owned by Columba could not be destroyed by water. Through his prayers he killed a wild boar, stopped serpents from harming the inhabitants of a certain island. Angels and manifestations of divine light attended him throughout his life. Adamnan’s account has so many incredible tales that it is unbelievable.

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I’m not sure why this didn’t get a Google Doodle, but Orson Welles would have been 99 today and I think that’s worth noting. I love covering films and I love talking about magick — Welles knew a bit about both.

Welles was a child prodigy who founded the groundbreaking Mercury Theatre company in New York. After creating audacious productions of Julius Caesar and Macbeth — which relocated the play from Scotland to Haiti and featured an all African-American cast — Welles took his company to the airwaves and The War of the Worlds is still considered one of the most famous radio broadcasts of all time. Hearing the siren song of Hollywood, Welles lit for Los Angeles where he would make one of the most important films of all time while also crippling his career and himself so badly that he would never really recover from the wounds.

First things first: Here’s Welles’ earliest film. It was made while he was a 19 year old student at the Todd School for Boys in Woodstock Illinois. Here’s the Wiki…

An elderly woman sits on a bell as it rocks back and forth, while a servant in blackface pulls at a rope. A dandified gentleman appears at the top of a stairway and doffs his hat to the lady; he smiles and courts her attention. She does not respond, but the servant hangs himself. The scene changes to an darkened interior: the gentleman sits at a grand piano and plays, but something is wrong. He opens the piano’s lid and finds the woman lying inside, dead. He leafs through a number of tombstone-shaped cards with different inscriptions – “Sleeping”, “At Rest”, “With The Lord” – and finally chooses one that says “The End”.

The film’s action, such as it is, is intercut with random shots of bells, headstones, a church cross and other images, sometimes printed in negative. Many years later Welles acknowledged that the film was an imitation of the early surrealist films of Luis Bunuel and Jean Cocteau. He did not consider it a serious piece of work, and was amused at the idea of being added to his creative canon.

Here is The Hearts of Age…

And here is a PBS American Experience documentary that captures Welles at his greatest and most reckless. “The Battle Over Citizen Cane” is a heavyweight slug-fest between Welles and newspaper giant William Randolph Hearst, whom Welles satirizes in the film. The two men tore into each other personally and professionally and, at the end, both of them were changed forever.

The rest of us got a great film out of the battle, but what did we lose?

Rosebud?

Here is The Battle Over Citizen Cane…

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