Factoid of the day

The first mention in writing about the Loch Ness monster legend was in the 690's AD, when someone wrote the story of when St Columba ran into the monster.

full article here.

more HERE

Guilty for being partly responsible for the death of many men in the Battle of Cul-drebene, St Columba set out to mainland Scotland on a pilgrimage to spread Christianity across the land.

During this time, on his way to visit with the Pictish king in Inverness, he encountered some Picts burying what remained of one of their own people - badly savaged by a creature in the Loch.

The dead mans boat lay on the other side of the water, so Columba ordered one of his followers to swim over and retrieve the boat.During this the servant was attacked by a creature that reared out of the Loch to attack the swimmer.

Columba (invoking the name of God) commanded the beast to return to whence it came and it vanished beneath the waters of the Loch leaving the swimming man unharmed.

you know, I always thought this legend was up there along with big foot and alien abductions.

But we now have RiverMonsters the TV series on our local cable, and it makes me wonder: If the fish are that big now (when the high population and overfishing make it less likely they grow that big), I wonder if this legend was based on a huge fish, not a dinosaur...

and yes, they have a show about Nessie (but I haven't seen it on our cable yet)

as for Colomba: sounds like he was another saint who had PTSS...