Loch Ness Monster

In this week's episode, we're looking at another incredible monster who is absolutely legendary, you might have guessed it - but it's the Loch Ness Monster from Scottish folklore! What else swims around in the black depths of the deepest Loch in the UK? What could Nessie possibly be? Find out in this week's podcast!

Transcript

INTRO:

Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

Happy february! I’m off work for two weeks so I’ve actually been able to sit down and relax and really put my all into the podcast this week. Alongside listening to the tick tick boom soundtrack on repeat, but we don’t need to go into that.

I've been so excited for this week - it’s literally one of my favourite monsters of all time, and one that’s been in my life as a Brit for a very long time. Yes folks - we’re talking about Nessie this week!

DESCRIPTION:

Nessie or more formally, the Loch Ness monster is probably, other than Bigfoot, the most famous cryptid of all time and is definitely our biggest one over here in the UK. 

The Loch Ness Monster is a Scottish cryptid, living in Loch Ness near Inverness in the Highlands funnily enough - which is the UK’s largest amount of freshwater by volume, which is a cool fact. I’ll get onto more of these later, but let’s get back to our monster

The Loch Ness monster is described as many things, but the most popular is that of a dinosaur looking creature, with a long neck, either flippers or stubby little legs, humps on it’s back with a horse-like head. It’s not said how big Nessie is, but it’s believed that she’s between 15 and 30ft, which is pretty big, around the same starting size as an adult great white shark. You’ll notice I did call Nessie a she, it’s just generally said that Nessie is a she - there’s nothing notable to say she is, but that’s always been the way. I guess Nessie is more of a feminine name too I suppose.

Now some quick notes about Loch Ness itself. Although Loch Lomond is technically the biggest in size, it doesn’t contain as much water as Loch Ness - if that makes sense. The Loch is 124.10 fathoms deep or on average 433ft in normal terms - and is 23 miles long. So you could legitimately run almost a marathon around it, and in fact, some people do! It’s one of the most famous lakes in the world, and is a massive tourist attraction because of Nessie to this day. 

Now cryptids are always quite tricky to describe, as there’s very little evidence of them actually existing. Therefore, my usual little segment on what they eat and what they do isn’t really doable for this monster. It is believed though, that Nessie is a vegetarian or perhaps a pescatarian, most likely feeding on the massive amount of eels or sea life in the Loch - or the mass amounts of greenery under the water's surface. 

As she has been spotted a couple of times, it’s believed that she does need to come up for air - otherwise, there would be no sightings of her above water. So it is believed that she is some type of mammalian creature rather than a fish, although this was the first instinct from fishermen. 

ORIGIN:

Now onto etymology - the obvious here is that she’s named after the Loch that she lives in, but originally she was named ‘Monster Fish’ or a ‘Sea serpent’. Later on, they decided to stick with the Loch Ness Monster, but since the 1940’s people have affectionately called her Nessie. 

Fun fact with this one is that the Scottish Gaelic for Loch Ness is Loch Nis - and so Nessie is Niseag. I wish that I could find somewhere to learn the pronunciations for these, but unfortunately, it’s nowhere on the internet. If anyone knows, it would be much appreciated if you could send me a little voice note of how it sounds!

Now I mentioned earlier that it was affectionately nicknamed in the 1940’s, but actually Nessie has been around for much longer than this. The first ever sighting of her was reported back in 565 AD, when an Irish monk buried a man who was reportedly attacked by a sea monster in the Loch. Apparently the monk, Saint Columba, went in after the creature and made signs of the cross asking it to leave them alone, and the creature did as it was told.

From then, it’s a while til Nessie was spotted again. This time, in the 1870’s when two sightings were made - being compared to a large salamander approaching the shore. Another was that it was swimming very fast, and looked like an overturned boat. 

But the first proper and serious mentions of Nessie were in the 1930’s when the myth really started to take off. There are two really of note here - one is the report of Aldie Mackay from 1933, who famously wrote into the Inverness Courier newspaper about the beast. I’ve got an extract of what she said here;

"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, for they realised that here was no ordinary denizen of the depths, because, apart from its enormous size, the beast, in taking the final plunge, sent out waves that were big enough to have been caused by a passing steamer."

Her and her husband had been driving past the Loch and saw the monster apparently, frolicking about in the water - which is kind of cute. Although, I can tell you that she was interviewed in the 1980’s to follow this up and she had said that the rumours about a monster in Loch Ness were prevalent before she saw anything. So that might have aided her sighting a little there.

The other super big sighting in the 1930’s was that of ‘The Surgeon’s photograph’. This is probably the most famous image of Nessie to exist, taken by a gynaecologist in 1934. This has been considered the best evidence of Nessie’s existence for the last 60 years, which is just insane - and it’s the image that most people know of Nessie. However, most people also believe that the image was a hoax, which is a shame and it was revealed in a book written in 1999 that it was actually a toy submarine bought from Woolworths, which if you’re older than 25 living in the UK now, you’ll remember Woolworths. And if you’re Australian, hey you’ve still got them, lucky you!

Anyway, it was a real shame - turns out that it was put together by a disgruntled employee of the paper The Daily Mail, who wanted to get revenge on them for dismissing his Nessie tracks that he had apparently discovered. Either way, the picture remains a relic to Nessie truthers out there, but it was officially disproved by 1994. 

There have been countless sightings from then on up until now actually, the most being reported during the 2010’s. However, there is a website called Loch Ness Sightings.com that keeps record of all the sightings! They got 10 recorded in 2021 alone, which was mostly a COVID affected travel year, so these were Scots! They also keep a webcam posted over Loch Ness at all times, I’ll pop the link to this on twitter, because I sat and watched this for a good half hour whilst writing this up. 

Also, if you fancy a trip to Loch Ness, you can get a cruise across it to specifically monster hunt - which is really fun. Honestly next time I’m up there, I’ll be doing just that and I might live stream it or something. 

Anyway, there are a few explanations to what Nessie could be. The most famous is that of a plesiosaur, which is an extinct sea dinosaur that lived during the Ice Age. However, we know that Loch Ness has only been around for the last 2000 years, and before that was completely frozen solid - so this one looks a bit odd. But it does make the most sense when you compare pictures or descriptions of the monster, it does sound like a sea monster or dinosaur - which is what most sea monsters are really. 

Another really good one is that of either a giant eel, catfish or a giant leech. Loch Ness is famous for being chock full of eels, like there are so many eels in Loch Ness, it’s not even funny. They have the same kind of body shape as Nessie and they can swim very fast - disappearing into the black deeps below. The catfish idea is fun, and catfish can get to big boy lengths - especially ones that live in the Loch such as the Wels catfish, which can grow to up to 10ft! Imagine that for your dinner. 

The leech idea comes from the same belief as the eels, although there aren’t nearly as many leeches in Loch Ness. In fact, leeches tend to favour very shallow water such as rivers, rather than lakes - especially ones as big as Loch Ness. They also tend to stick to warmer climates, and honestly we have loads of leeches in the UK - but they are further south than the Highlands.

Another thought is that this myth started to come about the same time that the legendary Kelpies of Scottish mythology were around, these water horses would drown their victims with a sticky tar like mane - you can find out more in my third episode of the podcast if you can believe it! Nessie was once believed to have a mane, so maybe Nessie is a kelpie? Who knows.

Now, you would probably think that last one was my favourite, but no - my love for sharks actually far precedes my love for deadly water horses I’m afraid. It is believed that maybe the sightings of Nessie could be a Greenland shark. These freshwater sharks are known to live for hundreds of years in deep dark water around Scandinavia - completely blind due to an invasive, species specific parasite that lives in their eyes. These sharks can be up to 25ft in length, but are mostly deep water fish, they are hideously ugly, and there are no reports of these attacking humans before you get too worried. 

However, the possibility of one wandering into Loch Ness is pretty low, but not as low as an actual dinosaur still living in the Loch from before it was thawed out in the Stone Age.

Lastly though, I will say that they did do a DNA survey of Loch Ness back in 2018 and found nothing peculiar unfortunately. The thing they did find the most of was, of course, eel DNA - although they did get seal and otter DNA in there too. But it kind of rules out the possibility of something else there - that we’ve actually discovered ooooooh.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Okay so onto cultural significance! 

To start off, we have art - which is always a bit tricky with cryptids as I’ve said a million times before. But as the only proof of Nessie is in photos and independent art, that’s where I’m going to point you to this week. Have a look at the Surgeon’s photograph and there’s a great statue outside of the Nessie museum in Loch Ness of her - so if you’re into slightly scary statues, look at that one. Otherwise, there have been CGI and art impressions made of her for years - go have a look at how different they all are, they’re just brilliant. 

For movies, this is going to be so fun and I really recommend you check these out. There is Beneath Loch Ness, Beyond Loch Ness, The Water Horse, Scooby Doo and the Loch Ness Monster, Loch Ness, The Loch Ness Horror, The Librarian, Incident at Loch Ness, Amazon Women on the Moon and Monsters Inc.   

On TV, there are loads! Including; Primeval, Conspiracy: The Missing Evidence, Phineas and Ferb, The Simpsons, Xiaolin Showdown, Count Duckula, South Park, Soug, Gargoyles, The Family Ness, Inspector Gadget, Popeye and Son, Spongebob Squarepants, Aaaah! Real Monsters, Fairly Odd Parents, Doctor Who, Mystery Hunters, X-Files, The Lost Tapes, River Monsters and even Bewitched.

There’s also quite a few for video games such as Club Penguin, Shadow of Colossus, World of Warcraft, Zoo Tycoon, Pokemon, Ace Attorney, Psychonauts, Earthbound, Monster Rancher, The Sims, Super Mario Bros, Mass Effect 3, The Darkside Detectives, Loch Ness, Endless Ocean and Subnautica. 

My book recommendations this week are in two parts. There are so many amazing kids books about Nessie, that I wanted to do a separate bit for two of my kids books recommendations too! 

So for my adult listeners, you can have a look at the 1999 Nessie: The Surgeon's Photograph Exposed by David Martin, which is all about the hoax surrounding the infamous photo. The other is called The Monsters of Loch Ness (The History and the Mystery) by Malcolm Robinson, which is brilliant and actually all about the monsters aside from Nessie who live in Loch Ness. 

Now for my parents or kid listeners, depending on what age you are - for the little ones, have a look at the gorgeous Nessie The Loch Ness Monster by Richard Brassey, the illustrations in this book are so brilliant and vibrant, kids will love it. For older kids, have a look at The Loch Ness Monster: (Behind the Legend) by another Erin, Erin Peabody - this one really goes into the facts and all the sightings, so it's really fun for older kids. I really wish these books existed when I was a child!

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed? Sigh, I really really want this one to be true. I really do, I think it’s really important for us here in the UK to love a monster as much as Nessie, and actually I really think it brings us together with the Scots. It also generates amazing tourist revenue for the area, and keeps it clean and funded for generations to come. It actually generates over £60,000 a year to the Scottish tourist industry, so I’m fully behind this myth staying in place for just that.

Would I swim in it? Absolutely not - if I swore in this podcast, I would put a big f bomb in the middle there too. The idea of eels swimming around my ankles, no thank you. But also, again it’s this idea that actually, the crushing pressure of the deepest parts of this Loch is too much for our cameras to look into, so who knows what’s lurking at the bottom there? Could be the Kraken for all I know - and to be honest, I’d rather not know. Following that DNA study too - we don’t know what Nessie is, so maybe her DNA didn’t come up as we don’t know what she is - I really do hope she is there, I really think it’s such a lovely and inoffensive folklore tale.

However, I do realistically think this one is probably a case of misidentification and I think the most likely suspect is either a big eel or potentially a shark of some kind, dolphins are out of the question as they’re mostly saltwater based animals, so I guess we’ll just have to keep having a look! Keep an eye on the webcam or go up there, maybe you’ll be the next sighting!

OUTRO: 

What a fantastic monster to cover this week, honestly I’ve been so looking forward to this one. My mother is actually moving to the Scottish Highlands very soon, and I’m excited to be able to spend some more time hunting the Lochs for Nessie, as well as enjoying the beautiful mountainous landscapes of northern Scotland.

Next week, we’re doing something a little special for loveee day! Yes, Valentine’s is coming up and if you’re like me and don’t really celebrate it - then tune into us on Thursday for a Valentine’s special on the seductive Succubus from religious mythology! Come be tempted into listening next week!

For now thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast, ya know if you feel like it.

Come join the fun and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.