This post originally appeared in an older blog and has been updated.
I’m going to share one of my favorite legends about one of the three patron saints of Ireland, St. Columcille.
Better known by his Latin name, St. Columba, he was the founder of Iona. He is also the subject of the first Loch Ness monster sighting, way back in the 6th century!
In Scotland, he was on a journey with some of his followers. They came upon a riverbank where a crowd of people stood around a body. The man, they said, had just been killed by a monster in the river (the Loch Ness River that feeds the Loch Ness, the now famous lake in Scotland.) St. Columcille needed to get to the other side of the river.
Photo by Lāsma Artmane on Unsplash
There was a boat, but it was on the other side. He ordered one of his followers to jump into the river, swim to the other side and get the boat, and then bring it back to him and the others. Would you have done that? I mean there was a dead man who had just killed in that river! But this man obeyed.
He was about halfway across when a giant monster rose out of the water. The creature was just about to snatch the poor man when St. Columcille held up his hand and said, “In the name of God, stop right there.”
The monster froze.
“Now, go back down to the bottom. You will never leave this place again.”
The monster obeyed and sank back to the bottom of the river. The man swam across, got the boat, brought it back, and St. Columcille and his fellow monks went on their merry way.
By Connie Ma from Chicago, United States of America – Quaint., CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38427640
What an impression that must have made on the folks watching all this. What a powerful God this man followed. Maybe they should follow Him too.
In the 1930s reports of sightings of this monster began. Actually in ancient times the creature was said to have been sighted but about 1933 the claims once again started circulating.
From https://www.britannica.com/topic/Loch-Ness-monster-legendary-creature:
In December 1933 the Daily Mail commissioned Marmaduke Wetherell, a big-game hunter, to locate the sea serpent. Along the lake’s shores, he found large footprints that he believed belonged to “a very powerful soft-footed animal about 20 feet [6 meters] long.” However, upon closer inspection, zoologists at the Natural History Museum determined that the tracks were identical and made with an umbrella stand or ashtray that had a hippopotamus leg as a base; Wetherell’s role in the hoax was unclear.
Many people believe this hoax started the whole thing. Today tourist shops are full of Nessie merchandise. However, this story appeared in a late 7th century Irish manuscript the way I have described it above. Now you can impress your friends about the “real” story of the Loch Ness monster!
