Thanks to Sharon Hill of Doubtful News for a great review of Shadows of Existence - as Sharon so kindly says, a book written in 2006 can't be entirely valid in 2013, but most of it holds up very well. Thanks, Sharon!
Ms. Hill comments that the story of St. Columba's encounter with a water monster is now generally accepted to be "not a valid account." I agree that it is clearly not a valid sighting. Still, considering that Christians generally incorporated pagan myths into their hagiographies of saints lives, what can we learn from it? Could it be evidence of an early belief in water monsters in the River Ness? I suggest this is likely. Certainly, the claim that water monsters were not sighted in Loch Ness before 1933 has been proven mistaken by many authors. For example, Roland Watson's "The water horses of Loch Ness," shows the belief to have been widespread throughout Scotland's lochs, including Loch Ness, for hundreds of years at least.
Ms. Hill comments that the story of St. Columba's encounter with a water monster is now generally accepted to be "not a valid account." I agree that it is clearly not a valid sighting. Still, considering that Christians generally incorporated pagan myths into their hagiographies of saints lives, what can we learn from it? Could it be evidence of an early belief in water monsters in the River Ness? I suggest this is likely. Certainly, the claim that water monsters were not sighted in Loch Ness before 1933 has been proven mistaken by many authors. For example, Roland Watson's "The water horses of Loch Ness," shows the belief to have been widespread throughout Scotland's lochs, including Loch Ness, for hundreds of years at least.
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