For generations the crofters of the Scottish Highlands have passed stories onto their children about the great beasts, or water kelpies, which are supposed to live in the lochs, the best known of which is the Loch Ness Monster. For all the stories about this loch and the mythical beast that is supposed to dwell in its depths, it is sometimes forgotten just how huge this body of water is. Loch Ness is about 38 kilometres long – more than the distance from Dover to Calais – and over two kilometres wide. It is also very deep, 240 metres, which is greater than the average depth of the ocean, and the cliffs around its sides drop sheer to the lake bed. Leaving aside the old wives’ tales, the most common theory about ‘Nessie’ is that it is in fact a prehistoric creature that was somehow ‘trapped’ in the loch. Millions of years ago Loch Ness was an inlet of the sea that became an inland lake when the land rose, trapping a number of sea creatures which were forced to remain and breed there. Today the only outlets to the sea are the shallow River Ness and the Caledonian Ship Canal – both of which are said to be too small for a creature of Nessie’s alleged size.
Top Posts & Pages
Liddell’s Ghost
Click image to read my short story, 'Liddell’s Ghost' in Cygnus, the Journal of Speculative Fiction.
Changed
Click image to read my short story 'Changed' in The Cynic Online Magazine.
First Date
Click image to read my short story 'First Date' in Aphelion, the Webzine of sci-fi and fantasy.
Ghost Walk
Click image to read my short story 'Ghost Walk' in Aphelion, the Webzine of sci-fi and fantasy.
M R James
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Ghosts of Christmas Past
‘There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas,’ wrote Jerome K. Jerome in the introduction to his darkly comic collection Told After Supper (1891), ‘something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails’. Dickens would no doubt agree, […]
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M R James’s Suffolk
The macabre beneath the landscape is not dispelled by nearness to the sea. What Henry James knew, and described in English Hours (1905) – the strangeness present on a flattened seashore – M R James (no blood relation, although the two were acquainted) expressed in two of his best-known ghost stories: Oh, Whistle, and I’ll […]
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A Warning to the Curious
Here’s a real festive treat. In 2000 the BBC produced a series called Ghost Stories for Christmas, with Christopher Lee in which Lee played M R James reading four of his own stories. Lee, who actually once met James, obviously enjoyed making this series and A Warning to the Curious is a real highlight – enjoy!
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Lost Hearts
I have been haunted by the writings of M R James since childhood but when asked what is my favourite of all his ghostly tales I’ve never fully been able to answer. Lost Hearts, an early tale which apparently James didn’t much care for, and which only appeared in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary to […]
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A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Tractate Middoth
Here’s a real treat to conclude the series of Christmas ghost stories that I’ve been posting for the last few weeks – the BBC adaptation of The Tractate Middoth from just a couple of years ago. Fingers crossed they do another one this year!
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