Myths Of Great Britain.

[BIAD]

One of the strangest phenomena I've looked at is a creature that knows no such things as man-made borders,
the fabled 'Horse Eel'.

Traditionally described as a eel-like beast with a mane similar to a horse, these elusive monster are said to inhabit
the loughs (lakes) of Northern Ireland and Ireland and -to date, have avoided evidential capture. That's not to say
one or two haven't been caught, but like most legendary monsters, the proof has faded away in history.

The accounts below belong to Ireland and this means that technically, I've strayed from the thread's title of 'Myths Of Britain'.
Buts since the dark stout of Guinness knows no borders, on this occasion neither will I!

In Scotland, the Horse Eel tradition leans more towards the 'Water Kelpie' idea, a beguiling female sat beside a body of water
that lures a man close and then after transforming into a long-maned horse, takes the enchanted chap on her back and dives
into the water. Doomed by the power of lust!


The artistic rendering of a Water Kelpie and the more-realistic of what might be hiding the waters.

Back in Ireland, the pools of water that are said to hold such elusive animals tend to not have the magical attribute of transformation.
These mysterious creatures are said to use the small lakes and avoid any chance of capture by moving from one lough to another.
The standard description is of a large ugly eel with a bedraggled tangle of hair-like substance just behind the head and an appetite
for sheep and children.

I examined the maps of where these lakes were situated and for Ireland, these bodies of water are not very big and many of them
are connected by rivers and streams. Are Horse-Eels real...? I don't know, but the stories make great reading and the details of the
beasts indicate that the eel-shapes aren't always adhered to.

Try these ones.
.........................................

The Watcher.

A schoolmaster and his son were enjoying a quiet bout of fishing on the tiny four-mile-long lake known as Lough Dubh.
To the outside world, we'd know this area as 'Doo Lough' or 'Black Lake'. It was in the early 1960's when Mr Mullaney and his
son were about to cast their lines into the peaty waters of the Lough, when they felt they were being watched.

There near some stones at the water's edge, a creature observed the two people who stared back in horror.
The schoolmaster described the beast as:
'short thick legs with small ears and a white pointed horn on the snout. It was dark grey in colour and covered
with bristles or short hair... like a pig.”

Mr. Mullaney added that the monster was about the size of a cow and aggressive.
The fishing was abandoned and the pair left, obviously now more aware of what they may catch on their hooks!

A later report suggests it as last seen in 1961 in the presence of two smaller ones. Lough Dubh connects to the River Suck
which is a tributary of the larger Smalghrean river. From there, it enters the Shannon River which empties into the Atlantic Ocean.
.........................................

Good Heavens!

Not that far away and more eastwards of the lake above, is the 21-mile-long Lough Ree (Also known as Loch Ribh), another body
of water that is connected to the Shannon River.

On a warm summer's evening in mid-May of 1960, three priests were enjoying their hunt for fish instead of souls and casting their
respective lines far into the serene waters of Lough Ree,  just off Holly Point.

Father Quigly, Father Burke and Father Murray stated that a commotion in the lake caught their attention and in a local newspaper
the following day, related a description of what they saw from around 100 metres away.

''It was moving. It went down under the water and came up again in the form of a loop.
The length from the end of the coil to the head was 6 feet. There was about 18 inches of head and neck over the water.
The head and neck were narrow in comparison to the thickness of a good-sized salmon."

Due to the press-coverage -that even reached the international press, locals came forward with their stories of sightings
and eventually, like most of these tales, the world moves on and the surface becomes calm once more.
.........................................

Picnic at Lough Fadda.

Lough Fadda in County Kerry is very close to the western coast of Ireland and in June 1954, Georgina Carberry and three
friends cycled down to the banks of the clear-water lake and take advantage of the numerous rainbow trout, Rudd and
maybe the odd eel.

Borrowing a row-boat from the Clifden Angling Association, the four friends set out to fish and had brought refreshments
for a later picnic. As the afternoon arrived, they parked the boat on a finger of land that almosts splits the lake in half and
prepared their much-waited-for feast.

Sipping their tea and nibbling their sandwiches, one of the group pointed out an object moving from "an island" which she
assumed was a man swimming. This shape was moving closer to the quartet  who -realising it wasn't an adult bathing in the
lough, began to become concerned and it was Georgina who reacted first.

When the object approached to around twenty yards fom the group, Georgina jumped back from the edge of the water and
her friends copied the act. This movement must have disturbed the creature and it swung right around a rock near the shore
and dived.
In two minutes it was up to where the four witnesses were watching and came close enough to the shore that they could see
it open its "huge great mouth".

The four terrified witnesses also reported that they noticed two big humps that were sticking above the water behind its head.
Georgina said she spotted a forked tail when it swung around the rock, but Another witness called Ann -when interviewed later,
didn't recall seeing the forked appendage. Ann was interviewed again in 2001 and being one of the two surviving members of the
group, and stated she remembered that the awful animal had prominent eyes to the front of the head.
This after fifty years had passed since the harrowing encounter.
.........................................

The Dog & The Dark.

Lough Nahooin is a small mountain lake, located in Leagaun - a 7 minute drive from Claddaghduff Church. Situated in the county
of Connemara, we're again on the west coast of Ireland.

A quarry worker called Stephen Coyne set out to gather dry peat from the nearby bog with his eldest son and the family dog.
It was around seven in the evening of late February in 1968 when Mr Coyne neared the peat bed and glancing towards the
quiet lake, he noticed a black object amongst a patch of reeds in the water.

Assuming it was his dog, he whistled for it but Mr Coyne became puzzled when he saw that his dog had appeared further away
and running along the shore. However, as it approached its owner, it -too, spied the figure in the water and began barking.

The previously inanimate object began to move, seemingly to hear the dog's barking and that was when Mr Coyne and his son
realised and could see it was some sort of large animal. In his younger days, Stephen Coyne had shot seals and otters, but could
clearly see that this creature belonged to neither species.

The skin was black, hairless and slick-looking very much in the same fashion as an eel's. It had a black head rounded "like a kettle"
that sat upon a neck an estimated nine inches to a foot in diameter.

With the dog's continuous barking, the creature swam around the small lough and seemed agitated by the rude awakening.
Seeing the strange aquatic animal turn towards where the dog was positioned and with an open mouth implying an attack,
Mr Coyne went to his pet's side and the creature retreated back to its aimless swim around the lake.

Mr. Coyne reported that whenever it would duck its head underwater two humps would come into view.  A flat tail was also seen
and in one instance, even was extended up towards the head. Directing his son to return home for a camera, Mr. Coyne monitored
the animal's movements until his son returned.

Sadly, the camera held no film, but the strange encounter had intrigued his wife and six other siblings enough to brave the darkness
and to come out to the lough to witness the weird scene.

Mrs Coyne approached the waters edge and from her vantage point, she noticed 'horns' emitting from the animal's head.
A feature unnoticed by Stephen or the children. The time passed and the beast continued its patrolling of Lough Nahooin.
Eventually, the Coyne family felt that they'd seen enough and returned home. 

The creature in Nahooin Lough was first sighted in 1948 by two local men. Another sighting of what has been described as a large
'eel like' creature was made in 1968. During the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau investigation (1969) of the Lough Fadda sighting
a local farmer reported having recently seen the Nahioon Lough creature on land.

1968 wasn't the only time Stephen Coyne had seen the creature. In a later interview, Mr Coyne explained to a researcher that some
twenty years prior, he and his brother had seen one in the same lake.  At first they believed it was a heifer cow that had fallen in the
water until it began rolling over, revealing a white underbelly. Mr Coyne estimated that the animal looked as wide as a car.
.........................................

Scenes From The Window.

Lough Derrylea sits right beside the N59, a road one could take to get to Clifden. The same general area where Georgina Carberry
and her three chums had seen their unnatural sight in 1954. But on an April day in 1961, Lough Derrylea would be the venue for
another sighting of these slippery 'Horse-Eels'.

Tom Connelly was admiring the tree-barren scenery from the window of his home near the lake when he saw what he believed were
a group of otters. These usually romping animals weren't moving and allowing his curiosity to get the better of him, he left his cottage
and went to the lake's shore to see what might be wrong.

However, it was Tom that was wrong or at least, mistaken. The trio -of what he believed were otters, were in fact three segments of
a single animal! Later, the shocked Mr Connelly described what he saw. He estimated the creature to be twelve to fourteen feet in
length and only being able to see the top part of its head, he recounted it was 'rounded and sloped'
He saw an eel-shaped tail and the creature's skin was described as dark and "velvetty". Mr Connelly also implied the texture had a
shiny aspect to the skin.

He continued with his account of how the animal would repeatedly submerge and then after about a minute arise in three segments
of its head, body and tail. Over a period of thirty minutes, Tom witnessed the motion of 'wiggling' and the continuous submerging
and surfacing act of the creature.

Wishing to get a better look without the perils of getting closer, Mr Connelly raced to his neighbours house to obtain some field-glasses.
Finding they weren't home, he returned to the lough's shore and kept his vigil on the animal performing the same routine as before.

Pressed by a researcher years later, Mr Connelly recalled that his parents would always warn him and his siblings to avoid going near
that lake due the talk from people who used live aound Lough Derrylea. The older generations used many names and the title
"Horse-Eel" being one of them.

Tom added that these same old people often claimed that the creatures would travel overland from lake to lake and that his parents
once spoke of an instance when a horse-eel become entrapped and eventually died in a nearby culvert.


The things they've seen.


.........................................

The Remoteness.

To the north of Clifden are the glacial valley lakes of Auna and Shanakeever. A significant number of sightings have been recorded
from these two otherwise modest sized bodies of water and thankfully, acquired by diligent researchers.

On Google Maps, Auna Lough is connected by a marshy waterway to Lough Shanakeever, which -by the way of a similar stretch of
flooded land, flows to Glenbriekeen Lough that eventually empties into the sea at the west coast.
For many researchers of the past, the two pools of water were much closer together due to the constant flooding of the surrounding
bogs and the narrow stream that connects the loughs.
Just as an add-in, near Lough Auna there's a remote Megalithic tomb... for another tale perhaps!


Lough Auna.

Lough Shanakeever had very little of families overlooking the remote lake and most of the past accounts come from a longtime
resident of Shanakeever, Mr. Tom Joyce. Mr. Joyce often heard locals speak of  the "horse-eels" but it wasn't until 1963 when he
himself watched a large hump coursing through Lough Shanakeever before finally terminating in a patch of reeds.

Tom had been guiding sheep to his farmyard when a commotion broke out upon the otherwise calm surface of the lake.
Moving away from the shore before curving slightly parallel to it was a large grayish hump, glistening in the sunlight, with a length
of seven or eight feet and around two feet in height. The object entered a patch of reeds where its larger submerged dimensions
crushed over the plants as it went along before finally sinking below.

Tom sought other tales, now that his own sighting had fascinated him and drawing stories from neighbours and friends, racked up
a fair amount for when the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau visited Lough Shanakeever in 1968. To researchers, Mr Joyce's recollections
and introductions to witnesses proved most valuable.
.........................................

Encounters on Lough Auna.

During a summer barbecue-party held at Mr. Joyce's cottage, his guests noticed a strange shape moving across the lake at a
'walking pace'. The size of the unknown object was estimated at five feet in length and about a foot in height.

One of the curious elements of the sighting was the unusual projections said to present along the shape's back. Some of the guests
suggested the object was an otter carrying young on its back or possibly the projection of a fin belonging to a large fish.

One of the attendees -an  Air Commodore of the Royal Netherlands Air Force, noted that there was no wake or any disturbance
by the passage of the shape and all watched until the mysterious object disappeared in to a patch of reeds. 

The following day, Mr Joyce asked a local farmer who'd been tending to his cattle along Lough Auna if he had seen anything unusual
the day prior. The farmer related that he'd ben searching for a missing cow and upon hearing a loud splash among a bed of reeds in
the lake, he had feared the worst and ran to see if his cow had become trapped.
Reaching a viewing point, he saw that all was calm nad nothing was there.

Another story Tom Joyce told researchers was something of a close encounter.  Sometime in the latter part of the 19th century a
Mrs Whalen had been attending to the turf along the edge of Lough Auna during the evening when a commotion erupted in the water. 

Climbing out from the lake and onto the shore right beside her came a horse-eel; the front half resembling a horse with the back portions
tapering off like an eel.  Naturally, Mrs. Whalen didn't stick around to get acquainted and immediately fled.

A man not wishing to be identified, told of a large eel-shaped creature seen by his mother and himself as they were stacking peat along
the bank of Lough Auna. From around a couple hundred yards away a 30-40-foot eel-like animal could be seen rising out of the water
in the shape of three or four humps.

One of the humps -assumed to be the neck, sported something of a large mane that stood up as though it were a fin or composed of
bristles. The creature would rise up to the surface and then roll along its side and submerge, sending waves lapping along the shore.
It repeated this odd behavior, rising only to roll and sink, for around fifteen minutes.
Mr. Joyce added that there were "many, many, many," such accounts similar to Mrs. Whalen's incident and others.

During a researcher's visit in 1998, Tom told an interesting story involving a previous neighbour on the lough Auna.
Something had been taking the man's sheep and a dog or fox was suspected. A sheep's carcass was set down by the lake shore as
bait for the nocturnal killer, while the man sat up away from the lake, wrapped in a blanket and armed with a rifle.

Eventually something was heard approaching the spot where the carcass had been set though nothing could be made out even in the
moonlight. Hoping to get at least some identification of what the sheep-eater might be,  he fired off the rifle with expectation that a
dog or a fox would be sent running up the hill.

But something else unexpected had occurred.  In response to the shot there was a great splash as something lunged into the water.
Arriving at the lake's edge, the shepherd scanned the surfacefor any fleeing animal, but nothing could be seen. No animal swimming 
away and so the man's assumption was that whatever was inspecting the carcass had dived beneath the surface.
The witness added that the spray it created was far too great for an otter.
.........................................

Donkey Tales.

Patrick Canning was another witness suggested by Mr Joyce to be visited by the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau. 
Mr. Canning -a former soldier, had worked at the local convent until 1958 and would recall his experience during his time at
Lough Shanakeever.

One rainy morning in either 1944 or 1945, while on his way to work, Canning made his way down to Lough Shanakeever to
retrieve his pregnant mare. The expectant donkey had been resting on the reed-surrounded bank along the stream pouring
out of Shanakeever.

As Pat Canning neared the animal, the donkey stood up as if realising its human owner was close. At that same moment,
Mr Canning saw a black-coloured creature circling the donkey from behind. Assuming the birth had taken place and the smaller
animal was the newly-born foal, Mr Canning hastened his step as he was concerned the infant donkey may wander too close to
the lough's edge.

Nearing the mother, he recognised that the donkey was still bearing and so turned to see what the second animal could be.
In an instant, the mysterious creature dove into the stream and disappeared from sight.


The mare and the unidentified creature seen by Patrick Canning had been on the rise pictured at the right. 
Most likely the animal had been passing through the stream when it spotted the donkey.

Patrick Canning noted later to researchers that at the time he had thought the foal was a bit bigger than normal and on reflection,
the body had struck him as somewhat elongated. He noted in particular that the neck was longer than expected and that it had legs.

Mr. Canning also believed he may have seen ears on the head of the animal, but agreed such features would be assumed due to him
thinking the creature was a new-born foal.

The strange comment that the witness said was the animal's motions were 'gentle' as it circled the pregenat mare and being familiar with
the stories of Horse-Eels, concluded that what he'd seen was such a creature.

Another Patrick -this time Patrick Walsh, was rowing his boat across the calm waters of Lough Shanakeever,  when the head and neck
of an unusual creature surfaced nearby. Fearing he would be capsized, Mr Walsh headed immediately to the shore. 
Patrick knew of two men who had gone down to the shore in order to inspect an strangel object near land when it came to life and
swam off.  They described it as eel-like and 16 feet long.
.........................................

So... what was and is it that these people saw? The Irish are known for their enchanting tales and mystical history, but considering
the size of many of these small out-of-the-way lakes, the idea of luring tourists seems doubtful at best. Is it possible that such a
creature has been overlooked by the scientific community or are these more-than-mythical animals just yarns from the bottom of
a Guinness glass?

You decide.