Breverton's Phantasmagoria

by Terry Breverton

Genres: Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology

Synopsis

From dragons and wyverns to vampires, werewolves and mischievous gremlins, pixies and fairies, Breverton's Phantasmagoria is a unique compendium of over 250 mythical animals. Prepare to revisit familiar myths, such as vampires, werewolves and the Loch Ness Monster, the Minotaur and Medusa from Greek legend, and Biblical beasts such as Behemoth and Leviathan. Discover new mysterious animals like the giant serpents of Central America, the lethal Mongolian death worm, and the Ennedi tiger in Africa, and investigate the evidence for sightings of Bigfoot and the reclusive Yeti. Packed with quirky line illustrations and a wealth of weird and wonderful information, Breverton's Phantasmagoria surveys the globe to uncover over 250 imaginary creatures passed down from generation to generation.

Release date: July 7, 2011

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 385

Sample

In every culture across the world, we grow up believing in certain things that we gradually stop believing as we grow older. In Western culture, for example, most nations have a St Nicholas, or Santa Claus or Father Christmas, whom we only believe in as children. Other concepts, such as angels and demons, are discarded by many of us as we grow older, while friends and associates may remain believers. For some, the ‘fear of the bogeyman’ and fear of darkness are correlated throughout life. Many religions share the same stories and some of them, such as a ‘great flood’, are based upon actual happenings thousands of years ago. The belief held by many gardeners that plants react to speech and music was held by our animistic ancestors. Many stories, such as the Arthurian legends and the 1001 Nights tales, cross different cultures and may recur in modern fiction as the basis for new plotlines. Some fabulous monsters were based upon travellers’ tales, but turn out to be real animals. Others, like giant birds, are probably based upon extinct species. Humans have always been fascinated by their forefathers, and have passed on elaborate stories from the earliest days of speech and writing. There is a cornucopia of legends about monsters, ghosts and the strange creatures which transfer across many cultures. Today, with our instant access to information and a far, far greater factual knowledge about different countries, animals and natural wonders, we can still be entertained by and learn from our forefathers.



‘Phantasmagoria’ is the art of creating supernatural illusions, the gathering of phantoms or fantasies. The name was given to a projection ghost show in the 18th century in which a modified magic lantern projected frightening images of demons, skeletons and ghosts onto walls, smoke or semi-transparent screens, sometimes using a technique of rear projection. Multiple projection devices allowed for quick switching between different images. Today we realize that some of our ghosts and demons are based on events in real life or in past experiences, and that our forebears, with less knowledge or information, rationalized things that they could not understand by means of myths, legends and religions. This book is intended to be entertaining, and is written in the full knowledge that in 3000 years time our descendants will view us as just as primitive and non-rational as we regard our early ancestors. However, some beliefs, places, people and animals are ‘magical’ and ‘mysterious’ in so many ways. To lose our sense of wonder at the diversity of life and how history has shaped us, is to lose sight of the purpose of life. This is a magical, exciting planet, which has always been full of wonder and it always will be.



The book firstly describes strange and interesting people who have affected our perceptions throughout history. They are followed by mythical monsters and ghosts from across the world. Then there are mysterious places that people have sought out or found especially powerful. The legends of flight, from angels to strange beings, form the next chapter, and then come mysteries of the deep seas and flowing water, followed, appropriately enough, by tales of hidden treasure. Strange and mystical artefacts of the past and present come next, and they are followed by an account of those ‘monsters’ and myths which have a basis in reality. Above all, the book is meant to be entertaining. I hope that it will encourage readers to investigate further the strange world in which we live.





The zoologist Richard Dawkins, in his book River Out Of Eden used a complicated mathematical model to trace us all back to one common female ancestor, a woman who lived in Africa around a quarter of a million years ago. He noted, ‘There has to be a woman of whom this claim can be made. The only argument is whether she lived here or there, at this time rather than at that time. The fact that she did live, in some place and at some time, is certain.’ Dawkins is a noted atheist, but this scientific proof of an ‘original woman’ or African Eve can also be used by those who believe in God to justify their beliefs.



Many ‘alchemists’ (as we term them) were not simply involved in trying to transmute base metals, such as copper and iron, into silver and gold, but in genuinely trying to understand chemical processes. Most alchemists sincerely believed that mankind had lost the ‘secrets of the ancients’, and looked backwards in order to rediscover their skills. Many espoused the Aristotelian theory of the four elements of matter. All matter was assumed to have arisen from prime, chaotic material, which might only come into actual existence if impressed by ‘form’. This ‘form’ arose out of the chaos of prime matter creating the four elements of Fire, Air, Water and Earth. The result of blending these ‘simple bodies’ together in different proportions produced the infinite variety of life and matter. Each element possessed two of four prime ‘qualities’. Fire was hot and dry; Air was hot and fluid; Water was cold and fluid; and Earth was cold and dry. In each element, one quality predominated over the other: heat in Fire; fluidity in Air; cold in Water; and dryness in Earth. By ‘transmutation’, any element might be transformed into another, through the quality which they had in common. Air could become water through the medium of fluidity, and fire can become air through the medium of heat etc. Attempts to transmute materials were made by burning, calcination, solution, evaporation, sublimation and crystallization. If copper and gold were metals consisting of fire, air, water, and earth in differing proportions, then changing the elemental proportions of copper could give the elemental proportions of goal. Alchemists thus wished to alter the elemental proportions of base metals, to make rarer ones such as silver and gold. Alchemists were bound by secret oaths and wrote down their formulae in complex codes. Not until the end of the 16th century did alchemists begin moving away from classical theory and become what we today call chemists. However, even in the 18th century, eminent scientists such as Isaac Newton were studying alchemy.



Astronomers estimate there are millions of billions of stars in the universe and the likelihood is that many of them are orbited by planets. We know there are eight main planets in the Solar System, a handful of dwarf planets (including Ceres, Pluto, Sedna, Eris and a few others), and 429 extra-solar planets in the nearby portion of our own galaxy. Now, NASA has announced that its Kepler probe has found another 700 suspected new planets, including 140 of a similar size to Earth. We are lucky that the UN has chosen a ‘Leader’ to represent us Earthlings in any communication or visit that may emanate from any of these planets. Like all massive, unelected organizations reliant on public money, the UN has a large number of committees of which the purpose and use is obscure. One such is the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), headed by a female Malaysian astrophysicist, Mazlan Othman, who has in 2010 now officially been delegated as the Earth ‘leader’ to negotiate any dialogue with aliens. UNOOSA actually oversees the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, whereby UN members agreed to protect Earth against contamination by alien species by ‘sterilizing’ them. For over four decades this has been Earth’s official policy to visitors from outer space, although two Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977 carried a message saying: ‘We step out of our Solar System into the universe seeking only peace and friendship.’ Unfortunately the message was recorded by the then UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, subsequently disgraced, and once stationed with the Nazis just outside Auschwitz where sterilization and worse was taking place. Professor Stephen Hawking has warned of the dangers of humanity trying to seek out alien life: ‘I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources on their home planet. The outcome for us would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the native Americans.’

Archimedes was born in the Greek colony of Syracuse in Sicily and educated in Alexandria in Egypt. He returned to Syracuse, where he spent most of the rest of his life devoting his time to research and experimentation in many fields. There is a possibility that Archimedes built a steam cannon to fire incendiary projectiles against the Roman fleet which was besieging Syracuse. There are drawings by Leonardo da Vinci in which a steam cannon is described and attributed to Archimedes. One of Archimedes’s war machines to defend Syracuse against the Romans was supposed to consist of large concave mirrors to concentrate solar rays and set fire to Roman ships. This so-called ‘heat-ray’ has been reconstructed using highly polished copper shields to set fire to small wooden ships coated with tar. In 2010 Cesare Rossi, an Italian professor, argued that these two inventions, the solar heat ray and the steam cannon, were one and the same device. Rather than reflecting sunlight directly onto moving ships, he thinks that Archimedes used mirrors to heat ‘kettles’ of water to power his prototype artillery. Curved mirrors concentrated the Sun’s rays on a tank filled with water. The water boiled and the trapped steam would have fired the gun, sending flaming cannonballs towards the Romans, 1500 years before gunpowder was used in Europe. Rossi designed his own version and stated that a heated cannon barrel would only need to convert just over an ounce of water into steam to hurl a 13-pound (6-kg) projectile a distance of 500 feet (150 m). Rossi thinks the cannonballs were made of clay and filled with the incendiary mixture known as ‘Greek Fire’, a lethal combination of sulphur, bitumen, pitch and calcium oxide which would have exploded like a firebomb on the tarred wooden decks of the Roman galleys.



Archimedes is quoted in later Arabic texts in relationship to advances in mathematics and mechanics, including the construction of hydraulic devices, such as water-clocks. His treatise ‘On Floating Bodies’ established the physical foundations for the buoyancy and stability of ships. It was long lost, and it was many centuries before his brilliant insights were actually applied in ship design and ship safety assessment. Archimedes was also the greatest mathematician of his age. His contributions to geometry revolutionized the subject and his methods anticipated integral calculus 2000 years before Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz. His practical inventions included a wide variety of machines including pulleys and the Archimedean screw pumping device. In mechanics he defined the principle of the lever and is credited with inventing the compound pulley and the hydraulic screw for raising water from a lower to a higher level. He once said of his work with levers: ‘Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth.’ He is most famous for discovering the law of hydrostatics, sometimes known as ‘Archimedes’ principle’, stating that a body immersed in fluid experiences a buoyant force equal to the weight of the amount of fluid it displaces. When Syracuse was captured, Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier. It is said that he was so absorbed in his calculations that he admonished his killer not to disturb him. Cicero visited the tomb of Archimedes, which was surmounted by a sphere inscribed within a cylinder. Archimedes had proven that the sphere is two-thirds of the volume and surface area of a cylinder that circumscribes it, and he had regarded this as the greatest of his mathematical achievements. Space here does not permit the full description of his dozens of inventions, which ranged from odometers to block-and-tackle pulley systems, but after the capture of Syracuse the Roman general Marcellus took two mechanisms used as aids in astronomy, which showed the motion of the Sun, Moon and five planets. These were mechanical planetariums or orreries, and to work they would have needed differential gearing like the Antikythera Mechanism (q.v.), which Archimedes may also have designed. In 1906, a 174-page, 13th-century goatskin parchment of prayers was found in Constantinople. It was discovered to be a palimpsest, where ink had been scraped from an earlier work before the parchment was reused. The older document was shown to contain tenth-century copies of seven unknown treatises by Archimedes, including the only surviving copy of ‘On Floating Bodies’ in the original Greek.

The time of Arthur is one of the most debated areas of British history. It is termed ‘The Age of Saints’ in Wales, yet known as ‘The Dark Ages’ across the rest of Europe. Arthur was a sixth-century Celtic warlord, around whom the mythology of Camelot, Guinevere, Merlin, Lancelot, The Holy Grail, the Fisher King, Sir Galahad, Morgan le Fay, the Black Knight and the Round Table gathered. He repulsed the Saxon threat from the east, and the Pictish threat from the north and west. Until the 19th century Arthur was always identified as a real person, Prince Athrwys, or Arthmael – the Bear Prince (Arthwyr ap Meurig ap Tewdrig). His son Morgan became king of Glamorgan. This author has written more than 20 books on Welsh history, and considers that other claimants to be Arthur can be dismissed. Arthwyr ap Meurig ap Tewdrig lived in Glamorgan-Gwent and was a documented son and grandson and great-grandson of kings of the region which had been controlled by the Celtic tribe of the Silures. Boverton in Glamorgan is suggested as the site of one of his courts. There are more than 100 sixth-century Welsh saints with Arthurian connections, and also with connections to the ruling kings of Glamorgan-Gwent, which are described in stories that predate the medieval romances.



In analysis of the film footage of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas in 1963, a mysterious woman was spotted. She was wearing a brown overcoat and a scarf on her head. She wore it in a similar style to Russian grandmothers – also called babushkas. She appeared to be holding something in front of her face which is believed to be a camera, and can be spotted in many photos of the scene. When most people had fled the area, she remained and continued to film. Shortly after, she was seen moving away up Elm Street. The FBI publically requested that the woman should come forward and gave them the footage that she shot, but she never did so. No one knows who the Babushka Lady was, what she was doing there or why she did not come forward to give evidence.

Around 450 BCE, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote: ‘As far as [the Scythians’] country [modern Turkmenistan], the tract of land whereof I have been speaking is all a smooth plain, and the soil deep; beyond you enter on a region which is rugged and stony. Passing over a great extent of this rough country, you come to a people dwelling at the foot of lofty mountains, who are said to be all, both men and women, bald from their birth, to have flat noses, and very long chins. They live on the fruit of a certain tree, the name of which is Ponticum; in size it is about equal to our fig-tree, and it bears a fruit like a bean, with a stone inside. When the fruit is ripe, they strain it through cloths; the juice which runs off is black and thick, and is called by the natives “aschy”. They lap this up with their tongues, and also mix it with milk for a drink; while they make the lees, which are solid, into cakes, and eat them instead of meat; for they have but few sheep in their country, in which there is no good pasturage …Thus far, therefore, the land is known; but beyond the bald-headed men lies a region of which no one can give any exact account. Lofty and precipitous mountains, which are never crosssed, bar further progress. The bald men say, but it does not seem to me credible, that the people who live in these mountains have feet like goats; and that after passing them you find another race of men, who sleep during one half of the year. This latter statement appears to me quite unworthy of credit. The region east of the bald-headed men is well known to be inhabited by the Issedonians, but the tract that lies to the north of these two nations is entirely unknown, except by the accounts which they give of it…The regions beyond are known only from the accounts of the Issedonians, by whom the stories are told of the one-eyed race of men and the gold-guarding griffins. These stories are received by the Scythians from the Issedonians, and by them passed on to us Greeks: whence it arises that we give the one-eyed race the Scythian name of Arimaspi, “arima” being the Scythic word for “one”, and “spû” for “the eye”.’

This is a supernatural being in Irish and other Gaelic folklore, sometimes called ‘the woman of the fairies’. Her screaming or lamentation in the night is thought to presage either the death of a family member or of the person who heard the banshee’s cries. Sometimes the banshee takes the form of an old woman who walks under the windows of the house of the person who is soon to die. In Ireland it is believed that banshees only warn families of pure Irish descent. The Welsh counterpart, the ‘gwrach y Rhibyn’ (the Rhibyn witch), visits only families of pure Welsh stock.



Basil Bulgaroktonos ruled the Eastern Roman Empire from Byzantium from 976–1025 CE. Basil oversaw the expansion of the Byzantine empire’s eastern frontier, and the final and complete subjugation of Bulgaria, the empire’s foremost European enemy. At his death, the empire stretched from southern Italy to the Caucasus, and from the Danube to the borders of Palestine, its greatest territorial extent since the Muslim conquests of four centuries earlier. The Bulgars began raiding Byzantine lands on Basil’s accession in 976. Basil permitted the escape of his captive, Boris II of Bulgaria, hoping that the resulting internal power struggle would weaken the Bulgars. Basil then invaded in 986, besieging Sofia, but retreated and was badly defeated at the Battle of the Gates of Trajan. Samuel I of Bulgaria consolidated his victory, taking lands from the Adriatic to the Black Sea and raiding Greece. From 1000, Basil was able to focus entirely upon the Bulgarian threat, and from that year onward was continually fighting in Bulgarian territories. Samuel became isolated in his core territories in the mountains of western Macedonia, and was defeated in 1009 near Thessaloniki. In 1014, after 15 years of war, Basil outmanoeuvred the Bulgar army at the Battle of Kleidion, and Samuel only just escaped. Basil was said to have captured 15,000 prisoners and blinded 99 of every 100 men. This left just 150 men to lead them back to their ruler. Samuel was physically struck down by the sight of his blinded army, and he died two days later after suffering a stroke. This incident gave rise to Basil’s nickname of Bulgaroktonos, ‘the Bulgar-slayer’. Because of Basil’s cruelty, the Bulgars fought on for four more years but finally submitted in 1018.



Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed is remembered as the ‘Bloody Lady of Čachtice’, so named after her castle in Slovakia. The countess was said to have been very beautiful in her youth, but as time ravaged her features she turned to ‘witchcraft’ to retain her youth. Her assistant, Dorka, told her that she would regain her beauty if she bathed in the blood of virgins at the ‘magical hour’ of 4 o’clock in the morning. The remedy did not work, so Dorka told the countess that she should torture the girls and let their blood splash over her face for the spell to work. Locals girls were abducted, tortured and killed. The people of the village below her castle lived in fear of the countess, but were too frightened to take action. Her assistants were brought to trial, and found guilty of torturing and murdering 80 young girls. Two of the countess’ female servants were sentenced to have their fingernails ripped out and then be burned at the stake. Elizabeth Báthory, however, because of her lineage, was neither tried nor convicted but remained under house arrest walled up in a set of rooms in Čachtice Castle, where she was found dead four years later. Since then she has been identified with Vlad the Impaler and been called ‘Countess Dracula’, the ‘Blood Countess’ and the like. She was one of the leading nobility of Transylvania, and as a Protestant was opposed to the Catholic Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor. Emperor Matthias had pressed for a death sentence, as he owed her family money, and upon her death he was able to confiscate her possessions and wealth.



The last member of a unique tribe which had inhabited the Andaman Islands 750 miles (1200 km) off India for 65,000 years died in February 2010. Boa Sr was the last member of the Bo, one of the ten Great Andamanese tribes considered indigenous inhabitants. Aged 85, she was the last speaker of the Bo language, which was distinct from those of the other Great Andamanese tribes, but had been unable to converse in her own language for some years since the penultimate Bo survivor had died. The last king of the Bo died in 2005. Boa Sr had survived the 2004 tsunami, which killed over 3500 of the islanders, and felt jealous of the neighbouring Jarawa tribe who lived in the forest away from settlers. The 200-300 Jarawa live in nomadic bands hunting pigs and lizards, with little contact with the outside world. The Onge of Little Andaman Island number only around 100 people. The Sentinelese live on their own island of North Sentinel and have no contact with outsiders. After the 2004 tsunami they were photographed firing arrows at a helicopter that was trying to assist them.

One of the strangest stories in Europe – but a true one – concerns a cannibal family which terrorized part of the Ayrshire coast in Scotland in the 15th century, committing mass murder on a terrible scale. The family of some 48 members, headed by Sawney Bean, practised incest, and also captured and ate passing travellers. They were found hiding in a sea cave full of pickled body parts and booty they had taken from their victims. The family members were taken to Edinburgh, where the men were burned alive without trial. The women and children had their hands and feet cut off and bled to death. Their victims may have numbered over 1000 people.

In many countries the ‘bogeyman’ or ‘boogyman’ is a ghostly monster of which children are scared. He is imagined as hiding behind a bedroom door or under the bed. In Holland he is thought to hide under water. The term has become a metaphor for something or someone of which we have an irrational fear. Even sports fans refer to a ‘bogey team’ which their side always has difficulty in beating. Parents often use the bogeyman as a way to discipline misbehaving children, or children who bite their nails, suck their thumbs etc., telling them that ‘The bogeyman will get you!’ Some believe that the word originated with a fear of ‘Old Boney’, Napoleon Bonaparte, who was nicknamed the ‘Boneyman’ by the British. Others believe that its origin lies in the Middle English ‘bugge’ or Scottish ‘bogle’ or Welsh ‘bwg’ meaning hobgoblin or ghost. Again, the Bugis pirates of the Straits of Malacca may have been called ‘bugismen’ by returning sailors. The most accepted origin for bogeyman as a devil links it to the Slavic ‘bog’ (god). English cognates were bugabow, bugaboo, bugbear and boggle-bo, names that used to designate the pagan image carried in a procession to the Maypole (q.v.) for May Day games. ‘Humbug’ came from the Norse ‘hum’ (night) and bog or bogey, originally meaning a night spirit. If you do not believe in something fantastical, you may say ‘Humbug!’ The word ‘bug,’ from the Welsh bwg (spirit), was applied to insects because of the belief that insects were souls in search of rebirth. Other words derived from bog are the Scottish bogle, Yorkshire boggart, English Pug, Pouke and Puck, Irish Pooka and Welsh Pwcca. From the Danish derivation Spoge and Swedish Spoka, we have spook.



In Germany the bogeyman is known as der Schwarze Mann (the Black Man), as he hides in dark places like forests at night, or in a bedroom cupboard or under the bed in the dark. In Italy, the bogeyman’s equivalent is also ‘l’uomo nero’ (the black man), a tall man wearing a heavy black coat, with a black hood or hat which hides his face. Sometimes, parents will knock loudly under the table, pretending that someone is knocking at the door, and saying: ‘Here comes l’uomo nero! He must know that there’s a child here who doesn’t want to drink his soup!’ L’uomo nero is not supposed to eat or harm children, but rather takes them away to a mysterious and frightening place. In Iran, naughty children are warned to be afraid of the Lulu-Khorkhore (the bogeyman who eats everything up) to make them finish their meals. The Spanish bogeyman is known as El Cuco or El Coco, a shapeless figure, sometimes a hairy monster, that eats children who misbehave when they are told to go to bed. Parents will sing lullabies or tell rhymes to the children warning them that if they don’t sleep, El Coco will come and get them. The rhyme originated in the 17th century and has evolved over the years, but it still retains its original meaning. The term is also used in Spanish-speaking Latin American countries. In Sweden the bogeyman is referred to as Monstret under sängen which essentially means ‘the monster under the bed’.

A founder member of the Royal Society in 1660 and a contemporary of Isaac Newton, this remarkable scientist asked an assistant to write down his hopes and predictions for the future. At a time when the average lifespan was 40, Boyle forecast far greater longevity, and ‘the Recovery of Youth, or at least some of the Marks of it, such as new Teeth, new Hair coloured as in Youth.’ Almost all of his 24 predictions have come true, such as ‘A Ship to sail with All Winds, and A Ship not to be Sunk’; ‘Freedom from Necessity of much Sleeping exemplified by the Operation of Tea and what happens in Mad-Men’; ‘Potent Drugs to alter or Exalt Imagination, Waking, Memory, and other functions, and appease Pain, procure innocent Sleep, harmless Dreams, etc.’; ‘The making Armour light and extremely hard’; ‘The Acceleration of things out of Seed’; ‘The practicable and certain way of finding Longitudes’; ‘The Art of Flying’; and ‘The Cure of Diseases at a distance or at least by Transplantation.’

The Brahan Seer from Uig on the Isle of Lewis was probably known in Gaelic as Coinneach Odhar. He is thought to have been a Mackenzie, born on lands owing to the Seaforths. Having become famous as a diviner, he was invited to work as a labourer for the 3rd earl of Seaforth, Kenneth Mackenzie, at Brahan Castle near Dingwall. He is thought to have used a stone with a hole in the middle to conjure up his visions. He was said to have predicted the bloody Battle of Culloden. He foresaw that Strathpeffer would be full of crowds seeking health and pleasure. With the discovery of mineral springs in 18th century, it did indeed became a popular spa. According to one source, the Brahan Seer predicted that Bonar Bridge over the Kyle of Sutherland would be ‘swept away under a flock of sheep’. On 29 January 1892 the bridge was swept away by a flood. Eyewitnesses ‘likened the foam-current to a densely packed flock of sheep’.



He said that if five churches were built in Strathpeffer, ships would anchor themselves to their spires. Shortly after the First World War, an airship’s grapnel became entangled in a spire, fulfilling that prophecy. The Seer forecast that when five bridges spanned the River Ness in Inverness that there would be worldwide chaos. In August 1939 there were five bridges over the Ness and the Second World War started.

He also predicted that when there were nine bridges that there would be fire, flood and calamity. The ninth bridge was built in 1987 and in 1988 the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster occurred. His most remarkable prediction seems to be, ‘One day ships will sail round the back of Tomnahurich Hill’. In his day, there was already a passage for shipping using the River Ness, but it was on the opposite side of the hill from today’s great Caledonian Canal which bisects Scotland and which was completed in 1822. The Seer made four prophecies regarding Fairburn, at least three of which are reputed to have been fulfilled. According to one prophecy, ‘The day will come when the Mackenzies of Fairburn shall lose their entire possessions; their castle will become uninhabited and a cow shall give birth to a calf in the uppermost chamber of the tower.’ This apparently heralded the demise of the Mackenzies of Kintail and Seaforth. In 1851, the now-ruined Fairburn Tower was being used by a farmer to store hay, and a cow gave birth in the garret. It is believed that the animal, following a trail of hay, entered the tower, climbed to the top and got stuck. Both the cow and the calf were taken down five days later, allowing enough time for people to come and see the prophecy fulfilled. Unfortunately he further predicted that the absent earl of Seaforth was having extramarital sex with one or more women in Paris. Lady Seaforth was incensed, and had the Seer burnt to death in a spiked tar barrel at Chanonry Point. The date of the execution may have in 1677 as a ‘Keanoch Odhar’ was prosecuted for witchcraft in that year, and the 3rd earl of Seaforth died in 1678. From the