8/25/2023 0 Comments Brocken spectre gray man![]() Seems like the perfect place for a Scottish "Yeti" to be hiding! When the cloud rolls in summits can be shrouded for days…in winter the weak northern sun often does not penetrate the deep glens for weeks. It is a harsh environment where nothing grows except the hardiest of alpine plants. The summit rises from the southern part of a huge sub-arctic upland unique in the British Isles. For on that day I am convinced I shot the only Fear Liath Mor my imagination will ever see.”Īnd here is some background on the Sottish mountain:īen Macdhui is the biggest mountain in the Cairngorms, Scotland and the second highest in the UK. Many times since then I have traversed Macdhui in mist, bivouacked on it in the open, camped near its summit for days on end on different occasions - often alone, and always with an easy mind. You may ask, was it really the Fear Liath Mor? Frankly, I think it was. When it still came on I turned and hared down the path, reaching Glen Derry in a time I have never bettered since. A strange shape loomed up, receded, came charging at me! Without hesitation I whipped out the revolver and fired three times at the figure. Grasping the butt I peered about in the mist, here rent and tattered by eddies of wind. Then I felt the reassuring weight of the loaded revolver in my pocket. “I am not unduly imaginative, but my thoughts flashed instantly to the well-known story of Professor Norman Collie and the Fear Liath Mor. I was swinging along at about five miles an hour when an odd sound echoed through the mist - a loud footstep, it seemed. Above Loch Etchachan the path angles easily downhill. The atmosphere became dark and oppressive, a fierce, bitter wind whisked among the boulders, and, fearing a storm was imminent, I took hurriedly to the Coire Etchachan path. One afternoon, just as I reached the summit cairn of Ben Macdhui, mist swirled across the Lairig Ghru and enveloped the mountain. Rations were short then, and I carried a revolver and ammunition to shoot any hares or ptarmigan that came my way. In October 1943 I spent a ten day leave climbing alone in the Cairngorms. This was when I shot the Fear Liath Mor, the Big Grey Man of Ben Macdhui. Though your nerves be of steel, and your mind says it cannot be, you will be acquainted with that fear without name, that intense dread of the unknown that has pursued mankind from the very dawn of time."Īnother mountaineer Alexander Tewnion wrote an account of his 1943 experience for The Scots Magazine: “Of all the experiences that have come my way, one stands out above all others in its strangeness. See the desert uplands consumed before the racing storms. Feel the night wind on your faces, and hear it crying amid rocks. Come, rather, with me at the mysterious dusk time when day and night struggle upon the mountains. I managed to deflect my course, but with a great deal of difficulty.’ Densham would later state ".tell me that the whine was but the result of relaxed eardrums, and the Presence was only the creation of a mind that was accustomed to take too great an interest in such things. He said afterwards ‘I tried to stop myself and found this extremely difficult to do. Before he realized what was happening, he was running down the mountain, dangerously close to the sheer cliff edge. He stood up to investigate, but was immediately seized by a feeling of panic. After a while he began to hear strange crunching noises and suddenly felt a presence close by. He sat and waited for conditions to improve. ![]() One day he was at the top of Ben MacDhui when a heavy mist started to fall. Here is some background on the monster (From Phantoms and Monsters):ĭuring the World War II, Peter Densham was a mountain rescue worker, locating and saving pilots who had crashed in the Cairngorms. Stories of encounters like these continue til this day. More sightings of the "Grey Man" continued throughout the 1940s where, again, anyone brave enough to enter the region were inexplicably gripped by fear or sent running for their lives, pursued by a giant ape-like humanoid. Well, neither had I, but from doing a little research I was surprised to learn that sightings of the creature have dated back to 1891, when respected climber, and scholar, Professor Norman Collie had a frightening encounter with the creature, which reportedly chased him down the mountain. A distant cousin, from Scotland, to be precise, a big harry monster known to the local populace as the "Fear Liath Mor" or "Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui". Granted, the film that I will be talking about today isn't about Bigfoot, but one of his cousins. Remember just last week when I said that Bigfoot related horror movies were starting to become less frequent? Well, as I was writing those words, I knew full well that I would end up eating them.
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