Mysterious Britain & Ireland

Specific Location: Gairloch

Fairies / Folklore / Scottish Fairies

Loch Na Fideil

Loch Na Fideil was reputedly the home of a legendary female creature or spirit known as the Fideal after which the body of water is named (Loch of the Fideal). Depending upon which source you read, she attacks either men or women and children, dragging them down under the water in order to devour them.

Aquatic Monsters / Cryptozoology / Folklore / Folktales / Scottish Fairies / Scottish Folktales

Loch na Beiste

In his ‘Guide to Gairloch and Loch Maree’ (1886), John H. Dixon gave the following account of a creature that was said to live in Loch na Beiste roughly 50 years early. ‘The existence of water-kelpies in Gairloch, if perhaps not universally credited in the present generation, was accepted as undoubted in the last.

Fairies / Folklore / Folktales / Mermaids / Scottish Fairies / Scottish Folktales

Port Henderson Mermaid

There is a mermaid story associated with the small fishing village of Port Henderson which was recounted by John H Dixon in Guide to Gairloch and Loch Maree (1886). According to Dixon ‘Roderick Mackenzie, the elderly and much respected boatbuilder at Port Henderson, when a young man, went one day to a rocky part of the shore there.

Aquatic Monsters / Cryptozoology / Dragons / Legends

Loch Maree

Until the middle of the 18th century bulls were sacrificed on August 25th (St Maerlrubha’s Day) to dragons that dwelt in the lake. These may have been akin to the creatures still reported in other Scottish Lochs to this day.

Taken from an article by Richard Freeman.