Christine Mill, Collie's biographer explains how Collie was a lifelong believer in the occult. While Norman Collie's tale is the most famous, it is easily dismantled when one looks at the source. While these theories are amusing, the sad truth is the Grey Man dissipates under close inspection. Of course, if none of the above sound plausible, maybe it is possible the Grey Man is actually a "Bodhisattva," one of five perfect men who have lived for billions of years and control the destinies of the world and meet once a year in a cave in the Himalayas. Some of the more ludicrous notions include the Grey man being a long-lost cousin of Bigfoot a manifestation of the spirit of the mountain created psychically in the viewers mind guardian who guards a portal between two worlds on Ben MacDhui. There have been many theories put force to explain the Grey Man, ranging from the scientifically laughable to laudable. For, on that day I am convinced I shot the only Fear Liath Mhor my imagination will ever see. Many times since then I have traversed MacDhui in the mist, bivouacked out in the open, camped on 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 Laith Mhor? Frankly, I think it was. When it still came on I turned and hared down the path, reaching Glen Derry in a time that I have never bettered. ![]() 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 the eddies of wind. Then I felt the reassuring weight of the loaded revolver in my pocket. I am not unduly imaginative, but my thought flew instantly to the well-known story of professor Collie and the Fear Liath Mhor. As dense mists rolled in from Lairig Ghu, Tewnion noted: ![]() Alexander Tewnion after ten days of climbing in the Cairngorms in October 1943 reached the summit of Ben MacDhui. The most famous sighting of the Grey Man was detailed in the June 1958 issue if The Scots. In the majority of these stories nobody saw any ghost or apparition, with many climbers reporting hearing "a crunching noise" and "overcome by a feeling of apprehension." No matter what the reason, once Collie's tale was made public, the floodgates were opened, and reports of the Grey Man came flooding in. Today, skeptics maintain the story was fictitious, perhaps the result of a drunken storyteller, or Collie annoyed he was unexpected asked to speak at a climbing club dinner in Edinburgh with no previous notice, stood up and manufactured the tale. Whatever you make of it I do not know, but there is something very queer about the top of Ben MacDhui and will not go back there again by myself I know.” ![]() As I walked on and the eerie crunch, crunch sounded behind me I was seized with terror and took to my heels, staggering blindly among the boulders for four or five miles nearly down to Rothiemurchus Forest. I listened and heard it again but could see nothing in the mist. Every few steps I took I heard a crunch, then another crunch as if someone was walking after me but taking steps three or four times the length of my own. "I was returning from the cairn on the summit in a mist when I began to think I heard something else than merely the noise of my own footsteps. Described as "shy and reserved with strangers," it must have been a shock to many when the guest speaker recounted an experience he claimed occurred on the summit of Ben Macdui in 1891: Collie's wide climbing experience ranged from the Himalayas to the Rockies. In addition to the being the first Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of London and a Fellow of the Royal Society, Collie was seen as one of the most proficient and esteemed mountaineers of the time. Ben MacDhui's famous Grey Man (Am Fear Liath Mòr in Scottish Gaelic) first hit the headlines in 1925, when the Cairngorm Club Journal published a story recounting the incredible tale detailed at that year's Annual General Meeting of the Cairngorm Club in Aberdeen by the club's Honorary President, Professor John Norman Collie.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |