The “Floating Island” of Loch Ness
Posted by: Nick Redfern on June 13th, 2013
Glasgow Boy (a.k.a. Roland Watson) has a new Nessie-themed post online, which begins as follows:
“Take a look at some ancient maps of Scotland and you may notice a strange phrase inscribed beside Loch Lomond which goes something like this: ‘Loch Lomond famous for its floating island its fish without fins and being frequently tempestuous in a calm.’ Thus did cartographer Hermann Moll annotate his 1712 map of the Scottish county of Dunbartonshire. Cryptozoologists have speculated on whether these phrases refer to a strange creature residing in Loch Lomond or have a more mundane explanation. In my book, ‘The Water Horses of Loch Ness’, I go into further detail which suggests there is a more natural explanation for the floating islands of Loch Lomond. But what of the floating island of Loch Ness which on examination looks like a stranger proposition?”
About Nick Redfern
Punk music fan, Tennents Super and Carlsberg Special Brew beer fan, horror film fan, chocolate fan, like to wear black clothes, like to stay up late. Work as a writer.
I’m inclined to go along with GB…the mention of floating islands says to me that its more of a recorded history of something unknown in the loch. Floating masses of vegetation, while likely in some other bodies of water…is not a theory that holds up at ness. Veggie mats were indeed one of those quaint debunking “go-to” explanations that sounded reasonable on paper…but not in the real world. A “floating island”, the first image that comes to my mind is a humped mass sticking out of the water-not a hunk of floating weeds. People often don’t get their descriptions right, but they do tend to describe unknowns by coming up with closely related shapes or relating the unknown to the closest known match.