"The Black of Loch Horn"

[Thomas Cameron]

Help!

Does anyone know the origin of the above referenced tale? It involves one Donald Cameron and his faithful Black Lab dog, whose ghost is said to have inhabited "Isle of the Wild Dog" since about the time of WWI. I obtained this story from, of all places, a newspaper from Sultanate of Oman. They were not able to give me the original reference for their story, but it appears to have been originally written in the later 1960s...

Does this one sound familiar??

[Cameronian]

Well Tom we have sat on this story for some while now, it was possibly at the back of my mind whilst I was in the NLS in June reading some of the Barrisdale documents and this was enclosed within the folder it is possibly not the same, but with many a Highland story one inter-connects with another.... The story was written long-hand (a copy of which I obtained) and was said to have been part of a collection the local minister.

The Wild beast of Barrisdale... or there is something going on up in Loch Hourn

The story of this beast is derived from a article in the Oban Times in 1906 which had been taken from the Minister's notes...it is stated that all the information given is derived directly from the evidence of witnesses who saw and heard what is described, It's first appearance was dated in 1845 Allan Macdonald a shoemaker in Kyle Arkin told that when he was a boy of 15 he was helping to launch a boat on Loch Hourn about that date when a most terrifying howling was heard on the hill behind them. The roar of the beast was so described by one who had heard it "You may have seen a tin pail put away on the top of a stone wall the wind strikes it half sideways and whistles through it and the sound of the animals roar was like that but as loud as the whistle of the Claymore of the Clansman within a hundred yards of you....Up to about 1900 the roar of the beast was from time to time heard and was known to paralyse men with fear. On one occasion Mrs MacMaster wife of Ronald MacMaster a keeper at Barrisdale was ill in bed and her husband had gone for the doctor, several women were with her in an upstairs room of the house. They heard the roar of the beast in the distance which came nearer and nearer until it seemed to be at the very door, stopped then passed on up the hill....there the cattle were on the hilly slopes above the crofts, suddenly it started to roar again, the cattle all gathered into one crowd the large horned animals forming a ring around the herd all bellowing in terror, afterwards two gamekeepers were out in the hillside watching a heard of deer when they heard the howling of the beast which seemed to come from a corrie about 3 miles away The Keepers dogs showed unmistakable signs of terror but what was most remarkable was that none of the deer seemed to pay the slightest attention.....Ronald MacMartin later saw what he believed to be the tracks of the beast, these he described as round, like no other animal and gave the impression of a heavy beast with indications of four toes in the print.

In 1866 a similar footprint was seen by John MacMaster, but the only person said to have seen the creature was a Murdock MacLennan Foxhunter who said that he had seen the animal and he described it as being about the size of a donkey, head was broad at the top between the ears like the head of a boar with a very heavy upper jaw and it was then travelling among a heard of deer that did not seem to resent it's presence, A curious point noticed was that none of the dogs present on these occasions would follow the scent.

In 1906 the beast had not been heard of for six years.....