The Mystery of the Stronsay Beast
A strange creature washed ashore by a storm in Orkney, Scotland 200 years ago in perhaps what is one of the most famous of sea serpent encounters.
Although stories of sea serpents, and mythical sea-dwellers have abounded in Orkney with a surprising number of documented, historical creature “sightings” that have now entered the lore of the islands, this particular beast has remained in the spotlight due to the wealth of eye witness accounts and sworn testimonies given to justices of the peace that have fascinated researchers for years.
Stronsay is an island in Orkney, Scotland situated to the North of the British Isles. Stronsay is part of an extensive group of Islands where the Atlantic Ocean and North Sea meet, known as the Orkney Islands. Stronsay’s shape is irregular and its name originates from the Old Norse for Star Island. Stronsay is one of the inhabited islands in the Orkneys.
The Stronsay beast (at the time spelled Stronsa) was first sighted on September 25, 1808, lying on rocks at Rothiesholm Head, in the south-east of the island.
There, John Peace, a local man, fishing off the coast, was puzzled by the sight of seabirds flocking around what looked like an animal’s corpse on the rocks.
Turning his little boat, and watched by another Stronsay man, George Sherar, Peace made his way to the carcass. But what he found was unlike anything he had encountered before. Lying on the rocks were the remains of a large serpent-like creature, with a long, eel-like neck and three pairs of legs.
Another sketch of the Stronsay “monster”.
At the time, the corpse was inaccessible, so closer examination was impossible. However, ten days later, one of Orkney’s notorious gales blew the decomposing remains ashore, where they were found just below the high water mark.
Sherar now had his chance to examine the corpse, which he did - meticulously studying it and measuring the dimensions of the “sea monster”.
The beast was described as serpentine, measuring exactly 55 feet long (but as part of the tail was apparently missing, the animal was actually longer than that (Wernerian Society Notes, 1808–1810, Library, Royal Museum, Edinburgh) with a neck measuring ten feet three inches long. The head was like that of a sheep, with eyes bigger than a seal’s. Its skin was grey and rough to the touch. However, if stroked from the head down the back, it was said to be as “smooth as velvet”.
Six “limbs” extended from the body and a bristly mane of long, wiry hair grew from the beast’s shoulders, down to its tail. These silver coloured bristles were said to glow eerily in the dark.
“Its flesh was described as being like ‘coarse, ill-coloured beef, entirely covered with fat and tallow and without the least resemblance or affinity to fish’. The skin, which was grey coloured and had an elastic texture was said to be about two inches thick in parts.”
Account of the Stronsay Beast as reported in The Orcadian newspaper.
By the end of September, news of Stronsay’s monster had spread far and wide.
Because the remains had rotted away to practically nothing, the four men who had originally examined the carcass were taken to Kirkwall. There, they had to swear to the magistrate that their information was the truth.
Before long, details of the incredible find reached the ears of a Natural History Society in Edinburgh.
At the society’s meeting in November 1808, the creature was given the Latin name Halsydrus Pontoppidani. The name, meaning Pontoppidan’s Water Snake of the Sea, was in honour of the 18th century Norwegian bishop, who collected reports of sea-monsters.
Shortly afterward, the naturalist Sir Everard Home read of the Stronsay Beast. Intrigued by the tales of a sea-monster, he viewed what was left of the evidence. He was convinced, however, that the creature was nothing more than the remains of a decomposing basking shark - an animal fairly common in the waters around Orkney.
Comparing the vertebrae of the “monster” with those known to belong to a basking shark, Home found them to be identical.
But how could the long necked creature washed up on a Stronsay beach be the remains of a basking shark? The answer lies in the physiology of the basking shark, and, in particular, how it decays after death.
A dead Basking shark
First the shark’s jaws - which are attached only by a small piece of flesh - drop off leaving what looks like the remains of a long neck and a small skull.
Then, as only the upper half of the animal’s tail fin carries the spine, the lower half rots away and provides a convincing serpentine tail. When the dorsal fin begins to decompose, the remaining rays can have the appearance of a hairlike mane. The monster’s six legs can simply be explained away as the remains of the shark’s lower fins.
But the mystery doesn’t end there.
Even if the Stronsay Beast was nothing more than a dead basking shark, an element of mystery still surrounds the saga.
The longest recorded basking shark measured a mere 40 feet - 15 feet smaller than the remains of the Stronsay Beast. At 55 feet long from tip to tail, the shark that decomposed to form the Stronsay Beast must have been a monster in its own right.
So was the Stronsay Beast really a shark? Or is there another explanation? An unknown species of giant shark perhaps?
The skull and “paw” of the creature were sent to London in the 19th century, but were destroyed in World War II. Some remains still exist at Edinburgh’s Royal Museum, however.
In 2008, there was an update on the Stronsay Beast mystery:
As part of the 2008 Orkney Science Festival Dr Yvonne Simpson, a geneticist, visited Stronsay in September and gave a lecture on the “Stronsay Beast” to a large audience in the Community Centre. During the lecture she said that she was hoping to obtain permission to send a small sample of the surviving bits of the beast to a DNA testing laboratory in Florida which has a database of all known shark species; this will show whether the beast was or was not a shark.
If it was a shark then the database should show whether it’s a known species or a new one; if it wasn’t a shark then the DNA will be used to try to determine if it matches any known species. At the time Yvonne was unable to divulge the whereabouts of the surviving bits of the beast - which at one time had belonged to Lord Byron - but later she revealed that the remains of the beast are part of the John Murray collection at the National Library of Scotland.
Yvonne tried to obtain permission to test a sample of the remains but her formal proposal was ignored. After intervention by Liam McArthur MSP the National Library of Scotland is now considering Yvonne’s proposal and, based upon Yvonne’s recommendations, the storage of the sample has been improved. Liam tried to get the remains returned to Orkney but his request was refused. However, copies of the relevant paperwork in the John Murray collection have been deposited in the Orkney Room at Kirkwall Library, if you want to see them you’ll need to quote accession number “Acc.12604/4276″. Both the National Library and the National Museum of Scotland (which has the vertebrae and some bristles) have agreed that they would be willing to lend the items for a temporary exhibition in Orkney but only if a suitable venue could be found.
Apparently neither the Orkney Museum nor the Stromness Museum is suitable and such a venue would have to be a public collection area where the conditions met the requirements of the preservation regulations.
Dr. Simpson, who has a degree in evolutionary, environmental and biomedical genetics from the University of St Andrews and a PhD in the field of DNA damage repair from Edinburgh’s pathology department, is fascinated by the sea serpent stories.
Of her research comparing the two “monsters” Nessie and the Stronsay Beast, she told the BBC Scotland news: “Based on an analysis of eye-witness descriptions, Nessie and the Stronsay Beast are both massive aquatic creatures.
"The drawings of the Stronsay Beast carcass are strikingly similar in shape and size to the popular image of Nessie.”
Yvonne is working on a little booklet on the Stronsay Beast; however, she needs the final DNA result to “close the case”.
The Stronsay Beast is sometimes cited as an example of a “Globster”, an un-identified mass of organic material that is washed up on a beach. Globsters have been variously identified as the long decomposed corpses of whales, basking-sharks, giant squid and octopuses.
Sometimes Globsters remain totally un-identified and unexplained.
Though most scientists suggest that the Stronsay Beast was just a large specimen of a partly de-composed basking shark - they fail to explain the huge length of the Stronsay Beast…
The Beast of Stronsay still constitutes something of a cryptozoological enigma.
Sources: orkneyjar.com/folklore/seabeasts.htm, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stronsay_Beast, stronsay.com/stronsay_beast.html, claremont.islandblogging.co.uk/2009/08/28/update-on-the-stronsay-beast,
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