Am Fear Liath Mòr or the Big Grey Man of Ben Macdui
Am Fear Liath Mòr or the Big Grey Man is said to haunt the summit of Ben Macdui, the second highest mountain in Britain across which the border of Aberdeenshire and Banffshire passes.
The first recorded encounter with Am Fear Liath Mòr was reported in 1891 but wasn't made public until 1925 when the noted climber JN Collie recalled a frightening encounter when he was alone near the summit of the mountain some 35 years earlier.
"I began to think I heard something else than merely the noise of my own footsteps. For every few steps I took I heard a crunch, and then another crunch as if someone was walking after me but taking steps three or four times the length of my own.... [as] 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.”
Other climbers have reported similar experiences, many describing uncontrollable feelings of fear and panic, some seeing a huge grey figure behind them, and others only hearing sounds.
In 1945 Peter Densham, a mountaineer and rescue worker, heard “a crunching noise” and was “overcome by a feeling of apprehension” and in 1948 Richard Frere, a climber, wrote about his sense of “a Presence, utterly abstract but intensely real” on the mountain and heard “an intensely high singing note”. Another encounter was published in The Scots Magazine in 1958, by naturalist and mountaineer Alexander Tewnion:
...In October 1943 I spent a ten day leave climbing alone in the Cairngorms... One afternoon, just as I reached the summit cairn of Ben MacDhui, mist swirled across the Lairig Ghru and enveloped the mountain. The atmosphere became dark and oppressive, a fierce, bitter wind whisked among the boulders, and... an odd sound echoed through the mist – a loud footstep, it seemed. Then another, and another... A strange shape loomed up, receded, came charging at me! Without hesitation I whipped out the revolver and fired three times at the figure. When it still came on I turned and hared down the path, reaching Glen Derry in a time that I have never bettered. You may ask was it really the Fear Laith Mhor? Frankly, I think it was.
Many believe it is a Brocken Spectre, an optical illusion, but who knows; and what accounts for the crunching footsteps heard by many?
The first recorded encounter with Am Fear Liath Mòr was reported in 1891 but wasn't made public until 1925 when the noted climber JN Collie recalled a frightening encounter when he was alone near the summit of the mountain some 35 years earlier.
"I began to think I heard something else than merely the noise of my own footsteps. For every few steps I took I heard a crunch, and then another crunch as if someone was walking after me but taking steps three or four times the length of my own.... [as] 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.”
Other climbers have reported similar experiences, many describing uncontrollable feelings of fear and panic, some seeing a huge grey figure behind them, and others only hearing sounds.
In 1945 Peter Densham, a mountaineer and rescue worker, heard “a crunching noise” and was “overcome by a feeling of apprehension” and in 1948 Richard Frere, a climber, wrote about his sense of “a Presence, utterly abstract but intensely real” on the mountain and heard “an intensely high singing note”. Another encounter was published in The Scots Magazine in 1958, by naturalist and mountaineer Alexander Tewnion:
...In October 1943 I spent a ten day leave climbing alone in the Cairngorms... One afternoon, just as I reached the summit cairn of Ben MacDhui, mist swirled across the Lairig Ghru and enveloped the mountain. The atmosphere became dark and oppressive, a fierce, bitter wind whisked among the boulders, and... an odd sound echoed through the mist – a loud footstep, it seemed. Then another, and another... A strange shape loomed up, receded, came charging at me! Without hesitation I whipped out the revolver and fired three times at the figure. When it still came on I turned and hared down the path, reaching Glen Derry in a time that I have never bettered. You may ask was it really the Fear Laith Mhor? Frankly, I think it was.
Many believe it is a Brocken Spectre, an optical illusion, but who knows; and what accounts for the crunching footsteps heard by many?