The Canna Mermaid Testimonies

Canna is a small island in the Hebrides. At the start of the nineteenth century it belonged to the Clanranald estate, and about 300 people lived there. Most of them worked the sea.

One was Neil McIntosh, who gave his home as "Sandy Island, Canna", most likely Sanday, the tidal island joined to Canna. On 2 October 1809, at Portree on Skye, he set down in a letter what he had heard. Different people on Canna, he wrote, claimed to have seen mermaids. He named the witnesses for two sightings. The third was his own.

About six years earlier. A Sunday. Niel Stewart and Neil McIsaac were walking "upon the sea beach on the north end of the island" when they saw an animal on a rock "at a small distance". It had "the appearance of a woman in the upper parts, and of a fish below." As they approached, "it sprung into the water." Then "they had a more distinct view of its upper part."

Lachlan McArthur, "of the same island", was "sailing from Uist to Skye in a stormy day." Near the stern of his boat, a figure "resembling a human in its upper parts" came "rising from the water." It "terrified him extremely."

McIntosh's own moment came about five years before the letter. He was steering a boat from Canna to Skye, again "in a stormy day", "about one-fourth of the passage from Canna." A figure "of a white colour" seemed to "spring almost out of the water." It "instantly disappeared again." He "had no opportunity of examining it minutely" and felt "considerable alarm." Islanders held it "extremely unlucky to meet with or look upon such animals at sea." He did not point it out to his crew.

The letter did not end with the stories. It ended with signatures. Robert Brown, "factor for Clanrannald", witnessed it, alongside Donald McNeil "of Canna", Wm Campbell, a Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh, and James Gillespie, "architect, Edinburgh". Malcolm Wright, notary public, attested it as "a true copy of the original".

Someone had gone to real trouble to collect this testimony and make it formal. Who, and why, is still unknown.

The case survives almost entirely through a 2011 post on the Beachcombing blog, which transcribed the notarised copy. Its author found the "legalistic coda" the most interesting part, a "concerted effort to get the local 'yokels'" to swear to what they saw. He also mentioned a second copy "with some variants", adding: "Not sure what that is about."

No one has called it a hoax. General explanations for mermaid reports point to seals, which haul out on rocks and rise upright in the water, or to a dolphin or porpoise breaching in rough seas. Hebridean sea maiden folklore may have shaped what people expected. Yet these were islanders who knew seals well. They still described something part human.

The timing is striking. About a month earlier, on 8 September 1809, The Times had published William Munro's letter on the Caithness mermaid, in the middle of a national argument. A link to Canna is plausible but unconfirmed. The original manuscript has not been found. The Paranormal Database lists McArthur's encounter, though it borrows the "woman" wording from the beach sighting. Four islanders and a notary's attestation are all that remain.