All this was very tantalizing, but it did not prove the case. That was where, in the course of our researches, the matter rested. The standard version of the Sawney Bean story — the one quoted above, “as well attested as any historical fact can be” — seems to have appeared in the English sensational press about 1730 under the byline of Captain Charles Johnson, which some scholars think to be a pseudonym of Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe.
The early 1700s were a golden age of sleazy journalism in England, a time of quickie pamphlets and broadsides which were the equivalent of today's supermarket tabloids. There are lots of mentions of Sawney Bean from that period. But just because something is in print doesn't make it true, then or now. The Johnson version found its way into John Nicholson's Historical and Traditional Tales Connected with the South of Scotland (1843), from which it was included in the widely reprinted and very common landmark anthology The Omnibus of Crime (1934) edited by none other than Dorothy L.
Sayers of Lord Peter Whimsey fame. Most mystery or horror fans have this book in their libraries.
The Newgate Calendar, another popular 18th-century compendium perhaps comparable to The Encylopedia of Crime or Serial Killers from A to Z, tells us that Sawney Bean's original first name was Andrew and that he was born in East Lothian in the 16th century.
There was still something wrong with this picture. The story could not be quite connected back to its alleged source. The literature of the 17th century is curiously silent on the matter. That the story seems to shift around both in time and in place (in some versions Galloway becomes Galway, in Ireland) is a sure sign of what would today be called an “urban legend,” i'e. a folktale, improved with the telling, whispered from person to person until its source has been forgotten.
Or it might even be a slander against Scotsmen. Remember that the early 17th century was the time of the Jacobite uprisings (Bonnie Prince Charlie and all that) and that the English of the day tended to view Scots as dangerous and barbaric. So why not cannibalistic too? Isn't it to be expected of wild men in kilts who come screaming out of the fog-shrouded highlands to lop your head off with their enormous claymores?
Finally, Lee and I discovered that all our work had been done for us already, and that Ronald Holmes had written an entire book on The Legend of Sawney Beane (Frederick Muller, Ltd, 1975). This covers everything: the legend, Sawney Bean in literature, such documentation that there is, the question of which king of Scotland, Galloway vs. Galway, folk beliefs on ogres, prehistorical cannibalism, and much more. Holmes even brings up an objection we hadn't thought of, which is that if you do the math and figure out how old Sawney Bean and his wife must have been and how long it would take Mrs. Bean to give birth to the attested eight sons and six daughters and for them to produce eighteen grandsons and fourteen granddaughters (not counting stillbirths and early childhood mortalities caused by the filthy conditions inside the cave), Papa Bean must have been presiding over a cannibal nursery. Most of the Beans would have been children.
Nutritionists have also calculated that, in order to support that many people for that long by cannibalism alone, the Beans would have had to have eaten the entire population of southern Scotland.
Sure enough, the name “Sawney” was once a derogatory term for a Scotsman. Very likely, then, the story was made up, or at least developed, to exploit English fears of the “wild Scots” in the popular mind circa 1730. From there it spread out. Once the political context was forgotten, the Scots somehow came to embrace the story as a colorful piece of their folklore.
When I took a ghost tour of Edinburgh in 1995, the guide solemnly repeated the whole, ghastly tale. It was not a place to express doubts. That would have spoiled the fun.
So one of the standard horror icons came out of, almost, nowhere. There might have been a basis in oral tradition, but there is none in history. The spectacular parts of the tale — the involvement of the Scottish king with his army and the mass, public executions of the Bean clan — cannot be found in history at all. But the power of the image remains.
One lesson we drew from this is that “true crime” books tend to repeat “facts” from other “true crime” books and, without really good references, should not necessarily be taken any more seriously than the average UFO book. Another is that when the story is good enough and ghastly enough, mere facts (or the lack thereof) do not much matter. And therefore one thing about the sordid tale is certain:
We have not heard the last of Sawney Bean.
FEEDBACK
Readers respond to “The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years”
Our 85th anniversary feature last issue drew more attention than any other story in WT’s modern history. Here’s a sampling — there’s more atWeirdTalesMagazine.com!
You Loved 'Em:
That is an incredible list. I love that Warren Zevon and Kate Bush both get mentions. —Grant Stone
Wonderful, concise write-up of Clark Ashton Smith’s contribution to weird fiction. It is nice to see that he is getting more of the attention that he so rightly deserves. —Colin Azariah-Kribbs
I was quite startled to find some of the selections here, but I can’t find myself disagreeing with many of them. I’m glad Thomas Ligotti is acknowledged. He deserves a wider readership outside of his small but loyal cult following. Weird Tales has done a great deal to support his work over the years, and fortunately, it appears you will continue to do so. —The Grim Blogger
Joyce Carol Oates is the greatest living American writer. Period. And Laurie Anderson is a genius! —Elle Reasoner
Douglas Adams’s clever and puckish use of the English language is sadly underrated. I think there’s more to learn about the artful use of words from Adams’s trick of twisting clichés and subverting expectations over the course of a sentence than from a truckload of ponderous dystopic novels. —Pauline J. Alama
Mervyn Peake beats Mr. Tolkien & Mr. Lewis hands down in style, character development, sensitivity to people different from himself, locale, and sheer imaginative gusto. And all without the creepy misogyny/racism of the other two. —Matthew Pridham
Roald Dahl’s adult fiction is just as macabre as his children’s stories. He is the master of the twist-in-tale, and managesto capture the darker side of human nature with comical, effortless ease. —James Harris
We Missed ’Em
Good list, but I would have liked to have seen Fritz Leiber, Karl Edward Wagner, Frank Frazetta, and Christopher Lee make the cut too. —Manfred Arcane
Great list. Of course we must add Borges, probably the Brothers Quay, Guy Maddin, Henry Darger, and perhaps Bruno Schultz. Also, what about Gary Gygax? —Peter Harkness
No Jack Kirby? No Walter Simonson? No Salman Rushdie? No Gene Wolfe? Great list, though. 85 is obviously too few to please everyone. Nice to see that people weren’t too snobbish to include Stephen King and Dr. Seuss. —Sean Gilroy
Ingmar Bergman. Alfred Hitchcock. Federico Fellini. Kathy Acker. Jorge Luis Borges. Gertrude Stein. Carol Emshwiller. Queensryche. Blue Oyster Cult. —Mike Allen
Where is Caitlín R. Kiernan? Surely she deserves to be on this list? She’s written some of the best “weird” this side of Lovecraft! —Magan Rodriguez
I would love to add Diane Arbus, who took photographs of human pincushions, headless women, children with toy hand grenades, giants, dwarves, cross-dressers, and the mentally challenged. —Allison Rich
I can think of few writers of the last eighty-five years who could equal Robert Aickman in terms of undiluted unapologetic weirdness. On the painting front, Dali but no Magritte? Surely a purer surrealist. And David Lynch certainly deserves his listing, but I would have thought his great predecessor in the cinema of surrealism does too: Luis Bunuel. —Ramsey Campbell
I was surprised that Frank Zappa wasn’t included, especially since several musicians were. All in all, though, an interesting, far-ranging list of names. Well done. —Greg L. Johnson
SUBSCRIBE TO WEIRD TALES AT
www.weirdtalesmagazine.com
Weird Tales, Volume 350 Page 16