Sawney Bean

A depiction of Sawney Bean

Welcome back to 2018's 'Month of Horror' and this week we're focusing on a particularly gruesome tale from Scotland. When we think of Scotland and monsters you most likely will instantly think of the Loch Ness Monster, or if you're wanting a lesser known monster you could mention the Stronsay Beast from Orkney. However, there is one infamous tale of a more human monster which haunted Scotland centuries ago: Sawney Bean and his Clan. Hiding in a coastal cave in Ayrshire on Scotland's west coast Sawney Bean was the patriarch of a clan made out of his own incestuous offspring who would ambush travellers in order to eat them. Today we're looking at the truth and fiction behind one of Edinburgh's most gruesome tales.

The Tale of Sawney Bean

Alexander Beane, later nicknamed Sawney Bean, was born in East Lothian sometime in the 1500s. His father was a ditch-digger and a hedge trimmer but the young Sawney was not one for an honest day's work and soon ran away for a life of crime. He soon met a woman accused of witchcraft called 'Black' Agnes Douglas and they began what would become 25 years of crime and murder. They settled in a coastal cave between Girvan and Ballantrae on the west coast where they began their murders. Together they had fourteen children who in turn would breed with one another constantly expanding the Bean family until they had a 'clan' of 45 incestuous children and grandchildren. Today the west coast is very beautiful but can be fairly remote in certain areas and this was even more the case in the sixteenth century, and bearing in mind the only light you would have at night would be any lanterns that you brought with you. So, at night, the Beans would creep from their cave and attack unsuspecting travellers. They would rob them of their possessions, murder them, and then take the corpses back to the cave where they would be consumed by the cannibal family. The locals noticed that people were vanishing at night but they could not find the culprits. Almost a thousand people were consumed by the family over 25 years. A couple one night were heading away from a fayre when they were ambushed. Unknown to the Beans the husband knew how to fight and managed to save himself; his unfortunate wife was murdered by the Beans. The cannibals fled when the scuffle was heard by over fayre-goers who arrived on the scene to help. This would be the beginning of the end for the Beans.

Realising that the Beans were responsible for the vanishings and body parts appearing on the shore a message for help was sent to King James in Edinburgh. Apparently personally leading a party of 400 soldiers and bloodhounds the king's party descended onto the cave. Inside the cave was a scene of pure horror. Blood was everywhere, body parts hung from hooks or were pickled in jars, and the possessions of the murdered were scattered in piles across the cave. Actually facing a foe which can fight back the Beans surrendered without much of a fight and were dragged to Tolbooth Jail in Edinburgh. They were either taken to Leith or Glasgow where they were executed without trial. The men had their genitals, hands, and feet cut off, and were then left to bleed to death. Apparently Sawney himself shouted in his final breath 'it isn't over, it will never be over.' Meanwhile, the women and children were forced to watch the men die and were then burnt at the stake. According to Girvan folklore one of Bean's daughters managed to get away and settled in the town planting a tree. Her identity was eventually found and lynched from her tree. 

However, we have to remember one thing. Sawney Bean may not have ever existed...

Stories of Sawney

A copy of The Newgate Calendar from 1863

Scottish folklorists have debated where the story of Sawney Bean originated. One publication which specifically mentions Bean by name is The Newgate Calendar which was a publication featuring biographies of famous criminals, like highwayman Dick Turpin, lists of executions, and stories of criminals. It primarily published in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries with it getting a penny dreadful version in the 1860s. However, the Calendar is thought to possibly have popularised Bean's story. The Lives and Actions of of the most Famous Highwaymen was written by a 'Captain Charles Johnson' was printed in London in 1734, and later Birmingham in 1742. Sandy Hobbs and David Cornwell argue that this is where the story originated. It has even been hypothesised that famous writer Daniel Dafoe was 'Johnson' and therefore created Swaney. Several chapbooks detailing the story appeared throughout the late-eighteenth century across the country. However, it took until 1843 for a specifically Scottish version of Sawney to arrive in John Nicholson's Historical and Traditional Tales...Associated with the South of Scotland. Furthermore, there are no reports or records of a cannibal family being captured and executed during the 1500s around the local area, Edinburgh, Glasgow or Leith. This brings us to another point: there are too many contradictions for it to be true. The Bean family was supposedly executed in three places and notice in the previous paragraph I mentioned that King James went to catch Sawney - Scotland had seven kings called James. Most versions state that either James I or James VI led the campaign against Sawney. The issue is James VI was born 129 years after James I died. However, Sawney wasn't entirely fictitious...

Stories are like ideas where they are an amalgamation of people's own ideas, past stories, and even real life. For example, some historians have argued that the Greek gods were real kings and queens who got mythologised and deified over the centuries. Local Galloway folklore may have contributed to the myth of Sawney Bean, especially as Galloway is close to Ayrshire. Another cannibal from folklore predating Sawney may have aided in the the creation of him. In the fourteenth century during a famine there was supposedly a company led by a former butcher from Perth called Christie-Cleek. When one of the company died Christie cooked him and the rest of the company developed a taste for human flesh. Under Christie, like Sawney, they attacked travellers to eat them until taken down by the army - except Christie escaped and re-entered society. Due to the similarities between the stories it is possible that there were cases of cannibalism sometime in Scotland's past. An English chapbook (magazine) called The History of John Gregg and his family of Robbers and Murderers predates the stories of Sawney, although no date is given, and tells the tale of John Gregg in Devonshire who lived in a cave with his incestuous, cannibalistic family of robbers. Hobbs and Cornwell have hypothesised that Johnson may have adapted the story of John Gregg and shifted in to Scotland as Devon was less 'mysterious' compared to Scotland. As multiple of these stories exist there is a chance that they had some grounding in reality. It is unlikely that huge cannibal families roamed the Scottish Highlands or English coast but it times of famine bandits may have resorted to eating their victims.

Why?

The big question now is why make up the story of Sawney Bean. Well that is easy - to have an interesting story. Humans throughout history have a tendency of making morbid and gruesome stories, hence why horror exists as a genre. What makes a better way to scare Georgian readers than a tale of a cannibal family lurking in the night in rural Scotland? There is an interesting debate about the story of Sawney Bean which explains why certain details of the story happen the way they did. In 1745 claimants to the British throne invaded and launched a rebellion in the '45 Jacobite Uprising. Jacobitism occurred across the British Isles but was particularly strong in Scotland for various reasons. With the defeat of the Uprising the British government intended to make sure that the core support of Scottish Jacobitism, the Highland clans, was crushed. Gallic, bagpipes and kilts were banned; the Highland Clearance Acts commit ethnic cleansing against the Highlanders by moving them from their ancestral lands; and roads were built to aid military manoeuvres were just some of the policies implemented. Across England anti-Scottish attitudes, and in the Scottish Lowlands anti-Highlands attitudes, were widespread. This continued until the Highlands were romanticised by Scottish intellectuals, like in Walter Scott's Waverley, and aspects of Scottish culture, like kilts, were brought back. Incidentally, items associated with the Highlands became synonymous with Scotland as a whole. Sean Thomas has downplayed the anti-Scottish and anti-Jacobite attitudes in the tale of Sawney Bean but when we look at it this gets contested.

A depiction of the Battle of Cullodon from the 1745 Jacobite Uprising - anti-Jacobitism fed into the tale of Sawney Bean

Sawney Bean wasn't specifically made to be anti-Scottish, however, by moving the story of John Gregg to Scotland it fed into anti-Scottish attitudes. 'Sawney' was often used as an insult to Scots, he had a 'clan' like the Highlanders; his wife was possibly named after Agnes Randolph who resisted English attacks on Dunbar during the Wars of Independence; and Scotland was a land of 'mystery' to many English so it made more sense to them for a cannibal family to exist there. There is a chance that the stories having James VI lead the attack may be part of this. James VI was a devout Protestant, in fact he was Scotland's first Protestant monarch, so it may possibly be signifying 'heroic' and 'civilised' Protestants fighting 'backward' and 'sinful' Catholics. Many Highland clans were Catholic so joined the Catholic Jacobites against the Protestant parliament. Sawney's execution, and that of his family, resemble the execution for treason - hung, drawn and quartering for men and burning for women. Thomas has argued that as The Newgate Calendar also featured English criminals it couldn't therefore be anti-Scottish. However, this leaves out many key points. For one, it regularly portrayed certain crimes, enemies of the British crown, Catholics and others who didn't fit in with elite society - which included the Scots and Highlanders - very negatively. Also, Dick Turpin was featured in The Newgate Calendar and he has been heavily romanticised, something Sawney never got. England got a swashbuckling highwayman while Scotland got a clan of incestuous cannibals. Nevertheless, the anti-Scottish aspect of Sawney Bean was soon flipped on its head...

Legacy

1977's The Hills have Eyes was strongly inspired by Sawney Bean

Sawney Bean has become a major part of Scottish folklore and tourism since the late-1800s. Scottish writers adapted the tale of Sawney Bean and made it something to be proud of. One key example of this was S.R. Crockett's The Grey Man (1896) which featured Sawney as a character. The part of Sawney Bean's story where he lives in a cave at Bennane Head came from Crockett; before Bean was seen as living in a coastal cave somewhere else. This story appealed to Scotland's tourist industry and storytellers, and it allowed Scotland to reclaim Sawney Bean. I live in Edinburgh and have been on several horror tours and attractions. Many feature the tale of Sawney Bean. There are a series of dark humoured, semi-educational history themed horror attractions called The Dungeons; most are in the UK but there are ones in Amsterdam, Berlin, Hamburg, and San Francisco. There is one in Edinburgh which features many parts of Edinburgh's bloody history including rooms based on the murderers Burke and Hare; the infamous Scottish witch trials; and a torture chamber. The Edinburgh Dungeon has a short boat ride and a room all based on Sawney Bean. Of course the Loch Ness Monster takes up most of Edinburgh's 'horror' quota but Sawney Bean is always in the background for tourists, and locals, who want more gruesome tales. Also, the story of Sawney Bean has actually inspired movies. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre takes inspiration from serial killer Ed Gein but it has been hypothesised that Sawney Bean may have had some input. The film revolves around an insane and cannibalistic family. One film was very specifically based off of Sawney Bean: Wes Craven's The Hills have Eyes. Set in the New Mexico desert it follows a family stalked, tortured, murdered and eaten by a cannibalistic family led by a patriarchal figure. The manga and anime Attack on Titan, where a beleaguered humanity is being whittled down by Titans who eat humans, also features two Titans named 'Sawney' and 'Bean'. It is likely that Sawney Bean's story will continue to horrify people for years to come.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Sandy Hobbs and David Cornwell, 'Sawney Bean, the Scottish Cannibal', Folklore, 108, (1997), 49-54

-Craig Jackson, 'The Grisly Deeds of Alexander Bean', BBC, bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/sawney_bean.shtml, 30/03/2011, [Accessed 18/10/2018]

-Sean Thomas, 'In Search of Sawney Bean', ForteanTimes, web.archive.org/web/20080519171404/http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/129/in_search_of_sawney_bean.html, 04/2005, [Accessed 18/10/2018]

Thank you for reading. Next week will be the last week of 2018's Month of Horror. Check out our Facebook for future updates, and everyday this month we'll be briefly looking at something from black history as in the UK it is Black History Month. For other blog updates catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.