This edition is about the power of collective imagination that exists in every community or group of people. The Loch Ness pen represents our need to connect with one another through a belief in something whether real or fabricated. We are constantly in search for the divine, and often eerie, enigmas that over time become symbols and memories with specific meaning.
The birth of a legend
The modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster was born when a sighting made the local news on May 2, 1933. The newspaper Inverness Courier reported that a local couple claimed to have seen “an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface.” The story of the “monster” became a media phenomenon, with London newspapers sending correspondents to Scotland and a circus offering a £20,000 reward for capture of the beast.
In 1975, another expedition combined sonar and underwater photography in Loch Ness. After enhancement, the photo appeared to show what vaguely resembled the giant flipper of an aquatic animal. However, accounts of an aquatic beast living in Scotland’s Loch Ness date back 1,500 years. Ancient local stone carvings by the Pict depict a mysterious beast with flippers. The first written account appears in a biography of St. Columba from 565 AD. According to that work, the monster bit a swimmer and was prepared to attack another man when Columba intervened, ordering the beast to “go back.” It obeyed, and over the centuries only occasional sightings were reported. Many of these alleged encounters seemed inspired by Scottish folklore, which abounds with mythical water creatures.
What is real?
That’s one long reputation to maintain. But who maintains it? We do of course. Collectively. “During the Second World War the German High Command had sufficient confidence in the reality of the monster to actually drop bombs in Loch Ness with the intent of destroying the creature and, thereby, damaging British morale,” wrote Donald E. Simanek & John C. Holden. Which makes Nessie as real of our symbols for money, nations, corporations, religion or even sports. They are all equally a figment of our imaginations, as presented in “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”.
The Loch Ness Pen
We dare you to dive into the deep blue waters of the unknown. And keep dreaming up a better world because no enigma or idea is crazy enough to take hold amongst people. The mystical Loch Ness fountain pen, with its robust Onoto Magna shape of 1937, stands for something greater. And so can you.
