Death on Iona: The Mysterious Death of Norah Fornario and the Search for Netta

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It shamelessly borrows from those classic stories that have gone before, to make a new play that is immersed in madness, murder, magic and decay, that has at its heart, a truly memorable character. This has been strongly disputed in recent times, and it is thought that Netta actually lodged with the Cameron family, staying in their attic.

The Mysterious Death of Netta Fornario | Shetland Arts

Sorry, but rather than accepting magickal claims that she was killed by some kind of psychic attack (as Dion Fortune implied in 1930), I’d rather be completely boring and look at the facts. On the 17th of November 1929, the family she was staying with found Netta packing her stuff in an urgent rush to leave the island. The 33-year-old Fornario spent her time walking the island and in long trances, some of which could last for days. I would say personally that it is not always necessary to do elaborate rituals to achieve such a thing, for if some being wants to see you, it will find you anyway and many people claim to have seen their Guardian Angel, just check out the psychic monthly magazines, without going in to retreat for a year.

Netta Fornario, the faeire seeker, traveled a great way to reach Iona, and when she arrived, she boarded with the MacRae family. Some of our partners may process your data as a part of their legitimate business interest without asking for consent. She was not a good subject for such experiments, for she suffered from some defect of the pituitary body.

Netta Fornario’s missing papers… - Cipher Mysteries

Netta would roam around the island for hours trying to visit as many of the pre-Christian sites as she could. Initially MacRae was intrigued by her guest’s “mystical practices”, but her interest turned to concern one morning when her lodger appeared in a panic-stricken state. The location of this tale is the tiny ancient island of Iona, an Island in the Outer Hebredies off the Coast of Scotland. It wasn't until the next afternoon that a pair of local men reportedly discovered her body on a hillside near Loch Staonaig, a knife lying nearby, and the silver cross—blackened like the rest of her jewelry—around her neck.She was found naked apart from a black cloak, with scratches on her feet, and a knife was found nearby as well as a cross that was cut into the hillside near the body.

The mysterious case of Netta Fornario on the Scottish Island

A number of letters, said to be of a strange character, have been taken possession of by the police, who, it is also stated, have passed them on to the Procurator-Fiscal for his consideration. She was found lying on Fairy Mound, a hill close to an ancient ruined village, only a couple of miles from where she had been lodging. This “alien” woman, who dressed in the fashion of the Arts and Crafts movement – with long cape and hand-woven tunic – settled into the house of someone only known as Mrs MacRae. Several times she said she had been to the ‘far beyond’ and had come back to life after spending some time in another world.It wasn’t until the 19th of November that her black-caped body was discovered by two local men, Hector MacLean, of Sligneach, and Hector MacNiven, of Maol Farm. In fact, after a short spell in her room, she emerged and told Mrs MacRae that she had changed her mind, and that she would be staying indefinitely on the island.