Enveloped in mist and trailing a dank chill in his wake, Am Fear Liath Mòr (pronounced am fair LEE-ah mor) emerges from the sea as fog to haunt the British Isles.
Also known as the Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui in Scotland, he has other names in Ireland—the Brolaghan (which means “a formless or shapeless thing”) in Northern Ireland, Old Boneless in western Ireland, and Far Liath elsewhere. Regardless of his name, he lacks physical substance. A giant, cloudy figure, he creeps along the Irish coast and squats amidst the desolate mountain valleys and boggy hollows of the Scottish Highlands with the singularly malicious intent of causing death and disaster.
In ancient Celtic mythology, he is An Fir Lea (a fur LEE), a weather deity who was worshipped by coastal villages. He also has been likened to Brenin Llwyd of Welsh mythology, who used the mists to prey on unwary travelers, particularly children.
Encounters
Although mortals attest to his existence, only a handful claim to have seen him. Some describe him as a ragged, ethereal, monk-like creature who wears a hooded gray robe. Others say he is covered in short brown hair, like a horse. Still others say he is a gigantic humanoid over ten feet tall, with broad shoulders, long arms, and swarthy skin. They all say he eschews the sun.
Professor J. Norman Collie was the first person to record an encounter with Am Fear Liath Mòr. A member of the Royal Geographical Society, he was hiking alone near the summit of Ben Macdui, the second-highest mountain in Scotland, in 1891, when he heard something other than the noise of his own footsteps.
The records of the 1925 meeting of the Cairngorm Club, an association of Scottish hillwalkers, carry a report in which Collie said:
“Every few steps I took, I heard a crunch and then another crunch, as if someone were walking after me but taking steps three or four times the length of my own.… I was seized with terror and took to my heels, staggering blindly among the boulders for four or five miles nearly down to Rothiemurchus forest.… I will not go back there again.”[i]
Naturalist and mountaineer Alexander Tewnion published an article in The Scots magazine about an encounter with the Grey Man in 1943. “One afternoon, just as I reached the summit cairn of Ben MacDhui … a strange shape loomed up, receded, [and] came charging at me! Without hesitation I whipped out the revolver and fired three times at the figure. When it still came on, I turned and hared down the path, reaching Glen Derry in a time that I have never bettered. You may ask was it really the Fear Laith Mhor? Frankly, I think it was.”[ii]
During World War II, in 1945, Pete Densham heard strange noises while participating in rescue work in the Cairngorm mountains. As mist closed in on his location, pressure increased around his neck. He fled before he saw anything. And climber Richard Frere saw a large figure with dark hair silhouetted in front of the moon in the same area in 1948.[iii]
In the 1790s, poet James Hogg wrote of confronting a shadowy figure in the Cairngorms while tending sheep, describing it as “a giant blackamoor, at least thirty feet high, and equally proportioned, and very near me. I was actually struck powerless with astonishment and terror.” Hogg’s terror subsided when he observed the figure making the same gestures as his own, realizing that it was merely his own shadow when he removed his hat.[iv]
Hogg probably had seen the atmospheric phenomenon known as a Brocken Spectre,[v] which can occur in certain atmospheric conditions when the sun is at a particular angle. The subject’s shadow can be cast onto a cloud bank around them, creating the illusion of a large shadowy humanoid figure. According to Helen Ross, a Brocken Spectre occurs when one’s shadow is cast by the sun onto a cloud bank. The shadowy image appears much farther away than it is, and “consequently enlarged to a sufficient extent to give rise to such tales as the Grey Man of Ben MacDhui.”[vi]
To see a demonstration of the Brocken Spectre phenomenon, click here.[vii]
Regardless of his appearance, everyone agrees that encounters with Am Fear Liath Mòr are filled with dread. Reports run the gamut from a general sense of unease and fear to powerful psychic effects like debilitating panic and suicide.
Superstitions
In faerie lore, he is a solitary faerie—and thus dangerous—who appears primarily between the end of autumn and the beginning of winter.
Fogs along the coastlines are known as Grey Man’s Breath. Am Fear Liath Mòr is said to hide jagged rocks and boulders along the shore within his wet, cloudy mantle, causing ships to strike them and sink. Likewise, he darkens roadways, instigating car crashes and tricking travelers into falling off cliffs to their deaths.
When he wanders close to cities and towns, the Grey Man feeds on the smoke from household chimneys. Thus, his cloak smells of mold, wood smoke, and peat. His touch can cause milk to sour, potatoes to rot, and peat to become inexplicably wet, rendering it unable to be lit. He also inflicts sore throats, influenza, and the common cold, which he carries within the folds of his cloak.
Given his vaporous constitution, it may be impossible to destroy Am Fear Liath Mòr. Alexander Tewnion (see above) shot him three times, yet the creature kept coming at him. But it may be possible to deter him with iron, salt, and silver. Since the coming of Christianity, prayers, holy water, and sacred items like a crucifix or a holy medal are also used to keep him away. Even the phrase “God bless you!” may drive him away.[viii]
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The haunting Celtic ballad “Am Fear Liath Mòr,” by Daan Dawgm, tells the story of the Scottish legend. It taps into universal fears: the loss of control, the overwhelming force of the natural world, and the mysteries we cannot explain.
[i] https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usbiography/c/johnnormancollie.html
[ii] Dunning, B. (2012, January 10). The Grey Man of Ben MacDhui. Skeptoid Media. https://skeptoid.com/episodes/292
[iii] ibid
[iv] Dunning, B. (2012, January 10) The Grey Man of Ben MacDhui. Skeptoid Media. https://skeptoid.com/episodes/292
[v] “Who or What is the Big Grey Man of Ben Macdui?” BBC Scotland News, 16 March 2024, by Steven McKenzie, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2lwxj4dq5go
[vi] Ross, Helen. (1975). “Mist, Murk and Visual Perception. “New Scientist. p. 658.
[vii] https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/18c44w3/a_rare_atmospheric_phenomenon_where_an_observers/
[viii] The Demon Hunter’s Compendium, https://demonhunterscompendium.blogspot.com/2013/12/far-liath-grey-man.html
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