Alexander Bean

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Alexander "Sawney" Bean at the entrance to his cave

Alexander "Sawney" Bean or Beane ; ( Sawney schot. For sandy ) was the English nickname for the legendary head of a cannibalistic family in Scotland in the 15th century. It is alleged that he, his wife, and their 46 children and grandchildren killed and ate over 1,000 people before they were arrested and executed.

This story appears in the Newgate Calendar, a kind of bulletin describing inmates and executions of the famous Newgate Prison in London . While historians may not believe Sawney Bean ever existed, its story has been passed on and is now a legend and an integral part of Scottish folklore and Edinburgh's tourism industry .

The beginning

Legend has it that Alexander Bean was born in East Lothian during the reign of King James I in the early 15th century. Some sources date the story to earlier times. His father was a worker; he dug trenches and worked as a gardener. Bean tried his hand at these jobs too, but soon found that he wasn't into honest work.

Bean left the city with his wife (according to one version of the legend a witch , the "Black Agnes Douglas"). According to an alternative version, they were chased out of town together. They found their way to a cave in Bannane Head, near Galloway County (now South Ayrshire ), where they made camp. The cave led several hundred meters into the rock and the entrance was blocked by the water during the high tide. Here they are said to have lived undiscovered for 25 years.

Family life and cannibalism

Initially, Bean and his wife survived by mugging and murdering travelers. They stole money and other useful items from them. They hoarded these in their cave. They did not dare to sell it because they feared discovery.

Alexander Bean and his wife fathered large numbers of children and later "grandchildren" as products of inbreeding relationships. Before they came to their gruesome end, they had eight sons, six daughters and 32 grandchildren. Their methods were simple and efficient: they ambushed their surprised victims in small groups, overpowered them and killed them.

The income from the forays was not enough to support the growing clan . Therefore, Bean and his family began to feed on the killed. The victims were not only robbed and murdered of all their belongings, but also dragged into the cave, boned and eaten. The family put leftovers in salt and vinegar or smoked them as supplies for bad times.

The disappearance of numerous travelers, of course, did not go unnoticed. The story of a werewolf soon made the rounds of the superstitious population . As the number of missing people continued to rise and so did the unrest among the population, the Scottish king was forced to send soldiers and police officers. Suspects were repeatedly arrested and hanged without any fuss. But the disappearance of travelers continued, and all those executed turned out to be innocent.

Capture and execution

In 1435 the riddle was supposedly solved. A couple riding home from a fair was attacked by a horde of feral figures. While the woman was taken from the horse and killed immediately, the man was able to defend himself. During the fight, more people came to the man on the way home from the market and the Bean family had to flee.

Since their existence was discovered, the hunt for them was soon opened - allegedly under the personal direction of the king. The story goes that he led more than 400 men with bloodhounds to search, and they soon found the cave that had served Bean and his family as a shelter for so long. The scenery presented to the soldiers is said to have been indescribable. In the cave there lived 47 completely overgrown family members, human body parts were hung from the ceiling for smoking and everywhere the remains of cannibalistic meals and the belongings of the attacked and killed were found.

Immediately after the capture, the members of the family were declared wild animals by the king and taken to Leith or Glasgow . The children were so used to cannibalism, murder, manslaughter and incest that they could not imagine a different life. They were executed quickly and without trial. The men's hands and feet were cut off and they bled to death. The women who had to watch this spectacle were then burned alive at the stake in groups of three .

Truth and legend

Whatever the truth, the legend has found its way into British Isles folklore. Alexander "Sawney" Bean and his cannibalistic family are largely dismissed as a myth , largely because there are few written sources. It is believed that a series of atrocities of this magnitude and duration, ended by a hunt in which the king personally participated, must have left more historical accounts than have emerged so far. Another question concerns the period in which the family is said to have lived, that is, which king was involved in the hunt. Some books speak of Jacob IV (1473–1513) or even earlier times.

In addition, many historians are skeptical about the claim that four dozen people have been in hiding for so long. One can also ask why an intensive search was not started earlier when around 1000 people disappeared in the area of ​​Bean's cave. Apparently the victims were searched for several times, but for unknown reasons no one ever looked into the cave on the coast. There are apparently no newspaper reports or writings from diaries of that time that describe these processes.

The first mention of the legend of Sawney Bean is found in an English folk book , a kind of gossip press of the 18th century. Hence, many argue that the legend was political propaganda to vilify the Scots after the Second Jacobite Rising. However, this is contradicted by the fact that this book reports on English criminals in the same way.

Yet the Ayrshire area is known for its dark folklore. It is also certain that there were some cases of cannibalism in Scotland during the famine in the late 15th century. So it is quite possible that the legend developed there and has a real core.

In the London Dungeon , there is a wax figure of Sawney Bean. The legend of Alexander "Sawney" Bean has been covered in the press, music and film.

Artistic reception

music

  • The punk rock band Real McKenzies recorded a song called the Sawney Beane Clan .
  • The British neofolk band Sol Invictus recorded a song called Sawney Bean or The Man Next Door Is Very Strange .
  • The American music band Deeds of Flesh has recorded a concept album entitled Inbreeding the Anthropophagi about the case.
  • Musician Snakefinger recorded a song entitled Sawney Bean / Sawney's Death Dance on his album Night of Desirable Objects , which tells the story of the Beane family and their spooky raids.

Movie

literature

  • Ronald Holmes: The Legend of Sawney Bean . Muller, London 1975, ISBN 0-584-10156-2
  • Jack Ketchum: Off season . Headline Books, London 1995, ISBN 0-7472-5045-6
  • Mick Lewis: The bloody man . Citron Books, London 1998, ISBN 0-7544-0009-3
  • Sharyn McCrumb: Paying the piper . Severn Publications, New York 1991, ISBN 0-7278-4247-1
  • Larry A. Morse: The Flesh Eaters . Warner Books, New York 1979, ISBN 0-446-82633-2
  • John Nicholson (Ed.): Historical and traditional tales connected with the South of Scotland . Kirkcudbright 1923 (Repr. Of the London 1843 edition)
  • The Galloway Gazette November 28, 1994
  • Peter & Julia Murakami: Lexicon of serial killers - 450 case studies of a pathological type of killing , Ullsteinverlag 2000

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bean, Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bean, Sawney (nickname); Beane, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish head of a cannibalistic family
DATE OF BIRTH 15th century
DATE OF DEATH 15th century