The Strange Death of Netta Fornario
In November of 1929, the naked body of a young woman was discovered on the windswept Scottish isle of Iona. She lay on a cross roughly carved in the turf. In one hand she clutched a knife and another lay nearby. There were few signs of injury to her body. Strangely, the heavy silver crucifix the woman wore had turned black.That woman was Netta Fornario.
Answering the Call
It’s known as the ‘Call of the Isles’, a strange stirring in the soul, a compulsion or need to travel from wherever you are in the world to the beautiful islands of the Scottish Hebrides and in particular the bewitching, spiritual and enigmatic, Iona.
Just three miles long and one mile wide with a population of 120, Iona attracts over 130,000 visitors a year. Since St. Columba first dragged his wicker coracle ashore in 563, it has been known as the ‘cradle of Christianity’, a place of pilgrimage. His wooden abbey, like the Picts he set about converting, has long gone but still the pilgrims come. The true history of the island is lost in the dark mists of time but tales of dragons, selkies, faeries, saints and miracles draw the visitors. Some come to pray in the little stone abbey and visit the Reilig Odhrain where the Kings of Scotland lie buried in an earth so sacred it purifies sin. Some walk amongst the ruins of the Augustinian nunnery where the black nuns once secreted themselves, devoting their lives to God. Others search for faery rings and ancient ghosts and some, well they come for the stunning beauty and the strange ethereal light which allows those that see it to believe that maybe, just maybe, there is a heaven after all.
In the Autumn of 1929, Netta Fornario answered her call, a call that took her from her comfortable home in London and brought her to this strange and hallowed place.
Marie Emily Fornario
Marie Emily Fornario or Netta as she was known, must have made an odd sight as she disembarked from the ferry dressed in her strange ‘Arts and Crafts’ clothes and swathed in a long black cloak. Despite having made no arrangements for accommodation, she brought with her numerous trunks and enough furniture to fill a cottage. On such a small island it was down to good luck that she found a room at Traigh Mhor some distance from the village. The kind and hospitable owner, Mrs Cameron, made her guest welcome and although she was intrigued, asked no questions of her strange visitor. The woman, she decided, was clearly quite ill. Pale and tired, Netta slept a great deal and took short walks of no more than a few hundred metres. If Mrs Cameron and her island neighbours believed that Netta had come to Iona for her health, they were mistaken. Netta’s visit to Iona was for a very different reason.
A Fascination With the Occult
Netta Fornario was a member of the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha et Omega, an occult movement seeking the truths of the ancient past. The group dabbled in magic rituals, astrology and alchemy. Netta believed that she had been given the gift of healing and fasted to the point of illness so that she could enter a trance like state and be at one with nature and the universe. She advised her alarmed host, Mrs Cameron, that if she was ever discovered in such a trance, under no circumstances was a doctor to be called. Netta, it transpired had travelled to Iona to undertake ‘a terrible case of healing’. She was trying to channel the ‘green ray elementals’, the faeries or spirits that protect nature’s life force causing things to grow and heal. Perhaps she believed that life force was strongest on Iona or perhaps she thought that something evil lurked on the island that only she could destroy, we will never know.
Netta Disappears
On Sunday 16th November, Netta emerged from her room in an agitated panicked state. She needed to leave the island immediately. Something or someone was trying to hurt her. She spoke of a rudderless ship that crossed the sky and strange visions. Mrs Cameron tried to calm her, explaining there would be no ferry until the morning but Netta would not be placated until the family helped her pack up all of her belongings ready to leave at the first opportunity. She then retreated to her room to wait. Some hours later, Netta emerged calmer. She told the family that she had decided to stay after all. Mrs Cameron was to say subsequently that Netta appeared to have been through a terrible ordeal; she had visibly aged and there was a haunted faraway look in her eyes. She also appeared resigned to her fate.
The following morning when the Camerons awoke, Netta was gone. When she hadn’t returned by afternoon a search began. The locals scoured the tiny island looking for the missing woman. When the light failed, the search continued.The moon was full and the northern lights danced and rippled across star strewn skies. Men with lanterns searched until dawn. When day broke they were joined by the women and children. It wasn’t until the early hours of the 19th November that Netta’s body was discovered by two locals, Hector MacLean and Hector MacNiven next to Sithean Mor, the faery hill of Iona. She lay on a cross she had carved into the ground. In one hand she held a knife, another was found close by. Netta was completely naked except for a silver cross around her neck that had tarnished and blackened. Despite the bitter cold, her black cloak lay folded next to her. Except for scratches to her toes and a few on her body, she appeared completely uninjured.
A Supernatural Explanation?
It wasn’t long before strange tales of the supernatural emerged. Blue lights had been witnessed on the island since Netta’s arrival and a cloaked figure seen out walking with Netta could not be identified. The police, after reading Netta’s private letters and diary we’re so troubled they passed them on to the Procurator Fiscal’s office where they were either lost or destroyed.
Netta’s friend, Dion Fortune author of ‘Psychic Self Defence’ put forward her own theory;
I knew Miss Fornario intimately, She was half English and half Italian…and was especially interested in Green Ray elemental contacts; too much interested in them for my peace of mind, and I became nervous and refused to contact with her … it appeared to me that ‘Mac’ as we called her was going into very deep waters , even when I knew her, and that there was certain to be trouble certain or later…She had evidently been on an astral expedition from which she never returned. She was not a good subject for such expeditions.
Dion also claimed to have seen the strange scratches on Netta’s body on other victims. She claimed that they were a response to psychic attacks from the former leader of the Alpha et Omega Temple, Moina Mathers. As Mathers had been dead for eighteen months she could only have inflicted the scratches from beyond the grave. Dion does not elaborate on Moina’s motives. Other writers have since supported Fortune’s theories and point to puzzling discrepancies surrounding Netta’ death. Why on such a tiny island, was she not discovered for two days and how did a woman so frail manage to travel over a mile barefoot without badly injuring her feet? The only scratches were on her toes. Had she run tip toed across jagged rocks and rough moorland or did she, as one writer suggest, levitate to the place of her death?
Netta’s Father
Netta had few relatives to mourn her death.Netta’s English mother had died when she was very young and she was estranged from her father. Giuseppe Fornario, an Italian Professor and Director of Milan’s Medical Institute, had handed over Netta’s care to her English grandparents who had since passed away. Occasionally the father and daughter holidayed together. On a trip to Egypt the two had argued over a statue of Osiris which he had bought for his daughter. Netta claimed that the statue was cursed but Professor Fornario, a rational man of science told his daughter that she was ridiculous. The two never spoke again. On the 17th November 1929 he was overcome by a strange feeling of foreboding and doom. He could not shake off the feeling that something was wrong with his daughter. When he learned later of Netta’s death, he could only explain his feelings as a premonition or telepathy. He never forgave himself.
In a final twist of irony the cause of Netta’s death was recorded as ‘Exposure to the Elements’. On the 21st November her body was laid to rest with the Kings of Scotland. A simple headstone marks her grave. Iona had called and Marie Emily Fornario, Netta, had answered with her life.
This island set apart, this motherland of many dreams,
Still yields its secret, but it is only as men seek that they truly find.
To reach the heart of Iona is to find something eternal.
G.E. Troup
Sources
Psychic Self Defence- Dion Fortune
callofnature.org
The Belfast Telegraph
The Aberdeen Press and Journal
The Scotsman
The Ghost Book-Strange Hauntings in Britain-Alasdair Alpin Mc Gregor
ciphermysteries.com
strangehistory.net
faeryfokloristblogspot.com
historic-uk.com
druidry.org
welcometoiona.com
