The New Murrey and Blue blog

Belief in legends, UFOs, ghosts and such things is often derided as being in the realm of fancy….or idiocy. We’re either agog about Roswell, or sighing about people’s gullibility. We’re either excited by the thought of ghostly boys being seen in the Tower of London, or we throw up our hands in disbelief that anyone could possibly credit such bunkum.

But UFOs and the supernatural aren’t modern phenomena, indeed not, and sometimes there are records of incidents so fantastic they defy belief, yet, as Sherlock Holmes  said, “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

For instance, we still don’t know about the Loch Ness monster, which is said to have first appeared to the 6^th-century Irish saint Columba. If we don’t know now if Nessie actually exists, how can we possibly snigger at St Columba?

Well, I’ve always been interested in these things, not to say I give credence to every single word I read—far from it—but that doesn’t stop me from finding it all fascinating. My copy of British Folk Tales and Legends: A Sampler by Katharine Briggs has been scoured so many times the poor thing is falling apart. It’s one of those typically shoddy 1970s paperbacks that are notorious for giving up the ghost (if you’ll excuse the phrase).

Anyway, this morning I looked through it again and came upon the brief entry called The Anchor. Briggs herself found it in S. Baring-Gould‘s  Book of Folk Lore, and it’s quoted a number of times online. It seems the original story dates from  956 AD, when the English chronicler Gervase of Tilbury wrote:

“….There happened in the borough of Cloera, one Sunday, while the people were at Mass, a marvel. In this town is a church dedicated to St. Kinarus. It befell that an anchor was dropped from the sky, with a rope attached to it, and one of the flukes caught in the arch above the church door. The people rushed out of the church and saw in the sky a ship with men on board, floating before the anchor cable, and they saw a man leap overboard and jump down to the anchor, as if to release it. He looked as if he were swimming in water. The folk rushed up and tried to seize him; but the Bishop forbade the people to hold the man, for it might kill him, he said. The man was freed, and hurried up to the ship, where the crew cut the rope and the ship sailed out of sight. But the anchor is in the church, and has been there ever since, as a testimony….”

Katharine Briggs thought it was “….one of those strange, unmotivated and therefore rather convincing tales that are scattered through the early chronicles…”

Strange indeed. I can understand the invention of a ship in the sky, and even of it dropping anchor in front of witnesses….but is the “swimming” and “drowning” aspect not rather peculiar? Over-egging it, even? So odd, in fact, that it rather commands belief. In my opinion anyway, and possibly of Sherlock Holmes as well.

So what did the folk of Cloera see on that 10^th-century Sunday? When they described it as a ship, did they mean, for example, something with masts, rigging etc? Well, when we today see UFOs, how often do we describe them as ships? Even Captain Kirk presides over a starship!

Well, no doubt many of those reading this article now will be scoffing about the whole thing, and muttering “mass hysteria” etc. etc. If you feel you can be so certain of this, then go ahead, mutter as you will. But there has to be a moment of hesitation. Did they actually see the medieval mind’s version of the USS Enterprise? Was it a UFO? Well, yes, of course it was, because all that UFO means is Unknown Flying Object, and something fitting that description certainly hovered above the church in Cloera.

By the way, I do not know where Cloera actually is/was, or if the church in question still exists, let alone whether the mysterious anchor remains inside. Does this disprove the whole story? That is for you to decide.