Flannan Isle:

          

                                 Hello There, beautiful people,

So today we will talk about Flannan Isle, we all have read the poem, (if you haven't it is written below), but do you know the backstory about it, well I am here to talk about the theory that I personally know. 

Soooo....

Now onto the blog...

                                                                                                                                                                                                          

The poem: Flannan Isle (Wilfrid Wilson Gibson)

"Though three men dwell on Flannan Isle

To keep the lamp alight,

As we steer under the lee, we caught

No glimmer through the night.

A passing ship at dawn had brought

The news; and quickly we set sail,

To find out what strange thing might ail

The keepers of the deep sea-light.

The Winter day broke blue and bright,

With glancing sun and glancing spray,

As o'er the swell our boat made way,

As gallant as a gull in flight.

But, as we neared the lonely Isle;

And looked up at the lonely naked height;

And saw the lighthouse towering white,

With blinded lantern, that all night

Had never shot a spark

Of comfort through the dark,

So ghostly in the cold sunlight

It seemed, that we were struck the while

With wonder all too dread for words

 And, as into the tiny creek

We stole beneath the hanging crag,

We saw three queer, black, ugly birds-

Too big, by far, in my belief,

For guillemot or shag-

Like seamen sitting bolt-upright

Upon a high-tide reef:

But, as we neared, they plunged from sight,

Without a sound, or spurt of white.

And still to mazed to speak,

We landed; and made fast the boat;

And climbed the track in single file,

Each wishing he was safe afloat,

On any sea, however far,

So it be far from Flannan Isle:

And still we seemed to climb, and climb,

As though we'd lost all count of time,

And so must climb for evermore.

Yet, all too soon, we reached the door-

The black, sun-blistered lighthouse-door,

That gaped for us ajar.

As on a threshold, for a spell,

We paused, we seemed to breathe the smell

Of limewash and of tar,

Familiar as our daily breath,

As though't were some strange scent of death:

And so, yet wondering, side by side,

We stood a moment, still tongue-tied:

And each with black foreboding eyed

The door, ere we should fling it wide,

To leave the sunlight for the gloom:

Till, plucking courage up, at last,

Hard on each other's heels we passed,

Into the living-room.

Yet, as we crowded through the door,

We only saw a table, spread

For dinner, meat, and cheese and bread;

But, all untouched; and no one there:

Ere they could even taste,

Alarm had come; and they in haste

Had risen and left the bread and the meat:

For at the table-head a chair

Lay tumbled on the floor.

We listened; but we only heard

The feeble cheeping of a bird

That starved upon its perch:

And, listening still, without a word,

We set about our hopeless search.

We hunted high, we hunted low;

And soon ransacked the empty house;

Then o'er the Island, to and fro,

We ranged, to listen, and to look

In every cranny, cleft or nook

That might have hid a bird or mouse:

But, though we searched from shore to shore,

We found no sign in any place:

And soon again stood face to face

Before the gaping door:

And stole into the room once more

As frightened children steal.

Aye: though we hunted high and low

And hunted everywhere,

Of the three men's fate we found no trace

Of any kind in any place,

But a door ajar, and an untouched meal,

And an overtoppled chair.

And, as we listened in the gloom

Of that forsaken living-room-

A chill clutch on our breath-

We thought how ill-chance came to all

Who kept the Flannan Light:

And how the rock had been the death

Of many a likely lad:

How six had come to a sudden end,

And three had gone stark mad:

And one whom we'd all known as a friend

Had leapt from the lantern one still night,

And fallen dead by the lighthouse wall:

And long we thought

On the three we sought,

And of what might yet befall.

Like curs, a glance has brought to heel,

We listenened,  flinching there:

And looked, and looked, on the untouched meal,

And the overtoppled chair.

We seemed to stand for an endless while

Though still no word was said,

Three men alive on the Flannan Isle,

Who thought, on three men dead."

The lighthouse is located on Eilean Mòr in the Outer Hebrides of the northwest coast of Scotland, on an inhospitable rock in the North Atlantic Ocean. Eilean Mòr is one of seven rocky islands making up the Flannan Isles, also known as the "Seven Hunters".

The disappearance:

On 15 December 1900, the Archtor, a boat traveling from the USA to Scotland, noticed that the lighthouse was not burning.

A few days later Joseph Moore set out on its routine journey to resupply the lighthouse, after a delayed departure due to bad weather.

When he arrived there, there was no sign of the three keepers (Thomas Marshall, James Ducat, Donald MacArthur)the door and gate were shut; the lamp was filled but unlit; and there was no sign of any disaster. The only odd things inside were an overturned chair and the fact that one of the three men had left his waterproof oilskins inside the lighthouse; outside there was damage to the railings, the railway, and a box used to store ropes; a large boulder had been moved, and grass ripped out.

Theories:

• Wave: The most likely explanation is that bad weather was responsible: a large wave or waves could have swept them off, and once in the water it would be almost impossible to get out, with the sea very cold and heavy waves throwing them against the cliffs. The damage seen outside could have been caused by a sufficiently large wave. Presumably, the men had either all gone out for some task, or following the disappearance of one or two men, his colleague(s) had gone out to investigate and likewise been carried away by the storm. However, if they had been unexpectedly swept away by a large wave, why had the lighthouse been locked?
• Quarrel: Another common theory holds that the men had argued, one had killed the other two and then committed suicide in remorse. There wasn't any evidence to support this: the overturned chair didn't indicate a particularly violent struggle. 
• Spies: The early 20^th century was a time of considerable paranoia about German spies infiltrating the UK. It has been hypothesized that spies had visited the lighthouse and murdered the keepers for unknown reasons. Alternatively, the keepers could have been captured and taken on board a boat. There is still the mystery of why one of them left his coat.
• Sea Monster: Sea monsters and giant birds have been mentioned. Presumably whatever it was came out of the sea or sky, snatched the men, and ate them. This idea has inspired a variety of science fiction, but it's hard to tell if anyone takes it seriously.

                                                     -The End

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