Witch to Loch Ness Monster: 'Don't Be Shy'
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news...2.htm&sc=reodd
LONDON (Reuters) - Sorcerer Kevin Carlyon performed an incantation on the shores of Loch Ness on Friday, trying to lure Britain's favorite monster into the open.
Carlyon, High Priest of British White Witches, said he had cast a spell two years ago to scare off the monster so it would not be caught by a visiting Swedish scientist Jan Sundberg.
But Sundberg is no longer a threat, he said, and now the time has come to reverse the hex on "Nessie."
"I feel this one went quite well," he told Reuters afterwards. "There have been very few sightings over the last couple of years and the aim is to slightly reverse the spell so Nessie starts to pop up again."
Reports of a "horrible great beastie" have been emerging from the 200-meter deep Scottish loch for many centuries, often describing a black creature with a fat body and serpentine neck.
But it was not until a road was built along the shoreline in the 1930s that Nessie-watching really took off. These days, there are numerous web-cams beaming 24-hour footage of the dark waters around the world via the Internet.
"I personally believe what is up here is more a spirit or a ghost than anything," said Carlyon, who discovered his own paranormal powers aged five when he correctly predicted a school mate would fall out of a tree and break his arm.
During Friday's ceremony, Carlyon said he cast a talisman into the loch -- a flat stone inscribed with ancient Nordic runes and witchcraft symbols -- while chanting the incantation: "Let Nessie be free, may her spirit be free, so may it be."
06/13/03 12:20