Death on Iona: The Mysterious Death of Norah Fornario and the Search for Netta

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One of Netta’s only surviving writings confirms her fascination with Sharp and offers some insight into her views of the Shee and possibly what she hoped to find on Iona. Fornario, using the alias Mac Tyler, authored a review of Macleod’s best-known work, The Immortal Hour , which had recently been adapted into an opera by composer Rutland Boughton. As was mentioned up-thread (at post #13), the (sadly, now defunct) podcast Thinking Sideways had an episode about Netta Fornario: http://www.thinkingsidewayspodcast.com/netta-fornario/. (And I'll just add that the Thinking Sideways podcast was really great, really entertaining. Too bad it is defunct.) (And, yeah, Thinking Sideways mistakenly has the photo of Moina Mathers to represent Netta Fornario. But it was an entertaining podcast. Too bad the co-host Steve moved to Southeast Asia, which reportedly caused the podcast to come to an end.)

Netta Fornario’s missing papers… - Cipher Mysteries

Our new Temple of Horus in Bradford is not about degree ceremonies, charters or pomp, - a lot of which turned out to be rubbish anyway. In the founding of the original Golden Dawn, Westcott and Mathers merely set up a lot of the stuff themselves with some help from other masons and manufactured all the so called intervention of Anna Sprengel who probably did not exist, along with the 'secret chiefs' it just sounded good at the time. Westcott and Mathers with a bit of help from a Dr Woodman really just used their own knowledge and ability to set up the Golden Dawn. And now to the desecration of the Horus Temple in Godwin Street, Bradford, befitting this piece as the apparent humility of the physical may also experience such a fate. Anyway, according to MacGregor: late one evening, Fornario left the place she was staying in on Iona (to which she had been attracted by its connections with fairies and magic) but then failed to return. Her death remains a mystery to this day. Was she murdered by people offended by her unconventional views? Was her death supernatural or merely the inevitable conclusion of untreated paranoid schizophrenia? The Mysterious Death of Netta Fornario is a chilling account mixing fiction with the real events of a still controversial death, suitable for age 14+. The suspicious death of Netta Fornario on the Isle Of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland, in 1929, has long been a source of fascination to me. Not just because it is unsolved, but because of Netta’s lifestyle, and her deep involvment in Occult practices.Is it not a startling coincidence that this song also fits in with the circumstances of Marie (Netta) Fornario’s activities and untimely death on Iona Island? In 1888, Mina met Mathers while at the British Museum where she was studying Egyptian art. She was instantly captivated by him and perceived him to be a true soulmate, her other half. Mathers had no steady income, and her family and Horniman disapproved of him, but Mina defied them and married Mathers on June 16, 1890, in the library of the Horniman Museum. To accommodate Mathers’s Scottish interests, Mina changed her first name to Moina. When MacLean and MacNiven say she was between the loch and the " Machar", I'm going to proceed on the assumption that they used the Gaelic word machair, which means "... the dune grassland unique to Western Scotland and north-west Ireland. In Scotland, some Gaelic speakers use machair as a general term for the whole dune system, including the dune ridge, while others restrict its use to the extensive flat grasslands inland of the dune ridge." So, I'll interpret that to mean that Fornario was found somewhere between the beach/grass area to the south, and the loch to the north. Google Earth gives the distance between the southernmmost tip of the loch, and the sea edge of the south- and easternmost beach (just below and left of the word "Image"), as 970 yards. She had noticable scratches and bruises on her feet and, according to some reports(having trouble finding a good source for this) she had several other, deeper gashes spread over her body.

Mysterious Death of Netta Fornario - Historic Mysteries

Do the scratched up feet, bruises and possibly deeper gashes found on her body point in the direction of foul play? The fact that the same day Netta was acting erratic, scared and wanted to leave in a hurry could certainly lend some creedence to that theory. a review of The Immortal Hour (an occult opera about fairies) under the name ‘Mac Tyler’, which she claimed to have watched “some three and twenty” times. (Full review here.) In 1921, according to Gareth Knight in a 2006 talk at the Canonbury Masonic Research Centre, Netta was appointed Outer Guardian of a co-masonic lodge in Sinclair Road in Hammersmith. Really this is of no concern to us. Whoever left the premises in Godwin Street Bradford to rot and did not respectfully remove the iconic images if they were of no further use to them, is not in our opinion, respectful of the Divine to the level that they should be. Netta saw The Immortal Hour twenty-three times, likely during its 1922-23 run in London. Oddly, she laments that the play did not receive a longer run, due to the politics of Boughton, the composer. By all accounts the production was a smash hit and ran for an unprecedented 211 straight performances in 1922 and additional 160 the following year. Regardless, her remarks show a deep understanding of the allegorical references intended by the author.

Others believe that Netta may have been pursued by somebody she had known in London, and there were rumours of her being seen in the company of a mysterious cloaked figure, shortly before her death. Could she have been having an affair? Either in London, or even on the island, it would certainly have complicated things.

Exposed to the Elements: A Strange 1920s Death on the

Destruction through fear, physical destruction of depicted authority as means to enforce own perceived superiority. Uncertainty as to represented authority physical destruction perceived as spiritual superiority. They have taken their representation. Subjects are not defamed but defaced. Their representation is consumed. Dead bird symbolic - left to rot - consumed not defamed, Character irrelevant, representation destroyed. Existence not destroyed - overwhelmed by supposedly superior force - consumed. Existence not dismissed but devoured. Point taken then depicted or depicted through evolution in aggressor's chosen format. Religiously consumed by a supposedly religious evolutionary force; pseudo- epitome of all-seeing eye. Presiding over perceived inferior religions. Representation significant; remains depict superiority over inferiority. Remains necessary as affirmation of this perceived fact. Entire destruction undermines purpose. That failure to destroy may consume such host from within. If maggot be man in consumption of evil may minor be major as honest endeavour devours religious minors. Preserving existence, stripping identity; confined as prisoner. Physical embodiment retained, character removed. The monks are still the strongest here… except over by Staonaig …there’s a path that no monk can go. There, in the old days, [the monks] burned a woman. She was not a woman but they thought she was. She was one of the Sorrows of the Sheen… It’s ill to any that brings harm to ‘them’ [i.e. the faeries] . That’s why the monks are not strong over by Staonaig way.Mina displayed an early talent for art and might have enjoyed a successful career as an artist had not the occult world intervened. In high school she met the wealthy tea heiress Annie Horniman and became one of her best friends. A Gothic tale of magic, madness, murder and mystery set on Iona. Mixing fiction with real events - the unexplained and controversial death of Netta Fornario, a remarkable young lady closely linked to the inner circle of the Occult Society of the Golden Dawn. Iona is probably best known for Saint Columba , who founded the Abby of Iona there in the sixth century. It was a place where early Christianity mixed heavily with pagan traditions and was instrumental in spreading the faith throughout the islands. However, Iona, like the Hebrides Islands, has a rich history that reaches deep into the Iron Age and is home to some of the world’s darkest folklore. The things said to have risen from the sea there would have made Lovecraft himself shudder.