The legend of the Loch Ness Monster goes all the way back to the First Century A.D. At this time the Scottish Highlands, where Loch Ness is located, was inhabited by the Picts. The Picts, meaning painted people, were a group of tattoo-covered warriors. The Picts would draw very accurate pictures of animals on stones. The depictions of the animals were very detailed, allowing people today to get a good grasp on the origin of the legend of the Loch Ness Monster, a legend that developed around one of the Picts’s drawings. The drawing of a huge water creature was not out of the ordinary for Scottish folklore, as often large animals were found in bodies of water. Romans invaded the Scottish Highlands in the 1st Century A.D. It was around this time that the earliest depiction of the aquatic animal with a long neck and flippers carved into stone was created. The picture has also been described by scientists to resemble a swimming elephant.
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Literary evidence of the Loch Ness Monster begins on August 22, 565 when Saint Columba was in the process of introducing Christianity to the land that is now Scotland. St. Columba was en route to visit a Pictish king when he witnessed a man who had been attacked and killed by large beast in the water. Columba then told one of his followers to swim across Loch Ness and retrieve a boat. The monster then attacked that man and Saint Columba raised his hand and using the power of God ordered the beast to stand down. This story became the first information regarding the Loch Ness monster that was written down.
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