Infamous Characters Of The Medieval Period: Part One: Sawney Beane

Scotland 1435

In the Medieval era , Scotland was haunted by several instances of human throwbacks who succumbed to some primitive, ferocious instinct to consume their own kind. The most notorious of these was a man named Sawney Beane. For 25 years he and his feral, inbred clan waylaid travelers and feasted on their flesh. They may have preyed upon as many as a thousand victims.

Sawney Beane was born into a farmer’s family on the outskirts of Edinborough but as young man left with a young female companion for the southwestern coast of Galloway. There, in a cave overlooking the Irish Sea, they raised a brood of 14 children.

Travelers began disappearing, and it was at first thought that they had fallen prey to packs of wolves that roamed the district. As Beane’s family grew and began mating between themselves, the need for food increased and more and more travelers started to disappear. It was only when a group of local residents returning home from a county fair came across Beane and his clan butchering a traveler and his wife that they at last knew of the real reason for the disappearance of hundreds of people.

Beane and his clan fled into the hills, but on hearing of this atrocity King James I dispatched 400 troops and bloodhounds to hunt them down. The dogs eventually led the army to an opening at the bottom of the a cliff. Huddled in a cavern that Sawney Beane called home were Beane, his wife, 14 children and their 32 incest-spawned grandchildren.

Suspended above them were arms, legs and human torsos. Some of the meat had been pickled for the lean months ahead. Sawney Beane and the 26 Beane men were dismembered and left to die. The 21 Beane women were burned alive on three great bonfires. King James had ruled that were wild beasts and did not deserve a trial.