Fìor, the strange death of Netta Fornario

The isle of Iona has been a seat of unknown power for millennia – the ancient people who lived there knew this and respected the magic that dwelled within the island. Fornario was drawn to this extraordinary magic and mystery, but by trying to use the isle’s strength to purify herself, she may have been trying to harness something that was beyond humanity. 

It seems that some magic is too old and strong to be controlled.

On November 19 1929, the isle of Iona could have passed as a scene from the Wicker Man when police found the body of Netta Fornario. She lay upon a cross that had been hastily carved into the earth below her, a knife fixed in her hands, another lay at her feet. The manner of her death and her motivations for visiting the isle that Autumn have remained a mystery since.

Iona, a small island in the Inner Hebrides, is known as ‘the cradle of Christianity,’ due to its links to St Columba. In 563, the Irish monk introduced the religion to the Scots of Dál Riata, the Gaelic Kingdom that encompassed the western seaboard of Scotland.

The island’s oldest surviving structure is a chapel named after St Oran who, according to legend, was buried alive in a sacrifice to prevent the walls of the church from falling down. It became a burial ground in the 11^th century and in a 1549 inventory holds the graves of 48 Scottish, 8 Norwegian and 4 Irish kings. Sìthean Mòr, a large fairy mound, has been the scene for many Christian and Pagan rituals on Iona. The ruins of an old fort, folklorists believe it to be a place where spiritual activity is strong and the veil between our world and that of fairies is thin. Tradition claims to disturb the earth of fairy mounds was reputed to be the death of those who performed the act.

It’s no wonder then, that an occultist like Netta Fornario would be drawn to such a place.

Marie Emily Fornario, or Netta as she preferred to be known, was born in Cairo in 1897 to an English mother and Italian father. Fornario’s mother died in the year following her birth  and she was then placed in the care of her maternal grandfather in London. Highly intelligent, Fornario spent her youth in boarding schools outside London and went on to attend Ladies’ College where she received a proper education. She spent her early 20s in Italy as a citizen there before returning to London in 1922.

Esotericism had increased in popularity since the mid-18^th century in Western Europe and many of the occult groups and secret societies that had formed boasted members that were among the most wealthy and educated in society. Fornario returned from Italy and quickly became a member of Alpha et Omega, a successor of the notorious Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The groups practices were rooted in the occult, metaphysics and the paranormal. Following practices similar to their predecessors, Alpha et Omega members dedicated themselves to practising meditative trances and rituals that could last for days, in order to ‘understand one’s self and one’s condition.’ It’s assumed that Fornario was drawn to Iona because of the connections it has in druidism and paganism, energy that she could utilise in her own rituals.

Fornario had told her maid in London she would be travelling to Iona to complete a healing ritual and that she intended to be gone indefinitely. When she arrived on the island, she found a room to rent on an isolated farm with an older woman named Mrs MacRae. Many of the islands summer visitors had already left as autumn drew closer but given the amount of furniture Fornario had brought, it indicated that she intended to stay well into winter.

The healing ritual that Fornario had come to Iona to conduct is similar to purification rituals that Aleister Crowley had introduced to the Golden Dawn. Purification is a rigorous process which would explain why Netta intended to stay for so long. Crowley noted that purification could be achieved through strenuous efforts such as fasting, sexual abstinence, keeping the body meticulously tidy and undergoing a series of chants and prayers.

Crowley was known for his comprehensively symbolic rituals, and this differentiated his practices from his contemporaries. He recommended bathing and robing as part of purification; “The bath signifies the removal of all things extraneous or agnostic to the one thought. The putting on of the robe is the positive side of the same operation.”

Her Mediterranean features and artistic clothing made her almost alien to the local villagers, and her periods of fasting and time spent on the moors in deep trances only intensified this. MacRae reported that Fornario had instructed her to never seek a doctor no matter how long she seemed to be in a trance.

MacRae, who had become accustomed to Fornario’s eccentric behaviour, described to investigators that on Sunday November 12 her lodgers behaviour had become paranoid and anxious. Fornario described hallucinations and a belief that she was being psychically attacked from a distance. Fornario frantically packed her belongings and told MacRae she wished to leave Iona immediately, however, mainland ferries didn’t run on Sundays. Then later that evening, Fornario was calm and had changed her mind about leaving the island.

The next morning, MacRae found Fornario’s room empty and several hours passed without any sign of her lodger. A search party was formed that evening but it wasn’t until the following afternoon that two local men found Fornario’s body on Sìthean Mòr. As if she was completing a purification ritual, she was naked apart from a long black robe as she lay upon a cross she had carved into the dirt. Her death certificate states that she died as from natural causes, the result of ‘exposure to the elements.’

Perhaps, in order to complete her ritual of healing, Netta Fornario had to let go of everything material that tied her to the physical world and left nothing but a purified soul behind.

‘Death is the only pure, beautiful conclusion of a great passion.’ – D. H. Lawrence

Intro by Caitlin Sharkey

Sources:

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/555841/strange-1920s-death-iona-scotland-nora-emily-fornario

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/iona-abbey

Magick by Aleister Crowley

Pictures:

http://faeryfolklorist.blogspot.com/2015/04/sithean-mor-fairy-hill-of-iona.html

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC