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

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In 1926, a new edition of Mathers’s translation of the Kabbalah, The Kabbalah Unveiled, was published. Moina wrote the preface, in which she expressed “thanks to my occult masters, and the deepest gratitude to the memory of my husband, comrade and teacher, all of whom have shed much light upon my path.” Iona itself certainly does look beautiful and an interesting place to visit if you're in to history. The newly commissioned script, using exciting imaging techniques to create a stunning visual landscape, marks the first collaboration between two Highland-based theatre-makers, the long-established Mull Theatre and one of Scotland’s most exciting new creative companies, Wildbird. These companies are brought together and the production funded by North by North-East, the Northern Scottish Touring Fund, and the tour within Argyll and Shetland is funded by Scotland’s Islands 2011. 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. 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.

NETTA FORNARIO – DEATH BY PSYCHIC ATTACK? | sjhstrangetales NETTA FORNARIO – DEATH BY PSYCHIC ATTACK? | sjhstrangetales

Netta became interested in the island of Iona after reading a story by her favorite author, William Sharp, which described the area around Loch Staonaig as one where the fairies roam free. Sharp was a Scottish writer, of poetry and literary biography in particular, who from 1893 wrote also as Fiona Macleod, a pseudonym kept almost secret during his lifetime. Around the end of the 8th Century AD the famous Book of Kells was produced on the island. Around this time the first Viking raids started which killed many of the monks and saw many of their treasures stolen.

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. 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. The Aos S í , or Shee in our story, are far removed from the typical fairy tale. Folklore describes them as a supernatural race of beings that live in a parallel universe overlapping our own. In Gaelic folklore, they are descended from the Tuath Dé , a pre-Christian race of demigods. In other traditions, they are considered fallen angels, cast out of heaven but not damned to H ell. By all accounts, they are ancient and powerful beings worthy of fear and respect. The nearest Met Office station - Tiree - didn't start recording anything other than monthly sunshine totals until 1931. They show that in November 1931, Tiree experienced a max temperature of 10.1°C and a minimum temp of 6.4°C; the monthly rainfall was 167.2mm and there were only 37.4 hours of sunshine in the month.) 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 Netta Fornario’s missing papers… - Cipher Mysteries

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. 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.) The main settlement, located at St. Ronan's Bay on the eastern side of the island, is called Baile Mòr and is also known locally as "The Village". The primary school, post office, the island's two hotels, the Bishop's House and the ruins of the Nunnery are here. The Abbey and MacLeod Centre are a short walk to the north. Submissions should outline a mystery and provide a link to a more detailed review of the case such as a Wiki article or news report. Greer, Mary K. Women of the Golden Dawn: Rebels and Priestesses. Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 1995.Dedemia Harding was, it has to be said, more than a tad miffed that her research into Fornario had (she believed) been co-opted by playwright Chris Lee and turned into a play – The Mysterious Death of Netta Fornario– that toured Scotland. “The Gothic tale of magic, madness, murder and mystery is a stylish production inspired by true events on the Isle of Iona.” There’s an interview with Chris Lee here. Marie Norah Emily Edith Fornario, known as “Netta”, was born in Cairo, Egypt in 1897, the daughter of Norah Edith Ling and Guiseppe Nicola Raimundo Fornario, an English mother and Italian doctor father. After her mother died in 1898, she was placed in the care of well-to-do tea dealer Thomas Pratt Ling, her maternal grandfather, and lived with him and his family at Leigham Holme, Leigham Court Road, Streatham. Prior to that, she lived in Italy. On 4th July 1922, her naturalization certificate A9304 was issued, as per document HO 144/1765/431695 at the National Archives. Here, her name was listed as Marie Norah Emily Edith Fornario. Netta often called herself Marie Fornario and she is in fact buried under that name - Marie being French for Mary.

The New Society of the Golden Dawn in Bradford

In 2005, whilst living in Huddersfield, I had a rather strange phone call from a man who told me he lived in Great Horton, Bradford. This man went on to say how valuable the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram was and also mentioned a ritual involving a nine pointed star and the Rose Cross. The man then went on to talk about Aleister Crowley. He insisted that Aleister Crowley had indeed come to Bradford and that Mr Crowley himself had done ritual workings in a building on North Parade in Bradford.When family members were uninterested in claiming the body, islanders pooled their funds and had Netta buried in a small graveyard near St. Oran's Chapel. She remains there to this day. A MEDICAL MYSTERY? The scratches on her body, if they existed (they seem to have been a later addition, and some argue that only her feet were scratched up), are a bit more difficult to explain. It could be that she fell into some brambles, but the posthumous examination didn't contain any reports of thorns being found in her skin. Iona did not harbor large predators, such as foxes, that might have tried to scavenge the body, and no bite marks were found either. She was eventually found on the Tuesday, by what the locals described as a ‘faery mound’ to the South of Loch Staonaig." The coroner’s report on her death could not confirm the time of her death, only that it had happened sometime between the 17th and 19th of November. He concluded his report by stating that exposure to the weather had killed her as there was no obvious evidence of foul play. She is buried in a simple grave on the island MacRae was used to Netta going off by herself, so she was not immediately alarmed when she didn’t return that afternoon. When darkness came and Netta still hadn’t returned, however, MacRae raised the alarm. The night was far too cold and windy for anyone to be wandering the island.

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

The Mysterious Death of Netta Fornario, a Mull Theatre and Wildbird co-production, opens on Mull and will tour in Scotland 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. Perhaps she had got herself into an awkward situation in London, or brushed up against another member of the Temple, and had decided to leave for a while to let the dust settle. A few weeks away would have been a chance to put everything into perspective, but that doesn’t seem to have happened with Netta, everything got blown out of all proportion in her mind instead. As I’ve said before, Netta was the kind of person who would have seen signs and portents in everything, she may well have come to believe that somebody was out to get her.Netta spent most of her days wandering the tiny island alone and spent her nights engaged in various supernatural practices. The doctor who examined the body could not narrow down the time of death. Therefore, he pronounced that she could have died at any time from the 17th to the 19th when her body was found. He apparently also had trouble determining a cause of death. So he covered all the bases and settled on either “exposure to the elements” or “heart failure.” Neither of which could account for mysterious deep scratches on Netta’s body and on the bottoms of her feet. Was she running from something? What relevance does the carved cross have? Was she trying to set up some elaborate suicide? Maybe trying to perform some occult ritual that would get her closer to the fairies she had been looking for.