The phantom lights of Ancum loch

In Orkney, there are many stories of mysterious lights.

Perhaps the best known are the phantom lights that haunted Noltland Castle, in Westray, but other accounts have been recorded.

This is perhaps the most detailed.

In North Ronaldsay, a marsh bordering Ancum Loch was notorious for the strange lights that played across it in the long winter nights.

Tradition linked the appearance of the lights with the demise of a middle-aged woman who had been found dead by loch the morning after strange, flickering lights had been seen dancing along the water's side.

Upon hearing the fate of the woman, some were of the opinion that a devil, or spirit, had tormented and misled the woman, wearing her out till she died of cold and exhaustion.