The Strange Case of Netta Fornario

Found naked and bloodied on a fairy mound on the Isle of Iona, Netta Fornario's death remains a mystery to this day.

On a bleak November day in the Isle of Iona, 1929, the body of Netta Fornario was found atop a carved cross with a dagger in her hand, her body wrapped in a black cloak. The doctor who examined her reported her feet bloodied and mangled. The cause of death was listed as 'exposure to the elements and heart failure'.

Fornario was an avid student of the esoteric and often found wandering the moors trying to make contact with the spirits of the isle. An interesting and intellectual woman, she bonded with her landlady, Mrs. MacRae, and the two of them often exchanged stories of a mysterious and otherworldly nature. On the day of her death, she was said to have behaved strangely with tales of 'rudderless ships in the sky; and being under psychic attack. She announced that she needed to return to London immediately. Because it was Sunday and no ships were available, she spent most of the day pacing about and packing. Later that afternoon, she had a change of heart and advised her landlady that she would not be leaving, seeming resigned to whatever had upset her .

The next morning, she had vanished without a trace. A search was ordered, and she was found on an isolated stretch of land atop of what locals considered a fairy mound, a large, freshly carved cross in the earth beneath her. Strange blue lights were said to have appeared at the site of her body.

Dion Fortune, who hinted of her own suspicions as to the nature of her death in her book 'Psychic Self Defense', intimated a connection between Moina Mathers and Fornario with Mathers being the root cause, alhough Mathers had died eighteen months prior to Fornario's passing.

The case remains a subject of intrigue to this day.