Bean, Sooney

The beginning of cannibalism

According to the Newgate Handbook, Alexander Bean was born in East Lothian during the reign of King James I (mid-15th century), although other sources indicated a later date of birth ^[1] . His father was allegedly a digger, and his mother cut hedges, and Bean tried to follow in his parents' footsteps, but quickly realized that he had little desire to live an honest job.

Bean eventually left home with a vicious woman, who some versions of the legend call a witch and associate with Black Agnes. She, apparently, also shared his views on life. The couple settled in a coastal cave near the modern city of Girvan ( Galloway County, South Ayrshire ). The cave went almost 200 m deep into the cliff, and during high tide the entrance to it was flooded with water. In this cave, Bin and his wife allegedly lived unnoticed for twenty-five years.

The couple eventually had eight sons, six daughters, eighteen grandchildren and fourteen granddaughters. Some children and grandchildren, according to legend, were born as a result of incest . Not having a desire for permanent work, the clan existed by means of carefully thought-out night ambushes on the side of the road, during which they patiently guarded lone travelers or small groups and, when people came close enough, attacked by surprise, robbed and killed them; since the family was large enough and always acted together, all the paths to retreat were cut off from the travelers.

The meager income from such robberies was supposedly not enough to support the increasing number of clan members, and at some point the family allegedly began to eat the bodies of their victims. After the murder, the corpses were delivered to their cave, where Bin and his family dismembered and ate them. What was not eaten right away was pickled for the future. Soon the number of their victims increased, and they began to throw some parts of the bodies of corpses that they didn’t want to eat into the neighboring sea, and it was reported that human remains were sometimes thrown out on waves at local beaches.

These remains and disappearances of people did not go unnoticed by local residents, but initially no one knew who committed these crimes. Members of the Bean clan remained in the cave during daylight hours and attacked their victims only at night. The clan was reportedly hiding so well that local peasants did not know that a family of 48 murderers and cannibals lived next to them.

When the number of disappearances became truly significant, several organized actions were undertaken to locate the perpetrators. As a result of such searches alone, the peasants reportedly approached the cannibal cave, but could not believe that people could live there. Several innocent people became victims of mob violence by angry and desperate peasants, but disappearances continued. Suspicion often fell on the local owners of the taverns, as they were often the last to see many of the missing alive.

Capture and Execution

After 25 years of a secret life full of murders, the story of the cannibal family came to an end. One night, Bean and his clan ambushed a couple returning through the forest from a local fair on one horse. The man, however, turned out to be a trained fighter, deftly fighting the clan members with his sword. His wife, however, at the beginning of the conflict, was mortally wounded by a pistol shot made by someone from the clan, and fell to the ground. After this, the man reportedly began to fight with even greater fierceness, and at that time, before the cannibals could defeat him, a large group of people returning from the fair appeared on the forest road, whose appearance forced Bin and his clan to flee.

According to other sources, they killed his wife and worker and attacked a man who had a gun; the sound of a shot attracted nearby guards who were chasing clan members to the caves, but having lost track and not found traces of the boat (it was previously believed that cannibals came from the sea), ambushed and saw the entrance to the cave at low tide

Soon after the existence of the cannibal family became known, the king of Scotland, James VI (later James I, king of England) found out about their atrocities and decided to hunt them a lot. According to reports, he assembled a detachment of 400 armed men and many hunting dogs. Soon they found Bina Bennan Head Cave. The cave was littered with human remains, being the scene of many murders and acts of cannibalism.

Clan members were captured alive and taken in chains to Tolbut Prison in Edinburgh, then transferred to Leith or Glasgow, where they were quickly executed without trial; the genitals were cut off to the men, their arms and legs were torn off, and they were left to bleed to death; women and children, after watching the clan’s men die, were burned alive.

In the city of Girvan, located not far from the alleged site of events, there is another legend about this clan of cannibals. It says that one of Bin’s daughters left the clan before being captured and settled in Girvan, where she planted the so-called “hairy tree”. After the capture of her family, her daughter's identity was established by the angry locals who hung her on the bitch of this tree. Now this tree still grows in this city on Dalrymple Street.

Regardless of whether Souni Bean’s story is true or not, the legend of him became part of British folklore. Historians doubt the reliability of this story, especially given the lack of reliable written sources, as the British researcher Sean Thomas wrote in his 2005 article on Soney Bean ^[2] . In his opinion, about events of such magnitude (both mass disappearances and the fact of solving murders) that have been committed for such a long time that, according to legend, even the king was involved, at least some reports should have remained in historical documents like diaries or newspapers that already existed, but they are still not found. Thomas also noted that there are a large number of inconsistencies in various versions of the legend, primarily regarding which king participated in the alleged raid and when the alleged cannibal family lived. It is Jacob VI who sometimes acts as the king who arranged the hunt, but other versions of the legend say that Bin lived centuries before. Thomas also questions the fact that such a large group of people could successfully hide for such a long time, and that such massive disappearances did not lead to a full investigation before. Although the last moment is partially explained by the legend itself, which says that people could not get to the cave, and when they got there, they recognized it unsuitable for life. In some versions of the legend, the inaccessibility of the cave in those times is separately noted.

There is also a version that the legend is probably the result of English anti-Scottish political propaganda after the Jacobite revolts in the beginning of the XVIII century and, accordingly, appeared only then. However, Sean Thomas disagrees with this point of view, who believes that if this story really were anti-Scottish propaganda, then it would not be printed in the catalog of predominantly English criminals, where it would be less likely to be paid special attention to.

However, it is known that during the epidemics in this area there were separate acts of cannibalism. Ayrshire is famous for its gloomy folklore, in which there are several more stories similar to the legend of the Bean clan, but recorded in earlier times. Perhaps this legend is really based on real events, which have overgrown with fantastic details and have been greatly changed, as a result of which the number of alleged killer victims in the legend has exceeded one thousand.

The legend of the cannibal family inspired several writers, musicians and filmmakers to create a number of works, in particular, Wes Craven’s film “Hills Have Eyes” is partially based on the legend.

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