Invoking mermaids

by Feòrag

Cornwall: Andrew Ian Dodge draws my attention to a news story with the words He was into the occult and he was murdered so...let's make assumptions!. It would be hard to improve on that summary.

Peter Solheim was a parish councillor, and a father of three, and his body was pulled out of the sea by fishermen two weeks ago. There are discrepancies between where his body and his dinghy were found, which leads police to suspect foul play. But the clincher is that he was a druid, and was a bit weird.

He joined a druid sect in St Merryn, Cornwall, several years ago and took part in rituals such as dancing around stone circles. A member said: It became clear that he wanted to go into areas that everyone else felt uncomfortable with. He was always making knives and swords.

And he was a bit of a loner, something which concerned someone calling themselves the arch-druid of Cornwall, who insisted that there's something odd about solitary neopagans.

Ed Prynn, the arch-druid of Cornwall, said: Pagan worship is meant to be a shared experience but he went off on his own to do it.

The arch-druid demonstrated the in-depth knowledge that earned him his title when he spoke to the BBC: I always teach people not to dabble with the occult, the darker side. Clearly a definition of occult gleaned from loony fundie nonsense.

This is, of course, from reasonably sober news sources. What about the tabloids? Well, as far as they're concerned, he was a Satanist. The Daily Mirror shouts

A MURDERED father of three was obsessed with Satanism and cast frightening black magic spells, friends said yesterday...

One sect member said: He became involved with Satanism and liked to perform lone rituals. He was always making knives and swords. We worried about him.

None of which helps determine if he was killed, or just got washed off his boat.

Drowned man linked to occult - Daily Telegraph, 2nd July 2004; Occult link to drowned councillor - BBC News, 2nd July 2004; 'SATANIC SPELLS' OF DEAD DAD - Daily Mirror, 2nd July 2004.