Alexander "Sawney" Bean was born near Edinburgh sometime during the reign James VI of Scotland (James I of England). He was the son of a "hedger and ditcher". He initially followed in his father's footsteps, but soon found that hard work and an honest living weren't things that suited him particularly well. So, along with a woman of similar leanings, he fled to County Galloway, where he and his "wife" took up residence in a cave along the shore. In the years following, they had many children, who went on to produce even more grandchildren (all inbred).

Living in a cave and having an aversion to honest work, Alexander and his family needed some way to support themselves. So they settled upon what, for them, seemed the perfect occupation: robbing passers-by. And while they were by no means conventionally intelligent, they did possess a level of ruthless cunning, demonstrated by their solutions to several problems. They of course didn't want to be caught, so they made certain that every one of their victims was in no position to tell the tale, in other words, dead. And to prevent any of them from getting away, the Beans set up their ambushes so that every possible means of escape was blocked. But it was the solution they devised for the last problem which was the most ruthless and gruesome.

With such a quickly growing family, Alexander needed some way to feed them all. Conveniently enough, their nightly activities provided them with a large source of food, namely human flesh. So not only did they rob and kill their victims, but they then dragged the remains back to the cave. They would then dismember the bodies, eating some of them, pickling the rest. In fact, because of their proficiency in their horrible work, there was often a surplus which they would throw into the sea. There are numerous accounts of people during that time making the macabre discovery of severed limbs and other body parts washed up on the shore.

It is not known exactly how long the Beans continued their murderous, cannibalistic spree, but it was estimated that during that time they killed close to one thousand people. Obviously, this didn't go unnoticed by the residents nearby, but the perpetrators remained unknown because the Beans' existence wasn't known. They kept to their cave and their own company during the day, and no one they met during the night lived to tell the tale. Several nearby innkeepers were even wrongly executed after being accused of committing the crimes.

Their reign of terror came to an end due to bad luck on this grotesque family's part. One night during the 17th century, they attacked a man and wife who were returning on horseback from a fair. When the Beans set upon them, the husband was able to hold them off for quite some time, possessing the advantage of being on horseback and having a sword, but they were eventually able to knock his wife off the horse. They set upon and killed her instantly. The same fate would have almost certainly befallen the husband, but the Beans were forced to retreat when a large party of people coming from the same fair arrived on the scene.

With the Beans' existence now revealed, a large party was formed to search the surrounding area. Led by the King himself, and made up of about four hundred men (along with several bloodhounds), they soon found the cave. Filled with the combined legacy of years of robbery (mounds of possessions and human remains), the "living quarters" of the cave must have resembled something from the pen of Stephen King or Clive Barker. The "posse" captured the Beans and transferred them to Glasgow, where they were promptly executed without the benefit (some might say the "waste") of a trial.

At final count, Alexander "Sawney" Bean's troupe consisted of himself, his wife, eight sons, six daughters, eighteen grand-sons, and fourteen grand-daughters. Sawney and the rest of the adult males in his family were dismembered and allowed to bleed to death, while the women and children were all burned at the stake. A fitting end, many would say. At one time, there was even a play written and performed about their attrocities; Sawney Bean, the Cannibal. There was also a book, written by Ronald Holmes; The Legend of Sawney Bean. The cave which served as their lair still exists today.

SBB, October 1999