The disaster is real and the number of dead differs between sources. Miller says thirty six, Mackenzie about forty, so I give both. Mackenzie adds that gentry in niches were saved, that the preacher was spared when the sounding board fell on the pulpit, and that attendance was lower than usual because a new congregation had started at Cadboll. The mermaid is Miller's folk addition, a washing of death clothes that foretells the dead.
The washing of bloodied clothes by a female spirit before a death is a familiar omen in Celtic lore, sometimes in the form of the washer at the ford.
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