Wilfrid Wilson Gibson published his poem 'Flannan Isle' in 1912, twelve years after the event. It is a literary work and makes no claim to be a report. It gave the story its table laid for dinner and its sense of three men taken in an instant. Later writers took the poem's details as evidence and added a storm log to match. Sources still differ on small physical details: the History Extra account says a chair was found toppled, while the Wikipedia article, drawing on Dash and on Moore's statement, treats the dinner and chair as poetic additions.
There are also the supernatural and monstrous explanations that have collected around the case. A ghost ship, sometimes called the Phantom of the Seven Hunters after the islands' old nickname, is said to have lured the men. Others have suggested a giant sea serpent, a giant seabird, abduction by spies, or a fight between the keepers. History Extra lists these as unsupported. None has any evidence behind it. The Muirhead report remains the only official finding.
This record is kept as folklore about a real tragedy. The embroidery tells us more about how stories grow than about the island.
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