Campbell's informant was very positive he had seen one himself, a blue man with a long grey face, floating from the waist up out of the water, who followed his boat for a long time and sometimes came near enough to touch. The Blue Men were unknown in Argyll, where Campbell worked, which marks them as a northern belief.
The Blue Men are the best known of the Minch spirits, and are associated with the strong tidal races between Lewis, Harris and Skye. A later explanation, put forward by Donald A. Mackenzie in the early twentieth century, linked them to Norse-era slaves from North Africa, but that is a modern rationalisation and not part of Campbell's account. The Shiants are privately owned and have been in the Nicolson family since 1937.
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