// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
Why does the legend of Sawney Bean and Scotland's cannibal clan persist?
The legend of Sawney Bean and his family has been passed through generation after generation
A clan of cannibals preying on unwary travellers brings to mind horror films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Hills Have Eyes.
However hundreds of years before Leatherface ever revved up his chainsaw, similar gruesome tales were being spoken of in Scotland.
The legend of Sawney Bean and his family has chilled generations, telling of a murderous family who attacked and then devoured people passing near a hidden cave on the South Ayrshire coast.
Whether Bean and his relatives ever actually existed is another matter, and still provokes different opinions to this day.
"The first records of the Sawney Bean we know came in the 18th Century and originated in England," says Dr Gordon McKelvie, a lecturer in history at the University of Winchester who has written about the subject, external.
"I'm not saying there were never any cannibals in Scotland, but all these stories are written years after the alleged events happened and it feels almost safe, because 'oh, this all happened years in the past' not the here and now.
"The stories probably come from various local legends being repackaged and it was like fan fiction, where people added their own details as it went along."
The most common version of the legend has Bean born and growing up in East Lothian, but deciding to shun an honest living and moving to South Ayrshire with a woman.
Using a well-hidden cave on the coast, Bean and his family - which in some accounts of the tale number dozens - murdered passing travellers using the highway between Girvan and Ballentrae, before eating them. It was something described luridly in old tales.