Lady Garrote
a darkened mix of fantasy, reality and spirituality
netta fornario: mystery within mystery
The internet holds a number of brief accounts of the strange death of 32 year-old Netta Fornario in November 1929. Her body was found naked on the tiny tourist attraction island of Iona, near Mull in Western Scotland. Some say she was found with scratches on her feet and body wearing a black, Alpha et Omega cloak and that there was a large cross, cut in the turf, nearby. Some accounts also tell of a strange man seen at the site of her death which apparently was not at the site of a well known fairy mound as often stated, but near to a ruined village on the south side of Iona.
Netta was known as a psychic healer, medium and Green Ray (that is the Nature Ray) worker. The exact reason she went to Iona sometime between August and September, 1929, is not known nor is the reason why it was alleged by islanders that Netta started to behave very strangely on reaching the island, believing she was under some kind of psychic attack. Netta had apparently insisted that she should leave the island urgently the Sunday before her death, but when there was no boat she stated that she was staying on the island indefinitely.
I won't go in to the internet accounts in this piece as they tend to be full of holes but there is a mention of the affair in Dion Fortune's famous book 'Psychic Self Defence'. Netta had apparently offended Moina Mathers, wife of Samuel Mathers one of the founders of the Golden Dawn. However, Moina Mathers had died some time before Netta went to Iona.
Internet sources show a review that Netta wrote of a play about fairies. Netta used various names including Mac Tyler and Marie Fornario. Her father was an Italian doctor of whom, according to internet sources, she had become estranged. At the time of writing this piece, these details were all that were really written about Netta as no one else seemed to know enough nor cared to investigate further. In 2001, the Netta Fornario case was reopened by a private investigator that soon closed it again and went away.
Netta is buried on Iona with a small rough tombstone etched with the letters M E F, the initials of Marie Emily Fornario. There are some suggestions that Netta had suffered some kind of a nervous breakdown or was experiencing mental health problems at the time of her death. However, there lacks any concrete proof of this theory which is merely based on the hearsay surrounding some of the things she allegedly said to the Iona islanders on the days leading up to her death. These quotes may not be true or may have become distorted, as hearsay often does, when it is passed on from mouth to mouth. Blue lights have been seen near Netta’s grave and her ghost is also supposed to wonder its vicinity looking very sad.
The following is our own personal research and the subsequent conclusions intended to provide further insight into the Netta Fornario mystery.
Netta's real story begins some good few years earlier. Her real name was Marie, not Netta. Neither was she the Mac Tyler as known to Dion Fortune (aka Violet Firth Evans). Her middle name was Emily, after her maternal grandmother, Emily Ada Ling. Netta's mother was Norah Edith Ling and her father was Giuseppe Nicola Raimondo Fornario, a doctor from Naples, Italy. His father, Gerado, who would have been Netta's paternal grandfather, was deceased at the time of Giuseppe’s marriage to Norah on September 7, 1893. Norah was 28, Guiseppe 30 at the time of their marriage. Norah Ling was born in 1865 in Manchester, between the January and March of that year.
Dr Fornario worked as a doctor in Cairo, Egypt, and there are a number of existing articles about Dr Fornario and his medical work. In 1897, Marie Fornario (or Netta as she is commonly known), was born in Cairo. In 1898, Mrs Norah Fornario died in Christchurch, Hampshire. After his wife’s death it seems that Dr Fornario returned to Egypt, leaving his daughter in the care of her maternal grandfather, Thomas Pratt Ling, a wealthy tea dealer, and his family. Thomas Pratt Ling appears to have been a stern and single minded man who was a staunch Protestant. He engaged a governess called Jane Cole to look after little Marie (Netta) Fornario.
Thomas Pratt Ling came from a lineage of wealthy tea dealers, on his mother’s side of the family. Thomas Pratt, his grandfather, was a well known Coventry tea dealer back in 1830. Thomas Pratt Ling was born in 1836, in Norwich and is on record as having stayed at the Talbot Hotel, Bristol in 1861, being a commercial traveller dealing in tea. He gave his address as Millfield Manor House, when staying at the hotel. As an older man Thomas Pratt Ling and his family, including Netta, lived at Leigham Holme, Leigham Court Road, Streatham. His business address in 1890 was 22 Beer Lane, Great Tower Street, London EC3.
It appears that after her mother’s death, the names Edith and Norah were also incorporated into Netta’s original name of Marie Emily Fornario.
Thomas Pratt Ling and his wife Emily had a number of other children besides Netta's mother, Norah. In 1909, when Thomas Pratt Ling died aged 73, his strange will was even mentioned in a New Zealand newspaper as he stated that his granddaughter, Marie Norah Emily Edith Fornario would receive £12,000 provided that she married a Protestant man who was not one of her first cousins and she must be a UK resident and live in the Protestant faith. If she failed to carry out these instructions she would only be entitled to half the sum. At that time he had been living at Breacondale, Dorking, Surrey. The will also stated that Marie (Netta) Fornario must remain in the care of Thomas Pratt Ling's son George, her uncle, in the UK. This served as a clear display of antagonism towards Dr Fornario who more than likely was a Catholic, forcing Netta to chose between inherited money or her father’s country and faith. According to a rough guide on the internet, in those days £12,000 would buy as much as around £840,000 in today’s money.
As things turned out, Netta actually spent some time as a young adult in Italy as an Italian citizen, because on July 4, 1922, when living in Bishop Stortford, Netta was granted British citizenship having returned from Italy, as an Italian citizen! However she had managed to fall out with her father Dr Guiseppe Fornario, in the meantime.
Just when or how Netta became involved with the Occult, Moina Mathers, the Alpha et Omega or Dion Fortune, isn't entirely clear, but what is clear is that from birth she had a conflicting family background and had a desperate need to be loved and belong. Maybe in becoming a healer she was fulfilling her own inner needs to actually be needed. The Green Ray and the 'little people' may have filled the gaps in her life that genuine family love did not. Being born in Egypt, she was perhaps already closer to the mysteries than those who tried to emulate (with some success) the Egyptian magical trend associated with the Golden Dawn, as Netta was a true Egyptian, having been born in Cairo, something her Occult temple contemporaries could only dream of and something that may have caused bad feeling amongst them.
As far as thinking she could heal people, as Netta's father was a doctor, it would not be unusual for her to have learned some of his skills even if this was in an unofficial capacity. In her earnest desire to help she may have trodden on other people's toes or ventured on to their perceived territory without realising she was making enemies as well as friends.
It is strange that neither Netta's father nor her other relatives did not have Netta's body taken to London or Italy for burial and that they allowed a very hasty burial on the island of Iona. It could be argued that as Iona was a religious island being associated with Saint Columba that Netta’s relatives thought it was seemly for her to be buried there, but as Iona was obviously an island where Netta herself experienced some inner as well as external torment, it was not the kindest venue for her final resting place and surely her relatives would have been aware of this.
Netta was said to have had long dark hair worn in plaits, been a vegetarian and worn alternative clothing, not following the fashions of the time. She was also partial to wearing silver jewellery.
