Close to the town of Aberfoyle in the heart of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, sits the Lake of Menteith (the only lake in Scotland, all other sizeable bodies of water and known as Lochs). There are three islands in the lake, and on the largest, the ruins of Inchmahome Priory can be found.
Dating back to the year 1238, the priory was established by a small community of Augustinian canons, founded by Walter Comyn., the Earl of Menteith and Lord of Badenoch. The Earl’s castle was situated on one of the smaller islands in the lake and, as one of the most powerful men in Scotland at the time, he no doubt enjoyed the peace and relative safety his island home offered, which is one of the main reasons the larger island was chosen for the construction of the priory.
For over three hundred years, the priory provided the tranquil lifestyle the canons sought, and a place of safety for significant royal figures, including King Robert the Bruce, who spent time on the island in 1305, 1308 and 1310. King Robert II also sought sanctuary there in 1358 and in 1547, after the defeat of the Scots at the Battle of Pinkie, the infant Mary, Queen of Scots, was brought to the priory by her mother, Mary of Guise, for her safety prior to being taken to France.
The Protestant Reformation in Scotland saw the demise of the priory around 1560 and although ownership of the island passed through several distinguished families over the centuries, with no canons to occupy the buildings they soon started to fall into a state of disrepair until 1926, when they were placed under the care of the State, with the ruins now being maintained by Historic Scotland.
The area is rich in Faerie-Lore, with the Earl of Meneith believed to have been in possession of a Faerie book, known as The Red Book. The book was sealed with a clasp and legend has it that, whether through curiosity or by accident, the Earl opened the book and was drawn to read from it. As soon as he did so, a group of Faeries appeared to him and demanded that they be set to work. They completed every task effortlessly and in a matter of minutes resulting in the Earl becoming exhausted at their persistent demands. He instructed them to build a roadway to connect the islands to the mainland from sand, a task he thought would be impossible, and while the faeries were successful in forming a strip of land from the shore, it was not a rapid task and so it gave the Earl the opportunity to think how he might rid himself of the Faeries that he had released to the world.
With the newly constructed land rising from the waters and approaching the islands, he offered the Faeries a deal where he would gift them an area of land on the side of Ben Venue, a nearby mountain, as a meeting place in return for them leaving him in peace. The faeries accepted the offer and the area became known as Coire nan Uruisgean, meaning the corrie (a round hollow in a hillside) of the goblins.
The peninsula which they are said to have constructed remains today, jutting out into the lake from the south side and coming perilously close to connecting the island on which the priory is situated to the surrounding land, serving as a reminder as to how close the idyllic island came to losing its status as an isolated haven due to the Earl’s misdemeanour.
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