“So ye'll tak the high road, and I'll tak the low road,
An' I'll be in Scotland before ye:
But me and my true love will never meet again,
By the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond."
Loch Lomond looms large in the imaginations of the people of Scotland. It’s a huge loch, twenty-two miles long and five miles wide at its largest point. It houses sixty islands (as well as a lake monster of its own, but we’ll get to that in a minute) and is the subject of the famous song heard at the end of nearly every Scottish wedding, “The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond”. The song tells the story of a Jacobite soldier who lays down his life in the name of Scotland and Bonnie Prince Charlie. He tells his lover that they will never meet again on the banks of the loch, for he will be taking the “low road” back to Scotland. In Celtic mythology, the low road is the one the spirits of the dead take to their final resting place.
Suppose you want to see the bonnie, bonnie banks for yourself and aren’t necessarily willing to participate in a Jacobite uprising. There are many other wonderful walks you can take around the loch. The West Highland Way goes right through the Trossachs National Park and along the banks of Loch Lomond. The entire walk is 154km/96m from Milngavie to Fort William and takes a little over a week, but the walk from Drymen to Balmaha is under 13km/8m and only takes about three hours. The walk is peaceful and steeped in the beauty of the landscape. At the end, you can take a detour up Conic Hill and get breathtaking views of the entire area.
While up Conic Hill, look to the northeast. There’s an entrance to Fairyland there, hidden in the trunk of the Scots pine tree. In the 17th century, the folklorist Reverend Kirk spent many years collecting folktales from the villages around Loch Lomond. This kind of snooping into the doings of fairies (and by a churchman, no less!) attracted the attention of the fae folk. Legend has it that when the Reverend passed away, the church put out a story of a peaceful death to cover up the fact that the man had disappeared, stolen away to Fairyland. It begs the question: what did he discover that the fairies would not suffer to be told?
Once you have reached the aforementioned bonnie banks, you may decide to take a rest and gaze into the depths of the loch. It’s the second-largest lake in the UK by volume. The first is the deep and dark Loch Ness. Like Loch Ness, Loch Lomond has its own water-dwelling creature. Each-Uisge is a water monster closely related to the famous kelpies. It is widely renowned as far more dangerous even than the kelpies, and its one weakness is pure silver. It can take the form of a horse, a serpent, or a handsome man. So, while you might be trying to live your Outlander fantasy on the water’s edge, be sure to whip any handy silver coins you’ve got in your pocket at men in the water. You can never be too careful.
By Frankie Regalia, Storyteller, Craft Workshop Instructor, and editor of Folkloric: a Magazine of New Folklore.