There is mist on the mountain and night on the vale, But more dark is the sleep of the sons of the Gael
But the Pass of Aberfoyle has scenes of real history to tell as well as those of fiction. General Monk led his men through it after addressing a letter to the Earl of Airth, desiring him to have the woods in certain districts of Aberfoyle cut down, because they were “grete shelters to the rebels and mossers.”
In the pass, also, the Earl of Glencairn and Graham of Duchray defeated some of the Cromwellian soldiers, and, adds Mr. Cunninghame Graham in recounting the incident, “Graham of Duchray no doubt fought all the better because the Cromwellians had burnt his house the night before the action, in order to show him that it was unwise to attach too much importance to mere houses built with hands.”
Aberfoyle is supposed to be peculiarly haunted by the “little folk”—_i.e._, the fairies—a reputation it gained from a seventeenth-century minister, who was supposed to be in league with them. He is frequently mentioned by Scott, and the fairy knowe, opposite the hotel, on which he sank down dead, called back to the fairyland he loved so well, is still pointed out. He,
When the roaring Garry ran Red with the life-blood of Dundee, When coats were turning, crowns were falling, Wandered along his valley still, And heard their mystic voices calling From fairy knowe and haunted hill.
Not less interesting than the west side is the country lying east of Aberfoyle, where, at about an equal distance, is the lake of Menteith. As significant of the wildness of the place in bygone days, we may note that one Earl of Menteith declared war against “all but the kinge and those of the name of Grahame.” Menteith was from earliest times one of the five great districts into which Scotland was divided. The Earls of Menteith (Grahams) were ever at feud with the warlike Macgregors, and, as often happens, the feuds raged worst just on the borders of the Highlands, where men might attack and retreat in safety, knowing every track which led into their wild fastnesses.
The lake of Menteith is about two miles by one, and it is curious to note this is the only _lake_ in Scotland. On it is an island, where the Earls had their residence. Another island, called Inchmahone, is, however, more interesting still. The word means “Isle of Rest,” and such it was found by the monks who lived here in ages long gone past. Ruins are left, a moulded doorway, a fine monument, to tell of their occupation, but “gone are the Augustinian monks who built the stately island church. Out of the ruined chancel grows a plane-tree, which is almost ripe. In the branches rooks have built their nests, and make as cheerful matins as perhaps the monks themselves. The giant chestnuts, grown, as tradition says, from chestnuts brought from Rome, are all stag-headed. Ospreys used to build in them in the memory of those still living. Gone are the ‘Riders of Menteith’ (if they ever existed); the ruggers and the reivers are at one with those they harried. The Grahams and Macgregors, the spearmen and the jackmen, the hunters and the hawkers, the livers by their spurs, the luckless Earls of Menteith and their retainers, are buried and forgotten, and the tourist cracks his biscuit and his jest over their tombs” (Cunninghame Graham).