Ellen's Isle


(Eilean Molach)

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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Ellen's Isle or Eilean Molach, an islet of Callander parish, Perthshire, towards the foot of Loch Katrine, immediately opposite Ben Venue. Highly romantic in appearance, craggy and wooded, it is the centre of the action of Sir Walter Scott's Lady of the Lake; and it contained, for some time, a modern sylvan lodge like that described in the poem, decorated with trophies of the chase and fray, but destroyed by accidental fire in 1837. Together with the surrounding shores, aided by the strong natural defences of the circumjacent ravines and mountains, it long served as a fastness of Highland caterans in their marauding expeditions against the Lowlanders.—Ord. Sur., sh. 38, 1871.

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer

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