Cruachan

Ancient cosmologies swirled around the lochs and mountains for millennia, long before and even after Columba, Moluag, Brendan and Maelrubha brought the Word of God to the Highlands. At twenty-five miles, the longest in Scotland, Loch Awe was not made when the terranes collided or when the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. It came about by divine accident.

One night the Queen of the Winter, the Storm Hag, lay fast asleep, warm under her plaid, near the top of Ben Cruachan, the great mountain of Argyll that glowers over Loch Awe. Known by another name, The Cailleach of Ben Cruachan, the queen had washed her plaid in the great whirlpool of Corrievreckan before flying through the darkling sky to seek her rest. She liked to lie down by a spring that bubbled up out of the screes near the summit of the mountain she had made.

Before her eyes closed, the Hag of Cruachan usually capped the spring with a stone. But one night, exhausted by her flight over sea and land, she forgot to lay on the heavy boulder. The spring gushed down the mountainside and Loch Awe was born. And much later, in the real world, engineers harnessed the power of myth to create magic of a modern sort, converting geography into electricity.