We have been following in the wake of St. Columba since we left Iona. His career was notable for bringing Christianity to mainland Scotland, first to the Gaels of Argyll and then to the native Picts further east. He crossed Scotland from west to east following the Great Glen, a natural route-way from the earliest times and one later developed by the great engineer Thomas Telford when the Caledonian Canal was constructed in the opening decades of the nineteenth century.
When Columba reached a mid-way point crossing Loch Ness he found he needed an interpreter as the language had changed from Gaelic to Pictish. He converted the Pictish ruler who had his hill-fort beside the loch at Urquart then moved on to Inverness where he converted the powerful Pictish king Brude, convincing him to follow Christ—his druid, as he helpfully explained. Loch Ness is the largest fresh water lake in Britain. The first reference to its famous monster, Nessie, comes from an early life of Columba who is said to have commanded a monster impeding the progress of the Christian faith across the lake to descend into its depths. We crossed the lake in misty conditions but with good views of Urquart Castle, a ruined Norman stronghold that speaks eloquently to the strategic significance of Loch Ness in times past.
In the afternoon, from our final berth in Muirtown Basin, Inverness, we visited the award-winning Culloden Battlefield Visitor Centre, with its superb interpretative exhibit and the heather moor itself, now coming into bloom, to walk and explore. It was here in April 1746 that the Jacobite cause was crushed by government forces ushering in a generation of punitive polices directed at treacherous, Catholic Gaels in the highlands and islands of Scotland. We then moved on to Clava Cairns, a late Neolithic/early bronze age site containing solar-oriented burial cairns and megalithic monuments.
Our evening ended with a farewell Scottish dinner, including a course of haggis piped in by a kilted bagpiper who stayed on to accompany an after-dinner demonstration by members of the Fraser School of Highland Dancing.
