“The refuge tower grey
Looked down the mighty gulf’s profound defile.”
The little castellated isle of “Fràoch Elan” lies at a short distance
from Inishail, and was the refuge hold of the Mac Nauchtans. It was
given to the chief, Gilbert Mac Nauchtan, by Alexander III. in the year
1276, and was held by the tenure of entertaining the king whenever he
should pass Loch Awe. The original charter of the grant was lately in
possession of Mr. Campbell of Auchlian, and a copy is to be found in
“Sir James Balfour’s Collection of Scottish Charters.” The islet of
“Fràoch Elan” is in summer the most beautiful in Scotland. On one side
the rock rises almost perpendicular from the water. The lower part and
the shore is embowered in tangled shrubs and old writhing trees. Above,
the broken wall and only remaining gable of the castle looks out over
the boughs; and on the north side a large ash-tree grows from the
foundation of what was once the hall, and overshadows the ruin with its
branches. Some of the window-niches are yet entire in the keep, and one
of these peeping through the tops of the trees, shows a view of fairie
beauty over the waters of the lake, and the woody banks of the opposite
coast. In the summer, Fràoch Elan, like most of the islands in Loch Awe,
is the haunt of a variety of gulls and wild fowl. They come from the
sea-coast, a distance of twenty-four miles, to build and hatch their
young. At this season, sheldrakes, grey gulls, kitaweaks, white ducks,
teal, widgeon, and divers, abound in the Loch. Fràoch Elan is chiefly
visited by the gulls, which hold the isle in joint tenure with a
water-eagle who builds annually upon the top of the remaining chimney.
It is not very long since this beautiful isle has been delivered over to
these inhabitants; for a great aunt of a neighbouring gentleman was born
in the castle, and in “the forty-five,” preparations were privately made
there for entertaining the prince had he passed by Loch Awe.
From the name of Fràoch Elan some have erroneously, and without any
authority of tradition, assigned it as the dragon’s isle,[227] in the
ancient Gaëlic legend of “Fràoch and the daughter of Mey.” There is, in
truth, no farther relation between one and the other, than in a
resemblance of name between the island and the warrior. The island of
the tale was called “Elan na Bheast,” the Monster’s Isle, and the lake
in which it lay was named Loch Luina. This is still remembered to have
been the ancient appellation of Loch Avich, a small lake about two miles
north of Loch Awe. There is here a small islet yet called “Elan na
Bheast,” and the tradition of the neighbourhood universally affirms,
that it was the island of the legend.