The Tale of The Trossachs
or what happened when Ben Lomond took the Low Road
You may not be familiar with Trossachs. If so, lucky you.
The only place where Trossachs can survive is their National Park, the one that looms over Loch Lomond where the Lowlands of Scotland meet the Highlands. That’s probably best for all of us.
Trossachs are cunning little beasts who keep their spears sharp and their teeth sharper. They’re quick to take offence, fight given the flimsiest of excuses and hold grudges for generations.
All except one.
Ben Lomond was a special Trossach; as grandson of his tribe’s Chieftain, he was expected to become a great warrior hero. Ben, however, couldn’t see the point of fighting and instead of honing his skills at every opportunity, went to great lengths to avoid spear-throwing practice.
‘Let’s away to Inchmurrin,’ he urged his friend Fillan. ‘We can hide there and let everyone think we’re training.’
The island of Inchmurrin lies in the middle of Loch Lomond. Like a sleeping baby watched over by doting parents, it nestles in the water between two shoulders of mountain ridge. Western Trossachs live on one bank of the loch and Eastern Trossachs on the other. Mostly, the two tribes simply shake their fists at each other from a safe distance, but every now and then they cross paths. The result is always messy.
One summer afternoon, Ben and Fillan rode porpoises from their home on the Western shore across the water to Inchmurrin, wading through the island’s shallows to catch their breath on the beach.
It was there that love caught Ben by surprise in the form of Bonnie, a particularly crabbit Trossach. Singing tunelessly and kicking stones, she ambled along the waterline, stooping now and again to pick up small glass pebbles. She was dumpy even for a Trossach, her knobbly nose twisted from beneath a shaggy fringe and her eyes didn’t so much shine as glint with guile. Ben was utterly entranced.
‘She’s… she’s…’
Trossachs are not known for their eloquence, and all Ben could manage was to jab Fillan with his elbow.
‘Eastern, that’s what she is,’ grumbled Fillan, rubbing sore ribs. ‘Don’t even think about it.’
Ben didn’t think. He acted on impulse, jumping up and scampering towards Bonnie over the rocks. Bonnie looked up in alarm and, so he wouldn’t think she was scared, bared her teeth at him.
Ben skidded to a halt, chuckling. The breeze carried the sound to Fillan’s ears, and the young Trossach winced. For a moment he considered aiming his spear at Bonnie, but it was already too late to save his friend.
Bonnie lifted her nose in the air, spun on her horny heel and flounced into the woods. Downcast, Ben trudged back to Fillan. The pair had planned to spend the afternoon foraging for wild raspberries, but Fillan could see his friend had no appetite. Wedging Ben’s spear between two rocks, he bent the head to such an angle that training with it would be impossible, which gave them an excuse to head home early.
Ben found himself drawn back to Inchmurrin over the following days, and soon spied Bonnie on the beach as before. Determined not to startle her this time, he sauntered slowly, humming the Western Trossachs’ anthem so she would hear his approach. When they were very close, he stopped and feigned surprise.
‘Crivens, fancy meeting you again!’
Bonnie rewarded his efforts with a swift punch on the nose before skipping gleefully away. Ben howled and retreated to share his woes with Fillan, who nodded gravely.
‘That, my friend, is a sure sign she’s smitten.’
Emboldened by Fillan’s wisdom, Ben waited until his nose stopped throbbing and returned once more to Inchmurrin, where he found Bonnie looking out for him. She turned her back when she saw him, but this time plopped her plump little body on the shingle. Ben squatted beside her.
‘Look, we’re probably both risking a gralloching here,’ he said, knotting his eyebrows into a deep frown, ‘but it’s not your fault you’re Eastern and it’s not my fault I like you. So, what shall we do?’
Bonnie rose, rolled her eyes and prepared to swing at him again. This time, however, Ben was on his guard and ducked before she could land a blow. Bonnie gave a delighted hoot and twisted her torso, kicking out with a stubby foot. Ben hooked his bent spear around her ankle and Bonnie tumbled, pulling him down with her. Soon they were scuffling, limbs akimbo, each trying to overcome the other until eventually Bonnie sat astride Ben, pinning him to the shingle.
‘That your best effort?’ she scoffed.
‘You’re still here, aren’t you?’ he countered, grinning.
Bonnie shrugged, let him go and picked up her basket of pebbles.
‘I’m very busy beachcombing today,’ she sniffed, ‘but if you promise not to bite, I’ll let you walk with me.’
Ben scrambled to his feet, and they set off together. Beachcombing was the last thing on their minds.
The next few weeks passed in a blissful blur of squabbles, tussles and chuckles, until the moment Ben had been dreading for years arrived. His grandfather Chieftain Munro, a bitter old warrior, called a gathering of the Western Trossachs to a headland overlooking Loch Lomond. He wafted his arm towards the opposite shore.
‘See how the water sparkles on the Eastern bank?’ The Chieftain tapped the side of his gnarly nose. ‘Our auld enemies must have amassed a vast haul of diamonds. They think to hide them from us by sprinkling them beneath the waves, but I see through their sleekit ways.’ He scanned the crowd, looking for Ben. ‘Who will stage a daring raid and steal those gems to fill our coffers?’
Ben stared hard at the ground and tried to melt into the crowd, but Fillan stepped forward, pulling Ben with him. Chieftain Munro raised his spear in salute.
‘Snatch those diamonds, young Ben and Fillan, slay all who challenge you and return triumphant,’ he commanded.
Ben drooped. He didn’t want to be a hero; he wanted to marry Bonnie. Stealing treasure from her tribe and killing a few of her relatives in the process was no way to persuade her to spend the rest of her life with him. When they were alone, Ben confided his worries to Fillan, who offered little sympathy.
‘Thieving’s like fighting. It’s low, and it’s what we do. It’s our route to fame and fortune!’
‘I’d rather be famous for taking the high road.’
Fillan pulled a face.
‘Work out how to do that, and you’re a better Trossach than me.’
Ben took himself to the top of the headland, hunkered into the heather, and waited for inspiration. Gazing out over the loch, his eyes traced the rugged terrain that swept down one mountainside, disappeared into the water, and rose up the other in perfect symmetry. Between them, Inchmurrin seemed to reach out, connecting the two halves.
Understanding settled around Ben’s shoulders like a cloak; somehow, under the guise of an act of war, he must find a way to unite the quarrelsome tribes. As the sun set, his frustration subsided, replaced by a calm as still as the water’s surface. He would follow his Chieftain’s orders but use the raid to search for an opportunity to bring about peace.
Later that evening, under cover of darkness, Ben and Fillan once again crawled onto the backs of porpoises and endured a wet and chilly ride across the loch. As they approached the opposite shore, they flung out fine nets behind them to haul in the diamonds and were puzzled to find the nets empty when they landed.
‘Maybe they bring the diamonds in at night,’ said Fillan. ‘Come to think of it, we’ve only ever seen them sparkle in daytime.’
Ben’s shoulders sagged.
‘We can’t go back without those diamonds. We’ll have to hunt for them.’
Just then, the point of a spear thudded into the sand between Ben and Fillan, and before they knew what was happening, Eastern Trossachs emerged from between tussocks of grass, and seized them.
Ben and Fillan were bundled up the beach and into a cave, where they were left in a heap, tied back-to-back with strands of damp seaweed. Their captors stood back to admire their handiwork, rubbing meaty palms together in satisfaction.
‘Just you wait ‘til morning,’ jeered the hairiest of them. ‘The Chieftain will pull out your teeth, and use them to clean his toenails. He’ll make haggis of your innards, and eat it for breakfast. Then he’ll chop off your fingers, and bake them into a pie to send to your grieving relatives.’
‘Aye,’ sneered his friend, poking at their feet with his spear. ‘You can kiss goodbye to those itty-bitty toes, too. He’ll string them on nettle cord to hang around his neck.’
They departed, sniggering, leaving a guard outside the cave in case Ben and Fillan tried to escape. The two young Trossachs struggled in vain to break their bonds until exhaustion overtook them and they sat staring into the darkness.
‘I knew this was a bad idea,’ mithered Ben.
‘If I could biff you now, I would’, said Fillan. ‘What else could we have done?
‘It doesn’t matter. It’s too late now.’
‘If we die horribly tomorrow…’ began Fillan.
‘When we die…’ corrected Ben.
Fillan ignored him. ‘You can be sure Chieftain Munro will avenge our deaths. There’ll be an almighty skirmish in our names. Just imagine it: the Battle of Ben and Fillan!’
The thought seemed to soothe Fillan but did little to cheer Ben. Soon Fillan’s head slumped onto his chest, and he began snoring loudly. Poor Ben spent the rest of the night wriggling to try and make him stop, growing crosser and crosser.
As dawn began to break, and Ben and Fillan steeled themselves for their fate, a tuneless voice seeped through the early morning mist into the cave. It stopped abruptly when the caterwauler was challenged by the guard at the entrance. There was a loud thump, and then a familiar form materialised before Ben, clutching a basket.
‘I heard we’d captured two dafties,’ said Bonnie, squatting on her haunches so they were eye to eye. ‘What were you thinking?’
Shame-faced, Ben explained their predicament, and Bonnie laughed so hard she had to put down the basket to hold her sides.
‘You bampots! Don’t you know it’s sunshine that makes the sparkles? From our side of the loch, it looks as though you’re the ones awash with diamonds.’ She started to unravel the fronds of seaweed that held them captive. ‘It’s lucky I came along, or you’d have been fish food. I can free you, but you’ll have to go home empty-handed.’
‘Maybe not…’ said Ben, eyeing the contents of Bonnie’s basket. ‘What are these?’
‘They’re the sea glass pebbles I collect from the beach. They don’t look much dry, but put them in water and they’ll—’
She stopped, seeing the sudden gleam in Ben’s eyes.
‘Sparkle?’
Bonnie nodded, and Ben snatched up the basket.
‘My friends, I’ve just had an idea.’
Ben laid out his plan, and while he and Fillan escaped homewards across the loch, Bonnie approached her Chieftain, a wily old Trossach named Taggart.
‘See how clever I am,’ she announced. ‘I gave those Westerners a basket of sea glass pebbles, and told them they were diamonds harvested from our stash in the loch. They’ve gone away happy and promised never to try and loot our stocks again.’
Chieftain Taggart harrumphed but tried to hide his disappointment.
‘Those nabbers deserved a slow and painful death’, he groused. ‘Still, you did well to hoodwink our enemy, little Bonnie.’ He hobbled away to sulk on a rock.
On the other side of the loch, a puzzled Chieftain Munro was staring into a basket of smooth round glass pebbles.
‘They’re rough diamonds,’ explained Ben. ‘You have to get them wet to see their full glory.’
He called for a cup of water, dropped in a few of the pebbles and lifted them in his dripping palm towards a shaft of sunlight, where they glistened for all to see.
The surrounding Trossachs cooed, impressed.
Chieftain Munro gasped in wonder. Not for a second had he expected Ben and Fillan to return home with real diamonds.
‘Name your prize, young Ben,’ he said solemnly.
‘I claim a wedding’, announced Ben to the crowd. ‘To Bonnie Taggart, a Trossach of the East.’
The Western Trossachs fell quiet at this, but Ben continued.
‘The wedding will be held on the island of Inchmurrin, and our union will represent peace between East and West.’
With great reluctance, he was granted his wish. Ben and Bonnie were married on Inchmurrin, and for a day at least, hostilities between the two tribes were suspended. Munro spent the ceremony thinking contentedly of his basket of stolen diamonds while Taggart wore the smug smile of a Trossach who knows his enemies are mere fools.
Did everyone live happily ever after? The Trossach Chieftains soon forgot their truce and slipped back into sniping at each other, so they were content. As for Ben and Bonnie, while they certainly loved each other, they were still Trossachs, so bickered at every opportunity. Fillan teased them, saying they deserved each other. There was plenty of laughter too though, and their spats never lasted long.
Ben Lomond may have set off on the low road to win Bonnie’s hand, but he was heartily glad he’d taken the high road home.
Claire Jaggard
Claire Jaggard is a broadcast and online journalist.
She started writing for pleasure as well as work when her boys left home and was delighted to reach the Final 10 at Stroud Short Stories within a few months. Since then she’s had stories published in anthologies and online, as well as broadcast on local community and BBC radio stations.
She’s currently researching ways to commit murder for her first mystery novel.
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