Loch Cluny

Loch Cluny was named after Cluny Macpherson. It is a man-made loch, but I think it really adds to the natural beauty of the mountains around it.

Cluny Macpherson was one of the soldiers who fought with Bonnie Prince Charlie against the British monarchy. When they lost the battle, most of them fled the highlands for their own safety (the British were killing and torturing just about whoever they could get their hands on) but Cluny was an old guy, around 60, and he didn't feel like leaving.

So he took up residence in the caves and apparently Bonnie Prince Charlie gave him a significant amount of gold to get information and keep tabs on the British (no one's ever found the gold, by the way, it's still in those caves).

Cluny was ok living in the caves, but he got lonely... so he would kidnap redcoat soldiers to play cards with him. The scared little redcoat would have his blindfold untied only to see a huge, scary Highland Chieftain in a cave in front of him. And so they'd play poker.

And while they played (and Cluny literally won everything from the Redcoats, including their money, clothes, horse and saddle) he would extract information, like where they were going, how many men they were fighting with, who they were meeting, what kind of condition their regiment was in.

After the redcoat lost everything, he would be blindfolded again. Cluny didn't kill them, not necessarily because he was a nice old man (although I like to believe he was), but because he knew that it wasn't really their choice to fight. The British Army was made up of a lot of conscripts and he also knew that they had families and children waiting for them.

So he blindfolded them and left them in the nearest village. And when the scared (and naked) little redcoat got up enough courage to take off his blindfold, he would find his clothes neatly folded in a pile in front of him, usually with some buttermilk or cheese to help him on his way back to his regiment. Cluny kept everything else he won from the redcoats, although sometimes he would leave the horse's saddle, just to add insult to injury, so that the red coat would have to haul the heavy saddle (without the horse) to his regiment, with his story of kidnap.

Like I said earlier, the Loch was man-made, and it's actually on top of a village. On days when the water is shallower, you can see the top of the church spire of the village the sad little redcoats were left in.