Wester Loch Ewe History
Attribution: Unknown (The wishing-tree on Isle Maree, Loch Maree)
Myths and Legends
Miss Maggie Mackenzie remembers a local story that “a dog used to come out of the loch when people were passing at night and walk around their feet”. This superstition came from the fact that a local woman from Badaninneal was drowned in the loch, and local people thought the dog was the devil.
Miss Mackenzie recalls another local story associated with the loch. “A local woman was walking along the road beside the loch and she saw a blanket or covering of some sort in front of her. She recited the first two lines of the 24th. Psalm ‘The earth belongs unto the Lord, and all that it contains’ and the blanket vanished.”
Two men, John Macpherson, Opinan, and Duncan Macpherson, Porthenderson, were drowned in the loch on the 12th of Janurary, 1940, when John Macpherson’s car went into the loch. John Macpherson was a insurance agent and was on his way to Gairloch to collect his mail on the Saturday evening, rather than have to wait for the next delivery on the Monday.
[Contributed by Miss Maggie MacKenzie, Sunnyside, Gairlocha
Loch Bad na h-achlaise from front of the former poor house. Attribution: unknown
The wishing-tree on Isle Maree, Loch Maree
Tradition has it that a visitor landing on Isle Maree who attached any metal article to this tree and at the same time made a silent wish, would have it realised. It is said that if any one removes an offering that has been fixed in the tree, some misfortune, probably the taking fire of the house of the desecrator, is sure to follow.
The wishing-tree on Isle Maree, Loch Maree. Attribution: unknown
Statistical Accounts
On the 25 May 1790, Sir John Sinclair, Baronet of Ulbster in Caithness wrote to over nine hundred Parish ministers throughout Scotland asking them to contribute to a Statistical Inquiry by answering as best they could,a series of one hundred and sixty-six Queries respecting each Parish.
The New (or Second) Statistical Account of Scotland built on the previous work carried out by Sir John Sinclair for the First Statistical Accounts by including the knowledge of local doctors and schoolmasters. The Second Statistical Accounts were published between 1834 and 1845.
