Caisteal na Nighinn Ruaidhe (10 of 10)

            So how did the Castle of Loch Avich come to be called 'Caisteal na Nighinn Ruaidhe' and what does it mean?

It's translation is easy, it means the 'Castle of the red haired maiden'!  But who was she?

There is probably some historical fact in the story somewhere.  My bet is that she was either the heiress Christina Campbell or her ancestor, Bridget MacCaurre.  Full stop.  End of story.  But that isn't nearly interesting enough as tales go, so it has been improved upon!  That the story has been significantly enhanced is demonstrated by the fact that there are numerous different versions of it.  Here's one of them:

Two stone masons, father and son, came from Edinburgh to build the castle.  The son fell in love with a red-haired servant girl who during a tryst behind the wood shed, warned him that the laird intended to kill them both, father and son, because he couldn't afford to pay them.

The next morning, the laird came down to find the father standing gazing up at the walls of the castle and asked him what the f#@$ he was doing?  The old mason told him that he was looking at a stone that had been placed askew, which could bring the whole wall down.  "Then take it out and fix it" he was promptly told, but the mason replied that he could only do the job with a special hammer, which he had left behind in Edinburgh.  The laird told him to send a man to fetch it, but he replied that it was so valuable that his wife would never agree to give it to anyone, except the laird's own son.

The laird's son was promptly dispatched off to Edinburgh with a letter to the mason's wife which read "I have sent you the little hammer, do not part with it until the big hammer returns home!"  The wife, understanding the coded message, promptly locked the laird's son up and kept him there until her husband and son returned safely home.

The laird apparently worked out what had happened and dragged the red haired girl to the top of the castle and then threw her to her death on the rocks below.  (The laird evidently had "anger issues"!)  Subsequent dwellers in the castle, on dark and stormy nights, reported torches on the battlements where no lights should have been and occasionally long ghastly screams, suddenly cut off!

Right, off to bed now boys and girls!

Taken on: May 15, 2019

Tags:

DJI_0831+PS

Innis Luana

Loch Avich

Argyllshire

Scotland

Ruined castle

Loch Avich Castle

Maceuire

MacCaurre

Taoiseach of Loch Avich

Campbell of Craignish « less

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Camera: Hasselblad L1D-20c, f/6.3, 1/500 sec, 10.3mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Hasselblad L1D-20c
Aperture:	f/6.3
Exposure Time:	0.002 sec (1/500)
Focal Length:	10.3mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	+0.3 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Average
White Balance:	Auto
Light Source:	Cloudy
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CS5 (12.0x20100115 [20100115.m.998 2010/01/15:02:00:00 cutoff; m branch]) Windows
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