The Missionary and the Monster
If Aberlour Distillery had an official patron saint,
it would be St Drostan. He arrived here in about AD 580, and used
the crystal clear springwater to baptize his first Christian converts
among the Picts. We use the same source for our whisky-making
today.
Drostan certainly had an action-packed life. For
instance, he was one of the first people said to have seen the
Loch Ness Monster. It happened when he was part of a missionary
expedition to the Pictish tribes of north and east Scotland in
about AD 568, led by the pioneering St Columcille of Iona. The
travellers had already braved boars, bears and wolves on their
journey through the uncharted wilderness.
They were about to encounter something much more
frightening. On the banks of the Ness, they found a funeral ceremony
in progress. The mourners were burying the mangled remains of
a man who had been killed, they said, by a bloodthirsty monster
from the loch. Undaunted by the danger, the missionaries carried
on until they came to a narrow inlet. Columcille despatched one
of his followers to swim across and fetch a boat for them.
The man was barely halfway when an enormous dark
shape appeared near him. The monster had clearly been lying in
wait. It surfaced from the depths of the loch with a great thrashing
of water, mouth wide open, roaring horribly, and launched itself
at the terrified swimmer. There seemed no way of saving him.
But Columcille was a man of iron faith and quick
thinking. Raising his right hand, he made the sign of the Cross
and called on the monster in God's name to go away. The effect
was breathtaking: the huge creature instantly turned and fled.
This incident, the first of many miraculous and violent happenings,
was recorded in a life of St Columcille written soon after his
death. No wonder Drostan was glad to reach the peace and safety
of Aberlour. Our little burn has no monsters in it - though some
folk think there may be a sprite or two.
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