Loch Ness monster: Its match in St Columba

I SUPPOSE one of the reasons why children delight in stories about giants and monsters is that they can always flee headlong back to reality when the going really gets too frightening and take shelter in the arms of their grown-up, story-telling parents.
Perhaps there is an element of this at Loch Ness. If the alarming stories of "a monster salamander with a frill round its neck like a kippered herring" get too much of a good thing, there is always the sturdy reality of the Abbey of St Benedict at Fort Augustus to fall back upon.
To the open-minded the doubt still remains. Is there such a thing as a Loch Ness Monster — or a whole family of monsters?
St Adamnan, biographer of St Columba, says that that holy man saw a water-monster in the area as long ago as 565 AD but repulsed it with—prayer. "Go back! On hearing this voice of the saint the beast was terrified and fled hack rapidly as if dragged by cords."
The reports have been corning in ever since, like: "I saw it carrying a lamb in its jaws."
"I saw it loping over the road into the loch." "It looked like the rear view of a duck."
"It could be a relative of the Clevedon Monster with sunken eyes enveloped in a sort of hairy flap."
The search for the monster has been going on ceaselessly for years, especially since the 1930's when the beast was given widespread publicity not only in the national British Press but in the international Press as well: two of the first men on the scene after the sensational 1933 sightings were correspondents from newspapers in Tokyo and Osaka.
To this day the Japanese have kept up their interest in I.och Ness, and it was only a few weeks ago that a kilted Japanese girl was to be seen on the banks, strumming away at a guitar in an attempt to lure the beast from its depths.
At St Benedict's Abbey at Fort Augustus, at the foot of the 24-mile-long loch, Abbot Nicholas Holman maintains an attitude of amused detachment towards the monster.
He .is anxious to make clear to visiting journalists, eager for copy, that his community has better things to do than sit watching on the banks all day, and that it is running a busy boys' school and maintaining Divine Office in the Abbey Church — which is, inciden
tally. also becoming an important ecumenical centre.
Members of the community appear to be split in two camps over the phenomena: those who believe a monster does exist and those who, firmly, do not. There is, needless to say, an edifying air of mutual tolerance between the two groups.
The grey granite bulk of the abbey grew from the foundations of an old Hanoverian fort built in the mid-17th century by the famous Marshal Wade. It was presented to the Benedictines as a monastery and school by the 15th Baron Lovat in 1876. The Scottish monks can, however, trace their own domestic history back for a thousand years, including exile in Ratisbon in Germany and, earlier, to Dunfermline, burial place of the Scottish kings.
Much of the 19th century additions to the fort were designed by Joseph Hansom. designer of the Hansom cab, and Peter Pugin. Abbot Sir David HunterBlair, who played an important part in the history of Fort Augustus, also had his influence on the architecture.
In his biography he tells us how the builders were often paid with figs and biscuits, and how he once found himself flushed out of the cloisters at Westminster Abbey by a policeman who accused him of "dawdling" while trying to take measurements of the traceries there with a length of knotted pocket-handkerchiefs.
The huge organ — one of the largest in Europe — which now stands in the abbey church was brought, Abbot Sir David tells us, from the Albert Palace in Battersea by train and a caravan of 25 trucks.
It remained in bits for 23 years before uttering its first note. At the time of its delivery, however, The Daily Telegraph commented: "With the acquisition of this fine instrument. Scotland's conversion to the praising of God by machinery is completed."
Today, the wooded Great Glen of Fort Augustus, the Glen of Tarff and the nearby Corrieyairack Pass is an admirable area in which to take a holiday — as long as you keep away from the place in crowded high season.
During the rest of the year there is room to move and adequate accommodation to stay in, ranging from farmhouses to hotels. During the day, then, you may search for the mythical monster along the loch banks, and in the evening take hold of reality by attending Office in the abbey church. Daily Conventual Mass is at 7.45 a.m.
• The Inverness and Loch Ness Tourist Organisation is prepared to book accommodation at all times when available. Address; 23 Church Street, Inverness, 1V1 1EZ.