Blethering Skite

More years ago than I care to remember now, whilst perusing the empty part of an Ordnance Survey map of the Bridge of Orchy area, my eye caught three words written in the medieval script that mapmakers use to denote a man-made structure of some antiquity: Tigh nam Bodach – the house of the old man. What, I asked myself, could this be? It was clearly important enough to get its own Gaelic nomenclature but many miles from any other settlement or structure. The high, craggy hills that encircled Tigh nam Bodach looked as though they huddled around it to form a protective shield. Not quite an impenetrable barrier, but quite enough to deter all but the most committed walker. For years thereafter, whenever I’d unfurl that particular map, Tigh nam Bodach would always catch my eye, as though goading me to visit it.