Silent Battle

The bleak, heather-clad expanse of Ashie moor lies four miles to the south west of Inverness in Scotland and a couple of miles from Loch Ness. Only a couple of remote crofts overlook the moor. For at least a hundred years there have been reports that a phantom battle has been observed on the moor. In 1871, a man cycling along the road which skirts the moor glimpsed two horsemen on the road ahead of him. Rounding a bend in the road, he found himself cycling 'through' the two riders. Shocked, he crashed to the ground and standing up again saw a 'silent' battle in progress on the moor, involving bodies of warriors on foot and on horseback, all of whom faded into thin air after a few minutes.

In the 1940s a shepherd checking his sheep on the moor found himself suddenly surrounded by mist. Out of the gloom ran crowds of bearded, long-haired men dressed in ragged garments, some clutching wooden clubs, others brandishing short-bladed swords. Terror stricken, the shepherd cowered behind a large rock. It became obvious that the wild looking men were oblivious to his presence. He heard shouts and cries, the sounds of combat. After about ten minutes, the mist lifted and the men disappeared.

In the mid-1980s a local man was fishing from a small boat on Loch Ashie, on the northern edge of the moor. It was a bright, sunny summer evening and no-one else was to be seen. Gradually, but quite clearly, he began to hear shouts and the occasional clash of metal on metal coming from the moor beside the loch, despite the fact that the area was devoid of human presence. Again, slowly but surely, the sounds faded away to silence. Alarmed, the angler made for the shore and home. Another former resident of the area has described seeing men on horseback crossing the moor, only to vanish before his eyes.