No-one is quite sure how the legend of the Ardnamuchan wolf woman started.
Some said it was a girl walking over the hills from Acharacle to her work at Glenborrodale, who fought a wolf and killed it by stuffing her apron down its throat. Others said the wolf devoured her and they both became one, haunting the hills for all time as a monstrous creature, half wolf half woman.
What is certain is that in the 1940’s, a few local men went to spend a few nights in a remote bothy as was common at the time for sheep shearing and deer stalking (or maybe whisky making). As they settled for the night, they heard a loud howling in the hills. Next, they heard a rustling noise outside the bothy, accompanied by groaning and growling, as if a beast was trying to get in. Scared out of their wits, the men kept awake until dawn, when daylight brought an end to it all. Shaken to the core, they ran away, persuaded that it was the wolf-woman that was out there to get them, if not the Devil himself.
No matter how many times they told the story, they never deviated from it, the fear still showing in their eyes and faces… Neither were they the only ones to have encountered the 'Wolf woman with yellow eyes, breathing dank among the caves, brewing a death surprise' as local writer Wendy Wood atmospherically described her in her poetry…
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