"One of the great charms of Highland landscape is the gleam of still water that so often gives the element of repose in a scene of broken cliff and tumbled crag, of noisy cascade and driving cloud. No casual tourist can fail to notice what a wonderful variety of lakes he meets with in the course of any traverse he may take across the country. Among the higher mountains there is the little tarn nestling in a dark sunless corry, and half-encircled with grim snow-rifted crags. In the glen, there is the occasional broadening of the river into a lake that narrows again to let the stream rush down a rocky ravine. In the wider strath there is the broad still expanse of water, with its fringe of wood and its tree-covered islets. In the gneiss region of the North-West, there is the little lochan lying in its basin of bare rock and surrounded with scores of others all equally treeless and desolate." So writes Professor Sir A. Geikie in his "Scenery of Scotland." His point of view is that of a scientific observer, keenly alive to all the varied phenomena of nature. But amid the scenes described lived men and women who looked at the outer world through the refracting medium of superstition. They saw the landscape, but they saw also what their own imagination supplied. In Strathspey, is a sheet of water bearing the Gaelic name of Loch-nan-Spoiradan or the Lake of Spirits. What shape these spirits assumed we do not know, but there was no mistake about the form of the spirit who guarded Lochan-nan-Deaan, close to the old military road between Corgarff and Tomintoul. The appearance of this spirit may be gathered from the Rev. Dr. Gregor's remarks in an article on "Guardian Spirits of Wells and Lochs" in "Folklore" for March, 1892. After describing the loch, he says, "It was believed to be bottomless, and to be the abode of a water-spirit that delighted in human sacrifice. Notwithstanding this blood-thirsty spirit, the men of Strathdon and Corgarff resolved to try to draw the water from the loch, in hope of finding the remains of those that had perished in it. On a fixed day a number of them met with spades and picks to cut a way for the outflow of the water through the road. When all were ready to begin work, a terrific yell came from the loch, and there arose from its waters a diminutive creature in shape of a man with a red cap on his head. The men fled in terror, leaving their picks and spades behind them. The spirit seized them and threw them into the loch. Then, with a gesture of defiance at the fleeing men, and a roar that shook the hills, he plunged into the loch and disappeared amidst the water that boiled and heaved as red as blood." Near the boundary, between the shires of Aberdeen and Banff, is a small sheet of water called Lochan-wan, i.e., Lamb's Loch. The district around is now a deer forest, but at one time it was used for grazing sheep. The tenants around had the privilege of pasturing a certain number of sheep. Dr. Gregor says,