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"The stag at eve had drank his fill,
When danced the moon on Monan's rill,
And deep his midnight lair had made
In lone Glenartney's hazel shade.
* * *
Roused from his lair,
The antler'd monarch of the waste
Sprang from his heathery couch in haste.
* * *
With one brave bound the copse he clear'd,
And, stretching forward free and far,
Sought the wild heaths of Uam-Var."

Uam-Var, which in Gaelic signifies large cave, is a mountain between
Glenartney and Callander, and takes its name from a cave on the south
side of it, said by tradition to have been inhabited by a giant
centuries ago. Glenartney was a Royal forest, and a portion of it is
still fenced off for the same purpose. On an eminence at the head of
the glen stands Glenartney Lodge, belonging to the proprietor, the Earl
of Ancaster. In the past as in the present the strict preservation of
game seems to have been attended with dangers and difficulties. Some
people seem to have an uncontrollable liking for hunting and poaching.
In the sixteenth century Glenartney was the scene of a terrible
tragedy. In the year 1588, John Drummond of Drummond-Ernoch was
forester to King James VI. there. One day, according to one tradition,
he discovered some of the Clan Macgregor trespassing in the Royal
forest. He seized them and cropped off their ears. The Macgregors,
incensed by the punishment inflicted upon their clansmen, vowed
vengeance against Drummond-Ernoch. They made a raid upon the forest,
seized the forester, and cut off his head, which they carried with them
in a corner of one of their plaids. "In the full exultation of
vengeance," says Sir Walter Scott in his introduction to the _Legend of
Montrose_, "they stopped at the house of Ardvoirlich and demanded
refreshments, which the lady, a sister of the murdered Drummond-Ernoch
(her husband being absent), was afraid or unwilling to refuse. She
caused bread and cheese to be placed before them, and gave directions
for more substantial refreshments to be prepared. While she was absent
with this hospitable intention the barbarians placed the head of her
brother on the table, filling the mouth with bread and cheese, and
bidding him eat, for many a merry meal he had eaten in that house. The
poor woman, returning and beholding this dreadful sight, shrieked aloud
and fled into the woods, where, as described in the romance, she roamed
a raving maniac,