And mountains, that like giants stand,
To sentinel enchanted land.
High on the south, huge Ben Venue
Down to the lake in masses threw
Crags, knolls, and mounds, confusedly hurl’d,
The fragments of an earlier world.
In the whole of a justly celebrated poem there is no passage finer than this, and, oft quoted as it has been, it would be impossible to omit it.
Ellen’s Isle is, of course, so named after Scott’s heroine; the Highland name is Eilean Molach, meaning the “Shaggy Island,” and it is quite likely that with this in his mind Scott chose the name Ellen as the nearest English-sounding equivalent.
The Goblin’s Cave, to which Ellen and her family retreated, is on the side of Ben Venue, and above is the Bealach Nambo, or the Pass of the Cattle, which Scott alluded to as: