confirmation .. Hogwarts is in Scotland

[Kirstini]

No: HPFGUIDX 83963

Astrofiammante wrote:
>> I had cause to be wondering about locations too the other day 
<snip>And I thought what a great location Rannoch Moor would be for 
Hogwarts. It's under the Grampians, so seeing mountains in the 
distance would be no problem. It fits the conventional wisdom of  
Hogwarts being 'closer to Aberdeen than to Edinburgh'.>> 

(Kirstini's little disclaimer:
This post may head slightly towards Off-Topicity at times, and if 
anyone wants to chat about Rannoch Moor, or the area surounding it in 
a way not connected directly to canon, please email me off-list. I'm 
fairly sure I can manage to get away with this within the context of 
canon discussion, though, so bear with me.)

The point that Astrofiammante raised struck a huge, nostalgic, clang-
you-all-the-way-back-to-your-childhood chord with me, as three weeks 
of every year of *my* childhood were spent in Kinlochrannoch, the 
village beside Loch Rannoch. And during those three weeks, a 
significant proportion of time would be spent hiking across Rannoch 
Moor to the Youth Hostel, which was ten miles away from the railway 
station and accessible only by foot over four hours + worth of 
spagnum moss and marsh. I was last there thirteen-ish years ago 
(teenage sulks having swiftly curbed any maternal desire to take 
family hikes) - so read these details as remembered from 1990, if you 
will: 
The Youth Hostel in question (Loch Ossian) has gained a certain 
amount of notoriety among those crazily hardened fools called 
Ramblers (of which my mother was a very merry member)as the most 
primitive Youth Hostel in Britain. It used to advertise itself 
as "the most remote shelter in Scotland"! (Bed and Breakfasts in 
Scotland guide 1988) which isn't strictly true, but it did well out 
of its primitivism (Toilets: a boys shack and a girls shack covering 
pits in the ground with plastic cylinders over the top, washing 
facilities: well, there's a loch [lake] isn't there? What do you 
mean, "it's November!"?). 

There was a forest over the other side of the loch [lake] from the 
Youth Hostel, which youth hostellers were advised not to enter on 
their hikes (Farmer owned it. But anyway...).
Halfway across the moor was a spooky old building called Rannoch 
Lodge, a ruined old hunting house. I only remember viewing this place 
from a distance, so may be imagining a huge sign saying "Dangerous: 
Keep Away, Muggles!" posted somewhere near the pathway. However, my 
mother, in her enthusiasm to teach us all about our heritage, would 
surely have dragged us into the lodge had it been fit for visiting, 
so I stand by my unoccupiable ruin on Rannoch Moor. 

It is very possible, given the odd combination of tourist cachet and 
isolated wilderness which can only sleep twelve people that the youth 
hostel has going for it, that JKR visited the area at some point and 
picked up a little bit of inspiration somewhere along the way 
(Grindylows and Hinkeypunks dragging you down into the marsh? That 
woman has had a Bad Rambling Experience with spagnum moss too, you 
mark my words).

And yet, none of this occurred to me - the whole geographic area has 
been lurking, all fertile in my mind and yet didn't form any sort of 
background image for my conception of Hogwarts/Hogsmeade. I suspect 
that this is because Hogwarts itself doesn't come accros as 
convincingly situated in Scotland to me. I know all the evidence for 
Hogwarts being in Scotland, and firmly believe with all the rational 
parts of my brain that it is, but as a Scot I have two huge problems 
with the Hogwarts location.

1.) Hogsmeade. This isn't a Scottish name. I hope someone will jump 
in and correct my woolly English geography, but a name like Hogsmeade 
suggests a particular area - middle-southern England, Robin Hood 
country - to me. Scottish towns and villages, particularly those as 
far north as Hogsmeade must be, are called by spiky names with many 
soft "chs", or musical names with successions of rolling "rrr"s in 
them. In fact (very happy to be proved wrong here) I have my doubts 
that "Hog" is an authentic-enough Scottish word for location anywhere 
in the country.

2.) If it's in Scotland, the Giant Squid doesn't live in a lake, it 
lives in a loch. This could be another clue - the only "Lake" in 
Scotland is Lake Catrine - has anyone had a wee search around that 
area of the map for possible locations?

Anyway, here's the Youth Hostel at Loch Ossian on Rannoch Moor. It's 
certainly striking enough to be home to a Germanic castle, but I 
can't seem to find any shots of the Forbidden Forest. May have to 
scan in some old childhood photos of the Forest, editing out the 
gawky child with train-track braces and Bermuda shorts...

http://www.syha.org.uk/pages/more-picture-pages/loch-ossian.htm

Kirstini, resident Scot.