Bruce and the spider

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This a pleasant legend about Robert the Bruce, much told in Scotland. There is no evidence to back it up at all.

The story goes that during the 'missing year' between his defeat at Strathfillan in August 1306 and his return to the mainland in February 1307, Bruce and his tiny band of followers were in hiding on the island of Rathlin (off Ireland). Their position was desperate. One night, while they sheltered in a cave, the king in abstracted mood was thinking of the defeats he had suffered when his eye fell on a spider making its web. It had lodged the first attachment, and was swinging on a filament to reach the place for the second attachment. Six times it tried, and six times failed. The seventh time saw its success, and inspired in King Robert (and all the children to whom the tale has been told) with the thought "Try, try and try again."

Whereupon the King tried again - he went to the mainland, and on his sixth and seventh encounters with English forces, he won the battle (or skirmish) of Glen Trool, and the battle of Loudoun Hill.