The Old Man of Lochnagar is a 1980 children's book written by King Charles III, at that time the Prince of Wales, and illustrated by Sir Hugh Casson.

[5] The book was later adapted into an animated short film by the BBC in 1993, with Robbie Coltrane providing the voice of the hermit and Prince Charles narrating.

[8] The old man loses his grip while attempting to scale the Lochnagar cliff and falls into the loch, where he meets "lagopus Scoticus," a "freshwater variant of Neptune".

The man and lagopus Scoticus converse using bubbles which display their thoughts in written text and go hunting for "Loch-haggis" in a "sea-rover" underwater vehicle.

He ends up on top of Lochnagar but is then swept up by a golden eagle that carries him as far as Balmoral, where he bounces on a trampoline before coming to rest.

On the toilet, the man reads books given to him by the Gorms - a race of "friendly little people" who live in "the stone cairns near Lochnagar" - in which they describe their world and promise to invite him to visit "when their research scientists ha[ve] discovered the right formula for a potion which, when drunk, would shrink the old man to the size of the little people."

The man then sees women "milking hind stag beetles," but accidentally "dilute[s] the special shrinking mixture" in his stomach and begins to grow back to full size.

The cows are then cleared but the train is impeded again at Aberdeen, whence it can go no further because "heavy falls of snow ha[ve] blocked the line to London."

The man decides to return to Ballater, but sees on the platform a woman dressed entirely in tartan and wearing a "huge hat [...] angrily prodding the station-master with her umbrella," in protest over the London service's cancellation.