The story
Lake Drummond spreads its tea-dark circle at the centre of the Great Dismal Swamp on Virginia's southeastern border, one of the state's two natural lakes, ringed by bald cypress and reachable by the feeder ditch from the centuries-old canal; the swamp's human history is profound — for generations before the Civil War, maroon communities of people escaping slavery lived free in its depths, a heritage now honoured in the national wildlife refuge's interpretation and one this record states with respect. The lake's legend is older than the republic's poetry: the Lady of the Lake, a Native maiden who died before her wedding and paddles a white canoe by firefly light, her lover following into the mire — a tale Thomas Moore fixed in his 1803 ballad and generations of boatmen embroidered with lights over the water, mists that keep shape, and voices in the cypress. Present the legend as literary folklore, the maroons' history as the deeper truth, and the practicalities plainly: this is genuine wilderness, visited via refuge and state-park access with preparation. Details from official refuge pages.