I. ――INTRODUCTION

I. ――INTRODUCTION

SECTION I.

The Scope of the Work.

IN every stage of a nation’s career from barbarism to civilisation, there are many conditions involved. The underlying causes of progress in the early stages being so remote and varied that they often elude investigation; still, if some of the salient points of the process can be reached, the social phenomena may be partially realised: if the surrounding circumstances of early tribes can be ascertained, patient research may elicit valuable results. It is exceedingly interesting to search for the causes and the influences which have operated upon the life of our early ancestors in their many struggles. To trace the light of consciousness dawning, and experience slowly becoming more effective, gradually dispelling the mists of far-gone ages――the spirits, myths, and legends, which enveloped the minds and affected the thoughts and emotions of our early kindred――till the flickering rays of intelligence ascended the horizon, and the shadows and myths receded, step by step into the background. Yet the many retarding influences and circumstances constantly recurring, and the difficulties and obstacles encountered at every turn, were only slowly overcome by the persistent energy of man. As time rolled on, original thought was developed, new influences and agencies arose and came into operation, which tended to subdue the ruder features of the race and to promote social organisation and advance culture; and when these became effectual, the people gradually emerged from the trammels of ignorance and superstition, and at last enjoyed a more secure and happier life.

Any attempt to indicate the causes which have induced a number of scattered tribes, almost living in a primitive state, to pass through the various stages of progress to a comparatively high civilisation, must examine many conflicting agencies. The difficulties of truly assigning the effects of different causes, especially in the early stages, are very great, where ascertained facts are few and the phenomena so obscure; while the natural tendency of the human mind to generalise upon incomplete data is not easily resisted. Scotland offers a fair and tempting field for the study of this subject. Inasmuch as we find man living there in a very early stage, and can trace the social organisation of tribes, their conflicts issuing in the foundation of a monarchy, and the development of an intense nationality; and the beginnings of industry, of art, and of culture among the people, and their continuous progress, through the various stages of civilisation, onward to the present time. In this period, extending over four thousand years, we can study the various agencies and influences, and the different historic conditions which successively arose, and controlled the stream of events and moulded the historic phenomena. Thus the aboriginal race which long occupied the country, were subdued and absorbed by another race, which in turn were invaded by powerful enemies, but the natives made a vigorous resistance. After this, other migrations and invasions followed, issuing in new historic conditions, which contributed to the extension of the kingdom, and the development of the nation. In the natural course of events the kingdom fell under the influence of foreign interference, which led to new invasions and determined attempts to conquer the nation. The people resisted, and a long struggle for liberty and independence ensued, which, in its heroic features of resistance to oppression and the importance of its ultimate result, is unmatched in the annals of any nation. While later, internal political and religious conflicts were manifested in a variety of forms, and constitute an exceedingly interesting and important part of the national history. Thus, although some countries have a greater history than Scotland, few have a longer, a more eventful, or a more peculiarly interesting one.

The work does not profess to present an exhaustive political history. This branch will be treated according to its comparative importance in the different periods, and the relative value of its facts and phenomena, viewed as a factor in the general movement of the nation. The main aim of the work being to reach the moral and intellectual factors of progress, and especially to present ample details of the material and social conditions of each period; and thus embracing all the causes, agencies, and influences, in a connected scheme, to unfold the successive stages of the progress, the culture, and the development of the civilisation of the people.

As the term civilisation, in its widest import, includes all the material and intellectual products, the religion and social organisations and institutions of a civilised nation, a disquisition on the elements of these complex subjects would be out of character in this section. From my standpoint, historically, civilisation began with the first conscious efforts of man, whenever he began to act with an end in view, such as to make weapons to defend himself or implements to procure food: and this is sometimes called the primitive state, from which mankind have gradually advanced in culture, more or less, according as surrounding nature, circumstances, and historic conditions, were favourable to their progress, or the reverse. To trace and explain such a progress and development in the limited area of Scotland is the conception and end of this work; so the prehistoric ages will be treated in a concise and connected form onward into the historic age, and associated with the manifold causes, circumstances, changes, and influences, which have operated upon the people, and ultimately resulted in our present stage of civilisation.

The primary causes of civilisation may be shortly indicated thus:――1, The human mind itself; 2, Surrounding nature, including climate, soil, and natural products; 3, Historical conditions; and 4, Social and material conditions. The mind of man is the prime factor of civilisation, and unless this is recognised no satisfactory explanation of development and progress can be given. For the internal power of the mind is the only natural and conceivable cause of the origin of civilisation; insomuch, that without it civilisation is inexplicable. Still, the circumstances in which man finds himself placed may have an important effect upon him. In the early stages, climate, soil, and natural products have a potent bearing on the direction which man’s progress might take; if he can live without much effort, as when his wants are supplied by nature in abundance, he will feel inclined to enjoy himself in ease. But the increase of numbers sooner or later begins to affect him, and exertion in the form of migration or in other ways at last becomes necessary, and outward movements and conflicts would then commence. When historical conditions arise, they become the chief external causes of relative changes in the state of society, but such changes may not be always favourable to progress, though they often tend in that direction. The social and material conditions are exceedingly important factors in civilisation. It is principally the social feeling which originates society, and binds mankind into groups, tribes, and nations. Religion also often operates as a social influence, in association at first with the instinct of self-preservation, and at later stages in association with the higher emotions.

The lower and narrower forms of moral tendency spring out of human nature and the necessities of life――the social and sympathetic feelings. The higher sentiments and emotions, and the definite ideas of right and wrong, of justice, honesty, truth, and so on, were only developed slowly, and with extreme difficulty. The very sentiment and idea upon which justice itself rests is distinctly progressive; as at first it appears obscure and often contorted, so it has only been gradually growing in clearness, in purity, and in comprehensiveness. How far it is even yet from being perfect needs no exposition.

Following the lines above indicated, the geographical and physical features of the country will be described, seeing that they have had an influence on the development of the inhabitants. The direct action of climate, soil, and food, on man is difficult to estimate, and varies in different quarters of the globe; its operation is obscure, as it is independent of volition, and man is merely passive under it. But the indirect action of external nature is more potent on the development of man, for it presupposes a reaction on his part under the stimulus of his wants and activities, and in this relation the influence of physical agencies upon man and society, especially in the early stages, were everywhere felt.

We may safely assume that man has always sought to gratify the inherent cravings of his being. His primeval feelings and passions were strong, and sometimes bounded into activity with endless degrees of force; hence the varied ethnic affinities of races, the diversity of historical conditions, tribal and political conflicts, conquests, and amalgamations, which have contributed to produce such manifold results throughout the world.

Myth appears to spring from the same source as science; originally it was simply man’s early attempt to interpret his surroundings. In the myth-making stage of culture, man was ignorant of the causes of the natural forces around him, hence he was eagerly looking for something to give him an explanation of external phenomena. He found an explanation in his own will and feelings; and so every moving object, animate and inanimate, was thought to be impelled by a force akin to his own mind. All the mental powers that man found in himself were transferred to external nature. Thus the ancient world became inhabited by multitudes of spirits, demons, and gods. Long after the original mythical meanings were lost, new explanations were fastened on names and words, and thus the process proceeded;¹ until the attainment of definite knowledge dethroned the swarms of spirits, gods, demons, and witches.

¹ Celtic Mythology, by Alexander Macbain, M.A.

SECTION II.

Geographical and Physical Features of the Country.

Scotland is separated from England by the River Tweed, the Cheviot Hills, the Liddel Water, and the Solway Firth; the Cheviot range naturally tended to fix the southern limit of the country. The boundary line runs in a slanting direction from Berwick-on-Tweed to the Solway Firth, a distance of seventy miles, and except on this line Scotland is surrounded by the sea. On the east side lies the North Sea, on the west the Atlantic Ocean; the North Channel, between the south-western part of the country and Ireland, is only thirteen and a half miles broad at the Mull of Cantyre, and the most southerly part of the coast is washed by the Irish Sea. The west coast is nearly in a line with the east of Ireland, and the greater part of Scotland lies west of England; and the south-eastern end of the island approaches so near the continent of Europe that the opposite coasts of England and France are only twenty-one miles apart from each other at the narrowest point of the Channel. Between Scotland and Norway there are 300 miles of sea, and between Denmark and Scotland 400 miles of sea. These natural facts, as we shall find, had an important bearing on the early history of the island.

The coasts of Scotland are very irregular, and broken, and rocky. On the whole of the west coast there are numerous arms and inlets of the sea, which penetrate far into the interior of the country, while here and there the land extends out to the sea in numerous islands and surf-beaten rocks. Amongst the most noted of these inlets of the sea are Lochs Linnhe, Torridon, Duich, Hourn, and Nevis; on the south and north coasts the bays and inlets are not so numerous, though on the northern there are the Firths of Moray, Inverness, Beauly, Cromarty, and Dornoch. The east coast is much less indented than the other sides, but on it are the two important estuaries of the Forth and Tay. Owing to these numerous firths, inlets, and arms of the sea, the coast-line of Scotland measures about 2,500 miles, which affords many industrial and commercial advantages.

The Orkney Islands lie off the northern mainland, and are separated from Caithness by the Pentland Firth――a dangerous channel――6 miles broad, and noted for the strength and rapidity of its tides and currents. This group of islands amounts to upwards of sixty, but most of them are small, and others merely bare rocks, and only twenty-nine are inhabited. The largest of the group is about thirty miles in length. The surface of these islands mostly consists of heathy wastes, intersected with rocks, swamps, and lochs; there are scarcely any trees, and the cultivated portions yield oats and green crops. The only towns are Kirkwall and Stromness. The climate is rather moist, but not severe.

The Shetland ♦Islands lie about one hundred miles off the northern coast of Scotland, and they are separated from the Orkneys by seventy miles of sea. This group exceeds one hundred islands, but more than the half of them are small holms or rocky islets, and only about thirty of them are inhabited. These islands have a less favourable climate than the Orkneys; they are more rugged, and the agriculture is poor; but the Shetland sheep yield a fine soft wool, which is much valued. The inhabitants chiefly live by fishing, and Lerwick, their only town, has a harbour which is frequented by the vessels of different nations as a haven of refuge. The Shetlands are only two hundred miles from Norway, and hence they became important in relation to the ethnology and colonisation of the northern and western coasts of Scotland.

♦ “Island lies” replaced with “Islands lie”

The Hebrides or Western Isles lie on the western side of Scotland, and are very numerous. They stretch along the western shores nearly to the coasts of Ireland, and are regarded as the natural breakwater of the north-west coasts. They consist of two chief groups: 1, those lying close to the mainland, as Mull, Islay, Skye, and others, called the inner group; 2, those lying to the west of the Channel of Minch, and usually called the outer islands. These outer ones form a continuous group of 140 miles in length, and so close together that they have been regarded as one, and named the Long Island. Lewis is sixty miles long, being the longest of the group, and the longest island belonging to Scotland. Probably some of these islands were inhabited at an early period, and they became connected with the ethnology and the colonisation of the west of Scotland; and also with the introduction of Christianity, and thus were associated with the early history of the country.

The islands in the Firth of Clyde are Bute and Arran, the two Cumbraes, and the Rock of Ailsa. The climate of Bute is mild, and its central and southern parts are well suited for tillage and pasture, but its northern extremity is rugged. Arran is remarkable for its lofty hills and glens, and only a small portion of it is suitable for cultivation. Ailsa Craig lies in the broad part of the Firth, and is simply an insulated rocky hill, about two miles in circumference, and rising in steep cliffs to 1,098 feet above the sea. It is a great resort of the solan goose and immense numbers of other sea birds.

On the east coast there are only a few detached islets. The Bass Rock, on the south side of the entrance of the Firth of Forth, is a mass of basalt rising perpendicularly to 400 feet. The islands of May, Inchkeith, and Inchcolm, are all in the Forth. The Bell Rock lies 14 miles east of the entrance of the Firth of Tay, and is the site of a notable lighthouse.

Turning now to the mainland, the country presents to the eye an exceedingly varied prospect. The fine diversity of mountains and wooded heights, rivers and valleys, narrow glens and ravines, and lakes, present stretches of charming scenery, and in other parts a succession of picturesque scenes of rugged and wild scenery, striking and imposing from the grandeur of their outstanding features. Many of the valleys and glens in every quarter of the country present scenery of exquisite beauty when seen in a fine summer-day in all their verdant glory. The existing aspects of external nature are the result of the operation of forces which have been working for untold æons, stretching far back into eternity. If we could recall the echoes from that vasty deep, and figure in imagination the successive phenomena as they appeared, then we might form some faint idea of the sublimity and the infinite significance of the great work of creation. The space which Scotland now occupies, and after the formation of its rocks, was repeatedly submerged by the ocean, and also at different periods enveloped in mountains of snow and glacier ice. The action of immense moving masses of glacier ice have contributed much to deepen and smooth the glens and the lochs, and to modify the contour of the mountains and hills;¹ while the wasting powers which rain, frost, wind, and the sea possess, have all contributed to produce changes on the surface of the earth, and formed the many contrasts, the varied and picturesque features of the grand and beautiful scenery of the country.

¹ Dr. A. Geikie’s Scenery of Scotland, pages 81‒87, 1887. “While land-ice is thus a most powerful geological agent in new-modelling the surface of the earth, its operations are not entirely confined to the dry land. As already stated, it creeps along the sea bottom for some distance from land until flotation comes into play, when large masses break off from the ice-cliff, and rising up and floating, sail away seaward as icebergs. These ice islands carry with them any soil or rock-rubbish which may have fallen upon them from inland cliffs while they formed part of the ice-sheet of the country. The debris so borne off is, of course, thrown down upon the sea bottom as each berg melts away, after a voyage of perhaps hundreds of miles. Year by year whole fleets of these bergs are sent southwards in the arctic regions, so that the bed of the northern seas must be strewn with earth and boulders. As only between an eighth and a ninth part of a mass of ice appears above the sea water on which it floats, the bulk of many bergs must be enormous. One rising two hundred feet above the waves――not an uncommon height――must have its bottom more than seven hundred feet below them, and the thickness of the ice cap at its outer edge must be there about two thousand feet. The Antarctic ice-sheets and icebergs are of still more colossal dimensions.”

The mountain ranges and the river system of the country may be briefly indicated. The Highlands are naturally marked off by mountains from the eastern Lowlands and the central valleys of the Forth and Clyde. The Grampian range of mountains stretches from near the coast of Kincardineshire across the country to Ardnamurchan on the west coast. These mountains vary greatly in figure and elevation; the average height of their higher summits runs from 3000 to 4000 feet above sea level, and their greatest height is reached at the top of Ben Nevis, which rises 4,406 feet, but it is not quite within the limit of perpetual snow. To the north of the Grampians ranges of mountains run off in successive waves to Cape Wrath, the shores of the North Sea, and the Moray Firth, and southward along the west coasts to the Mull of Cantyre, gradually diminishing in height as they approach the coasts, where the river valleys widen out into limited plains. These mountains are mainly formed of masses of rocks consisting of gneiss, granite, schist, and other crystalline rocks, and bands of quartzose, which are associated with some strips of limestone.

The scenery of the Highlands presents many varied and striking features, associated with much similarity and wonderful order. The craggy array of peaks overhanging the narrow passes and glens, often present to the eye a marked similarity of bend and slope, of figure and contour; still taking the whole of the Highlands, a rich variety of contrasts can easily be observed. Many of the Highland valleys present exceedingly picturesque and beautiful scenery.

Glenmore, or the Great Glen, is a remarkable feature in the physical structure of the Highlands. It extends from the Moray Firth at Inverness to the Sound of Mull, a distance of about one hundred miles, and separates the Highlands into two regions. In its middle portion there are three lakes――Loch Ness, the source of the beautiful river Ness, which flows through the town of Inverness; Loch Oich, and Loch Lochy. These lochs are very deep. “The deepest soundings in Loch Ness gives a depth of 129 fathoms opposite the Falls of Foyers; in Loch Oich, 23 fathoms; in Loch Lochy, 76 fathoms.”¹ The lochs are situated in the midst of varied and beautiful scenery; and the Caledonian Canal now connects them by navigable channels from shore to shore.

¹ “Its very straightness is enough to suggest that the Great Glen owes its direction to a line of dislocation. I ascertained in the year 1864 that the line of the fracture, or of one continued in the same line, can be seen along the western side of the Moray Firth, where the Jurassic beds of Eathic and Shandwick are thrown down against the Old Red Sandstone. Hence the downthrow at this end of the line is to the east side. It seems to me that this line has been from a very early geological period up, indeed, to the present day, a line of weakness in the crust of the earth. The prolongation of the tongue of the Old Red Sandstone up the valley of Loch Ness appears to show that the valley is older than that formation; the dislocation of the Eathic and Shandwick shales proves disturbance even after the Lias; and the agitation of the waters of Loch Ness, during great earthquakes in modern times, shows that, even yet, underground movements tend to reveal themselves along the same old line. Hence it may be reasonably conjectured that the fracture along the line of the Great Glen has been repeatedly modified during the subterranean changes of successive geological periods.” Geikie’s _Scenery of Scotland_, page 234.

Some parts of the Highlands consist of barren moor, such as the Moor of Rannoch, extending to 400 square miles, which is little better than a desert. Its surface is level and a part of it covered by a bog; it produces no vegetation, except a few fir trees, but granite covers many miles of it. To the north of it another sterile tract lies between Ben Nevis and the shores of Loch Ericht.

The Lowland region is marked off on the one side by the lines of the Highland mountains, and on the other by the southern uplands. From St. Abb’s Head to the cliffs of Portpatrick a range of hilly ground runs across the country from sea to sea; and in East Lothian and Edinburghshire, the long chain of the Lammermuir Hills rises into steep heights. The surface of the Lammermuirs, like most of the southern hills, is pretty smooth and covered with heath or coarse grass, except where the peat covers the hollows, and where the streams keep open their channels through the bare drift or hard rock. The tops of these hills are usually broad, smooth, and grassy; but on the western ridges they descend abruptly into the plains, and present gulleys and narrow glens, through which the drainage flows into the low grounds. These heights of the Lammermuirs fairly represent the general features of the scenery of the country between the North Sea and the Vale of the Nith, although in the higher parts of the region the smoothness and verdure of the hills are exchanged for the rocky scarfs, bare crags and cliffs, and deep narrow defiles, which remind us of some parts of the Highlands.¹

¹ Geikie’s Scenery of Scotland, page 281, et seq.

The Lammermuirs, the Moorfoots, and the Pentland Hills, form a range running from east to west; further south, the Cheviots, the Moffat Hills, and the Lowther Hills, form a continuous range extending in a zig-zag course from east to west. The general features of these southern and border hills are remarkably uniform throughout; they are mostly covered with pasture nearly to the tops, and a great part of this region is naturally a pasture land.

The Lowlands of southern Scotland consist of a series of fertile valleys, some of which are of considerable extent. It may be observed that a different local topography prevails; as the term dale, instead of strath or glen, is used to indicate a stretch of low lying ground, a cultivated valley or a pastoral one. Amongst these notable local districts are Tweeddale, Teviotdale, and Lauderdale, which belong to the basin of the Tweed; Liddlesdale, Eskdale, Annandale, and Nithsdale, each of which belong to the respective rivers of the same name, and slope toward the shores of the Solway Firth; the vale of Yarrow, the vale of Gala, and Ettrick, which have been rendered famous in the national songs and poetry.

But many parts of the central Lowlands are dotted with hills, and even long ranges. The Sidlaw Hills commence in the vicinity of Perth, thence extending in a north-east direction and terminating by a rapid declivity on the side of Strathmore, but descending in a fine succession of terraces towards the North Sea. The Ochil Hills, with their offshoots, occupy much of the peninsula of Fife, and in some parts rise to a considerable height; Ben Glack is 2359 feet above sea level.

Among the influences of external nature few have a more important bearing upon the people than the water courses of the country. The Watershed of Scotland runs southward from Cape Wrath to the head of Loch Quoich, whence it turns eastward between Lochs Lochy and Oich, then sweeping round the top of Strathspey and over the hills above the head of Loch Laggan, and thence following a curving southerly course past the west end of the Moor of Rannoch and the Brae Lyon mountains to Crianlarich, thence across Ben Lomond and south-eastward over the Campsie Fells into the broad Lowland valley: whence skirting the south-western parts of Linlithgow and Mid-Lothian, it sweeps up into the Pentland Hills, and then south between the valleys of the Clyde and Tweed to the Hartfell Heights, thence it strikes across to the Cheviot Hills. To the west of this line the water flows into the Atlantic, and to the east, into the North Sea or the Firths connected with it. Owing to the steep and mountainous nature of the west side of the Island, the Watershed keeps much nearer to the Atlantic than to the North Sea; and hence the greater part of the country is drained into the latter. In the northern half of Scotland no large river enters the Atlantic; on the western side of the Watershed as it runs through the counties of Sutherland, Ross, and Inverness, nearly all the great valleys which enter the sea come down from the south-east, and have their seaward portions filled by the tides of the Atlantic. Thus they form the series of inland sea lochs, narrow firths, and fords which characterise the western shores of the country.

On the north-east side, the Ness, the Spey, the Deveron, the Don, the Dee, the North Esk, the South Esk, and the Tay, and a number of smaller rivers, carry the drainage of the mountains into the sea. The principal rivers of the Central Lowlands are the Tay, the Forth, and the Clyde. The Tay descends from the heights of the Highlands, and as it were issues into the Lowlands through the narrow defile of Birnam, winds by Perth and gradually opens into a fine estuary; and pours a greater body of water into the sea than any other river in Britain. The Forth rises on the eastern side of Ben Lomond; and issues from the Highlands through the narrow defile of Aberfoyle; and winding on it passes by Stirling and Alloa, and enters its estuary. The Clyde rises from the Moffat Hills in the Southern uplands, flows northward, winding its course through the broad meadows, cultivated fields, fine woodlands, and beautiful stretches of scenery. The basins of the Forth and Clyde are not separated by ranges of hills, between the two rivers, the ground undulates across the great coal and iron fields from Campsie to the Pentland Hills.

The numerous rivers and streams give rise to a corresponding variety of defiles, straths, dales, and valleys. Besides those already mentioned, there are in the north-eastern side of the ♦country, the valleys of the Dee, the Don, the Deveron, the Spey, and the Ness; and the notable ravines of the Findhorn, Nairn, and Beauly. Much of the best cultivable land of the country lies in the valleys, on the banks and haughs of the rivers.

♦ “county” replaced with “country”

Caithness presents a tract of comparatively flat land; and in the lower parts of Moray, Banffshire, and Aberdeenshire, there are considerable stretches of pretty level ground; but the greatest extent of level land in Scotland is the plain of Strathmore, which runs from the banks of the river Forth to the vicinity of Stonehaven, where it is terminated by the eastern Grampians. This plain is nearly ninety miles in length, and its breadth varies from sixteen miles at its widest part along the course of the Forth and Teith to less than a mile at its northern extremity. It is the largest extent of level and cultivable land in Scotland. The Carse of Gowrie lies along the banks of the beautiful estuary of the Tay, it is two or three miles broad, and one of the most fertile spots in Scotland. The Carse of Stirling lies on the south side of the Forth, and is remarkably fertile.

The Central Region extending between the Firths of Forth and Clyde presents a striking feature in the physical configuration of the country. The two Firths penetrate inwards on opposite sides, and opening out the mouths of the rivers, nearly cuts the country into two halves; and at this point reduces its breadth to forty miles. These natural features have had a controlling influence on the stream of events for ages: 1, In relation to the origin of historical conditions; 2, In relation to military and political conditions; 3, In relation to national defence and political independence; 4, In relation to the development of industry and commerce. The details of these will successively appear in the sequel of the work.

Lakes are still pretty numerous in Scotland; although in early times they were far more numerous. During the last hundred and fifty years many lochs have been drained and turned into cultivated land; while the natural processes of growth have transformed others into mosses. They are most numerous in the Highland and Middle divisions of the country. Loch Lomond is the largest one in the Kingdom; it is twenty-four miles long and seven miles broad at its widest part. It contains upwards of thirty islands, many of which are richly wooded. For some time it has been held to be scientifically proved, that the greater part of the lochs of Scotland were formed or at least deepened by the action of glacier ice; some of them are scooped out of solid rock, the immense weight of a great moving mass of ice having effected this result.

Although the country is comparatively poor in soil, it is rich in the raw materials of industry. Limestone, greenstone, freestone, flagstone, slatestone, and granite of various colours are abundant. The carboniferous rocks extend from Fife Ness to the coast of Ayrshire, and cover the greater part of the Central Region――the coal, iron, and shale district. It has been estimated that the total depth of the carboniferous strata cannot be less than 6000 feet.¹ The richest portions of the coal fields are in Clydesdale, Lanarkshire, and Renfrewshire; the counties of Ayr, Fife, Stirling, Edinburgh, and Linlithgow, follow in order; and in most of these counties more or less valuable beds of ironstone, shale, and limestone, are intermixed with the coal. Broken strata of coal have been found as far north as Sutherlandshire. Lead and copper are found in small quantities; gold also has been discovered in several parts of the country, though not in sufficient quantities to repay the labour of searching for it. About twenty years ago, a number of persons employed themselves searching for gold in Sutherlandshire, and though small quantities were found, the occupation did not prove remunerative.

¹ Geikie’s Scenery of Scotland, page 329, 1887.

Within the limit of the close of the latest geological epoch, the flora and fauna of the country may be briefly noticed. The character of the vegetation varied in different localities, and according to altitude on the mountains. Heaths, and here and there a straggling alpine plant, graced the higher brows of the mountains; lower down, on their ribs, waving ferns and other wild growths shot up; around their base, and some 1500 feet upward on their sides, trees of pine and oak spread out their trunks and branches. The oak also abounded on the low grounds, and other indigenous trees, such as the birch, hazel, alder, willow, and juniper, all lived and grew wonderfully. In the boggy valley and glen, marsh plants, sea growths, and other wild flowers sprang up. In the more level and dry grounds, natural grasses, and wood wherever the conditions were suitable covered the scene. How many of the fruit bearing trees and bushes were indigenous I am unable to tell; that there were wild fruit of various kinds need not be doubted.

Passing to the fauna of the country, vast multitudes of trout swarmed in the streams, rivers, and lakes; and immense shoals of fish, then as now, inhabited the firths and bays, and the encircling ocean. Touching the feathered species, there were several kinds of game, wild ducks, and fresh water and sea fowls were plentiful. Rapacious birds of the hawk and owl varieties, and the golden eagle were common. The British Islands are very rich in birds, nearly three hundred species are known, some of which are nowhere else found. The small singing birds of the country are well known, and need not be enumerated, for in spring and summer they enliven the garden, the wood, the valley and the mountain. Among the higher indigenous animals there were one or two species of the ox, from which the native cattle were probably derived. The sheep, red deer, and the roebuck were common; and the dog and the horse appear to have been domesticated at a very early period. The hare, the fox, wild cats, weasels, fumarts, and other wild animals, some of which have long been extinct in Scotland, such as the wild boar, the wolf, the beaver, and others, were common. The wolf held out for many centuries into the present era, and Acts of Parliament were passed in the fifteenth century, commanding the people to muster at certain seasons every year to hunt and destroy them.

Although the main outline of the country was the same then as now; yet the external surface and face of the country then presented a very different aspect to that which we see around us in every quarter at the present time. There was more water over the whole country; the Firths of Forth and Clyde rose some thirty feet above the present level of their tides; and the ground on which Leith, Dundee, Arbroath, Ayr, Greenock, Cromarty, and many other towns on the coast now stand, was then either wholly or in part covered with water. The rivers too were then much larger than they are now, and in many places their waters spread over a wider area. Then there were ♦innumerable lakes and swamps, black mosses and moors; and vast forests which swept in long withdrawing glades across the country. Thick clouds of mist often enveloped the land and water, and a severer climate prevailed. The reigning silence was only broken by the howl and snort of the wild beasts which roamed throughout the country. Such was the state of the country, when man first planted his foot on the soil of Scotland, and found himself surrounded by the conditions and the natural resources of the home, which I have briefly described; and how far he has turned them to account this history should show.

♦ “inumerable” replaced with “innumerable”

The influence of climate, soil, food, and other natural agencies on man, and the early inhabitants of Scotland, have now to be considered. According to the brief statement in the first section, it is extremely difficult to distinguish in the early stages of society, what is due to external agencies on the one hand, from what is due on the other to the internal energy of man himself. Still the co-relative potency of external influences and natural agencies on the destiny of the human race can hardly be questioned. At once discarding visionary notions, and endeavouring to grapple with the real and living world; we find men naked upon the earth amid the forces of nature, and on every side ferocious and venomous creatures to contend against; while he had everything to learn, how to protect himself and to fight and struggle for his life. Thus we must see the importance of the surrounding conditions and circumstances. Here man had to shield himself from the biting cold and frost, there from the scorching and burning sun; everywhere he found himself face to face with numerous forces which might have hurt or destroyed him.

Looking then to the climate and soil of Scotland in prehistoric times, the difficulty of obtaining food and protection from the cold and frost incident to the country, would have been the first matters to seriously affect the early inhabitants. The limited quantity of vegetable roots and wild fruit, which the soil spontaneously produced, must have rendered a supply of food from this source exceedingly precarious; and, prior to cultivation in so sterile a country, the early inhabitants could hardly have subsisted on vegetable food. The only remaining source of food in sufficient abundance was the wild animals, fowls, and the fish swarming in the waters. But it demanded much exertion and some ingenuity on man’s part to procure a supply of this description; owing to the coldness of the climate, however, and his imperfect means of sheltering himself, animal food was most suitable for him, as it is best fitted to keep up the warmth of the body. The results of these external conditions on the spirit and habits of the early inhabitants may be easily realised. The exertion and risk incurred in pursuing and slaying wild animals would naturally ♦develop habits of daring and determination; and the very efforts necessary for his self-preservation tended to develop his faculties. In short, we may easily comprehend how the circumstances in which man found himself placed in this quarter of the globe, were admirably calculated to develop a fund of energy, a spirit of independence, and a physical constitution capable of great and heroic endurance.

♦ “develope” replaced with “develop”

The natural structure of the country was favourable to lawless freedom. Geographically there are few countries less adapted to the requirements of a central despotism than Scotland. As the obstacles interposed by nature rendered regular communication between the different parts of the country almost impossible for ages, the results of these structural features of the country have been enormous, and they will again and again force themselves upon our notice. Here I am mainly concerned with the effort to understand their early effects. Their outcome was exhibited in the form of a number of little local rulers planted throughout the country――sometimes called chiefs, at other times nobles, and they long possessed the supreme power in Scotland, though not always its nominal holders; and they offered a prolonged and determined resistance to the formation of an effective central authority.

The general features of a country may be considered in relation to the imagination, and also in relation to the understanding. The appearances presented by external nature to the eye and the senses mainly operates through the imagination, and this process has been supposed to have originated many of the superstitions which have afflicted mankind, such as those primitive notions of spirits and ghosts, myths, legends, and so on, which arose in the infancy of the race. Generally, it may be said, that whatever in the aspects of nature is calculated to inspire feelings of fear, terror, or bewilderment, and everything that raises in the mind an idea of the uncontrollable and unfathomable, has a tendency to inflame the uncultured imagination. In the early prehistoric ages, when men looked around and contrasted their own powers with the forces of nature, they were apt to become painfully conscious of their own helplessness and their dependent condition. Hence have sprung up the mythologies and polytheisms of the world. In those regions of the earth, where nature is seen on a grand and imposing scale, the impressions produced on the mind would be the most effective and abiding.

But the mountains and rivers of Scotland, though numerous, cannot be considered as being on an exceedingly grand scale, when compared with those of other countries. The aspects of these mountains and rivers could scarcely have presented an unsurmountableness calculated to overawe or stagger the minds of the people, although doubtless in the early stages these outstanding features of the country had some effect upon the feelings of the inhabitants. The rolling and raging waves of the sea, the rocks, and torrents streaming down the mountains, the storms and mists, have all been considered as suggesting and intensifying the superstitions of the Scots.¹ It seems to me that the influence of these natural agencies on the peculiar characteristics of Scotch superstition have been greatly overdrawn. There were many other ways in which their superstitions might have arisen, even supposing that the Scots had any superstitions essentially peculiar to themselves.

¹ Buckle’s History of Civilisation, Volume II., page 181; Burton’s Criminal Trials in Scotland, Volume I., pages 240‒248.

In relation to the understanding, on the other hand, the influence of the mountains and hills, the rivers, the lakes, the firths, and the sea, on the mind and daily life of the inhabitants, is clearly manifested. This will appear on all sides as we proceed with their history. The hills and elevated rocks were selected as the appropriate sites for strongholds; and the lakes were utilised for a similar purpose. We find the banks of rivers, the heights near the side of an estuary, and the elevated positions in the vicinity of the sea shore, all chosen with remarkable sagacity as the fittest sites for the habitations of communities. Here we can trace with something like precision the co-relative action of external nature on the understanding of man; here we can see him picking out the spots best suited for his purposes, and exerting that faculty which has enabled the human race to obtain an undisputed supremacy upon the earth.

SECTION III.

Historic Interpretation――Ethnological Problem.

I. Whether man was originally descended from some species of extinct or still surviving apes,¹ does not come within the scope of my subject. But to render my principle of historic interpretation clear, it is necessary to make a brief statement. Man from the beginning of his career upon the earth has been in possession of his physical organism, his external senses, and his psychical faculties. Although in the early stages his mental powers were undeveloped, still he had the use of his external senses and the capacity of thinking, however limited his views might have been. For in the order of human development thought necessarily preceded language, and always has preceded it. In spite of the opinion of an eminent writer, who has asserted and reiterated that thought and language is absolutely identical, a notion well calculated to introduce confusion into the subject.² In nature and reality, if thought had not preceded language, the rational origin of language itself would be inconceivable. Is there not evidence recorded of individuals, who have thought much without using articulate language? I have observed an infant of three months old manifest distinct evidence of memory in relation to inanimate objects. I have also observed infants of eighteen months, who had a clear idea of the relation of cause and effect, and showed a wonderful power of reasoning and a spirit of inquiry. It is the internal psychical capacity of the mind-thinking power, which renders language itself possible. In the early stages of the human race it is certain that man did think hard and long too――thousands of years before he had even a very limited vocabulary of articulate speech; and we know that alphabets and written languages were only of comparatively recent origin. Instead of language being absolutely identical with thought, it is merely an instrument for the expression and communication of thought, and an instrument to some extent fortuitously formed, as is shown by the multitude of different languages; and even the most highly developed ones are inadequate to express the infinite combinations and relations of thought.

¹ “My own theory of the matter, however, is slightly different from this. For, while accepting all that goes to constitute the substance of Mr. Darwin’s suggestion, I think it almost certain that the faculty of articulate sign-making was a product of a much later evolution, so that the creature who first presented this faculty must have already been more human than ape like. This Homo alius stands before the mind’s eye as an almost brutal object, indeed, yet still erect in attitude, shaping his flints to serve as tools and weapons, living in tribes or societies, and able in no small degree to communicate the logic of his recepts by means of gesture-signs, facial expressions, and vocal tones. From such an origin the subsequent evolution of sign-making faculty in the direction of articulate sounds would be an even more easy matter to imagine than it was under the previous hypothesis. Having traced the probable course of this evolution, as inferred by sundry analogies; and having dwelt upon the remarkable significance in this connection of the inarticulate sounds which still survive as so-called ‘clicks’ in the lowly formed language of Africa; I went on to detail sundry considerations which seemed to render probable the prolonged existence of the imaginary being in question――traced the presumable phases of his subsequent evolution, and met the objection which might be raised on the score of Homo alius being Homo postulatus.” _Mental Evolution of Man_, by G. J. Romanes, M.A., LL.D., page 429, 1888. This volume is part of an attempt to strengthen the theory of evolution, by showing how the psychological barrier between man and the brute may be overcome. The effort is carried on with vigour and considerable ingenuity.

² Gifford Lectures, pages 24, 356, 406, by Max Müller, 1888.

From the historic standpoint, languages may be called the products of social organisation. Thus different tribes, communities, and nations originate and develop languages in harmony with their special circumstances, social state, and stages of civilisation. The evolution of language everywhere is partly a natural and partly an artificial process, springing out of the growth of the varied organisations, states of society, and human culture; and hence the multiplicity and diversity of languages throughout the world.

But the laws of thought are not dependent on language, or necessarily identical with any form of speech. Thought can create mere arbitrary signs, such as the formula and symbols used in science, which in themselves have no meaning until the mind and the laws of thought assign to them ideas, powers, and so on, which represent quantity and quality and explain the infinite relations of the universe. But, excepting Max Müller, did any one ever assert that the symbols themselves were identical with the ideas, thoughts, and reasonings involved in mathematics, astronomy, and chemistry?

In the earliest stage of society man’s thinking faculty appears to have been comparatively narrow, owing to his limited experience. Still it is an ♦indispensable requisite of a historic principle of interpretation to take account of the inner psychical faculties of man as a factor in the origin of the first stage of society, in the subsequent creation of historical conditions, and throughout the entire development of civilisation. The psychical characteristics of tribes are more important than their physical peculiarities, and when both sides of these characteristics are strongly marked, they tend to make new historical conditions, to produce relative changes, and thus advance civilisation. There is little progress in human society until a series of intersective relations arise and begin to operate and affect the positions and circumstances of tribes, and then onward and progressive movements gradually proceed.

♦ “indispensible” replaced with “indispensable”

In the interpretation of the prehistoric ages and early culture the first requisite is a just conception of human nature, to recognise the natural rights of all communities, and human rights, wherever there is evidence of their existence. For it must be remembered that there has been an almost perpetual tendency among the more powerful peoples to cruelly oppress the weaker and less fortunate communities.

Touching the investigation of the remains, relics, and the phenomena of a people in a given area, the first question is, what are the facts? The relation of such facts as can be ascertained, and their meaning, have to be explained. Following the natural course of development in Scotland, we find a people using stone and taking the materials within their reach, adapting them to suit the ends and circumstances of their daily life. Associated with this people and their stage of culture we find a series of remarkable structural remains which demands the greatest care and discrimination to interpret, owing to the remoteness of the period and the very imperfect knowledge of these people now obtainable. Explanations of unfamiliar phenomena are often apt to be wrong, unless when carefully made, and only relevant points admitted as evidence.

Proceeding down the stream of time we find a people using bronze, and manufacturing their weapons and implements in this material. They developed a culture which is specially connected with the products of this industry, and they occasionally adorned their persons with fine ornaments of jet and gold. This people erected stone circles in which they placed the remains of the dead, and they also erected unchambered cairns over the remains of the dead. But there is an overlapping of the bronze and iron periods, which causes difficulty in the sequent arrangement of certain classes of remains, and in such cases I have endeavoured to make the best use of circumstantial evidence. In Scotland there is a remarkable overlapping of all the three stages of stone, bronze, and iron; and, therefore, though bronze and iron implements may be found associated with the earth houses and the crannogs, it does not follow that their origin and period of occupation should be assigned to the iron age.

The discrimination and estimation of historical evidence, and prehistoric evidence in particular, is a difficult and arduous task. In estimating prehistoric evidence great care and caution is requisite, since owing to the imperfect character of the materials on which to form a direct conclusion, recourse to inference is tried: and many of the inferences which have been drawn in this department rests on no sufficient evidence; the merest shadow of analogy, far fetched instances from some other quarter of the globe――utterly inapplicable to the point in hand, some allusion or conjecture found in Greek and Roman literature, have been often adduced as evidence, which it is heresy to question.

Even written materials, and national documents, when viewed as matter of historical evidence, must be discriminated, and their value estimated according to circumstances and the characteristics of the times to which they belong. Thus, surrounding circumstances is always an element of more or less value in estimating every description of historical evidence.

Strange as it seems, the intelligence of mankind has often been in advance of their means. This appears to have been the case in the earlier stages of human progress. Even now intellect is in advance of the means of attainment amongst the highest civilised nations. This is the case in physical science generally; and when we look at ethical and social science, it is plain that intellect is far ahead of the means of attainment. For instance, it is well known that unequal and defective laws produce disastrous results. So the difficulty in this lies not in the want of knowledge, but about the most efficient remedies, and the most effective means of applying them to remove the evils. On these points men hold different opinions, and so the evils continue. Such has been more or less the experience of mankind from the dawn of consciousness to the present hour. Man knew about many things long before he could command the requisite means to accomplish them; and therefore the mere wrecks and fragments of the handiwork of prehistoric peoples are not a complete index of their intelligence and powers. This has to be taken into account in our interpretation, and in our final estimate of the culture of such peoples. We can easily realise that similar difficulties, and much greater ones, beset our early ancestors, than those which still beset many of our own efforts.

But the description of prehistoric objects would have little interest, unless we knew about the people who produced and used these things in their daily life, something touching the race then inhabiting the country, and whence they came. To this question I will now turn.

II. For long it was the fashion to fix the cradle of the human race somewhere in the centre of Asia. It was said, that all the early movements of mankind were always from the East to the West: that all the migrations of the tribes which had peopled Europe, came at intervals in successive hordes from the East. It was also said, that the progress of civilisation had followed the sun from the East to the West. In the first edition of this volume (1877) I ventured to make the following statement:――“Touching the idea so generally embraced, that the early invasions of Europe have always been from the East to the West, I confess that I cannot see the necessity for this assumption. Its wide prevalence is probably largely due to long fixed habits of thought. Why should the central region of Asia be deemed the cradle of the human race? This does not relieve the problem of any of its difficulties. It is just as easy to conceive man originating in one place as in another; in the heart of Africa, America, or Europe, as in Asia, especially as the race had spread over all these quarters of the earth long before we have any records. What can all our science tell us about the spot where man first came into existence? Imaginary theories are swiftly formed on a point of which nothing is known. There is little or no philosophic ground for this Eastern origin of the race; and it is vain to cover our ignorance in the garb of knowledge.” The only semblance of a reason for imagining that the centre of Asia was the cradle of the race, is the assumption that it was warm in this region, and therefore primitive man could easily have lived and multiplied there; but of course we cannot know whether it was warm or not at the period of man’s first appearance on the earth.

Recently vigorous attempts have been made to shift the cradle of the great Aryan race from the centre of Asia to Europe. In the early part of this century comparative philology gave currency to the relationship of the far-spread family of Aryan languages. Then shortly after a theory was formed to the effect that these allied languages had all originally sprung from a clan somewhere located in Asia, in Bactria, or the banks of the Oxus. But it is now strongly contended that Europe was the centre in which the ancestors of the Aryan race first saw the light, and that there is no Aryan race in the same sense that there is an Aryan language, and that the question touching the origin of the Aryans can only refer to the ethnic affinities of those various races which have acquired Aryan speech. The real problem is among which of these races did Aryan language arise, and where was the cradle of that race?¹ This is not likely to be soon solved.

¹ The Origin of the Aryans, by Isaac Taylor, LL.D., page 7, 1890. J. G. Rhode first advanced the theory that central Asia was the cradle of the Indo-European race, and based his arguments mainly on geographical indications. Pott’s argument is founded on the notion that “the path of the sun must be the path of culture.” Ibid., pages 9, 10. Hegel also strongly maintained that the spirit of humanity, in its historic manifestation, followed the course of the sun from the east to the west, and at last culminated in the German nation, which being interpreted meant in himself――in his own system of philosophy.

In 1848 Jacob Grimm ennunciated the theory that――“Few will be found to question that all the nations of Europe migrated anciently from Asia,” and so on. In 1859 Max Müller adopted Grimm’s theory, and superimposed on it a fine flowing poetic strain, which captivated multitudes of people. The same year Pictet published the first volume of his Origines Indo-Européennes, in which he presented an elaborate theory of the successive Aryan migrations from Central Asia. He brought the Celts south of the Caspian and through the Caucasus to the north of the Black Sea, and then up the Danube to the extreme west of Europe; and the Greeks and Italians by a route, south of the Caspian, through Asia Minor to Greece and Italy; while the Slavs and Teutons marched north of the Caspian through the Russian steppes. Taylor’s Origin of the Aryans, pages 11‒12.

Amongst the causes which tended to discredit the Asiatic origin of the Aryans may be mentioned the evidence of the antiquity of man presented by geology, prehistoric investigation, anthropological study, and craniology. From the results obtained in these branches of inquiry, it became apparent that man in Europe was the contemporary of the mammoth, the reindeer, the musk-sheep, lion, elephant, bear, and other animals, which are either locally or wholly extinct. It further appeared that man had inhabited France and the south of Britain at the close of the quaternary period.¹ When this was at last recognised, views of man and traditional notions which had long prevailed began to recede into the region of delusion. It was then asked whether there was any real evidence of these great successive migrations from Central Asia? “Is there any reason for supposing that the present inhabitants of Europe are not in the main the descendants of the neolithic races whose rude implements fill our museums? If not, what has become of these primitive peoples?”² After it had been shown that the skulls of the primitive inhabitants of central France were of the same type as those of the present inhabitants, and that the skulls of the Spanish Basques belonged to another neolithic type, and similar results obtained in Denmark, Britain, and Eastern Europe, the logical conclusion from such facts seemed clear.³

¹ Prehistoric Europe, by J. Geikie, LL.D., pages 19‒23, 74, 89, 92, et seq., 114, 360, 378, 544‒556; _The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments of Great Britain_, by J. Evans, pages 430‒462, 578‒621.

² Taylor’s Origin of the Aryans, page 19.

³ The Human Species, by A. De ♦Quatrefages, 1879. This authority says:――“In the quaternary period there is more precise information about man than of several of the existing races. The caves which he inhabited, those in which he buried his dead, and the alluvial deposits formed by rivers which have borne away his corpse, have preserved numerous bones for our study. As many as forty different places in all, especially in the western portion of Europe, have supplied our museums with as many as forty skulls, more or less intact, and numbers of fragments of the cranium and face, as well as a great number of the bones of the trunk and limbs, and even some entire skeletons,” page 287.

“In fossil, as well as in modern skulls, we find between races and individuals oscillations of a more or less striking character. Although these are often of less extent in known fossil races than those observed in existing populations.” Ibid., page 293.

“In all fossil races we find the essentially human character of the predominance of the cranium over the face. With them, as with us, the bony framework which contains the brain becomes longer, narrower, or shorter, at the same time increasing in size; it rises or is flattened, but always possesses a capacity comparable to that of the present day.” Ibid., page 295.

“We admit, then, two dolichocephalic races――those of ♦Canstadt and of ♦Cro-Magnon. The more or less brachycephalic races are four in number. Under the name of Furfooz races we have included two races discovered in that famous locality, (the valley of the Lesse, in Belgium). The Grenelle race (name of a place near Paris) and that of La Truchere also take their names from the localities where they were found.” Ibid., page 301. He gives many interesting details of these several races, but the evidence on which some of the details rests does not come up to my standard.

♦ “Quaterfages” replaced with “Quatrefages” “Constadt” replaced with “Canstadt” “Cro-Magon” replaced with “Cro-Magnon”

It was seen that the Aryan languages must either all have originated in Europe, one member, the Indo-Iranian, separating from the rest and migrating to its present region, or they must all have originated in Asia, and then migrated severally to Europe, still retaining in their new homes the precise relative positions which their mutual connections prove must have originally existed. Which of the two alternatives is the more probable? That of a single migration, of a people whom we know to have been nomads at no very remote period, or six distinct migrations of six separate peoples, of which there is no evidence that they ever migrated at all, and whose traditions assert that they were aboriginal?¹

¹ Taylor’s Origin of the Aryans, pages 22‒23.

According to Dr. Schrander two positions are settled――that from the earliest period of which there is evidence we find Asiatic Aryans on the Jaxartes, and the European Aryans in Northern Europe. He maintains that not a shred of evidence has been adduced to show that any migration of the European Aryans from the East ever occurred. At the earliest period the European Aryans seem to have been moving toward the south and the south-east; and he has now finally placed the main original home of the Aryans on the Middle Volga where it is joined by the Sanna.

As yet, however, there is not a concurrence of view among scholars and inquirers, some holding that Central Europe was the original cradle of the Aryans, others Eastern Europe, and some Northern Europe. The problem itself has often been discussed with needless heat. French and German scholars range themselves on opposite sides, and each representative of the two nationalities vehemently contends in turn that his ancestors alone were the pure primitive Aryans.¹

¹ ♦Poesche writes thus:――“The true scientific theory, which uplifts itself calm and clear, like the summit of Olympus, over the passing storm-clouds, is that a noble, fair-haired, blue-eyed people vanquished and subjugated an earlier race of short stature and dark hair. In opposition to this is the French theory, without scientific foundation, originating in political hatred, which asserts that the primitive Aryans were a short and dark people, who Aryanised the tall, fair race.” Die Arier, page 44.

M. Chavée maintains that the mental superiority lies with the other race:――“Look at the beautifully formed head of the Iranians and Hindus, so intelligent and so well developed. Look at the perfection of those admirable languages, the Sanscrit and the Zind. The Germans have merely defaced and spoilt the beautiful structure of the primitive Aryan speech.” Again, Ujfalvy remarks: “If superiority consists merely in physical energy, enterprise, invasion, conquest, then the fair dolichocephalic race may claim to be the leading race in the world; but if we consider mental qualities, the artistic and intellectual faculties, then the superiority lies with the brachycephalic race.” Another Frenchman, De Mortillet, in his Le Préhistorique, strongly maintains that the civilisation of Europe is almost entirely due to the great brachycephalic race.

The German writers further argue, “That while the peasantry and middle classes over the greater part of Europe are brachycephalic, the nobles and landed proprietors approximate rather to the long Teutonic type. This, they say, is a proof that a brachycephalic aboriginal people was conquered and Aryanised by Teutonic invaders.” Origin of the Aryans, pages 227, 229.

♦ “Posche” replaced with “Poesche”

Dr. Taylor has presented the following conclusions:――“The four European types of race may be traced continuously in occupation of their present seats to the neolithic period; and in the case of the Italic and Swiss pile dwellers, and the round barrow people of Britain, we must believe that their speech in neolithic times was Aryan――either Celtic or Italic. We are, therefore, forced to adopt the view that one of the four races must be identified with the primitive Aryans, and that this race, whichever it was, imposed its Aryan speech on the other three. It is most reasonable to believe that the Aryan civilisation originated with the broad-headed race of Central Europe, which possessed the skill to construct, with rude stone tools, the pile dwellings of Switzerland and Italy. And on archæological grounds we have come to the conclusion that the Slavo-Celtic race, as represented in the round barrows of Britain, and in the pile dwellings of Central Europe, comes nearest to the primitive Aryans as disclosed by linguistic palæontology. Aryan speech may have been evolved out of a language of the Ural Altaic class; the grammatical resemblances pointing to a primitive unity of speech, just as the physical resemblances point to a primitive unity of race. There must have been some ruder form of speech from which the elaborate Aryan inflection was evolved, and there is no other known form of speech, except the Ural Altaic, which can be regarded as the germ out of which the Aryan languages may have sprung. We have also arrived at the conclusion that the Celto-Slavic race best represents the primitive Aryans, whose speech may have been evolved out of a language of the Ural Altaic class. We may, therefore, conjecture that at the close of the reindeer period a Finnic people appeared in Western Europe, whose speech, remaining stationary, is represented by the agglutinative Basque, and that much later, at the beginning of the pastoral age, when the ox had been tamed, a taller and more powerful Finnic-Ugric people developed in Central Europe the inflective Aryan speech.”¹

¹ Origin of the Aryans, pages 217, 242, 295‒296.

Whether the Aryan language was originated in Europe or not, it seems pretty evident that its origin must stretch back to a period at least three or four thousand years before the Christian era. But identity or relationship of language by no means proves identity of race; at the utmost it only raises a presumption in favour of a common racial origin. Language belongs to the organised community, not specially to the race; so it can only prove social contact, not racial kinship, unless where other evidence is available, such as physical characteristics, religious beliefs, similar customs and habits. Tribes and races sometimes lose their own speech and adopt the tongues of others,――a social phenomena which occurs from various causes operating in the ceaseless evolution of human society.

I have briefly touched on the early inhabitants of Europe, and the questions of the origin of the Aryan race and languages, merely preparatory to the treatment of the ethnology of Scotland. No relics of Palæolithic man have been found anywhere in Scotland.¹ Although such relics, and even fragments of human bones have been discovered in the southern parts of the island, yet it is not usually maintained that these earliest tribes or cavemen survived through the subsequent geological and climatic changes, and continuously occupied the country on to the polished stone age.² I now come to the ethnological problem in the limited sense in which it relates to Scotland; but this question cannot be treated at all without reference to the southern part of the island and to the Continent.

¹ Geikie’s Prehistoric Europe, page 428.

² “We have seen that during the last glacial epoch Palæolithic man retreated with the reindeer and its congeners, and occupied the valleys of Southern France. What is his subsequent history? Did he return northwards with the Arctic and Alpine animals to re-occupy the Belgian and English caves in Postglacial times? As a matter of fact, he did not.... It is open, of course, to argue that the Neolithic race or races were identical with the Palæeolithic tribes, who had somehow acquired a knowledge of husbandry, spinning, and pottery; who had learned to domesticate certain animals, and to finish their implements more perfectly.... All this is possible, but, on the other hand, it is so extremely improbable that, until some positive evidence in favour of such a view be advanced, we may well leave it out of account.... Other writers are of opinion that the man of the reindeer period in Southern France probably remained where he was, to become absorbed in the new wave of population that swept into Europe at the close of the glacial period.... There are certain appearances in some Pyrenean caves, as in that of Gourdan, described by M. ♦Piette, which lead to the suspicion that the interval between the Palæolithic and Neolithic ages in Southern France may not have been prolonged.” Ibid., pages 546, 551‒552.

♦ “Pette” replaced with “Piette”

The earliest prehistoric race in Britain of whom we have reliable evidence, was a long-headed people of comparatively short stature. Their physical characteristics resembled the Berber race and North African tribes, and they probably migrated from that quarter into Europe at a very remote period. They seem to have spread over the Spanish peninsula, the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean, Sardinia, Corsica, Southern Italy, and a great part of France; but they do not appear to have extended to Germany or the north-east of Europe. They were non-Aryan in race and in speech, and probably spoke Numidian dialects akin to the inscriptions of that character. This race arrived in the south of Britain about the beginning of the polished stone period: and gradually spread over the Island, and even reached the Orkneys.

They appear to have inhabited the Island alone for a very long period. They constructed the long barrows of England: and the chambered cairns of Caithness, Argyle, and Orkney. In Scotland they also seem to have constructed the curious underground structures called earth-houses, as will be shown in the sequel.

The first migration of a race of people of Aryan descent, who spoke a Celtic dialect, came from the Continent of Europe, and arrived on the southern or eastern shores of Britain, long before the close of the stone period. It is almost certain that there were several unrecorded migrations of Celtic tribes from the coasts of France and Belgium to the southern parts of Britain. These tribes spread very slowly over the country, and subdued, and intermixed with the long headed race which had preceded them in the occupation of the Island. The new-comers soon realised the advantage of living on friendly terms with the original inhabitants, instead of attempting to exterminate them; as all the available evidence tends to show that the two races peaceably and slowly amalgamated. The skulls and remains of the two peoples have often been found lying together in the same barrows.¹

¹ British Barrows. By Wm. Greenwell, pages 126‒129, 559‒632.

The earlier race, sometimes called Iberians, Basques, and other names, were a short limbed people, only averaging about five feet five inches in height, the tallest of the men reaching five feet six inches, and the shortest of the women four feet eight inches. Their heads were long and narrow, of the type termed dolichocephalic: their physical frame was not strong, though some individuals of the race possessed well developed muscular powers. It is said that they were dark and swarthy in complexion. On the other hand, the newly arrived Celtic tribes were of the brachycephalic type――a people with broad heads and very powerful physical frames; their average height was about five feet nine inches; and the female sex was also tall, very handsome and muscular.¹

¹ Ibid., pages 559‒632, 680, 682, et seq. Strabo, when speaking of the inhabitants of the interior of Britain, says of the Coritavi, a tribe in Lincolnshire:――“The men are taller than the Celts of Gaul; their hair is not so yellow and their limbs are more loosely knit. To show how tall they are, I may say that I saw myself some of their young men at Rome, and they were taller by six inches than any one else in the city.” Elton’s Origins of English History, page 240, 1882.

The Celts imposed their Aryan speech on the aboriginal race, and became the ruling people.¹ They formed themselves into strong but separate tribes. Owing to a number of natural causes and circumstances, the movement of the Celtic people into the interior of the country, northward and westward, was extremely gradual and slow:――1, They had to come to an understanding with the original inhabitants as they advanced, even though there was little fighting; 2, A large part of the country was then covered with swamps, fens, and dense forests; 3, The natural barriers of rivers and firths which often overflowed their valleys, and of mountain ranges; 4, The difficulties connected with procuring a sufficient supply of food; and 5, The difficulties of protecting themselves from the severe colds and frosts, as the climate was much colder than the sunny region which they had left. Taking these conditions and circumstances into account, which must have greatly impeded the onward and outward movement of the Celts in overrunning the Island, we may reasonably assume that from the time the first Celtic tribes landed in the south of England, to the time when they reached the quarter now called Scotland, at least a century had elapsed. After they had crossed the borders, it must have taken more than another century to overrun Scotland and reach the extremities of the northern Highlands. If we recall the fact, that it took the Romans with all their resources, appliances, and disciplined legions, upwards of forty years to conquer their way from the South of England to the Firth of Forth, we will easily realise the probable truth of what has just been indicated.

¹ Some recent writers have in a half-hearted way maintained that one of the prehistoric races of Britain was of a Finnish type from the Baltic region; but there seems to be a lack of evidence to support this view. See _Origins of English History_, by Elton, pages 126, 144, 151, 160, 167‒179. The evidence adduced by this writer in support of the Finnic origin of the men of the Bronze age in Britain is altogether unsatisfactory, and indicates a lack of knowledge touching the conditions of the prehistoric ages.

As I have said, there were probably several unrecorded migrations or invasions of Celtic tribes from Gaul or Belgium into Britain. The result of this would have been a continuance and an intensification of the onward and outward movement of the people; and ultimately the creation of real historical conditions, which in turn and in process of time, would account for all the varieties of Celtic language in the British Islands.

At a much later period, and after the foundation of the Gaulish empire in the sixth century B.C., invasions of Britain from the Gaulish territories took place. About the end of the second century B.C., the King of Soissons had extended his sway over a portion of southern Britain; and those Gaulish people, who came over during the later period, settled along the southern and eastern shores of England, and carried on a commercial traffic with their kindred on the other side of the Channel. But they did not then penetrate far into the interior of the country. In 58‒50 B.C. Cæsar conquered Gaul; and in 55‒54 he twice attempted to conquer Britain but failed; and nearly a century elapsed ere the Romans made another effort to conquer the Island.

Thus, at the opening of the Christian era, the whole area of Scotland was inhabited by people speaking an Aryan language――called Celtic. But this people themselves, as we have seen, were not a pure Celtic race; on the contrary, they had intermingled with and absorbed that original short-stature and long-headed race, whose blood runs in their veins more or less to this day. The same may be said of the whole of England, excepting the narrow strips along the southern and eastern shores which had been colonised by the later migrations and invasions of the Gauls. I must now turn to Ireland and its early inhabitants.

Into the maze of Irish ethnology and endless legends I cannot enter at length, but it is necessary to state a few facts. Ireland was inhabited in the Stone age, and probably by tribes akin to the short stature people which we have found occupying Britain. Celtic tribes migrated to Ireland at a very early prehistoric period, either from the Continent or from the southern shores of Britain. This Island was not invaded by the Romans, and consequently its early inhabitants were permitted to follow their own course of development uninterrupted by external interference till a much later period than Britain. The population of Ireland seems to have multiplied rapidly, and became crowded at a comparatively early period; and they began to molest the western shores of Britain in the early centuries of the Christian era. Migrations from Ireland to the western parts of Scotland became frequent; and an intercourse based on ethnic affinities sprung up between the two countries. The details of this connection will appear in the sequel.

About the seventh century the Scandinavians began a movement through the ocean towards the Shetland and Orkney Islands, and onward to the northern quarter of Scotland, which they ultimately reached; and hence became an element of the ethnology of Scotland. This movement will be detailed in the subsequent narrative. The Angles or Saxons reached the southern borders of Scotland about the middle of the sixth century, and settled in Lothian. Their subsequent movement and intermixture with the earlier inhabitants, and the gradual spread of their language, will be treated at length in the sequel. The last ethnic influx was the Norman Invasion; and in so far as it effected Scotland, it will be specially discussed in its appropriate order.

The origin and the consecutive relations of the constituent elements of the ethnology of the people of Scotland as briefly indicated in the preceding pages, may now be summarised:――1, The aboriginal people were a race of short stature, with long narrow heads; 2, They were invaded and subdued by a taller and broad-headed race, of Aryan descent, and speaking a Celtic dialect, and ultimately these two races amalgamated; 3, At a later period, Gaulish tribes settled on the south and south-eastern shores of England; 4, Migrations from Ireland, of tribes speaking Celtic, to the western parts of Scotland, began early in the Christian era and continued for several centuries; 5, The movement of the Scandinavians to the Shetland and Orkney Islands, onward to the Western Isles and the northern mainland of Scotland; 6, The invasion and settlement of the Saxons in the south of Scotland; 7, Finally, an influx of Norman nobles. Such simply stated, were the real ethnological elements out of which the Scottish nation was ultimately developed. Thus the subject is freed from a mass of legends and the obscuring accretions of many generations.

SECTION IV.

The Stone Age.

In this section and the following one, an attempt will be made to indicate the state of the inhabitants in the earliest times. Although the relics, implements and structures, which they have left, may not always be available for eliciting clear information, still these remains when well sifted yield valuable results. In such an expository narrative, touching prehistoric matters, dates can rarely be assigned; but the natural sequence of development may be followed, and several stages of early civilisation explained.

Beginning with the group of things which may safely be assumed to have been an indispensable requisite in the circumstances of the daily life of the people, namely, their weapons, tools, and implements. The greater number of our stone implements and weapons have been casually found in the ground, in draining, ploughing, making roads, in peat mosses, the beds of rivers, on the margins of lochs, and on the sandy wastes near the sea shore. It must be observed that all these stone tools and weapons are not strictly assignable to the stone age, for such stone objects are sometimes found in bronze age graves, and in association with many other circumstances, which clearly indicate a survival of some kinds of stone objects and implements into a much later period. Moreover, various kinds of stone implements seem to have continued in use long after the introduction of bronze.¹ So far as investigation has been made, there appears to be almost universal evidence of a stone age over the globe at one time or another, which shows that the early culture of the human race has proceeded on wonderfully similar lines in the most distant regions of the earth. On the other hand, there is often no satisfactory evidence of the same wide and distinct character of a passing from the stone age and through the bronze age. But the causes of this are easily understood, and will become clear as we proceed.

¹ “Sir William Wilde informs us that in Ireland stone hammers, and not unfrequently stone anvils, have been employed by country smiths and tinkers in some of the remote country districts until a comparative recent period. The same use of stone hammers and anvils for forging prevails among the Kaffirs of the present day. In Iceland, also, perforated stone hammers are still in use for pounding dried fish, driving in stakes, for forging and other purposes.” Evans’ Ancient Stone Implements, page 11, 1872. For other instances of the use of stone for various purposes in the Shetland and Orkney Islands, see Past and Present, by Dr. A. Mitchell, pages 121‒129.

The stone weapons, tools, and objects, which have been found in Scotland, may be separated into several groups, according to the purposes for which they were used: such as axes, spear and arrow heads, knives, saws, borers, and scrapers.

Axes, including hammers, are of two kinds, those with a hole for a shaft and those without a hole, and the first class is not so numerous as the other. The axes with a hole for a shaft present a greater variety of form, and are often ornamented, while the others are plain. They are rarely made of flint, but often of granite, schist, basalt, greenstone, and other kinds of stones. They vary much in size, and are distinguishable into three varieties, thus: 1, those with an edge at both ends; 2, with an edge at one end only; 3, with both ends blunt or rounded. Those with an edge at both ends are the rarest of the three forms. A fine specimen of this class in greenstone was found in a bronze age grave, in a stone circle, at Crichie, Aberdeenshire. Other examples have been found in Orkney, and in the Island of Coll, in an unfinished condition. It has been supposed that these stones were used as battle axes.¹

¹ Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 306‒307, et seq.

The second class, with the edge at one end only, is more common. A fine specimen was found associated with a cremated interment in an urn, which was turned up by the plough near Ardrossan, in Ayrshire. It is formed of granite, with an ornamental band of three incised lines round the concave edges pierced by the shaft hole, and the shorter end finished like a hammer with a rounded face. They have been found in every quarter of the country, and often in an unfinished state. The hole for the handle was usually pierced from both sides, so the boring has not always met exactly. They vary much in size and form, and in degrees of finish and polish. The third class, hammer-shaped at both ends, has been called a war hammer. A very fine specimen of it was found in the parish of Urquhart, Elginshire, formed of a whitish flint, and finely polished.¹

¹ Ibid., pages 309‒319, 320, 321; Wilson’s _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 102‒194; _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume IV., pages 55, 379; Volume V., pages 214, 240; Volume VI., pages 42, 86, 310, 332; Volume VII., pages 101, 102, 499; Volume VIII., pages 264, 232; Volume IX., pages 55, 384; Volume X., page 460; Volume XXIII., pages 205, 210.

The class of stone axes without a hole for the shaft are very numerous. They vary greatly in size and shape, from 3 inches in length to 15; some of them are of flint, others of different kinds of stone, and many of them are smoothed and polished over the surface. The smaller ones seem to have been tools, which were used for various purposes, but a number of the larger ones, which are more carefully polished and finished, have been considered weapons.

Arrow-heads show two distinct forms――the leaf-shaped and the triangular, and it seems probable that the leaf-shaped class may have been the earliest form. But both forms, with barbs and a central stem, were found in a chambered cairn at Unstan, in Orkney. They are all usually made of flint, and none of them are large; some of them have barbs but no stem, others have barbs and stems both. Many of them are beautifully shaped, and some specimens are finely serrated along the edges. Arrow-heads have occasionally been found still in the shaft; an example of a leaf-shaped one was found in 1875 in a moss at Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, with the shaft entire to the length of nine inches. The arrow-heads and spear-heads differ from each other only in size.¹ A very large collection of both arrow and spear heads may be seen in the National Museum at Edinburgh, in provincial museums, and private collections.²

¹ Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 354‒365.

² There are upwards of thirty provincial museums in Scotland, which have collections of Scotch antiquities both in stone and bronze, more or less extensive and valuable. Reports on these collections may be seen in the twenty-second volume of the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

There is a series of tools and implements, mostly of flint, which seem to have been used for various purposes in connection with the daily life of the people. These are knives, saws, scrapers, borers, and flaking tools, and we may endeavour to form some idea of the process of their manufacture. The ground-work of all these tools is a flake of flint, struck from a prepared core in such a way that it presents a more or less cross-section. These flakes may be of any length up to six inches, but in Scotland, where it is difficult to find large blocks of flint, the flakes are commonly short. Flakes just as when struck off the core of flint have sometimes been found along with the core itself. Such flakes may be used for many purposes, and many of them show evidence of having been so used without any preparation of the edge. The natural edge, however, soon becomes blunt and broken, so when a cutting tool of this kind was intended for constant use, it was worked along its edges and trimmed to a point resembling a shoemaker’s knife, or of a somewhat oval form. Many flint knives, trimmed for cutting or scraping, have been found throughout the country, some of which are single-edged and others double-edged. But knives, formed of various kinds of stone, have frequently been found, of slatestone, greenstone, schist, and other stones, flat, well-made, and highly finished.¹

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume III., pages 252, 439; Volume VII., pages 121‒136, 212‒219; Volume VIII., pages 64, 66; Volume XI., pages 172‒174; Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 365‒371.

Dr. Evans, perhaps the highest authority on stone tools and implements in Britain, has the following on flint flakes:――“The inner or flat face of a flake is that produced by the blow which dislodged it from the parent block, core, or nucleus. The outer, ridged, or convex face comprises the other facets. The base, or butt-end of a flake, is that at which the blows to form it were administered, the other end is the point. Flakes may be subdivided into――1. External, or those which have been struck off by a single blow from the edge of a nodule of flint. Many of these are as symmetrical as those resulting from a more complicated process of manufacture. 2. Ridged flakes, or those presenting a triangular section. One face of these sometimes presents the external crust of the flint; in others the ridge has been formed by transverse chipping, as was the case with the long flaxes of Pressigny, but this method appears to have been almost unknown in Britain. 3. Flat, where the external face is nearly parallel to the internal, and the two edges are formed by narrow facets. These several varieties may be long or short, broad or narrow, straight or curved, thick or thin, pointed or obtuse.” Ancient Stone Implements, pages 248‒49.

A flint saw is simply a flake trimmed to a jagged edge, instead of being sharpened by chipping or grinding. They are mostly of very small size, and in some specimens the teeth are formed with remarkable regularity and fineness. Though not so common as flint-knives, they are not rare, and there are upwards of sixty specimens in the National Museum.¹

¹ Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, page 372.

Flint tools, seemingly intended for awls or borers, are not very common in Scotland. Two kinds have been found――a long-pointed tool, which may have been used for piercing holes in skins or other soft material, and a shorter-pointed tool which may have been used for drilling holes in harder material. Another class have been called flaking tools; they are long and chisel-shaped, and usually appear blunted, worn, and rounded at the ends, as if from attrition against a hard substance. They are supposed to have been used for trimming and chipping other flint and stone tools. The tool called a flint-scraper is a round-nosed flake, with a semicircular end chipped to a bevelled edge, and usually flat on the under side, with the upper side trimmed to a ridged form. There are several varieties of this tool, and they seem to have been used for various purposes. Some of them are double-edged, others circular; and they also vary much in size. There seems to be no doubt that the larger ones were used for scraping hides and preparing leather. It also seems highly probable that the smaller class of these tools were used for a distinctly different purpose――that of producing fire with a nodule of pyrites of iron――in the same way as the flint and steel in our own times to strike a light. For the purpose of producing sparks, pyrites is as effective as iron, and they were so used among the Romans until a comparative late period. Pyrites of iron abound in the chalk-beds of England, but when they are exposed upon the surface of the ground decomposition in no very long time removes all appearance of them.¹

¹ Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 373‒376; Evans’ Ancient Stone Implements, etc., pages 269‒287, 367, _et seq._

Flint is nowhere very abundant in Scotland, but there are some localities which afford transported nodules in greater abundance than others, and in these there is always evidence of a long-continued and widespread industry in the manufacture of tools and weapons from the raw material. A site of such a manufacture was discovered at the confluence of the Leochel and the Don in Aberdeenshire, though flint is not native in the neighbourhood.¹ There is evidence of many such sites of flint manufactures, which, when closely examined, the mass of splinters “usually reveals the fact that among them are many flakes, cores, and unfinished implements, and not unfrequently hammer and anvil-stones, and even perfectly finished knives, saws, arrow-heads, or axes, may be occasionally found, although the rule is that only the waste products of the manufacture are met with. From these and from experimental knowledge of the qualities of the material the processes of the fabrication may to some extent be inferred. The tools were apparently, for the most part, naturally formed pebbles of quartz of a shape and size convenient for the purposes for which they were used. The larger pebbles, often of the shape and size of a cobbler’s lapstone, seem to have been used as anvil-stones, while the smaller pebbles, of such size and shape as could be conveniently grasped in the hand, have been used as hammer-stones.”

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume IV., page 385.

“When the inferences deduced from an examination and comparison of the chips, flakes, and cores, which compose the refuse of these ancient flint workshops, are compared with the results of the methods still employed, whether of savage arrow-makers or civilised manufacturers of gun-flints and strike-a-lights, the ancient methods of workmanship are found to coincide with the natural properties of the material and the modern processes so far as they go. But the ancient flint-workers went further than modern knowledge and modern skill can follow them. There are some of their processes which have not been discovered by modern science, and some of their products which cannot be imitated by modern skill, with all its ingenuity of contrivance and all its resources of means and appliances.”¹

¹ Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 374‒5; Evans’ Ancient Stone Implements, etc., pages 13‒48.

In this very brief account of the weapons, implements, and tools, of our early ancestors of the stone age, we can discern clear evidence of the knowledge, the ingenuity, and the skill which they possessed and exercised in the practical uses which they made of the means within their reach. These products of their industry, associated with their daily life, shows one side of a striking form of culture, considering the surrounding conditions and circumstances. There is another side of this culture, in some respects even more remarkable, and to it I will now turn.

Amongst all the prehistoric remains of Scotland there is scarcely anything that surpasses the Chambered Cairns of the Stone Age in significance and interest. Their great antiquity, their peculiarity of type, and their structural characteristics, associated with the phenomena of their internal deposits, offer a subject for examination of prime historic value. There is little doubt that the Long Barrows of England, and the Chambered Cairns of Caithness, Argyle, and Orkney, are the monuments of one and the same people; and that in the latter, so far as we can discover, we reach the representative of primeval man in Scotland.

Both the long and the short horned cairns of Caithness differ widely from those of the Bronze Age, and from those of all later periods. Their structural type is distinguished by two characteristics, namely: 1, by having an internal chamber accessible by a passage; 2, by having a regular external outline on the ground-plan, structurally defined by a double or single retaining wall. During the last thirty years a considerable number of them have been excavated and carefully explored; and I cannot do better than reproduce briefly a description of a few typical examples, and then present some details of their internal contents.

The external dimensions of some of the horned cairns are very great. On the crest of a hill overlooking the south end of the loch of Yarhouse, in Caithness, there are two cairns of great magnitude not far from each other. They lie across the hill from east to west, and have at both their ends curved horn-like projections, falling gradually to the level of the ground. The length of the longest one was two hundred and forty feet, the breadth at its eastern end was sixty-six feet, and at its western end thirty-six feet; but the curved horns expanded so that the line across their tips at the eastern end was ninety-two feet, and at the western end fifty-three feet. The height of the cairn at the east end was twelve feet, sloping gradually to below five feet at the west end. When the loose stones were removed from the upper part of the highest end, a chamber with a passage leading into it was disclosed. The outer opening of the passage was in the middle between the projecting horns; and two flat stones placed on end, 2½ feet high, formed the door jambs on the outside of the entrance. A well built passage two feet wide runs inward for ten feet, and where it opens into the chamber, two stones similar to those at the outside entrance, but higher, are set on end, and form a doorway of eighteen inches wide. The chamber itself is small compared with the external magnitude of the cairn; and it only measured twelve feet in length from front to back, and six feet from side to side. The side walls were entire to a height of seven feet, and at this height they began to converge to form a rudely vaulted roof, like the roofs of other erections of dry-built stone. The chamber is divided into three parts by two pairs of divisional stones projecting from the side walls opposite to each other; these stones are undressed flags sunk on end into the floor, and leaving about two feet between their edges. When the explorers had cleared the three compartments of the chamber and ascertained its construction, seeing that the chamber did not occupy more than a twentieth part of the length of the cairn, they thought that other chambers would be found within it. The centre was then tried, and trials were made all round the cairn, but no other chamber was found in it. The floor of the chamber itself was formed of a dark clay five inches thick, intermixed with ashes and calcined bones, in a state of extreme comminution; this layer was easily detached from the natural subsoil below, and was raised in large cake like masses, each of which was carried outside to be crumbled and searched. No single fragment of bone was discovered exceeding an inch in length; and the few bits which afforded any clear indications, such as portions of teeth and jawbones, were unmistakably human. A number of small flint chips, and two fragments of pottery, were the only manufactured articles found.¹

¹ Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 230‒236.

The other cairn closely resembled the first one, and stood about three hundred yards from it. But on the floor of the first compartment of its chamber a cist was placed to the left of the entrance. The cist was formed of slabs; and it was four feet four inches long, twenty inches wide, and nine inches deep to the level of the floor; and in the dark earthy clay inside of it, there was a whitish layer of softened bones in a condition of extreme decay. In the east end of the cist, fragments of an urn were found, and a necklace of small beads of lignite. The floor of the chamber consisted of a layer of clay and ashes over six inches thick, intermixed with burnt human bones, and animal bones; and in the corners of the chamber there were numbers of human teeth, of which the osseous parts had perished, and the enamel of the crowns only remained. About three miles from this cairn, another of the same character lies on the ridge of a height in the Moor of Camster. Its contents presented phenomena similar to the preceding ones. In the loose layer on the surface of the floor of the chamber, a few fragments of skulls and other unburnt bones of the human skeleton were found, mingled with the splintered bones of the horse, ox, deer, and swine. No fragments of pottery, flint-chips, or tools of any kind were found in it.¹

¹ Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 237‒243.

In a short cairn of the horned class which lies on a small height at Ormiegill, near Ulbster, there were found in its chamber a polished hammer of gray granite, an oval flint knife, and an arrow head, several flint flakes serrated on one side, and a number of well made scrapers. Another of the same class, locally called the Cairn of Get, lies in a hollow among the hills at Garrywhin, near Bruan. Its extreme length is eighty feet, and its greatest breadth sixty feet; the horns project about twenty feet in front, and about fifteen feet behind. On the surface of the floor of the first compartment of the chamber there were four unburnt human skeletons, and the skulls lying close to the wall on the right of the entrance. The skulls appeared to Dr. Anderson “to be fully as well formed as many of the heads to be seen on living men of the present day.” In the compacted mass of the floor of the chamber, there were an enormous quantity of human and animal bones, mostly more or less burnt; and with these were intermixed many chips and flakes of flint and fragments of pottery.¹

¹ Ibid., pages 244‒249.

There are many chambered cairns in Caithness without the external peculiarity of horns, oval shaped or roundish ones, some of which have been excavated, and the internal characteristics of their structure are similar to that of the preceding ones. On the crests of the hills of Yarhouse, there were four chambered cairns which the late Mr. A. H. Rhind explored. On the surface of the floors of the chambers he found unburnt bones and pottery, and in the layers burnt bones and pottery, but no flints or tools of any description. Dr. Anderson excavated another cairn on the hill above Bruan, the characteristics of which he considered as forming a connecting link between the Caithness and the Orkney forms of chambered cairns. This cairn was forty feet in diameter and fourteen feet in height, and the passage was ten feet long and two feet nine inches wide at the entrance, where it was three feet high, increasing in width and height inwards to the chamber. The interior differed from that of the preceding ones, inasmuch as it consisted of a principal chamber of two compartments, and also presented the peculiarity of a small side chamber opening off the principal one. The divisional slabs did not rise to the roof, which formed one vault over both the compartments of the chamber. The walls sloped outwards from the base to near the middle of their height, and were then brought inward above the middle by the overlapping of the stones to form a dome-shaped roof. The small side chamber off the principal one, measured four feet by three, and three feet six inches in height. Its floor was formed of a single flag, and on raising it, another flag was found underneath, and under both a layer of clay four inches deep, intermingled with charcoal, ashes, and burnt bones; and under this layer there was a third flag which lay upon the subsoil of the hill. The entire floor of the principal chamber and the inner part of the entrance passage was a mass twelve inches thick of broken and burnt bones mixed with ashes; the human bones were numerous, but so much broken that it was impossible to determine how many skeletons they represented. Amongst the animal bones, those of the horse, ox, red-deer, sheep or goat, and a large-sized dog, were distinguishable. A number of flint chips, a great quantity of broken pottery, amounting to several hundreds of fragments, and an oblong pebble with smoothed ends and sides, and a flat piece of bone three inches long, with a smoothed chisel-like edge, were found.¹

¹ Anderson’s Stone and Bronze Ages, pages 253‒260. A group of three cairns at Rhinavie, near Skelpick, in Strathnaver, Sutherlandshire, were examined by the late Mr. MacKay of Skelpick at the instance of the late Dr. John Stuart; and more recently, they have been described by the Rev. Robert Munro, in the _Proceedings of the Society of the Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume XVIII., page 228, et seq.

As mentioned in a preceding page, the long cairns have been found in many parts of England, in some of the south-western counties, also in Yorkshire, and they are numerous in Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Dorsetshire. The long cairns of Caithness “agree with those of England in being, as a rule, placed approximately east and west, also in having one end, and that the east, broader and higher than the other, as well as in other particulars. They are also frequently provided with walls, which enclose and support them, and have sometimes the peculiarity of having what have been termed ‘horns.’ These are formed by the enclosing walls inclining outwards at the ends and then returning with a curve inwards, making at the point in question a figure something like the conventional representation of the human heart. This curve usually constitutes the mode of approach into the burial chamber when it is placed at the end of the mound. The same remarkable feature is found in some of the long barrows of the south-west of England. The barrow, then (a long one at Upper Swell, in Gloucestershire,) may be taken as a fairly illustrative specimen of the horned variety of Long Barrow――a variety of the tumulus of the non-metallic period which is represented in Caithness, as described by Dr. Joseph Anderson, as well as in the south-west of England, and found to contain there interments similarly arranged, and pottery and implements of similar type and rudeness to those we have found here.... This Upper Swell barrow, however, differs from the other horned cairns in Caithness, Wiltshire, and Gloucestershire, in having its grave sunk below the natural surface of the ground, instead of being represented by a chamber with upright slabs for its walls, and placed on the surface and defined by the piling of stones round it.”¹ On the other hand, the English specimens of Long Barrows with horns, have the horns at one end only, usually at the widest end; while the Caithness cairns have horns at both ends, and externally this is the chief difference between them. But in the internal arrangements of the chambers there are also, as might be expected, several varying features. The character of the internal deposits in those of England and the North are remarkably similar; the bones of animals of the same species are found in both, and the tools and pottery, though not usually numerous in either of their contents, are also similar; but in the south of England the interments in them are mostly unburnt, while in the north of Scotland cremation seems to have been more common.²

¹ British Barrows, by Wm. Greenwell, M.A., pages 480, 481, 535‒536.

² “The similarity of this pottery, whether found in Caithness, the East Riding of Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, or Wiltshire, is a fact of less doubtful interpretation and greater significance; especially when we couple with it a consideration of the similarity of the weapons and implements, of the similarity of the ground plans of the Scottish horned cairns and of so many of the Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, and Somersetshire long barrows, and finally of the similarity of the skulls from the neolithic tumuli of all these localities. These similarities are the more surprising when we recollect how difficult intercommunication must have been at the period when they existed.” British Barrows, page 537. “The occurrence of animal bones is another frequent incident. It is rare indeed to meet with a barrow (where the material is such as to favour the preservation of bone) without a considerable number of them being scattered indiscriminately throughout the mound.... For instance, in one at Rudstone, they were literally in hundreds, placed with flint-chippings and shreds of pottery, in a dark-coloured, unctuous layer, which extended throughout the whole area of the mound, on the natural surface of the ground.... They may be the remains of food offered to the dead, an observance which has extensively prevailed in many countries and in various ages. They would in this case form part of the practice of the worship of our ancestors, which has been a feature almost universal in the growth of the religions of the human race, and allied always with fear.” Ibid., pages 9, 10.

Having indicated at some length one characteristic type of sepulchral constructions, which prevailed in both divisions of the island, which seems to show that one ♦homogeneous race had spread over Britain at a very remote period. The other varieties of chambered cairns can be noticed only in the briefest terms. Farther north than Caithness, in the Orkney Isles, there is a remarkable group of cairns of an exceedingly interesting character; the most notable of these is the chambered mound of Maeshowe. It lies about a mile to the east of the great stone circle of Stennis, and externally it presents the appearance of a mound thirty-six feet in height, ninety-two feet in diameter, and surrounded by a trench forty feet wide, and still in some parts eight feet deep. When it was opened from the top a central chamber was discovered, which measured about fifteen feet square on the level of the floor, and thirteen feet in height to the top of the walls; but the upper part of the wall had fallen in, and its original height may have been about twenty feet. In the east, north, and south sides of the chamber there are three small openings, at a height of three feet above the floor, which gives access to cells measuring about four feet six inches wide, from seven feet to five feet six inches long, and three feet high. In the middle of the west side of the chamber, the passage leading to the outside of the mound opens; the doorway is four feet eight inches high, and three feet four inches wide, decreasing in height and width as it proceeds outward, and at the external entrance it is only two feet four inches wide. At thirty feet outward from the chamber there are checks for a door, and behind them a recess in one side of the passage, in front of which there was a slab, which might have been used as a door; and from this point inward the passage is four feet four inches high, and three feet three inches wide, continuing thus for twenty-six feet, when it becomes narrowed to two feet five inches by two slabs placed upright to form checks for the inmost door.²

♦ “homogenous” replaced with “homogeneous”

² Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume V., pages 247‒252; Wilson’s _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, Volume I., page 67. I was deeply indebted to the late Mr. Andrew Gibb, F.S.A. Scotland, of Aberdeen, for particulars about Maeshowe, and suggestions on many other points of our prehistoric annals.

The chamber is built of undressed slabs and blocks of the close-grained claystone of the locality, and, although the walls are built without any lime or mortar, the masonry is very neat. “Whoever built it, the chamber of Maeshowe is the most perfect and elegant known to exist in any sepulchre of its class, on this side of the Alps.”¹ Dr. Anderson remarks that the indications of its original purpose, and the evidence of its earlier history, probably lay hidden in its floor, “and have not been placed on record either by its earlier or later explorers.” From the character of the structure itself, however, he rightly classes it with the Caithness chambered cairns.²

¹ _The Brochs and the Rude Stone Monuments of the Orkney Islands and the North of Scotland_, by J. Fergusson, D.C.L., page 28, 1877.

² Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, page 280. It is believed on pretty good evidence that the chamber of Maeshowe was broken open by the Norsemen, in the hope of finding treasure, about the middle of the twelfth century. The walls of the chamber are covered with Runic inscriptions slightly scratched on the stones, comprising, it is said, nearly one thousand letters, and there is no doubt that the inscriptions were made after the breaking open of the mound. See Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume V., pages 247‒252, 262‒278; and Anderson’s _Bronze and Stone Ages_, pages 277‒279.

At Quoyness, in Elsness, in the Island of Sanday, Orkney, a large chambered cairn was explored in 1867. It lies close to the sea, only a few feet above high water mark; and its size had been reduced by the removal of stones for various purposes before it was examined. It was circular in form, with the entrance to the passage on the south-east side, and the passage was twenty-four feet long, three feet high, and twenty inches wide, covered by flat stones laid across, and slightly widening and increasing in height towards the chamber. The chamber was oblong, and measured twelve feet six inches in length, and five feet six inches wide; the walls still stood to a height of twelve feet, but the roof was gone. Opening off the chamber there were six entrances to six small oval cells, two of which were placed on each of the long sides of the central chamber, and one at each of its ends. The walls of the cells rose with an inward curve to a height of from five to six feet, and then their roofs were closed with flat stones; the largest of these cells was seven feet two inches long, and four feet eight inches wide, and the others somewhat smaller. “At the distance of twelve feet within the external wall there was a retaining wall, within the mass of the cairn surrounding the chamber, similar to that in the cairn at Ormiegill, near Ulbster, in Caithness. The structural characteristics of this cairn thus combine the peculiarities of two local groups: the double external walling defining its circular outlines, and the retaining wall surrounding the chamber, are features of the Caithness group, and the oblong rectangular chamber, with smaller cells opening from its sides, are features of the Orkney group.” In the central chamber, and in three of the smaller cells, quantities of unburnt human bones were found; and Dr. Thurnam said of them:――“There are fragments of twelve or fifteen skulls, some male and some female, some of them children or quite young persons; one or two of them have the appearance of being cleft prior to being interred, and the teeth in the lower jaws are much corroded.” Two implements of polished stone were found in one of the side cells, and a bone tool seven inches long.¹

¹ Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 283‒287.

There are other cairns in Orkney of a similar structure. At Quanterness, near Kirkwall, on the north side of the Wideford Hill, there was one a hundred and twenty-eight feet in circumference at the base, and fourteen feet in height. On the western slope of the same hill, overlooking the Bay of Firth, there is another of a similar class, which was explored by Mr. George Petrie in 1849. In its chamber and side cells quantities of the bones of the horse, ox, sheep, and swine, were found, but no human remains were noticed. There are other sepulchral cairns in Orkney which show features more closely resembling the Caithness group. On the Holm of Papa Westray, there is a cairn which presented the threefold division of the chamber, so characteristic of the Caithness cairns; and another in the Island of Burray, which was sixty feet in length. On the floor of the chamber of the Burray cairn, the remains of a large number of unburnt human skeletons were found; and ten human skulls were lying in the first compartment of the chamber, near the opening of the entrance passage. Large quantities of the bones of the common domestic animals were identified, amongst which were the skulls of seven dogs. At Ustan, near the Bridge of Waith, Stennis, a chambered cairn which lies on a little promontory projecting into the lake, was recently excavated by Mr. R. S. Clouston. It is round, but it presented the constructive characteristics of the Caithness cairns, except a slight variation in the internal arrangement. A passage two feet wide and fourteen feet in length, led into an oblong chamber of twenty-one feet long, and six feet six inches at its widest part. The chamber was divided into five compartments, by slabs placed on edge similar to the Caithness cairns. The sepulchral deposits in this cairn were almost similar to those found in the chambered cairns of Caithness and Argyle. In the floor of the chamber and the inner part of the passage, a large quantity of unburnt human bones and animal bones were found; and numerous fragments of pottery, supposed to represent about thirty urns, and also charcoal and burnt bones were found. The implements and weapons found in the chamber, consisted of four leaf-shaped arrow-heads of large size, and well formed, and one with barbs and stem of smaller size, a finely made flint scraper, and a flint knife with the edge ground smooth, and a flint flaking tool.¹

¹ Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 287‒298. “Taking the Orkney group of chambered cairns as a whole, we find it presenting the same essential characteristics as are exhibited by the groups which have been described on the mainland of Scotland. There is a considerable variation in the arrangement of the chambers, and a strongly marked tendency to a grouping of smaller cells round the main chamber, which may be regarded as a local characteristic peculiar to the Orkney Islands. But with this local peculiarity there are associated instances of the tripartite chamber so characteristic of the northern mainland area, and in several cases the still more characteristic features of the bounding wall and the curved extremities are presented.” Ibid., page 299.

A group of cairns once existed in the plain of Clava, in ♦Strathnairn, a few miles from Inverness. There seems to have been seven or eight cairns, of these, only two now remain in a condition to show the characteristics of their structure. Complete and accurate ground plans of these have recently been published.²

♦ “Strathnain” replaced with “Strathnairn”

² By Mr. J. Fraser, C.E.; see also _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume XVIII., page 328, _et seq._

Perhaps it may be thought, that I should offer some explanation of the occurrence of such large quantities of animal bones found intermingled with the human remains in the series of cairn interments, which have been briefly described. This, however, can hardly, as yet, be presented in a satisfactory manner; but some customs and incidents, supposed to have been associated with the funerals of the departed in prehistoric times, may be mentioned. It has been repeatedly asserted that our early ancestors of the stone period were addicted to cannibalism; that at their tombs many human victims, mothers and infants, were sacrificed; and that at their great funeral feasts there was always a general holocaust of human and animal sacrifice. But the evidence adduced to prove the prevalence of these practices among the prehistoric inhabitants of this Island is utterly insufficient. Indeed, much of what has been advanced as evidence of such customs amongst the people of the Neolithic period in Britain, rests upon an unwarranted assumption which assumes this form:――Seeing that in such and such quarters of the globe certain existing savage tribes are addicted to cannibalism, and certain other savage tribes in some other part of the earth practice the custom of human sacrifice; these tribes are in a certain social stage, the stone age people of Britain were in a similar stage; therefore, the stone age people of Britain must have been addicted to cannibalism, and human sacrifice. Funeral feasts were, no doubt common, at which many animals were killed, but that human beings were sacrificed at these feasts in Britain, there is no reliable evidence to prove.¹

¹ Sir J. Lubbock, Mr. Bateman, and Dr. Thurnam, have asserted that human sacrifice prevailed in Britain in prehistoric times, and the latter especially, implicitly averred that the stone age people were cannibals, and that even the bronze age people practised human sacrifice. In a paper published in the third volume of the _Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of London_, in 1870, Dr. Thurnam maintained that the people who constructed the Long Barrows of England were addicted to many extremely barbarous customs, and that, “if not addicted to cannibalism, they, without doubt, sacrificed many human victims, whose cleft skulls and half-charred bones are found in their tombs,” page 76. In the first edition of this volume, published in 1877, I canvassed his evidence for the above assertions, and found it altogether insufficient to sustain his conclusions. I also carefully examined the evidence advanced by Sir J. Lubbock in reference to the prevalence of these inhuman practices among the prehistoric people of Britain, and found it not only quite insufficient, but in many points clearly irrelevant and inapplicable, while some of his far-fetched analogies and inferences based thereon, were manifestly delusive. I am, therefore, glad to find that Mr. Wm. Greenwell, and the late Professor Rolleston, have contested Dr. Thurnam’s conclusions. They have given more reasonable and probable explanations of the contents and the phenomena of the barrows. See especially pages 544‒548, of that great and invaluable work――British Barrows, by Wm. Greenwell, M.A., F.S.A., 1879. In the very able and exhaustive remarks which Professor Rolleston made upon the series of prehistoric Crania, discovered in the barrows which Mr. Greenwell had so carefully explored, he completely overthrows Dr. Thurnam’s conclusions on the points in question. I can only give a short quotation:――“I have to say that the bones found in the Long Barrows of England do not seem to me to bear the interpretation which Dr. Thurnam has put upon them.” He proceeds to show at length the grounds and the reasons why Dr. Thurnam’s conclusions are untenable, pages 684‒692. Rolleston then remarks, the question arises, “how is it that in the very large number of interments recorded in this book we have never come upon any bony remains bearing their evidence to the existence of a practice which is spoken of by such a very large number of literary authorities? In answer to this, I have to say that the literary evidence, when duly considered, proves simply that slaves and captives were slaughtered at the funeral of their lords, without proving that they were allowed to lie beside them afterwards.... We have a large mass of literary evidence in favour of the continuation of this practice into historical times amongst the Gauls, and other foreign races with whom the Romans and Greeks came into contact.” Ibid., pages 684, 692.

In so far as the early inhabitants of Britain are concerned, I attach very little importance to this mass of literary evidence; when closely examined, it yields no definite or conclusive evidence on the points in question.

As already indicated, the bones of animals found in the chambered cairns may be the remains of food offered to the dead; and thus would have formed a part of the worship of their ancestors, so that feasts might not only have been celebrated at the actual funerals, but also long afterwards at certain times in commemoration of the departed ancestors. There also may have been a form of animal worship among our ancestors of the Stone Age, which may have assumed practical expression in association with the interment of the dead. Reasoning by analogy, they may have imagined that seeing animals were exceedingly useful to the living, therefore they must be useful to the dead. On the same ground of imagined use to the dead, we may account for the occurrence of weapons, tools, and ornaments in the closest association with human remains.

Regarding the extreme comminution of the human remains in the chambered cairns of Scotland, several causes may reasonably be assigned. First, the process of cremation which seems to have been the prevailing mode of burial in these cairns, though not exclusively so, as unburnt remains also occur in them. This taken in connection with the great antiquity of the interments, the thousands of years which have elapsed since they took place, and the action of the natural agencies around them during that long period. Second, it seems obvious that in many of these cairns numerous interments have been made at longer or shorter intervals; and this might partly account for the bones being so much broken and mixed as they appear in the compacted layers of the floors in the internal chambers. But owing to the very limited dimensions of the entrance passages leading into the internal chambers of these cairns, it is hardly conceivable that interments could have often taken place after the cairns were externally and internally finished. It is possible that there may have been some interments after the completion of a cairn, as a person might have crept through the low narrow passage with an urn, and placed it on the floor of the chamber; but it is in the highest degree improbable that this mode of depositing the remains took place. Such being the real state of the matter, I offer the following view as to how the interments were originally made:――1, When a site for a cairn was fixed on, the first thing done was to mark off the ground plan of the cairn and to erect the external retaining wall; 2, Then the space where the internal chamber of the cairn was to be erected, was definitely marked off; 3, Interments might then be made in the space where the chamber was designed to be. Now it is not only conceivable, but also highly probable, that the structure may have remained in this incomplete state for an indefinite period; and thus a number of successive interments on the same spot could have been made through one or more generations, or until the head of the family or tribe resolved that the structure should be completed. The great funeral feasts would be held in and around the outline of the cairn at each successive interment; and also the feasts held in commemoration of their departed ancestors. On which occasions the actions and proceedings of the people in giving expression to their worship and rejoicing, were all performed on and around the same spot. We may imagine the scene: the slaughter and roasting of horses, oxen, sheep, and dogs; and the people moving to and fro in a state of intense excitement, when the remains of another ancestor was consigned to its last resting place. This view of successive interments before the cairn was closed up and completed, would in some measure at least account for the layers on the floors of the chambers, and the state of the human remains as we now find them.

It has been said that, “there is not a vestige of a dwelling or a defensive construction in Scotland which can be proved by evidence to be the work of the men of the Stone Age.”¹ This may be the case; and yet we may be certain that the people who erected the chambered cairns of Scotland, would have contrived to construct dwellings to protect themselves from the cold and frost, incident to a rather severe climate. Although they have left much clear evidence of their skill and industry in relation to the dead, still we cannot assume that the dead were more cared for than the living. If no trace of the dwellings in which they lived can be found, then they must have been a very peculiar people. We have seen evidence that they had horses, cattle, swine, and dogs; and that they were skilful in making tools and weapons in such materials as were available to them. Let us therefore carefully look over the many prehistoric structures of Scotland, and try to find if any of them can be assigned to the men of the Stone Age.

¹ Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, page 305; 1886.

There is only one type of structures which could on any reasonable grounds be assigned to this period, and that is the “earth houses.” The period of this class has been recently fixed as lying between “the general establishment of Christianity and the departure of the Romans from Scotland.” The grounds on which this conclusion rests are these:――1, That in two of the earth-houses some of the stones in their walls had distinctively Roman mouldings on them; and consequently they must have been built after the Roman occupation. One of these was discovered near the village of Newstead, Roxburghshire, and the other at Crichton Mains, in Mid Lothian. A Roman type of pottery and traces of Samian ware have also been found in some of the earth-houses. 2, “The presence in most of them of querns and implements of the Iron Age, and the entire absence of such implements as are characteristic of the ages of stone and bronze.”¹

¹ Ibid., pages 300‒304.

The first point is conclusive evidence so far as it goes; but it does not follow that these two earth-houses were the first structures of this type built in Scotland. For anything that we know their construction might have been the result of special circumstances of an individual character. So far as known, the earth-houses are not numerous in that quarter of the country. Let it then be clearly understood, that merely to show the limit of the age of one or two in a certain locality, is not conclusive evidence of the origin and the possible age of a type of so peculiarly characteristic structures, spread over a wide area, unless where other evidence in harmony with the natural and known surroundings of the people is adduced. Thus the strongest point is inconclusive touching the origin and possible age of this special class of structures.

The second point is not quite accurate. For it is recorded that some of the earth houses have been found empty; that in others cinders and charred wood, the bones of the ox, deer, and other animals, shells and remains of fish, a few objects of flint, bone, and bronze, as well as querns and iron implements, have been discovered in them.¹ Although there had been nothing but querns and iron implements found in them, that would not afford conclusive evidence as to their origin and possible age, but only evidence of their latest frequenters or temporary occupiers.

¹ Chalmers’ Caledonia, Volume I., page 97; Wilson’s Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, Volume I., pages 108‒110; Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume I., pages 260‒263; Volume III., pages 465‒471; Volume IV., pages 64, 492‒499; Volume VI., pages 249‒250; Volume VII., pages 276, 532‒534; Volume VIII., page 24; Volume X. page 287.

1, Now it can hardly be questioned that the men who erected the horned and chambered cairns were capable in point of skill, power, and persistency of will, to construct the earth-houses. This much will be admitted. 2, Taking into account the climate and the circumstances under which our ancestors of the Stone Age lived and moved; and also having regard to their imperfect means of protecting themselves from the biting cold and frost, if we duly consider these things, it will at once be perceived that the earth-houses were the most suitable dwellings for their condition and circumstances. 3, Let us carefully examine the entrances and passages of the chambered cairns, the internal structure and characteristics of the chambers; and then compare these with the entrances and the galleries and chambers of the earth-houses, not fanciful but striking resemblances will be perceived between the two classes of structures. Indeed this resemblance is so marked that it is difficult to imagine that they were not both constructed by the same people. 4, So far as I know, the people of the Stone Age were a quiet race; and seeing that they found leisure to erect such great memorials to the dead, it may be reasonably assumed that they also found time to erect the earth-houses, which were in harmony with their genius and conditions of life, excepting of course the two with the Roman stones, which were no doubt the product of some eccentric and timid individual, born out of due time. 5, It is well known that the different races and tribes in Scotland, after the departure of the Romans, were so much engaged in conflicts with one another that they could scarcely have found time to construct the earth-houses, which could not have been built in a day or perhaps in a year. Besides, is there any direct evidence that the Celtic people of Scotland constructed underground galleries for any purpose after the departure of the Romans? There was but one people whose genius, condition, and circumstances, harmonised with the earth-houses, and that was the race who erected the chambered cairns.

The area of the earth-houses extends from Berwickshire to the Orkney Islands, embracing all the eastern region of Scotland; but not many of them have been discovered on the south side of the Forth. These curious structures are sometimes found singly, and sometimes in groups of from five up to forty. Many of them lie in cultivated lands, and have often been discovered by the plough striking on the stones of their roofs. I will first give a general description of their structure, and then point out the features which bear a resemblance to some of the characteristics of the chambered cairns.

Their chief features are:――1, They are under the natural level of the ground; 2, A narrow and low entrance, apt to escape notice, and a narrow passage; 3, A more or less curved chamber, gradually widening inwards and usually terminating with a rounded end; 4, The internal characteristics of the chamber, which is sometimes single, in others small chambers run off the main one, to the right and left; 5, Converging side walls which support a lintelled roof. They vary greatly in size, but their features are pretty similar.

At Airlie, in Forfarshire, there is a group of five, one of which was sixty-seven feet long, and about seven feet wide. The entrance was under two feet in height, and the floor gradually slopes down for twenty feet till it reaches a height of six feet. The walls are pretty regularly built of undressed boulders, and they converge inward to four feet at the roof, which is formed of large stones, many of them over seven feet long and four feet wide. Its contents consisted of an accumulation of ashes, and bones of animals, fragments of querns, a stone vessel, and a brass pin.¹

¹ Anderson’s Bronze and Iron Ages, page 292.

In 1816, Professor John Stuart of Aberdeen, discovered a group spread over a space of about a mile in diameter, on what was then a dry moor,¹ in the parishes of Auchindoir and Kildrummy, Aberdeenshire. He estimated the number then discovered in this locality at upwards of forty; and he states that the ground where they lay had originally been a forest, as the trunks of large trees were still dug up there. There was no indication of them on the surface of the ground. The only entrance was a small opening of about eighteen inches wide between two projecting stones, through which a man might enter, and then descending a sloping passage of five or six feet, he comes to a vaulted chamber. The chambers of this group are from six to eight feet in height, from six to nine feet wide, and thirty feet long and upwards. They are built of rough blocks of granite, many of which are five to six feet long and more than a ton in weight; the side walls converge inward by overlapping to form a rude arch, and are covered with large stones. On the surface of the ground close to these structures, Professor Stuart found a number of spaces from ten to fifteen yards square, and about two feet deep, with the earth thrown outward; and these excavated spaces he conjectured to have been the sites of the summer huts of the people, who retired to the underground places in winter, and stored their provisions in them all the year round. He added that no articles of furniture or instruments either of stone or metal had been found in them, so far as could be ascertained, but only wood, ashes, and charcoal――mostly at the inmost end, where in some of them a small opening appeared at the top, supposed to be an outlet for the smoke.² Foundations of huts on the surface of the ground have been observed in association with a few other earth-houses, one example was found near Arbroath, in Forfarshire.³

¹ This moor is now under cultivation.

² Archæologia Scotica, Volume II., pages 56‒58.

³ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume IV., pages 492‒499.

In other localities the earth-houses vary much in length, some examples reaching to sixty feet long; and as already observed, some of them have smaller chambers branching off the main chamber. But on the whole they are remarkably similar in structure.

Some resemblances between those underground houses and the chambered cairns may now be noticed. 1, The hidden nature of the entrance, and its lowness and narrowness, are features peculiar to both classes of structures. From a comparison of a considerable number of recorded measurements of the height and width of both classes of structures at their entrances, I have found that the highest entrance in an earth-house is 3 feet, and the lowest 18 inches, the average being about 2 feet. Now the highest entrance of a chambered cairn is 3 feet 6 inches, and its width 2 feet, while the lowest is 21 inches in height, and the same in breadth. The average height and width of the entrances to the passages of the cairns and those of the earth-houses are almost identical; and it is difficult to believe that this coincidence could have been the result of chance. 2, In some of the earth-houses there are small chambers opening off the main chamber, a feature which occurs in some of the chambered cairns. 3, The mode of forming the roof or the device for closing in the walls at the top is similar in both classes of these structures. 4, These coincidences and similarities are difficult to explain, except upon the ground that both classes of these structures were originated by one race of people, and belong to the same period. Moreover the bones of the same animals have been found in both classes of structures; while the mere absence of stone weapons and implements is not of much historic significance, seeing that these rarely occur even in the chambered cairns themselves.

The most probable conclusion seems to be that the people of the Stone Age, who erected the chambered cairns, also originated the underground structures which we call earth-houses; and that they constructed a considerable number of those specimens which are still known to exist, though not necessarily the whole of them. In succeeding centuries such structures may have been constructed in localities where the exigences and circumstances of the people suggested their utility, down even to the time of the departure of the Romans. I take the view suggested by Professor Stuart, that from the first these underground structures have never been continuously occupied as common dwellings, but only at the seasons of extreme cold and frost, when the people resorted to them in order to protect themselves in some measure from the inclemency of the weather. Recently distinct traces of overground huts have been discovered, so closely associated with earth-houses as to leave no doubt that both belonged to the same family. Still it seems that some at least of the earth-houses were occasionally frequented by certain people even late into the Iron Age; but that circumstance affords no evidence to invalidate the conclusion that they were originated by and belonged to the Stone Age people.¹

¹ There is a group of underground structures in Ireland, but they differ considerably from the Scottish class. The Irish specimens are mostly associated with forts or raths, excavated in the ground and enclosed by the rampart of a fort; and they consist of various forms of chambers which are connected by low narrow passages. There is also a group of underground structures in Cornwall, which in some of their features resemble those of Scotland; but they appear to have been usually associated with overground dwellings.

From the natural features of the country, and the very varied intersection of the land and water, it might be expected that boats would have come into use at an early period, and this appears to have been the case. The primitive boats of the early inhabitants were made by simply hollowing out the middle of a single oak tree with such tools as have been described, or some have supposed that this was effected by the application of fire. They are sometimes called canoes, and have been often found in lakes associated with the Crannogs. But they have been discovered in every quarter of the country, in lochs and mosses, on the banks and in the beds of rivers; and many of them have been found imbedded at a depth of from thirteen to thirty feet below the surface of the ground. In Lochar Moss, Dumfriesshire, a track bordering on the Solway Firth, a number of canoes have from time to time been dug up, one of which measured 8 feet 8 inches in length, 2 feet in breadth, and 11 inches in depth. The Valley of the Clyde has yielded the greatest number of these single tree boats. Under the streets of Glasgow, and in its vicinity, when digging the foundation of houses, cutting drains, and in operations connected with the harbour work, and the dredging of the channel of the Clyde, nearly thirty have been discovered.¹ These vary considerably in length and depth, but they all belong to the first stage of shipbuilding; which here, and from this primitive starting-point, has at last attained a development as yet unsurpassed in any quarter of the globe.

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume I., pages 44, 211‒213; Volume VI., pages 119, 121, 146, 148, 458; J. Geikie’s Great Ice Age, page 212; Wilson’s Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, Volume I., pages 52‒55.

From what has been presented in the preceding pages, we may imagine our early ancestors of the Stone Age as living and moving in a state of comparative safety and comfort. They possessed the greater number of the domesticated animals which are still common in this country; they built such structures for habitations as were suited to their condition and the surrounding circumstances, and the means within their reach. They manifested much intelligence, skill, and industry in the manufacture of their weapons, tools, and implements――using the only available means and materials at their command with admirable ingenuity and striking effect. We can discern and trace the evidence of mind and of thought even in the fragments of their works; and the memorials which they erected to the memory of the dead, have long survived the wreck of proud empires, dynasties, and thrones.

SECTION V.

The Bronze Age.

This section will deal with the introduction of metals, and touch on the transition from the stone to the bronze period. A description of the various bronze objects, weapons, tools, and gold ornaments will be presented. The defensive works, habitations, and other matters associated with the daily life of the people will be treated. The modes of burial of the bronze period, and the phenomena associated with interments. Finally, an expository statement and summary touching the religion, social state, and culture of the prehistoric people will be offered.

The question of the introduction of the use of metals or bronze is easily understood, but the question of the origin of bronze, or the original centre where it was discovered, is a more difficult matter, and has caused much inquiry and discussion. It is the first only of these questions which comes within the scope of my work, and the second will be very briefly touched. As to the original centre where bronze was discovered, this is a problem still under discussion; and, like the origin of the Aryans, it is not likely to be soon solved. Some writers have pointed to Western Asia, the supposed cradle and original source of early civilisation; but, in truth, when or where the alloy called bronze was first discovered and manufactured for use no one really knows.¹ It is, however, well ascertained that bronze weapons and tools were used much earlier in some quarters of the globe than in others, for instance in Egypt, and the regions around the Mediterranean, long before it was used in Britain or other Northern European countries.²

¹ Touching the early sources of copper and tin in Europe, it may be observed that native copper occurs in Hungary, Norway, Sweden, Saxony and Cornwall; and copper and its ores are abundant in Ireland. Copper pyrites is very general in most countries of the world, in more or less abundance. In early times tin seems to have been found in large quantities in some parts of Spain; and we know that the tin mines of Cornwall, in Britain, were worked at an early period. In the East, Malacca was a source from which tin may have been obtained in early times. Evans’ Ancient Bronze Implements, pages 419, 424.

² Bronze was extensively used in Egypt for weapons and tools as early as 3000 B.C.; but the use of iron seems to have been restricted, owing probably to some religious motive. Ibid., pages 6, 7, 8. Among the Aryans iron seems to have been used at an early period.

Concerning the means through which the use of bronze was introduced to Britain different views have been held. Some authorities have maintained that the use of bronze was spread from a common centre by an intruding and conquering race, or the migration of tribes; others hold that the people of each separate country, where bronze is known to have been used, discovered the art independently and manufactured their own implements; some again maintain that the art was discovered and the articles manufactured on one spot, and thence disseminated by means of commerce; and finally, others aver that the art of making bronze was spread from a common centre, but that the implements were usually made in the countries in which they have been found.¹ A discussion of these views would require a separate volume, and I can only indicate the region whence Britain, or rather Scotland, probably received the first instruction in the use of bronze.

¹ Ibid., page 475. “The familiarity of the ancient Britons with tin, though this metal does not occur in a native state, may be readily accounted for from the one being frequently found near the surface, and requiring only the use of charcoal and a very moderate degree of heat to reduce it to the state of metal.” Wilson’s _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, Volume I., page 304. 1863.

It has frequently been stated that the use of bronze was introduced into Britain by invasion and conquest. Professor Dawkins advances the idea that the Celts arrived on the southern shores of Britain with bronze swords in their hands, and thus introduced the use of bronze into this country.¹ But this mode of explanation is seldom satisfactory, unless well supported by other circumstances and evidence; and, although it is highly probable that the people of Britain did receive the knowledge of the use of bronze from France, it was by means of barter and not by warfare; seeing that the first arrival of Celtic tribes in the south of Britain was probably long anterior to the general use of bronze in France itself or the Continent. It appears to me that the Celts had overrun the whole of England, and penetrated into Scotland, as far at least as Glenmore, before bronze began to be introduced in the south of Britain. The view which supposes that the art of making bronze was discovered at a single centre, where implements were manufactured and afterwards spread by commerce, is probably in a limited sense true. For wheresoever the discovery of bronze may have originated, there is evidence of its use having spread over the greater part of Europe, and probably at first bronze tools and implements were widely diffused by barter. The view, however, which comes nearest to the requisite conditions of the known facts everywhere associated with the subject, assumes that the art of making bronze was spread from a common centre, though the weapons and tools were manufactured in greater or less numbers in each country where the use of bronze prevailed. This does not imply that in any given district all the weapons and tools found in it were of home manufacture, and none of them imported, for there is evidence in most countries that some of the bronze articles found there are of foreign manufacture, and had been introduced by commerce or other means of intercourse.²

¹ Early Man in Britain, pages 321, 322, 343. 1880. This writer is perhaps wrong in his statement of facts and in the inferences which he draws. The Silures, whom he supposes to have been Iberians, were in all probability mixed Celtic tribes. And this much is certain, that the tribes called Silures, made a desperate and prolonged resistance to the advance of the Roman legions――a resistance quite inconsistent with the feeble characteristics of the Iberians.

² Evans’ Ancient Bronze Implements, pages 420, 475‒477.

There is ample evidence that in Britain, in course of time, the manufacture of bronze weapons and tools was extensively and widely carried on. The moulds for casting various tools and weapons have been found both in England and in Scotland, and they are numerous in Ireland; and founders hoards have been found in many places in Britain. There were also travelling founders, who practised their art at any place where their work was required. In these and in other ways, many of the bronze weapons and tools found in England, Scotland, and Ireland, were manufactured. Amongst the hoards of bronze articles which have from time to time been found, some are considered to represent the stock-in-trade of the ancient bronze founders; and other hoards, from their characteristics, are considered to have belonged to dealers in bronze articles.¹ Some of the moulds found in Scotland will be noticed in connection with the description of the weapons and implements.

¹ Evans’ Ancient Bronze Implements, pages 422, 428, 438‒453. “Judging from the unfinished condition of the tools and weapons in some of the old bronze founders hoards, and from the large deposits of socketed celts having been found with the clay cores still in them, it seems not improbable that the founders often bartered away their castings nearly in the state in which they came from the moulds, with only the runners broken off, and that those who acquired them finished the manufacture themselves.” Ibid., page 451.

From a concurrence of circumstances and ascertained facts, it is evident that the transitional stage from stone weapons and tools to the use of metal ones extended over a long period. The one class of articles and tools did not supersede the other suddenly; for there is much evidence that stone, bone, and horn weapons and tools continued to be used long after bronze, and even iron, was introduced. For such work as stone and bone tools were naturally suitable, they continued to be used, as they were much easier obtained than bronze ones; and in some instances stone implements were used down to a comparatively recent period. In the case of certain ornaments which belong to a somewhat later period, bronze and brass were used.

In Scotland bronze weapons, tools, and articles have been found under various circumstances. A few have been found associated with interments; a greater number have been discovered in hoards from time to time; some casually found in the soil; and others when carefully sought in excavating the early sites of human habitation. I will first touch on a few of the hoards, and then proceed to describe the different kinds of weapons, implements, and ornaments of the bronze period, as it is represented in Scotland.

In the process of marl dredging in the Loch of Duddingston, near Edinburgh, in 1775, the workmen dragged up a heap of swords, spear-heads, and other lumps of bronze. They seem to have been mostly broken; and the hoard as presented to the National Museum, consisted of twenty-nine pieces of broken swords; twenty-three portions of spear heads; and a ring and staple of large size. The fragments of the swords were mostly under six inches in length, and show that the weapons were of the leaf-shaped type; the spear-heads were pieces of large weapons with sockets and leaf-shaped blades.¹ In 1849, a hoard of bronze weapons was discovered in a moss on the north side of the point of Sleat, in the Isle of Skye, which consisted of one sword of the leaf-shaped form, with a flat handle-plate pierced for rivet holes; two spear-heads; and a long thin pin with a cup-shaped head; and also a curious socketed tool of a bent leaf-shaped form, four inches long. A hoard of bronze weapons and objects was found at Tarves, Aberdeenshire, which mostly consisted of swords; and in 1853, at Cauldhame, near Brechin, a hoard was found, consisting of four leaf-shaped swords, and a large spear-head. One of the swords was twenty-four inches long. In 1868, at Achtertyre, near Elgin, a hoard of bronze articles was discovered in ploughing a mossy field, which consisted of one axe-head; two spear-heads; two penannular rings, some fragments of broken rings; and portions of a ring, which on analysis yielded only tin and lead, no copper. When a gravel hillock was being trenched at Monadhmor, Killin, Perthshire, in 1868, the workmen discovered a hoard of bronze objects, consisting of two socketed axe-heads; a leaf-shaped spear-head; a socketed gouge of rare occurrence in Scotland; a portion of a leaf-shaped sword; a hollow circular ring, a ♦penannular ring, and nine plain annular rings. In 1869, when the foundation of a house in Grosvenor Crescent, Edinburgh, was being dug, a hoard of bronze weapons was found, said to have consisted of some fourteen or fifteen swords, but only four of these are now known; and with them were found a bronze ring and a broken pin.²

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume I., pages 132‒133. The proprietor of the estate on the side of the Loch, Sir Alexander Dick, who commenced the dredging operations, said――“Some of the lumps of brass seemed as if half melted; and my conjecture is, that there had been upon the side of the hill, near the lake, some manufacture for brass arms of the several kinds for which there was a demand.”

♦ “pennanular” replaced with “penannular”

² Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume I., pages 181, 224; Volume III., page 182; Volume IX., page 435; Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 142‒153.

All the bronze articles found in Scotland and reasonably assigned to this period, may be classified as weapons, useful tools, and ornaments. The first class includes swords, daggers, spear-heads, and shields. The sword of the bronze period is amongst the finest of the ancient weapons. The small and short leaf-shaped blade, and its hilt without a guard, is a form greatly admired. Different specimens in the Scottish collection vary in size; a fine example was dredged up from the bottom of the Tay near Perth, it measures 28½ inches in length, and is the largest one known in Scotland. Another from the Isle of South Uist, measures 27 inches; and one found in the parish of Latheron, Caithness, is 25 inches long. In rare specimens, such as one of the swords found in the hoard at Edinburgh, the hilt is formed and cast in the same mould with the blade. Another form of sword, of rare occurrence in Scotland, is characterised by a narrow rapier-shaped blade, without a handle-plate, the hilt being made of bone or wood and attached to the flattened base of the blade by rivets. The leaf-shaped swords are numerous in Scotland, and have been found in almost every quarter of the country.¹

¹ “Among ancient weapons of bronze, perhaps the most remarkable, both for elegance of form and for the skill displayed in their casting, are the leaf-shaped swords, of which a considerable number have come down to our time. The only other forms that can vie with them in these points are the spear-heads, of which many are gracefully proportioned, while the coring of their sockets for the reception of the shafts would do credit to the most skillful modern founder. Neither the one nor the other belong to the earliest period when bronze first came into general use for weapons and tools, the flat celts and the knife-daggers characteristic of that period being as a rule absent from the hoards in which fragments of swords and spear-heads are present.” Evans’ Ancient Bronze Implements, page 273.

Apparently both these classes of sword-blades were cast in stone moulds; but no sword moulds have as yet been discovered in Scotland. Two stone moulds were found in the parish of Hennock, in Devonshire, which were both for the production of rapier-shaped blades.¹

¹ Ibid., page 434.

The dagger blades are usually thick and heavy in proportion to their length. They differ from the thin flat blades of smaller size occasionally found in the graves of the period. The thick daggers vary much in size, from six inches in length to over thirteen, and in breadth some of the larger ones are from three inches to over four. Some of them have two and others four rivet-holes for attaching their handles. A few of them are slightly ornamented, and many of them are finely shaped.¹

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume X., pages 84, 459; Volume XII., pages 439, 440, 449, 456; Wilson’s Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, Volume I., page 392.

The spear-head of the bronze period is usually a socketed weapon, without barbs, and often leaf-shaped; and the variation in their length and the taper of the blades is extreme. The largest specimen in the National Museum is nineteen inches long, and exceedingly well formed. The larger ones are often pierced with segmental openings in the sides, formed in the casting, which diminish their weight and add to the beauty of the finished weapons. Another class, with the base of the blade pierced by loop-like holes, have been found exceeding fifteen inches long, but other specimens of the same class are only eight inches long, and some not over six inches. The looped variety of spear-heads have also been found in Scotland, some specimens of which have the loops low down on the socket. These are very common in Ireland, and are more elaborately ornamented than the Scotch examples.¹

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume V., page 214; Volume XXIII., pages 9, 150, 224; Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 184, 185.

The spear-heads, like the sword and dagger blades, were cast in moulds of stone. Two stone moulds for looped spear-heads were found together under the surface of the ground near Campbeltown, in Argyleshire. Similar moulds have been found in England, Ireland, and in other countries.¹

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume VI., page 48; Volume XVI., page 103; Evans’ _Ancient Bronze Implements_, pages 435‒438.

Bronze shields are not numerous in Scotland, but a few specimens have been found. In 1779 a fine example was discovered in a peat moss in the parish of Beith, Ayrshire, which was afterwards presented to the Society of Antiquaries of London. This shield is formed of thin beaten bronze, circular in form, and 26½ inches in diameter. Its surface is ornamented with concentric circles of ridges, and also hammered up from the back between the circular rows of studs; the handle is fixed across the inner side of the boss, and the grip rounded by turning the edges inwards. In 1837 a shield of a similar character was found in digging a drain in a marshy piece of ground at Yetholm, in Roxburghshire; and in 1870 another shield was ploughed up in the same piece of ground. They are beautiful and finely finished. They were not intended for use on the arm, like the shields of later times, but held in the left hand by a single handle riveted across the hollow of the central boss.¹

¹ Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 155‒159; Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume V., page 165; Volume VIII., page 393.

Only one specimen of a bronze battle-axe is known in Scotland, which was found in a morass at Bannockburn. It is a very peculiar weapon, four pounds in weight, and has been figured by Dr. Anderson.

A fine specimen of a cast bronze war trumpet was found in the parish of Tarbolton, Ayrshire, about the year 1653, and since preserved in Coilsfield House. It is the only one of the class known in Scotland. A portion of a bronze side-blast trumpet was found at Innermessan in the parish of Inch, Wigtonshire. These bronze war trumpets are more common in Ireland and in Denmark than in Scotland.¹

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume XII., page 565; Volume XXIII., pages 151, 224.

Having noticed the warlike weapons, I turn to the tools and implements which appear to have been used for the purposes of every-day life, beginning with those which seem to have come earliest into use. The flat, bronze axe-heads are broad at the cutting end, and vary greatly in size. Some of them are five inches in length and three inches across the cutting face, which is always their broadest part. The largest specimen known in Scotland is 13⅜ inches in length and 9 inches across the cutting face; it was found in digging a drain on the farm of Loanhead, on the south side of the Pentland Hills. Amongst a number found on the farm of Colleonard, in Banffshire, there were two with a series of short lines incised upon their flat sides, and another one had raised ribs lengthwise. Others have been found over the whole area of Scotland. It has been supposed that this class of axe-heads were cast in open moulds of stone.¹

¹ Ibid., Volume IV., pages 187, 380; Volume IX., pages 182, 430, 431; Wilson’s Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, Volume I., page 344; Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 190‒194.

There are several other varieties of axe-heads which have been termed fanged and socketed. Some of these are very finely formed, and more or less ornamented. The two halfs of a stone mould for casting socketed axe-heads of bronze were found at Rooskeen, in Ross-shire, and have been figured by Wilson and Dr. Anderson.

The difference between the axes and the chisels of the bronze period appears more in the mode of hafting and of use than in the form of the tool itself. Tools of the chisel form are not very numerous in Scotland, they are much more common in Ireland. Some good specimens, however, have been found in the southern and northern counties of Scotland.¹

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume XII., pages 6, 13; Volume XVII., page 338; Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, page 201.

Awls, needles, and fish-hooks of bronze have occasionally been found in Scotland. Bronze awls have frequently been found in England, and sometimes in association with interments.¹ Only three specimens of bronze sickles are known in Scotland. One was found at Edengerach, in the parish of Premnay, Aberdeenshire, which is a curved, tapering blade set at right angles to the end of an oval socket; the blade is imperfect, but seems to have been over four inches in length. Another sickle was dredged from the bed of the Tay, near Errol, in 1840, and it is preserved in the Museum of the Literary and Antiquarian Society of Perth. The blade is a little over six inches in length, and over an inch in breadth at its junction with the socket. The third sickle is in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, and its blade is five inches in length. These are the only agricultural implements of the bronze period as yet discovered in the kingdom, though it was stated in the Old Statistical Account of Scotland that an implement of this class was found at Ledberg, in Sutherlandshire.²

¹ Evans’ Ancient Bronze Implements, pages 188‒191.

² Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume VII., page 376; Volume XXII., pages 339, 350.

No bronze hammers have been found in Scotland, and only one example of the Bronze Age anvil has yet been discovered. The anvil was found near Kyle of Oykel, in Sutherlandshire, and is preserved in the museum of Dunrobin Castle. Several good specimens of large cauldrons, formed of thin bronze plates riveted together, have been found associated with the leaf-shaped swords and the socketed axe-heads, as in the loch of Duddingston, Kilkerran in Ayrshire, and Poolewe; some of them are beautifully formed and finely made.¹

¹ Ibid., Volume XXII., pages 36‒42; Anderson’s _Bronze and Stone Ages_, pages 205‒207.

The people of the Bronze Age seem to have adorned themselves profusely with fine ornaments, for gold ornaments assigned to this period have been found in every quarter of the kingdom. They are suggestive of a magnificence of attire and a life which ill accords with the view that I have often seen stated, namely, that our prehistoric ancestors were simply untutored savages! Men, indeed, who assumed the upright attitude, but savages nevertheless. Two beautiful golden diadems were found on the farm of Southside, near Coulter, Lanarkshire, in 1860. Their form is a broad lunette of beaten gold, terminating in disc-shaped ends; and the central opening is wide enough to admit of the ornament being worn on the head as a diadem or on the neck as a gorget. Another beautiful gold diadem of a similar form was found at Auchentaggart, in the parish of Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire, which, when turned up by the plough, was folded and rolled up almost into a ball. A magnificent specimen of a large and massive armlet, formed of intertwisted rods of gold, was found at Slateford, near Edinburgh, in 1864. It consisted of three gold rods twisted together round a common centre, and uniting at the ends in a single rod, which recurves and forms a terminal hook; and it was so coiled as to encircle the arm in four complete coils, which, when extended, measured 4½ feet long. This armlet “was by far the finest specimen of goldsmith’s work from the bronze age that had ever been seen in this country, and the only one of its kind then or now known to exist; yet it was clipped to pieces and consigned to the melting-pot by a jeweller in Edinburgh. A cast of it, however, is preserved in the National Museum.”¹

¹ Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 220‒223.

Another exceedingly beautiful gold armlet is formed of a flat band, tapering slightly from the middle to the end, and twisted like the thread of a screw, passing at the ends into slender hook-like terminations, with conical knobs which interlock and serve to fasten the armlet when worn. In 1848 a hoard of four of these armlets was discovered on the top of a steep bank at the village of Lower Largo, in Fifeshire. They are most beautifully formed, and all nearly of the same size. Another hoard of gold armlets of a similar type was turned up by the plough on the farm of Law, in the parish of Urquhart, Elginshire, in 1857; the number found amounted to thirty-six, and they were all nearly of the same style and pattern. A gold armlet of a similar pattern was found at Belhelvie, in Aberdeenshire; another near the border of the parish of Coulter, Lanarkshire; one at the head of Little Lochbroom, in Ross-shire; and a very massive one on the Moor of Rannoch.¹

¹ Ibid., pages 214, 219.

In 1856 a hoard of gold ornaments was discovered in a moss in the West Highlands, amongst which were two penannular armlets. These are formed of solid rods of gold, bent to a slightly elliptical form, and terminating in slightly expanded ends. The heaviest one weighed 19 dwts. 6 grs. In 1852 a massive gold armlet, formed of solid rods, was found at Bonnyside, in Stirlingshire, and it weighed 6 ozs. 10 dwts. 6 grs. Four armlets, formed of solid rods of gold, of a similar pattern, were found in digging a drain at Ormidale, near Brodick, in the Island of Arran, in 1864. In 1845 five similar armlets were found in digging a drain in the vicinity of the Gallow Hill, in the parish of St. Vigeans, Forfarshire, and these were sold to a pedlar “as old drawer handles.” In 1834 three penannular gold armlets were found in Stonehill Wood, in the parish of Carmichael, Lanarkshire, and the largest one weighed 4 ozs. 212 grs. A hoard of thirty-six gold armlets was ploughed up on the farm of Coul, in the Isle of Islay, in 1780; and about 1784 a gold armlet, weighing over 5 ozs., was found by a labourer in Galloway. In 1871 two gold armlets were found in the vicinity of Killmailie, Inverness-shire; other two found in Argyleshire are preserved in Inveraray Castle. About 1827 five penannular gold rings were discovered on the estate of the Duke of Fife, near Duff House, Banffshire, and these rings were associated with a bronze age interment. From the associated circumstances in which several of these gold ornaments have been found, there is no question that they belong to the bronze period. Besides the gold ornaments mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, and many others of gold which I have not mentioned, there were bronze rings, armlets, pins, and jet necklaces, which have been found in many parts of the country. Some of the jet necklaces and the bronze armlets are very pretty.¹

¹ Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 58, 59, 60, 61‒63, 144, 208‒214; _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume VI., page 311; Volume VII., pages 351, 352; Volume VIII., pages 28‒32, 407, 408; Wilson’s _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 434‒475.

The curious phenomena of the prevalence of the use of gold in the form of ornaments amongst the Bronze Age people, at a time when silver and iron were unknown, and bronze the only metal used in their manufactured products, seems to indicate a taste and culture which could scarcely have been expected. This will be again touched on after the available evidence in other directions has been gone over, to which attention must be directed.

It may be “that not a trace of a dwelling or site of a settlement of the Bronze Age has been discovered in Scotland.”¹ Still, when the historian finds that the people lived, and moved, and died, and were interred in various forms in the Bronze Age, he must endeavour to find traces of their dwellings and sites. Seeing that their tombs have been discovered, it is more than probable that their sites and dwellings were at no great distance from their tombs. We have already seen evidence that there must have been considerable organisation and united action among our ancestors of the Stone and Bronze Ages, and therefore, in consistency, we should try to find traces of their dwellings; although possibly we cannot obtain positive information about them.

¹ Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, page 227.

Traces of what may reasonably be supposed to have been the foundations of prehistoric dwellings, have been observed in many quarters of Scotland, in short from Mid Lothian to Caithness. The rudest of these hut foundations are simply shallow excavations in the ground, usually circular in form and from seven to eight feet in diameter, and generally occur in groups. But the foundations of many groups of circular huts of larger dimensions have been observed in Scotland. The structure of those hut circles consists of two concentric rows of stones separated by a space of six or eight inches, which is filled by small stones and earth, the whole forming a rude wall of about eighteen inches in height; and the space within this wall is generally from twenty to thirty feet in diameter. They have often been discovered on the summits, the brows, and the sides of hills; and also on the lower grounds, the sea beaches, and on the banks of lochs and of rivers.¹ Now it is probable that these were the foundations of prehistoric dwellings, and that above these foundations a structure formed of wood was erected. Many indications, circumstances, and final results, tend to show that the sites and settlements of the prehistoric people of Scotland were often on elevated positions――on heights and hills. The natural reasons and circumstances which originally led the prehistoric people to select the heights for their habitations, probably were that abodes erected upon the high grounds would be more likely to escape the ravages of inundation from a high tide, a heavy rainfall, a sudden thaw of snow, or any unusual rising of the waters upon the lower grounds; while the heights were also best adapted for defence against the attacks of enemies. Thus it is in the highest degree probable that the earliest dwellings of man in Scotland were on pretty elevated positions. Further, many of the towns of Scotland which stretch back into the prehistoric period, were originally sites of human habitation upon heights or hills, such as Edinburgh, Stirling, Paisley, Dundee, Aberdeen, Banff, Inverness, and many others. As indicated in the second section, man selected the sites for his dwellings with remarkable sagacity.

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume VII., pages 291, 297, 300, 541; Volume VIII., page 410; Volume IX., pages 158, 169; Wilson’s _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, Volume I., pages 103‒106.

But in the prehistoric ages it frequently happened that the advantages of the elevated sites, great as they were――mainly owing to the difficulties of obtaining food――these advantages were partly counterbalanced, and hence the selection of spots on the banks of lakes and rivers, and near the sea, as sites of early occupation. Thus, traces of hut foundations have been observed on the sea beaches, the banks of lakes and rivers, in close association with shell mounds, kitchen middens, and grave mounds. On the links between the Meikle and Little Ferries, Sutherlandshire, the hut foundations, the shell mounds, and the grave mounds, were found in close proximity with each other; and similar traces and remains occur in Elginshire, and in other parts of the country. From these indications it has reasonably been inferred that these places were sites of early habitation, and that shell fish or eatable mussel formed a main part of the food of those people. A few flint and stone implements, and the bones of animals, were found embedded amongst these shell heaps.¹

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume VI., pages 423‒426; Volume VIII., pages 63‒64, 177‒178; Volume IX., pages 250‒260, 452‒454, 45‒52.

There are a number of caves in Scotland which appear to have been used for human habitations, or hiding places; but their occupation cannot be assigned to definite periods, unless in rare instances. In quite recent times travelling tinkers and bands of vagrants occasionally lived in caves. Several of the early Scottish saints sometimes resorted to caves.

In the Gaswork Cave, at Wemyss, there was a mass of debris like a kitchen midden, containing bones of the ox, sheep, pig, deer, hare, and bones of birds; and also shells of the limpet and the whelk. Another cave at Seacliff, near North Berwick, contained similar evidence of human occupation. ――Sculptured Stones of Scotland, Volume II., pages 87‒88.

The Burness Cave in the Parish of Borgue, Kirkcudbrightshire, the exploration of which commenced in 1872, presented evidence of prolonged occupation. Large quantities of the bones of animals and of birds were found in it, and also indications that its occupiers had used grain. Nearly two hundred implements, tools, and objects of human art, were disinterred from this cave; and the greater part of these implements were made of bone, comparatively few stone or bronze tools were found in it. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume X., pages 479‒507; also Volume XI.

There is always more or less uncertainty in assigning prehistoric structures to a given period; for from the nature of the subject such evidence as exists is rarely conclusive. This is the case with the Scotch Crannogs and the Hill Forts. Both these classes of structures are prehistoric, and it would be difficult to determine which of them is the oldest. The period of the Scotch Crannogs has been placed after the departure of the Romans; a time of darkness and confusion, which somehow seems to have been exceedingly fertile in originating new buildings and structures.¹ But looking at the antiquity assigned to a somewhat similar class of structures in Switzerland and Italy, which were constructed by a kindred race, and other circumstances of the people themselves associated with the Crannogs in Scotland, it appears to me highly probable that they were originated and some of them constructed in the later stage of the Bronze Age. In fact, only the origin of the Crannogs within the area of the Kingdom of Strathclyde are accounted for, on Dr. Munro’s hypothesis, as he explicitly admits:――“Turning now to the Celtic area beyond the limits of the Scottish portion of the Kingdom of Strathclyde, I may at once state that there is no data derived from an examination of its artificial islands, nor any relics of their occupiers, which can give even an approximate notion of their chronological range.”² Thus the question of their origin and possible age is left unsettled for the greater part of Scotland. An attempt therefore may be made to indicate the natural causes and the conditions which led to their origin and construction, without having recourse to a special line of explanation.

¹ Dr. P. Munro, who has specially examined and has given a very interesting account of the Scottish Crannogs, and also in a larger work presented a masterly account of this class of structures in Europe; touching those of Scotland, he says:――“There is, in my opinion, only one hypothesis that can satisfactorily account for all the facts and phenomena here adduced, viz., that the lake dwellings in the south-west of Scotland were constructed by the Celtic inhabitants as a means of protecting themselves and their movable property, when, upon the frequent withdrawal of the Roman soldiers from the district, they were left single-handed, to contend against the Angles on the east, and the Picts and Scots on the south. It is not likely that these provincials ... would become the assailants of such fierce and lawless enemies.... Hence their military tactics and operations would assume more the character of defence than of aggression, and in order to defeat the object of the frequent and sudden inroads of the northern tribes, which was to plunder the inhabitants rather than to conquer the country, experience taught them the necessity of being prepared for emergencies, by having certain places of more than ordinary security, where they could deposit their wealth, or to which they could retire as a last resource when hard pressed. These retreats might be caves, fortified camps, or inaccessible islands; but in localities where no such natural strongholds exists, the military genius of the Celtic inhabitants, prompted perhaps by inherited notions, led them to construct these wooden islands. Since the final departure of the Romans till the conquest of the Kingdom of Strathclyde by the Northumbrian Angles, a period of several centuries, this unfortunate people had few intervals of peace, and with their subjugation, ended the special function of the lake-dwellings as a national system of protection.”――_Ancient Scottish Lake-dwellings_, pages 283‒284.

² Ibid., page 287.

The area of the Crannogs and artificial islands embrace the whole of modern Scotland, excepting its two northmost counties, and one or two on its south-eastern extremity, and even in these such structures may yet be discovered. The question then is, what were the causes of their origin? We need not travel beyond the natural and known circumstances of the country and its inhabitants, and the motives of human action and effort. All Crannogs have in view one common end,――defence, protection, and security. They were probably often used as places of refuge, though no doubt they were often in many instances occupied continuously. “There is often a fort on the top of some neighbouring hill, to which the lake-dwellers may have gone when the lochs were frozen and the Crannogs open to invasion.”¹

¹ Ibid., page 187.

In the later part of the bronze period the people of Scotland were organised and formed into strong tribes, which were separate and independent, and each tribe living under the rule of its own head. No doubt these tribes sometimes waged war with one another. But before this time, there was a strong and constant pressure from the south on the tribes to the north of the Tweed and the Cheviot Hills, which arose from fresh migrations from the Continent to the southern shores of the Island. So there was a continuous onward and outward movement of the tribes from the south of the Island toward the north, which naturally caused the tribes to construct defensive works for their self-preservation, protection, and security. Such then were the causes of the origin of the Hill Forts and the Crannogs of Scotland. As to which of those two classes of structures was the earliest, I will not undertake to determine; but that both were in use many centuries before the Roman invasion, I have no doubt whatever. Thus we have a real historic explanation of the origin of the Crannogs and the Hill Forts; they were the effects of the state of the inhabitants of the whole Island, and the historic conditions which had arisen.

Crannogs would continue to be used so long as the circumstances of the people rendered them necessary, or till they were superseded by structures more in harmony with the conditions of society. Thus many of them may have been occasionally occupied long after the departure of the Romans, and even after the kingdom of Strathclyde was annexed to Scotland.

In many instances natural islands in lochs were selected as suitable sites on which to erect defensive works and secure dwellings. Advantage also was often taken of the natural ridges and the shallows in the bottom of the lochs, on which to construct abodes with stones or wood, and then connect them with the shore by a causeway.¹

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume VI., pages 114‒117; Volume X., pages 31‒34, 741.

But the class of structures most frequently found in lochs in Scotland, is usually constructed wholly or principally of wood, and on that account are called Crannogs. They are pretty numerous, and a considerable number of them have been systematically explored by Dr. Munro; and he gives the following account of the method of their construction:――“This is how they worked: 1, Immediately over the chosen site a circular raft of trunks of trees laid above branches and brushwood was formed, and above it additional layers of logs, together with stones, gravel, etc., were heaped up till the whole was grounded. 2, As this process went on, upright piles, made of oak and of the requisite length, were inserted into prepared holes in the structure, and probably also a few were inserted into the bed of the lake. 3, The rough logs forming horizontal layers were made of various kinds of wood, generally birch, it being the most abundant. These were occasionally pinned together by thick oak pegs, and here and there at intervals oak beams mortised into one another stretched across the substance of the island, and fixed the surrounding piles. 4, When a sufficient height above the water-line was attained, a prepared pavement of oak beams was constructed, and mortised beams were laid over the tops of the encircling piles, which bound them firmly together as already described. The margin of the island was also slantingly shaped by an intricate arrangement of beams and stones, constituting in some cases a well-formed breakwater. 5, When the skeleton of the island was thus finished, probably turf would be laid over its margin, where the pointed piles protruded, and a superficial barrier of hurdles, or some such fence, erected close to the edge of the water. 6, Frequently a wooden gangway, probably submerged, stretched to the shore, by means of which secret access to the Crannog could be obtained without the use of a canoe.

“Bearing in mind that all these structures were solidly put together without nails or bolts, and that the gangways, which have remained permanently fixed to the present time, had neither joint nor mortise, we may fearlessly challenge modern science to produce better results under these, or indeed under any circumstances. Not only do these wooden islands evince much mechanical and technical skill on the part of their producers, but what is still more singular, their area of distribution appears to have been co-extensive with the districts formerly occupied by Celtic tribes. Hence we have here another proof of the extraordinary vigour, intense individuality, and plastic character of early Celtic civilisation, in thus developing, from its own inherent resources, an unique form of stronghold, simple in its structure, but admirably adapted to the unsettled conditions of life and military requirements of the period.”¹

¹ Ancient Lake Dwellings of Scotland, pages 262‒264.

The dimensions of the Crannogs vary considerably, some of them are twenty-three feet in diameter, while others are much less. The character of the relics and implements found in association with them are pretty various, embracing culinary articles, tools, weapons, and ornaments, such as cauldrons, stone-hammers, spindle-whorls, objects in bronze, bone pins, needles, and borers, and deer horn implements, and many ornaments. Altogether the collection of articles discovered in the Scottish Crannogs, indicates that some of them were frequented and occasionally occupied after the Christian era.¹ But this in no way proves that they were not originated and constructed, and many of them occupied at a much earlier period; indeed the very nature of the construction of these Crannogs, without nails or bolts of any kind, points to an early and prehistoric origin, and it was already observed that the primitive canoes have been often found associated with the Crannogs.

¹ Ibid., page 277; _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume VI., pages 121, 132, 148; Volume IX., pages 389, 391; Volume XX., iii. page 148.

The Hill Forts may be divided into three classes:――1, Those formed of earth; 2, Those formed partly or wholly of stones; and 3, Those formed of stones and partly vitrified. Seeing that they are all prehistoric, there seems no necessity for placing them after the Roman invasion. Although it may be quite true, that we cannot with certainty assign any of them to the Bronze Age, still I have sufficiently shown, on probably historic grounds, that the movements of the population in the island, and the tribal organisation of society, would have naturally and politically led to the construction of such defensive works; and that at least some of these works were constructed several centuries before the Christian era. The movement of the tribes from the southern parts of the Island, inwards and outwards, issued in the first creation of historic conditions in Britain; and the consequent necessity of efforts for self-preservation and defence. It is therefore of comparatively little importance whether the defensive works in question be assigned to the Bronze Age or the Iron Age, provided that the causes of their origin and their consecutive development can be shown, in association with the advance of the people.

The first class of hill-forts, which were probably the earliest, consists of a number of low mounds of earth drawn round the brow, or summits of natural heights. They are mostly circular or oval in form, as this was often modified by the nature of the sites selected, and the number of the enclosing mounds of earth vary for similar reasons, sometimes there are two, three, four or more, which enclose a central space. They differ from most of the other early constructions, inasmuch as they are adaptations of naturally elevated sites for purposes of defence. They are numerous and extend over the whole area of Scotland; and, as noticed in a preceding page, they were probably sometimes used in connection with the crannogs. A characteristic example occurs on a height on the estate of Borthwick Hall, in Mid Lothian, which has recently been examined. It consists of four mounds of earth which enclose a space of 410 feet in length from east to west, and 284 feet in breadth from north to south. The mounds are only a few feet in height; and there are three entrances to the central enclosure. This class of earthworks in general, simply consist of a series of earthen walls enclosing the highest part of a hill of moderate elevation.¹

¹ Chalmers’ Caledonia, Volume I., pages 87‒98; _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume XVI., page 254, et seq.

The second class of hill-forts formed of stones, in some instances have only a single wall round the brow of a hill, which encloses ♦the area of its summit; while others have two, three, or more walls drawn round the ribs of a conical hill, at short distances apart. In Argyleshire there are a number of prehistoric forts with only one line of walls: in all, there are fifty-nine forts in this ancient district: of these thirty-seven are simply enclosed by a single wall, some of which are circular or oval in form, and others whose figure follow the contour of the site, and others again on sites partly protected from attack by nature――steep crags and rocks are only partially defended by walls on the accessible sides. The greater part of the Argyle forts have had only one entrance. Out of fifty-four of these forts, sixteen are under 50 feet in length inside the walls, and four of them had outworks; twenty-four were between 50 and 100 feet inside, and seven had outworks; eight were between 100 and 200 feet in length inside, and three had outworks; and four were between 200 and 300 feet in length, but comparatively narrow. Evidence of wells of water within these Argyle forts is rare.¹

♦ duplicate word “the” removed

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume XXIII., pages 368‒431. In the same volume of the Proceedings of the Society, Mr. Alexander Hutcheson, architect, gives an interesting description of several hill-forts in Aberfeldy, Perthshire. One of these is on the eastern spur of Drummond Hill, and occupies the summit of a projecting rock, a site admirably chosen for defence. “The walls of the fort have followed the contour of the hill, twisting out and in to suit the exigencies of the site. The area within the walls is thus of very irregular outline, measuring in greatest longitude from north-west to south-east about 100 yards, and at right angles to this about 70 yards.... The walls are much broken down ... but there are many parts where the inside and outside faces of the walls can still be traced. In one part from 16 to 20 feet in length by about 6 feet in height of the original wall may still be seen. This fragment shows that the walls had been erected of rough and massive unhewed blocks without any mortar or cementing material. The wall here is some 9 feet in thickness at the base, and is almost perpendicular externally, but in the inside it is considerably sloped. There are at some parts evidences that the ground had been raised or filled in at the back of the walls, probably to give those inside the fort an advantage in scaling the walls for defence. This feature I have observed elsewhere in similar structures.” Pages 359‒361.

The largest hill-fort in Scotland crowns the summit of a conical hill, called the White Caterthun, in the parish of Menmuir, Forfarshire. It is on a well-chosen and commanding position, overlooking the great plain of Strathmore. The central area enclosed is a long oval of about 450 by 200 feet, and this inner space represents the citadel. The inmost inclosing wall, now in ruins, was of enormous size and strength. At 150 feet from it down the slope of the hill there is a second wall, and below it the remains of a third wall; and beyond this the outer wall, enclosing an oblong area, which is supposed to have been used for a cattle-fold. As similar out-enclosures have been observed in connection with these forts, it is reasonably assumed that they were used in cases of emergency, such as war or invasion, for the protection of the live stock, on which the people mainly depended for their food and clothing.¹ On another hill in the neighbourhood there is a smaller fort of the same class.

¹ Roy’s Military Antiquities, page 47, plates 47‒48. The vast and massive structure of this fort, and the immense labour which its construction must have involved, will be best understood by an examination of the plans and sections in Roy’s great work.

Farther northward, on the Barmekyn Hill, in the Echt district, Aberdeenshire, there is a remarkable hill-fort. It consists of five concentric ramparts, which enclose the summit of the hill, and about the beginning of this century it was in a perfect state of preservation, so far as regarded the lines of fortification, though otherwise partly crumbled into ruins, and much of it removed to supply materials for the fences in the neighbourhood. The walls were about five feet in thickness, of dry masonry, and appear to have been of considerable height, but the inner rampart was twelve feet thick at the base, and several feet of its height then remained entire. The outer ditches were nine feet in breadth, and the inner one over thirty feet. The interior enclosure was reduced to a level, nearly circular, three hundred feet in diameter, and included about one acre of ground. Traces of a similar class of hill-forts may still be observed all over the country.¹

¹ Archæologia Scotica, Volume II., pages 322‒326. 1822.

The third class of hill-forts are those which show vitrification in their walls. They have attracted much attention, and yet very little decisive result as to the cause or the extent of the vitrification of their walls has been obtained. For all that has been written about these curious forts, very few of them have as yet been thoroughly excavated and explored. So far as known, there is no specimen in Scotland of a fort with its walls vitrified throughout. In every case where careful examination has been made, “vitrified portions of walling were found overlying portions built in the ordinary manner and unvitrified.” This was the result which Dr. Angus Smith obtained from his investigation of a vitrified fort at Loch Etive. And recently Mr. Macdonald examined the remains on the Hill of Noath, in the parish of Rhynie, Aberdeenshire, and found a similar result. He made wide cuts through the wall in two places down to the natural soil, and found that it consisted of a mass of loose stones in one of the sections without any vitrification whatever, and in the other section it was only vitrified at the top. This is a valuable contribution, as it touches the precise points which must be determined before satisfactory conclusions can be formed, as to whether the vitrification is structural or incidental; or, in other words, a result of design or the effect of a long series of incidental agencies and circumstances.¹

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume IX., page 396, et seq., Volume X. page 70; Volume XI., page 298; Volume XII., page 13; Volume XXIII., pages 371‒373. Mr. Macdonald, of “The Farm,” Huntly, conducted his investigations on the remains of the fort on the hill of Noath at the instance of the Huntly Field Club; and it may be said, with truth, that these local clubs fill a useful place, and sometimes make important additions to prehistoric facts and natural science collections. Mr. Macdonald’s paper, giving an interesting account of his examination of the walls of the fort on the Hill of Noath, has just been published in a volume, along with other local historic matter of great value.

Examples of partially vitrified forts occur on Craig Phadrig, a conical hill near Inverness; one at Dunnideer, in the parish of Insch, Aberdeenshire; another at Finhaven, near Aberlemno, in Forfarshire; one on the Hill of Barry, Perthshire; several in Galloway, and in other quarters of the country. But they are not peculiar to Scotland, though this has sometimes been asserted. A considerable number have been observed in France, and also in Bohemia.¹

¹ Ibid., Volume III., pages 451‒453; Volume VII., page 301; Volume VIII., pages 145‒155; Volume IX., pages 397, 398; Sculptured Stones of Scotland, Volume I., pages 451, 453; Mémoires de la Société nationale des antiquaires de France, Volume XXXIII., page 83, et seq.

The Hill Fort of Dunsimane caps a conical hill, 800 feet in height, and it presents some peculiarities which have not been found in connection with any other of this class of structures. The hill on which it lies is detached from the surrounding hills by valleys, and it commands a wide prospect of the country on the south, the Sidlaw Hills, the Carse of Gowrie, the estuary of the Tay, St. Andrews, and the hills of Fife; and to the north the plain of Strathmore is seen stretching out, till terminated by the range of the Grampians. This fort had several walls originally, but the remaining rampart is mostly composed of earth, intermingled with large stones, and some parts of it is twenty feet wide at the base, and from six to eight feet in height. Some fragments of the rampart are vitrified. The enclosed space measures 150 yards in length by 70 in width. In its south-east side, two underground chambers were discovered, twenty feet in length, and from six to eight feet in width, and about six feet in height. These chambers communicated with each other, near their ends, by two narrow passages, and the floors were paved with undressed slabs. The walls of the chambers were built of undressed stones, which at the height of three feet began to converge until the roof was closed by flagstones. The floors were covered with ashes and refuse, consisting mostly of the bones of horses, and cattle, and deer horns. A quern was found in one of the passages; and in another, portions of three human skeletons.¹ So far as known, this is the only Scottish hill-fort associated with underground chambers――a peculiarity which seems to indicate that it may belong to the Stone Age.

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume II., pages 95‒97; Volume IX., pages 378‒380; Anderson’s The Iron Age, page 281.

Having noticed the defensive works which the prehistoric people deemed it necessary to construct for their self-preservation and protection; and, although we have no direct evidence touching the character of their common dwellings, we know that they possessed herds of cattle, and that they made provision for the safety of their flocks in times of danger and of war. In their every-day life in times of peace, we may imagine them tending their flocks in the valleys and on the hill sides; and making in summer what preparation they could to provide a store of food for their cattle in winter. In all probability life with them was not nearly such a severe struggle as it is even with most of us at the present day; and if at times they had to endure privation, they had also times of real enjoyment and rejoicing. Let us again turn attention to the disposal of the dead, and the phenomena associated with it in the Bronze Age.

Interments in the Bronze Age are found under various external circumstances, and present many differences in their underground phenomena. Bronze Age burials have been discovered in cairns, in circular areas fenced off by standing stones, in natural knolls and gravelly hillocks; and urns and cists have often been found in places where no external signs of them appeared to the eye. A few examples of these several modes of burial, with their overground and underground appearances and associations, will now be presented.

At Collessie in Fife, a cairn consisting of a mass of stones and boulders, covering a space of one hundred and twenty feet in diameter, and rising in its centre to a height of fourteen feet, was excavated in ♦1876‒77. In its centre a cist formed of slabs was found on the natural surface of the ground. The inside of the cist was four feet six inches long, and three feet wide in the centre; and among the gravel in the bottom of it some portions of the unburnt bones of a human skeleton were found in a condition of extreme decay. In one of the ends of the cist, a clay urn was lying on its side. The urn was high and well formed of a fine paste which had been baked at an open fire; and though made without the aid of the wheel, it was nearly regular in its outline; and its ornamentation consisted of groups of parallel lines alternating with bands of zigzag and short lines. On a further examination of the subsoil underneath the cairn, two spots were discovered which indicated previous disturbance. These turned out to be deep pits; and after the loose gravel was thrown out, in the bottom of the pit fragments of an urn was found amongst ashes and charcoal. In the other pit at the depth of four feet there was a layer of burnt bones, about an inch in thickness, and spread over a space of from three to four square feet; and portions of a human skull and the vertebral column were recognised among the bones. A thin dagger blade of bronze, measuring six inches in length, was found in this pit; and thin dagger blades are a usual feature of Bronze Age interments.¹

♦ “1076‒77” replaced with “1876‒77”

¹ Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 3‒8.

The above may be taken as an example of a Bronze Age cairn burial; and I will proceed to other modes of interment. Although many casual discoveries of single urns have occurred, still it would require an exhaustive examination of each separate site to warrant the conclusion that the casually found urn interment is not one of a group. Where such investigations have been made, it has generally been found that the site of the casually discovered interment was a cemetery; thus indicating the use of the site as a family or tribal burying-ground over a long period.¹

¹ Ibid. page 28.

Such cemeteries have been discovered in many places throughout the kingdom. Recently at Lawpark, near St. Andrews, a cremation cemetery was discovered, in which twenty urns of a cinerary type were found, varying in size from ten to sixteen inches in height, and from eight to eleven inches in diameter; and two small bronze blades were found amongst the burnt bones. In 1845, when workmen were engaged trenching a rocky knoll in the parish of Creich, Fifeshire, they discovered twenty-one urns, of which fourteen were placed singly in a straight line about three feet apart. About six years ago, a cemetery was found in a gravelly knoll at Shanwell, in Kinross-shire, and among the burnt bones a fine specimen of a thin oval bronze blade was found. At Magdalen Bridge, between Musselburgh and Joppa, a cemetery was discovered in excavating a sandpit, which contained nine urns, and one thin bronze blade associated with them. In 1849, at Lesmurdie, Banffshire, in a sandy height five cists associated with small urns and chips of flint were found; these were unburnt interments. At Genock, in the parish of Straiton, Ayrshire, a cremation cemetery was found, and removed in levelling the ground for the foundation of a dwelling house; and about a dozen urns were there destroyed. In 1878, in making a branch railway, a group of interments were discovered at Dalmore, in Ross-shire, which consisted of ten interments in cists of flat stones set in gravel; and two of them contained bronze implements. Nine of these were burnt burials, but only one urn was found, a few beads, a flint knife, and other objects of stone and bone.¹

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume I., pages 205‒211; Volume VI., pages 217, 218, 276‒278, 388‒391, 394‒418; Volume VII., pages 24, 198, 401‒407, 475; Volume VIII., pages 166, 466; Volume IX., pages 158‒160, 268‒270; Volume X., pages 43, 739; Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 28‒51.

Stone circles were once exceedingly numerous in every quarter of Scotland, and though cultivation and other agencies have effaced many of them, still considerable numbers remain. Merely considered externally, these circles present a fine variety of forms and figures, and various degrees of constructive elaboration. Some of them have one ring of stones, others two or three; and while some groups are oval in form, others aim at the perfect circle. The stones which form these circles in all their variations are rough and undressed; excepting that on some of the stones traces of cup and ring cuttings have been observed. A large number of the smaller stone circles, as already indicated, have been supposed to be the foundations on which the huts of the early inhabitants were erected. But many of the areas within stone circles and standing stones, were the cities of the dead in the Bronze Age, and perhaps even later: as a series of careful excavations and recent investigation have shown that many of the stone circles were places of burial.

Many stone circles and single standing-stones still exist in the Island of Arran, though many have been removed to make way for agricultural improvements, and others have disappeared through various agencies. The late Dr. James Bryce, having obtained the permission of the Duke of Hamilton, made a series of careful excavations of a number of areas within stone circles in the Island of Arran. In 1860 he investigated six stone circles on Mauchrie Moor, in the townland of Tormore; and stone cists and interments were discovered in five of them, two urns, flint chips, twelve flint arrow-heads, a bronze pin, a skull, and other human remains. The urns were wide-mouthed, one seven-and-a-half inches high, and the other six-and-a-half inches, and their surface was ornamented in bands of oblique lines and impressed markings. This group of Arran interments is of much value as evidence of the purpose of the standing-stone circles.¹

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume IV., pages 499‒524.

Many years ago a series of very careful investigations were made by Mr. Charles E. Dalrymple, which have yielded invaluable materials for the elucidation of the original purpose of the standing-stone circles. A group of seven interments, within a circle of six upright pillar-stones, was disclosed by Mr. Dalrymple at Tuack, near Kintore, in Aberdeenshire. These were cremation burials, and associated with large urns of the bronze period type. At Crichie, in the same district, another group of interments was found within a circular area, marked off by a trench twenty feet wide; and within this trench there had been a circle of six standing-stones, and a seventh one in the centre, five of which had been removed for building purposes. In the centre of the circle, under the apparent surface of the ground, a cairn of stones was disclosed, fifteen feet in diameter; and a cist was found underneath the cairn which contained the remains of an unburnt human skeleton. Near one of the stones of the circle an urn was discovered, containing a cremation interment; and at the foot of another stone a deposit of incinerated bones was found, and near it another of a similar character. At the same spot a finely-made stone hammer-head was found. Several other interments were found in different parts of the area, one of which was in a small cist, and another in a well-formed urn. At Fullarton, also in the Kintore district, seven interments of incinerated human bones, associated with fragments of urns, and one unburnt interment, were found in a circle of twenty-eight feet in diameter; only three of the stones of the circle remained, two of which were fallen and broken. In other districts of Aberdeenshire deposits of human remains have been found in the areas of many stone circles, the most of which were cremation interments.¹

¹ The results of these investigations were briefly but ably stated in Dr. Stuart’s two volumes of the _Sculptured Stones of Scotland_, see Volume I., pages 19‒25, et seq.; Volume II., Appendix to Prefix, pages 22‒24; Leslie’s _Early Races of Scotland_, Volume I., page 209.

In other quarters of the country similar results have been obtained in the areas of the stone circles, wherever thorough investigation has been made. And it appears, so far, that the same conclusion may be deduced with reference to another class of monumental stone-settings, consisting of groups of upright stones which are not arranged in a circular form. These are not nearly so common as the circular classes, and, so far as yet ascertained, their occurrence in Scotland is limited to the counties of Caithness and Sutherland; but there seems reason to believe that they also occur in Wales. The evidence, so far as it has yet gone, is distinct in indicating their sepulchral association.¹

¹ Anderson’s Bronze and Stone Ages, pages 125‒126. “From these facts it appears that, while a certain uniformity in the phenomena of the burials exists in smaller areas, there is a wide diversity exhibited in more extended areas. As our knowledge of the facts increases in its range and speciality, as the nature of these variations is gradually ascertained, and their limits defined with precision, the time will come when their significance, with relation to the areas in which they are manifested, may be determined. At present we are unable to define, with any degree of accuracy, the limits of the area over which stone circles are found, and equally unable to say within what limits they are found to contain burials assignable to the Ages of Bronze or Iron. But this we are in a position to say, from existing evidence, that, so far as they have yet been investigated in Scotland, their nature and purpose has been clearly determined to be sepulchral.” Ibid.

Thus, by the recognition of the result of careful investigation, the stone circles of Scotland have been divested of much of their mystery, and the mass of quasi-historical relations which had so long shrouded them in a haze of misty notions.

It seems necessary to supplement the two preceding sections by a brief expository statement, and a summary of the results of our information about the people to the opening of the Christian Era. As to the length of the stone period in Scotland there is no very definite data, still we are not altogether in the dark concerning its probable duration:――1, Considering the length of time which it must have taken the people of the Stone Age to spread over Scotland after they had crossed the Tweed and the Cheviot Hills. 2, Then the evidence of a lengthened occupation implied in the great structural monuments which they erected in honour of the dead; and also the earth-houses which they built for their self-preservation and protection from the storm and frost of a northern climate. Further, it may be reasonably presumed that for a considerable length of time after they had spread over the country, they would have been fully engaged in providing the necessary means to preserve and sustain their own lives, and consequently could not have had leisure to construct elaborate monuments to the departed; for it is not when men are striving and struggling to the utmost to preserve their existence that they betake themselves to raise monuments to the dead. So it may be fairly assumed that the chambered cairns of Caithness, Argyle, Inverness-shire, and Orkney, were not erected until the people had attained a certain measure of comfort, organisation, and leisure. All this must have required a long period for its realisation, making due allowance for the natural conditions and the circumstances under which the people lived. 3, It has been indicated that probably the floor of a single chambered cairn served as the burial-ground of a family or tribe for several generations before the chamber was covered and the structure completed. Thus, when two or three chambered cairns occur near to each other, which is frequently the case, they may represent in that locality the successive interments of several centuries. 4, The evidence deducible from the traces of other remains――stone weapons and tools and the sites of their manufacture, and primitive boats discovered in positions which indicate that they were deposited in such spots at a far distant period. 5, The analogy of other Northern countries, such as Jutland and the Danish Islands, in which it has been shown on reasonable grounds that the Stone Age commenced 3000 years before the Christian era.

Taking into account these considerations and indications, it will appear highly probable that Scotland was inhabited at least 2,800 years before the Christian era, and that the southern parts of the island were inhabited several centuries earlier. Indeed, it is doubtful if this limited period will be sufficient to meet all the conditions and circumstances of the case, and it must be distinctly understood that I have advanced this statement as approximate only, and subject to revision on the attainment of more reliable data.

Touching the probable date of the introduction of the use of bronze weapons and implements into Scotland, it is impossible to speak with any approach to certainty. As already pointed out, there was no rapid introduction of metal weapons and tools; on the contrary, the change from the use of stone tools to those of bronze was a slow transitorial process, and in some districts of the country longer or shorter than in others. From such available indications as we have, it seems probable that bronze weapons and implements began to be introduced in the southern and south-western districts of Scotland between 1200 and 1000 B.C., and that at first they came from the south of the island, and from Ireland, and at a later stage they were manufactured within the country. The introduction of bronze in the southern region of the island has been placed at some 1200 or 1400 years B.C., and in Denmark about 1000 years B.C.¹ My view would give a duration of the bronze period in Scotland of eight or nine centuries, which at least is not too long when the distinctive and characteristic development of many of the bronze weapons and implements produced within the country is taken into account.

¹ Evans’ Ancient Bronze Implements, etc., of Britain, pages 473, 479; J. J. A. Worsaae’s Pre-history of the North, page 205, et seq., 1886. Greenwell calculates that a period of 700 years may be allowed during which bronze was the metal used for making cutting tools and implements in Britain.――British Barrows.

It is probable that iron was known and used in the south of the island in the third or fourth century B.C., and in Scotland about the second or third century B.C. But no rapid change took place from the use of bronze to that of iron in the manufacture of weapons and tools, the transition was extremely slow and gradual. Indeed, comparatively little iron was produced in Britain till quite recent times. In all probability the first manufactured iron articles used in Scotland were imported, still there are some indications that the process of smelting iron was known in the country at a pretty early period.

Having thus briefly indicated the probable length of the period since Scotland has been continuously inhabited, and the stages which the people have passed through in prehistoric times, I will next attempt to indicate concisely the social state of the people and their religion, but this effort must be incomplete from the lack of available information and evidence.

It has already been incidentally mentioned that the Stone Age people, while alone in possession of the country, had attained a certain degree of social organisation. As they were of one race it is unlikely that there was much war amongst them. That they lived in families or tribes composed of a large number of individuals may be deduced from the monuments erected over their dead; and that the heads of tribes could command the service of a number of men to execute work is obvious. Whether they were polygamists or monogamists seems uncertain, but some writers have supposed that polyandry was practised amongst them. Whatever form of family relations prevailed among them, there can be no doubt that they were organised in pretty large communities. Besides possessing cattle and horses, it seems probable that they knew the use of some of the cereals, and had begun to sow small patches on the elevated grounds. The earliest indications of agriculture in this country occurs on some of the hilly ridges.

There seems to have been a strong element of animal worship associated with their religion. From the constant occurrence of animal remains in large quantities in the chambered cairns both in England and in Scotland, this appears to be a reasonable inference; as the slaughter of the animals at the funeral feasts merely for the purposes of eating and ceremonial does not sufficiently account for the way in which the animal remains are mingled with the human remains. It may be that some notions of a relationship between the spirits of animals and those of men existed in the minds of these people; if so, they may have reasoned thus:――Seeing that animals were exceedingly useful to man, and believing that animals had spirits or souls as well as men, the spirits of these animals might be assumed to be useful and agreeable companions for the spirits of the dead. These people simply looked at the death of an individual as the passing out of his spirit from the body, which spirit might wander about and return to the body or hover around its remains. Thus it appears that their religion would practically consist of a worship of ancestors associated with the spirits of animals. The occurrence of the remains of dogs in the chambered cairns seems to lend support to this view. That this religion, when it came into contact with that of the Celts, would leave some traces of such contact on the Celtic tribes of Scotland is more than probable.

Concerning the social state of the Bronze Age people, during which the Aryan Celts had completed their dominion over the earlier race, we have rather more reliable evidence. The Celtic tribes were monogamists in their family relations and domestic arrangements; but the sexual relations, the family customs, and organisations of the earlier race, seem to have influenced the social relations of the Celtic tribes in Scotland, more or less, for a long period. In the Bronze Period the people were living in a well organised condition, under the tribal forms of government. Owing to causes already indicated, historic conditions had arisen which had the effect of consolidating a number of the smaller units of families into one strong tribe, under a common head; and in this way the tribes had attained a considerable degree of social and political organisation. Thus within each large tribe there was a sort of federation which embraced a considerable number of the smaller tribal divisions, and such a tribe could act with decision and effect. But when it became necessary for a number of these large tribes to unite and act in concert for their mutual defence against a common enemy, they appear politically not to have been sufficiently advanced to take the full advantage of this means of united action when the day of peril and of battle came. Hence the Romans explicitly state that if the British tribes had been thoroughly united amongst themselves, the task of conquering them would have been much more difficult, if not impossible. As it was, it took the Romans, with all their combined resources and disciplined legions, forty years to fight their way from the Thames to the Firth of Forth.

Regarding their material resources, in relation to their social condition, the evidence is pretty ample. They possessed herds of domesticated animals, oxen, sheep, horses, and swine, and they cultivated grain to some extent. They manufactured some kind of woollen cloth, and made pottery. Their food consisted largely of the flesh of the domestic animals and of the milk thence derived, and to a less extent of fish, the products of grain, and wild animals. Their dress consisted partly of animals skins prepared for the purpose, and partly of the cloth above mentioned. That some at least of the people of the Bronze Period were occasionally magnificently attired, is amply proved from the numbers of massive gold ornaments, and armlets and necklaces, which have been found in every quarter of Scotland, and numerous ornaments of other materials, pins of various patterns and styles, ♦beads, and buttons. Thus far, the material and social condition of the people appears to have been well advanced, and it is quite conceivable that they may have lived in a state of comparative comfort and enjoyment.

♦ “beds” replaced with “beads”

As to the religion of the early Celtic tribes of prehistoric Scotland, no evidence of an organised priesthood has as yet been discovered. Little importance can be attached to Cæsar’s literary account of the Druids and the druidical worship, at least in their relation to the tribes of Scotland, for there is no evidence that such a class of religious teachers ever existed in any part of it. Our ground is thus at once cleared of a mass of apocryphal notions and doctrines which too long obtained currency. Such religion as the Celtic tribes actually had, differed but little from that of the other branches of the Aryan race, even from that of Rome herself, excepting that in our cold and cloudy region it was not so elaborate as at the centre of the civilised world.

Their religion was polytheistic, with a strong element of ancestor worship in it. Just as Cæsar himself was worshipped as a god in Rome, so in Scotland the Celts often worshipped the souls of their departed heroes. They sometimes worshipped many gods, which represented in more or less mythological forms the personified powers of nature; and one of the oldest and favourite epithets of the Deity in Gaelic is, “the King of the elements” of nature. They had some five or six great gods, and a number of minor ones.

The Celts had a vivid belief in the existence of the human soul after death. Ancestor worship was undoubtedly the mainspring of their creed. This was the leading characteristic of the religion of the Northern Aryan people long after it ceased to be entertained in Rome and Greece.¹ So intense and realistic was the Celts’ belief in the future existence of the human soul, that it was said money loans were sometimes granted on the understanding that they were to be repaid beyond the grave. This may be an exaggeration, still there is no doubt that the Celt’s realisation of a future life was from a very early period intensely firm, as it is to this day among the same race.

¹ “Cæsar, as supreme pontiff of Rome, declared, in his place in the Senate, his utter disbelief in another life, and the stern Cato but mildly replied that their ancestors, men perhaps as wise as Cæsar, believed that the guilty after death were sent to the noisome abodes full of horrors and terrors. But the classical belief, even at its best――in the poems of Homer――gives but a poor, shadowy, comfortless existence to the spirits of the dead.... The ghost of Achilles says to Ulysses: ‘Rather would I live on earth as a poor man’s hireling than reign among all the dead.’ The gods lived on the heights of Olympus, aloft in Heaven, and far apart from the hated abode of the dead, which lay under the earth and ocean. Mortals were all consigned to the grisly realm of Pluto.... Among the Romans ancestor worship had a stronger force than in Greece. Their feast of the dead was duly celebrated in the later half of February, when chaplets were laid on their tombs, and fruit, salt, and corn soaked in wine, were the least costly offerings presented to them. The deification of the Emperors was merely a farther development of this ancestor worship.” Celtic Mythology, by Alexander Macbain, M.A.

There were three Gaelic festivals of a distinctively characteristic kind:――1, Beltane, held on the first of May; 2, Lammas, on the first of August; 3, Samhnirm or “summerend,” in modern Scotch, Halloween. Originally they were all associated with fire and sun worship, sacred to the gods of fire, of light, and of earth. The great festival of Beltane on May-day was associated with rites relating to fire-worship, divination, and incantation.¹ The Lammas-day feast seems to have been connected with the rites of the sun-god; and the festival of Hallowe’en was sacred to the gods of fire, of fruits, and of death. Traces of survivals of this worship in a more or less disguised form may still be observed in Scotland, though every year they are becoming less frequent.

¹ In relation to the Beltane festival I have an experience of my own to record. Forty-three years ago, when I was a boy in the service of a large farmer in the Valley of the Deveron, in Aberdeenshire, our master ordered my elder brother and I to make a bonfire on the first of May. I asked my brother what was the meaning of it. He smiled, and said “it was to burn the witches.” At the same time we were ordered to cut branches of rowan tree and to place pieces of it above every door about the farm――“to keep out the witches.” This was done every year in the first of May at the farm in question. It is a good example of the survival of a rite, in the form of an incantation, transmitted from the prehistoric period, and the very festival of which I have spoken above.

Having touched on the social condition and the religion of the prehistoric peoples, in conclusion, I will recapitulate the leading points of the two preceding sections.

I. Opening with a detailed description of the indispensable weapons and tools of the Stone Age race, it was shown that these people manifested remarkable skill, taste, and industry in the manufacture of their weapons and implements. In some points of the manufacture of flint tools and weapons they attained to a degree of skill and perfection in the art which modern science cannot surpass with all its resources and appliances. This side of their culture presents a striking illustration of the great result which persistent human efforts can produce, even with the most imperfect means.

1, Coming to the remarkable series of chambered and horned cairns of the Stone Age, it was remarked that in the phenomena and remains disclosed in these cairns, we reached the representative of primeval man in Scotland. After presenting a concise account of the external and internal structure of the cairns, and of the deposits contained within their chambers, I then touched on the resemblances of the chambered cairns of Caithness and the Long Barrows of England, as indicating that one homogeneous race inhabited the whole island. Other groups of chambered cairns were described. Reference was then made to certain inferences drawn from the state of the human remains found in these cairns, such as that this race were addicted to cannibalism and other horrible practices; but it was shown that the evidence on which it had been attempted to prove the prevalence of these practices was totally inconclusive. Explanation of a novel character was then advanced, to account for the condition in which the remains were found in the cairns.

2, The question of whether any trace of the dwellings of the Stone Age people now existed in Scotland was discussed. It was shown that in all probability the earth-houses were originated and a number of them constructed by the Stone Age people. A description of these curious structures followed; and it was pointed out that they had probably been associated with overground huts. After noticing the primitive boats, it was observed that the monuments of the Stone Age had long survived the wreck of many empires.

II. The Bronze period was next treated. The question of the introduction of bronze was touched on, and the transitional stage from the use of stone weapons and implements to the use of those of bronze, was briefly handled.

3, A reference was made to some of the hoards of bronze weapons, tools, and articles found in Scotland. A description of the various bronze weapons, tools, and ornaments, including many gold ornaments, was presented; and in which it was indicated that many of these were manufactured in Scotland. The variety and numbers of the gold ornaments was specially noticed, and their significance as a feature of the period indicated.

4, A question was then raised touching the traces of the dwellings of the people in the Bronze period; and the sites of early settlements were indicated. The structures called crannogs were then treated; their probable origin and the period of their construction was discussed; a brief description of the method of their construction, and the articles discovered in them, was given. The several classes of hill-forts, designed like the crannogs for protection and security, were next dealt with; and their characteristics and peculiarities concisely described.

5, The burials of the Bronze period were handled, and the various modes of disposing of the dead noticed: such as cairn interments; stone cist interments; urn interments in collective groups; and the underground phenomena associated with them. Bronze Age burials within circular areas of standing stones were also treated; and it was observed that many of the stone circles were now divested of the mystery which had been so long ascribed to them.

6, Finally, a brief explanation of the social state and the religion of the prehistoric peoples was given. Reviewing the whole series of objects and subjects noticed in the preceding pages, we cannot fail to be struck by the manifestation which they present of the intelligence, the skill, the industry, and the determined and persistent efforts of these men of the Stone and Bronze periods. They have exhibited a degree of united action for common ends and mutual protection, a power of designing and a concentration of the faculties of mind steadily directed to the accomplishment of definite results, which is truly surprising. They had attained to a stage of culture and of civilisation which places them far in advance of what is often loosely termed the savage and barbarian stages of human society. And, once for all, let it be said in accordance with truth and reality, that our brave and heroic ancestors, who have struggled through so many centuries and difficulties to preserve intact their liberty and independence, were not mere barbarians at the date of the Roman Invasion.¹ Placed as they were in the last recess of liberty, they preserved it to succeeding generations.

¹ If the term barbarian means a want of humanity, then the Romans themselves were as much barbarians as the Celtic tribes of Britain, for witness what Cicero himself said: “It is the greatest pleasure in life to see a brave enemy led off to torture and to death.”

SECTION VI.

The Roman Period.

After the attempt of Julius Cæsar in B.C. 55 to conquer Britain, nearly a century elapsed before another invasion of the island was essayed. In the year A.D. 43, the conquest of Britain was begun; but proceeded at a slow pace. The tribes in the southern division of the island faced the Roman legions and fought bravely; and for many years little advance was made. A number of tribes collectively called by the Romans the Brigantes, occupied the extensive region now known as Yorkshire, Lancaster, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Northumberland, and extended into the border counties of modern Scotland; and the tribes to the north of this and inwards were called by the Romans the Caledonians. The Brigantes contested the advance of the Roman legions and fought bravely. By the year 77 the Roman province had been extended nearly to the Solway Firth, and the legions were making great efforts to subdue the inhabitants.

In the year 78 Agricola was appointed to the chief command in Britain. He was an able and experienced general, and immediately engaged in the work before him. In the summer of 79, he probably marched north by the west coast of Cumberland, and advanced through the border counties of Scotland. In that region his advance was contested at every step by warlike tribes, habituated to strife and battle; but they were unable to stem the progress of the disciplined legions. During the winter Agricola was engaged in taking hostages from the tribes, whose territories the Roman troops had overrun, and in making arrangements to secure the subjection of the natives. The following year Agricola determined to advance farther northward and attack the Caledonians in their stronghold; but ♦the tribes made a vigorous resistance. He seems to have penetrated through Stirlingshire and passed the Forth, but it is doubtful if he advanced much farther; and he carefully secured some portions of the territories through which his army had passed, by erecting forts and forming camps as outposts in the most commanding positions. After Agricola had discovered the natural features of the country so far, and the spirit of the inhabitants, he fixed on the ground lying between the Firths of Forth and Clyde for his main line of defence; and the summer of 81 was spent in erecting a chain of forts along this line.¹

♦ duplicate word “the” removed

¹ Mon. Hist. Brit. pages 44‒45; Caledonia, Volume I., pages 103‒104; History of Cumberland, by R. S. Ferguson, M.A., pages 21‒22.

Afterwards the Roman General was engaged for several years in subduing the country between the Firths of Forth and Tay. He seems to have penetrated into some parts of Fifeshire, while his fleet sailed round the coasts; but the Romans failed to conquer the district between Kinross and Muckross. Afterwards he formed his army in three divisions, not far apart from each other, in order to meet the contingency of a surprise; and then, with the assistance of the Roman fleet, Agricola slowly advanced towards the Tay. The Caledonians, having ascertained the disposition of Agricola’s army, resolved to attack one of his divisions, the Ninth Legion. At midnight they assailed it, and fought their way through the gate and into the heart of the Roman camp; but Agricola himself, with the fleetest of the horse and foot came to the rescue. When day dawned the Caledonians had to fight the Ninth Legion on the one hand, and the reinforcement on the other; and the brunt of the struggle was at the gate of the camp, where the intruders had to fight their way out. The Legions were victorious, and the Caledonians retired under cover of the marshes; but they were not disheartened. Agricola learned, as the season passed, that the tribes were combining to strike a blow, and were removing their wives and children to places of safety. Both combatants were preparing for the struggle, which was to determine whether the Romans were to obtain dominion over the whole Island.¹

¹ Mon. Hist. Brit., page 45.

In the beginning of summer 86, Agricola sent his fleet round the coasts to ravage the seaboard, and alarm and intimidate the inhabitants. He then advanced with his army to Mons Grampius,¹ and there the Caledonians were posted for battle. The native troops numbered 30,000, men under the command of a leader called Galgacus; and as it was the custom for the leaders of armies to address their troops on the eve of a battle, so Tacitus, the historian, puts a speech into the mouth of the leader of the Caledonians, which is too important to be passed over:――“When I reflect on the causes of the war, and the circumstances of our position, I feel a strong persuasion that our united efforts this day will prove the beginning of universal liberty to Britain. For we are all undebased by slavery, and there is no land behind us; nor does even the sea afford a refuge, whilst the Roman fleet hovers around. Thus the use of arms, at all times honourable to the brave, now offers the only safety even to cowards. In all the battles yet fought against the Romans, our countrymen have reposed their final hopes in us; for we, the noblest sons in Britain, and therefore placed in its last recesses, far from the view of servile shores, have preserved even our eyes unpolluted by the contact of subjection.... The extremity of Britain is now disclosed, and whatever is unknown becomes an object of magnitude. But there is no nation behind us, nothing but waves and rocks, and the still more hostile Romans, whose arrogance we cannot escape by cringing and submission. Those plunderers of the world, after exhausting the land by their devastations, are rifling the ocean, stimulated by avarice if their enemy be rich, by ambition if poor, unsatiated by the east and by the west, the only people who behold wealth and indigence with equal avidity. To range, to slaughter, to usurp, they call empire, and where they make a desert, they call it peace.

¹ There has been much conflict of views as to the locality where this battle was fought. Chalmers placed it at the camp at Ardoch; Professor John Stuart, of Aberdeen, placed the locality of the battle above the town of Stonehaven, Kincardineshire. He maintained that the Roman army was posted upon the extended plain, exactly above Stonehaven, and the Caledonians upon the face of the hills above Urie House, directly opposite to the Romans. _Archæologica Scotica_, Volume II., page 300. Dr. Burton abandoned the attempt to fix the site of the battle as hopeless. Dr. Skene has placed it:――“On the peninsula, formed by the junction of the Isla with the Tay, are the remains of a strong and massive vallum, extending from the one river to the other, with a small Roman fort at one end, and enclosing a large triangular space, capable of containing Agricola’s whole troops, guarded by the rampart in front, and by a river on each side.... On the heights above the plain are the remains of a large native encampment, capable of containing upwards of 30,000 men.” Celtic Scotland, Volume I., pages 52, 53. Dr. Skene thinks that this site agrees with Tacitus’ description better than any other locality in Scotland.

“Our children and kindred, by the decree of nature, are rendered the dearest of all things to us, and these are torn away by levies to serve in foreign lands. Our wives and sisters, though they should escape the violation of hostile force, are polluted under the names of friendship and hospitality. Our estates and possessions are consumed in tributes, our grain in contributions, and even our bodies are worn down, amidst stripes and insults, in clearing woods and draining marshes.... Since then all hopes of mercy are vain; let those at last assume courage to whom safety, as well as to whom glory, is dear. The Trinobantes, even under a female leader, had force enough to burn a colony and storm camps, and if success had not damped their vigour, would have been able to throw off the yoke; and shall not we, untouched, unsubdued, and struggling not for the acquisition but for the security of liberty, show at the first onset what men Caledonia has reserved for her defence? Can you imagine that the Romans are as brave in war as they are licentious in peace? Acquiring renown from our dissensions, they convert the faults of their enemies to the glory of their own army――an army composed of the most different nations, which, as success alone has kept together, misfortune will certainly dissipate, unless you suppose that Gauls and Germans and Britons, who, though they expend their blood to establish a foreign dominion, have been longer its foes than its subjects, will be retained by loyalty and affection? No! terror and dread alone are their weak bonds of attachment, which once broken, they who cease to fear will begin to hate. Every incitement to victory is on our side. The Romans have no wives to animate them, no parents to upbraid their flight; most of them have either no home or a distant one. Few in number, ignorant of the country, looking around in silent horror at woods, seas, and a haven itself unknown to them, they are delivered by the gods, as it were, imprisoned and bound into our hands. Be not terrified by an idle show, and the glitter of silver and gold, which can neither protect nor wound. The Britons will recognise their own cause, the Gauls will recollect their former liberty, the rest of the Germans will desert them, as the Usipii have lately done. Nor is there anything formidable behind them――ungarrisoned towns, colonies of old men, municipal towns――distempered and distracted between unjust masters and ill-obeying subjects. There is a General, here an army; there tributes, mines, and all the train of punishments inflicted upon slaves, which, whether to bear eternally or instantly to revenge, this field must determine. March then to battle, and think of your ancestors and of your posterity!”

When Agricola saw the lines of his enemy he was afraid of being outflanked, and extended his own line to the utmost. His front consisted of 8000 auxiliaries and 3000 cavalry on the wings; the Legions or Roman soldiers were held in reserve, and placed behind the centre. The native army was well posted on the heights, their front line stretched along the border of the plains, the second line on the side of the hill, and the reserve behind it and farther up the hill. On the plain the native charioteers and horsemen were moving and rapidly manœuvring, as if to provoke attack. The battle began and raged with great fury. While the fighting was with missiles at a distance the native troops held their ground, and the charioteers drove back the Roman cavalry and threw them into confusion; but Agricola sent forward five cohorts to charge the native footmen with swords. For this weapon they were not prepared, and their first line fell back; the whole Roman line then advanced to the charge. Still, Galgacus tried a flank movement with his reserve, but it failed; the chariots at last became entangled amongst the broken ground, and a defeat ensued. The Caledonians retired in order, and repeatedly attempted to check the pursuit of the Romans, but many of the natives were slain; and 350 of the Romans fell. The Roman General did not pursue the Caledonians far; and from various circumstances it seems evident that he had not achieved a decisive victory. After taking hostages from some of the tribes between the Tay and the Forth to prevent them from joining the native army, he returned to his winter quarters, south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, with his army. Shortly after he was recalled to Rome.¹

¹ Mon. Hist. Brit., pages 46, 47, 48; Caledonia, Volume I., page 113.

It appears from the brief and vague notices of Roman writers, that the Imperial troops had to maintain an incessant struggle with the northern tribes in Britain. In short, the whole of the country which Agricola had overrun, in a few years resumed its independent state, and the Roman province on the north was limited to the same boundary as when he first commenced his campaigns. The northern tribes even between the Tweed and the Firths of Forth and Clyde seem to have been little effected by Agricola’s conquests. Between the years 120 and 138, the Romans built a wall from the river Tyne to Bowness on the Solway Firth, which is usually called Hadrian’s wall. It is about seventy-three miles in length, and consisted of a stone wall strengthened by a great ditch on its northern side, and an earthen rampart to the south of the stone wall; and military stations, forts, watch-towers, and roads for the accommodation of the legions, who manned the bulwarks, and the transmission of military stores. The stone wall and the earthen wall were generally within sixty or seventy yards of each other, but the distance between them varied with the nature of the ground. The stone wall was about eight feet in thickness and about twenty in height; and it consisted of a facing on each side of dressed stones, the core was of concrete filled in between the facing stones; the whole forming a solid mass which depended for its strength on the quality of the concrete. Connected with this great barrier there were a number of very large stations, fortified barracks with guard-houses, and upwards of 300 watch-towers at about a quarter of a mile from each other, with much stronger forts between every fourth or fifth watch-tower.¹ In short it appears to have been one of the most complete and massive lines of defensive works ever constructed by the Romans.

¹ Bruce’s The Roman Wall; History of Cumberland, by R. S. Ferguson, M.A., pages 78‒97; 1890.

About twenty years later the Romans constructed another wall, which commenced at Bridgeness on the Firth of Forth and crossed the country to near West Kilpatrick on the Clyde, a distance of twenty-seven miles, and probably on the line of Agricola’s frontier; it ran along the ridge of the southern rising grounds. This wall consisted of earth and stone works, forming a rampart of about twenty-four feet in breadth at the base and some twenty feet in height; and a very wide and deep ditch ran in front of the wall along its whole course, which faced the region of the Caledonians. There was a paved way five feet broad close to the foot of the wall, and a series of watch-towers within call of each other in which sentinels watched day and night; and eighteen great forts placed on the most commanding positions at intervals of about two miles. A paved military road followed the line of the wall on the southward side.¹ This was the barrier especially intended to keep the Celtic tribes of Caledonia at bay; and from this time until the Romans left the island it was the northern boundary of the province.

¹ Roy’s Military Antiquities; Caledonia, Volume I., pages 116‒119.

So it was the strip of territory between these two walls that the Romans occupied in Scotland, and even there they were never long permitted to hold undisputed possession. In 182 the tribes of the north broke through the wall, slew the commander and a number of the soldiers who guarded it, and wasted a portion of the province. About the beginning of the third century the tribes of the north had overcome the legions, and were overrunning the province, laying it waste, and driving off booty. So in the year 208 the Emperor Severus arrived in Britain, and at once proceeded to take steps to restore order, and retaliate on the independent tribes. He concentrated all the available troops in the island; and advanced into Scotland with a great force, passed the wall which guarded the frontier, and marched forward and attempted to penetrate into the heart of Caledonia. Severus tried by throwing bridges over the rivers, cutting down the woods, and making roads in every direction, to render the country passable for troops. But this was more difficult than he had imagined. He may have advanced some distance northward of the Tay, along the east coast, but it is extremely doubtful if Severus ever reached the river Dee, far less the Spey or the shores of the Moray Firth. Let the circumstantial evidence be fairly considered, and it will appear highly improbable that Severus penetrated to the Spey.

Severus only arrived in Britain in the year 208, and his campaign beyond the frontier of the province in Caledonia could hardly have commenced before 209. It is stated, that after he concluded a peace with the native tribes, he returned southward and superintended the reconstruction, or at least the repair, of the wall between the Forth and Clyde. Having thus completed his work and settled everything, he then returned to York. After he had been some time in York, tidings that the Caledonians were again in revolt reached him, and we are told that he was only prevented from recommencing a war of extermination by his death, which occurred at York in 211.¹ Thus it appears that the duration of Severus’ campaign north of the Forth must have been very limited indeed, and at the utmost it could not have lasted much longer than one year. It is said that he lost 50,000 men during the campaign, although he fought no battle. If his army numbered 100,000 men, it is extremely difficult to conceive how such a number of men could have been supplied with food in the heart of a hostile country, especially without the co-operation of a fleet. If, within the limited period of one year, Severus and his army erected bridges over the principal rivers from the Firth of Forth to the Spey, constructed one great military road to secure his line of communication between the same points――through marshes, woods, and rocks――and made other roads in all directions, besides forming great camps here and there between the supposed points of the commencement and the termination of the campaign. In reality it seems most probable that the scene of Severus’ campaign did not pass beyond the limits of Perthshire; for if he had left this region unconquered behind him, the advance through the eastern Lowlands to the Spey would have been a military and political blunder which no Roman General was likely to commit. The only thing certain about Severus’ campaign is that it produced no permanent result whatever.

¹ Skene’s Celtic Scotland, Volume I., pages 82‒90.

After the death of Severus, his son Antoninus became Emperor, who made peace with the native tribes, and left the frontier, of which he had been in charge. A long period of silence as to the state of North Britain followed. Toward the end of the third century Caransius, a native of Belgium, who had risen to high rank in the Roman army, assumed the purple himself, and ruled Britain independently for a period of seven years. In the early part of the fourth century the Emperor Constantine seems to have been at war with the northern tribes; and by the middle of the same century the relative positions and the historic conditions had entirely changed, for Rome herself was fast verging towards dissolution. Toward the end of this century the northern tribes were sometimes called Picts, and at the same time the Scots and Saxons were mentioned among the assailants of the Roman province in Britain; the attacks of these tribes had become incessant, while the Romanised Britons were beginning to be left to their own resources. Disorder was rapidly spreading in all quarters of the empire. At this time the generals in command in Britain frequently assumed the title of Emperor, and always fought to obtain the purple and universal sway; owing to this the Roman province in Britain was completely drained of troops. The tribes outside the walls were constantly harassing the Romanised population, and in 407 Constantine advised the Britons to abandon the districts between the walls and to concentrate their efforts to protect the remainder of the province by manning the southern wall to the utmost of their power. He then passed over to Gaul, withdrawing all the available troops in Britain, and henceforth the imperial sway ceased in Scotland.¹

¹ Mon. Hist. Brit., pages 53, 62, 63, 66, 68, 70, 75, 79, 80, 82, 83. In the early years of the fifth century the local army in Britain set up three Roman Emperors――Marcus, Gratianus, and Constantine――and the latter, as stated in the text, crossed the Channel to Gaul with his army, and left Britain utterly undefended. Long before this time, however, several of the generals in Britain usurped the authority of Emperors, as recorded in the passages cited above.

SECTION VII.

_Chief Tribes of the Country from the Fifth Century to the Foundation of the Monarchy._

In the preceding section we have seen that the Roman occupation of a portion of the country must have in some degree affected the Celtic inhabitants within the walls. In fact, the tribes from the southern borders of modern Scotland to the wall between the Forth and Clyde were greatly affected by their subjection to the Romans; but whether they were improved as men is another matter. A little Roman blood may have been infused into the veins of the natives during the two centuries and a half of contact with their masters; but it seems that they retained their own language, and were not in that relation Latinised. In short, it is certain that they soon ceased to have any Roman institutions, and that when the legions departed and left them to their own resources, they were comparatively helpless. They struggled, however, to preserve themselves from destruction though not with much success, for the independent tribes tormented and robbed them, in spite of the great advantage which the walls should have afforded to them for defence against their outside enemies. But new historic conditions then came rapidly into operation, though unfortunately we have no detailed records of them, and must interpret partly by the light of prior and subsequent results.

In the third section the affinities of the tribes inhabiting Britain prior to the Roman occupation were clearly indicated. It was then apparent that the tribes in the south of Scotland and those in the north of England were of one race――Celtic people speaking Aryan dialects. But long before the Romans left the island, another race, the Saxons, had appeared upon the coasts of Britain, and repeatedly attacked the Roman province.¹ After the final departure of the Imperial troops, the Saxons and Angles invaded the southern parts of Britain in force, and commenced a fierce and ruthless war with the Britons to obtain the possession and dominion of the country. But only confused, incomplete and traditional accounts of this struggle have been preserved, which were subsequently coloured according to the view considered necessary to justify existing conditions from time to time. In the circumstances it was natural that the Britons in the south of Scotland should assist their kindred in the north of England. As many of the Britons in the southern and south-eastern parts of the island were either massacred or driven northward by the invaders; at last the cruelly oppressed Britons made a stand for life or death in the north. The result, however, as far as can be seen, was that the Britons in the north of England were cut off from their kindred in the south-west of Scotland by the advance and success of the Angles.

¹ Dr. W. F. Skene has stated that tribes of Frisians, people akin to the Saxons, had made settlements on the shores of the Firth of Forth, and extended along the shore of Forfarshire, and perhaps as far as Stonehaven in the fourth century, and also in Dumfriesshire. But such evidence as he adduces, is indeed far from conclusive. See _Celtic Scotland_, Volume I., pages 145‒146, 191‒192, 231; and also, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume IV., pages 174‒175, 179, where he discusses the matter at length.

The Britons who occupied the portion of the country subdued by the Romans in Scotland, formed the small kingdom of Strathclyde, which comprised the counties of Ayr, Lanark, Renfrew, Peebles, Dumbarton, portions of Stirling and Dumfries. Their chief stronghold was the fortified rock on the right bank of the Clyde, now known as Dumbarton Castle. Their kingdom was exposed to the attacks of the Angles or Saxons from the south, and to those of the Scots from the west and the Picts from the north. The Angles of Northumbria at times reduced the Britons to the position of a tributary people, and for centuries portions of Strathclyde were often plundered and wasted by the other tribes. Still the Britons of Strathclyde struggled hard and long to preserve their kingdom, it passed through many vicissitudes, and it finally became absorbed in the rest of Scotland early in the eleventh century. The body of the people, however, long retained their Celtic speech, and as late as the twelfth century were sometimes called Welsh.¹

¹ Chronicles; Robertson’s Scotland under her Early Kings, Volume I., pages 16‒19, 54‒55, 70‒72.

The Picts were of the same race of tribes as those whom the Romans called Caledonians, simply Celtic tribes. They were first called Picts by a Roman orator, Eumenius, in a panegyric on Constantine in the year 296, and in the succeeding century the term Picts was frequently applied to the tribes beyond the wall by Roman writers. The name Picts, as used by the Romans, is thus an external one, and there is no evidence whatever that these Celtic tribes themselves then knew that they were called Picts, so entirely is the name an outside one, in the sense in which it was applied to them by the Romans. The earliest native record relating to the Picts is the Pictish Chronicle, which seems to have been composed about the end of the tenth century. Two separate editions of it are preserved, one of which is supposed to have been compiled in Abernethy and the other in Brechin, and it is plain that the opening sentences about the Picts in this chronicle were drawn from Roman sources. There is no evidence that these tribes called themselves Picts, and consequently there never was a Pictish language in Scotland, for these tribes which were first called Picts by the Romans simply spoke Celtic dialects; and this is all that we are ever likely to discover about their language.

For a century after the departure of the Romans there is little definite information about the northern tribes of Britain. It has been conjectured that the Pictish monarchy was founded in the fifth century; but it is extremely doubtful if their political organisation can in any sense be called a monarchy. So far as can be ascertained, the Picts seem rather to have been living under a rude and half-developed confederacy than a settled hereditary monarchy. They had no settled form of succession to the kingship. In short, it is more than probable that the king or chief was elective, and dependent on his followers for his position. The Picts were never united as one organised political society, they were always divided into tribes, for we read of the southern Picts, the Picts of Galloway, and the northern Picts. The truth seems to be that they were merely a number of strong but separate Celtic tribes.

In the sixth century these Celtic tribes, called Picts, occupied the whole of Scotland on the north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, excepting the district of Argyle, then called Dalriada, which was held by the Scots. The Pictish and Scottish tribes were separated from each other by the Drumalban range of mountains, which separates the modern counties of Argyle and Perth. To the north of the mountain range, called in early times the “Monuth,” which extends from Ben Nevis to near the east coast between Stonehaven and Aberdeen, the country northward of this, from sea to sea, was occupied by the northern Picts, while the region thence extending southward to the Forth, was occupied by the southern Picts; but beyond the Forth, in the district of Galloway, the inhabitants, Celtic tribes, were called Picts. Thus it appears that the tribes which were called Picts were not living under a monarchy or one king. There is no evidence whatever to show that Galloway had not been continuously occupied by Celtic tribes from prehistoric times down to the Middle Ages. It is said that St. Ninian, who began his mission in Galloway and founded a church there, converted the southern Picts to Christianity.¹

¹ Historians, Volume VI., pages 25, 58, 71, 77, 87, 258; Volume V., pages 14, 274‒281; Dr. Skene’s Celtic Scotland, Volume I., pages 131, 238. Professor John Rhys, in his course of Rhind Lectures, has recently treated at length of the ancient peoples of Scotland, with much learning and discrimination. So far as he touches on the Picts, his remarks and suggestions are interesting and instructive, though mainly based on philological grounds.

The Saxons (or the Angles as they were sometimes named) reached the southern parts of Scotland in force about the middle of the sixth century, and before the end of it they had established themselves in Lothian. They pressed severely on the Britons of Strathclyde, as already mentioned, and extended their conquests on every side, and at last ventured into the territories of the Picts. In 685, Egfrid their King attempted a bold stroke, advanced with his followers and crossed the Forth at Stirling, and penetrated into the heart of the Pictish territory; continuing his advance, he crossed the Tay and marched fearlessly onward. But on the 20th of May, in a narrow pass of the Sidlaw Hills at Dunnichen, the Picts faced him, and a great battle ensued, in which Egfrid himself was slain, and few of his army escaped from the fatal field. The victory was complete; and it had the effect of severing the district between the Tay and the Forth from the influence which would have tended to make it a part of England. The Saxon clergy fled from their chief seat at Abercorn and thence removed to Yorkshire; from this date the power of the Northumbrian state began to wane.¹

¹ Bede, B. IV., Chapter 26; Chronicles, pages 72, 351.

But the body of the people south of the Forth in Lothian remained essentially Saxon throughout all the subsequent conflicts and changes, perhaps even more Saxon than in any part of England, in speech and custom. It is certain that they absorbed and superseded the Celtic Britons in this region at a comparatively early period, and ample evidence of this will appear as the narration proceeds.

The Scots whom we know came from Ireland, appear to have come and gone at different times. They were mentioned among the assailants of the Roman province in Britain in 360; and it may be presumed that a pretty close intercourse between them and the Celtic tribes of the west of Scotland had prevailed for long before this date. There may have been several migrations from Ireland to Scotland at different periods, but their final settlement in Argyleshire occurred about the end of the fifth century. When the three sons of Erc, Lorn, Fergus, and Angus, with their followers, obtained possession of Argyle, which they called Dalriada. They sometimes came into conflict with the Britons of Strathclyde, and with the Picts. It seems highly probable that the language of the Scots was more developed than the cognate speech of the Picts, seeing that Ireland had not prior to this time been invaded and harassed by external enemies as the Pictish tribes had been. If this was the case, it would partly account for the disappearance of the dialects spoken by the Celtic tribes called the Picts.¹ These Irish settlers were already Christians. The kings of the small state were all descended from the race of Erc, and there is in the Chronicles and Irish Annals a long list of them; but such details as exist concerning their reigns yields comparatively little real historic results.²

¹ Although I believe there is no satisfactory evidence of writings in native Irish before the introduction of Christianity, still the Irish branch of the Celtic language had no doubt reached a considerably higher stage of development than the Celtic dialects then current among the Pictish tribes in northern Britain. On a matter of this nature, however, it must always be remembered that prior to the introduction of printing, there were only an extremely small fraction of people who could read or write, or appreciate the difference between a literary language and the dialect of their own local district. To imagine anything else, is simply to throw back the ideas and appliances of a latter age into periods when the known conditions and circumstances of society exclude the possibility of their existence or application. See Dr. Todd’s St. Patrick, pages 346‒351, 391‒399, 506‒513; Ancient Laws of Ireland, Preface to Volhne I., pages 8‒12, et seq., and the general Preface to Volume III., pages 148‒163.

² An elaborate “Genealogical Table of the Dalriadic Kings, and of the principal Highland families in Scotland descended from them,” will be found in Dr. Wm. Reeves’ edition of Adamnan’s Life of St. Columba; and in a note to the table, he says, “The authorities here followed are:――The Tract on the Men of Alba, in the Book of Ballymote, and the Genealogical manuscript of MacFirbis; and the Duan Albanach; all manuscripts in the library of the Royal Irish Academy. Some supplemental matter is borrowed from the Pedigrees printed in the Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis; and the chronology is chiefly based on the Annals of Tighernach and Ulster.” According to this Table the Marmaers of Moray, the clans Maclean, Mackenzie, and Mackinnon, were descended from the Kings of Dalriada.

Aidan was the first of the Dalriadian rulers who manifested real ability and character. He was solemnly inaugurated as King of Dalriada by St. Columba in the Island of Iona. It appeared that the Scots in Dalriada (Argyle) had as yet been merely considered as a colony dependent on the King of Ireland; but the newly crowned Aidan and St. Columba attended a convention held at Drumnceat in 575, and in which the King of Ireland agreed to recognise the independence of Scotch Dalriada and its princes; so Aidan was the first independent king of the Irish-Scottish kingdom in Argyle and the neighbouring Isles. Aidan became associated with the Britons of Strathclyde, and in 603 the Scots and Britons united their forces and resolved to try issues with the advancing Angles, who were led by their king, Aedilfrid. Aidan advanced and entered the territory of the Angles by the vale of the Liddel; and at a place called Dawstane the opposing armies encountered each other. After a severe battle, Aidan was completely defeated, and many of his followers slain, but he retreated with the remainder of his army. He died in 606, after a reign of thirty-one years, and was succeeded by his younger son, Eocha Buide.¹

¹ Reeves’ Adamnan, edited 1857, pages 197‒203, 436; Chronicles, page 17. “The house of Lorn furnished a few provincial kings, produced a powerful race of Thanes (among whom was the ever-famous Macbeth), and finally became represented by a group of great Highland chieftains, whose descendants still abound in those isles, the historical vestiges of thirteen hundred years’ succession.” Ibid., page 438.

Another new historic condition came into operation which had an important influence on the subsequent history of the island. This was the appearance of the bold and vigorous race variously described as Danes, Norwegians, Norsemen, Scandinavians, and Vikings. These names all refer to one kindred race, but in the subsequent pages I will in general follow the common collective name of Norsemen when referring to them. They were not only exceedingly brave in attack and in battle, but also very skilful in constructing small vessels, and in steering them through the raging seas, running them up the inlets and through the narrow channels, and into the firths and estuaries, and out again, with a mastery of seamanship unapproached by any other people of that period. Thus they attained to a power and influence in Europe for several centuries which their mere numbers otherwise could never have commanded. At first their inroads and expeditions were usually undertaken for plunder, but by-and-bye, when they came upon a locality which seemed a desirable possession, their instinct prompted them to occupy it if they thought themselves able to hold it. Thus their views of conquest and of empire developed with their success, and they established themselves in several parts of Europe as the ruling power for a time, and in some places permanently. They began to infest the Northern and Western Isles and the coasts of Scotland toward the close of the eighth century, and persistently continued not only to subdue and occupy many of the islands but also to make attacks upon the mainland at many points along the coasts.

While the Norsemen were feeling their way amongst the Isles, and eagerly casting their eyes on Scotland as they steered round it in their vessels at no great distance from the shores, and occasionally landing whenever they found an opportunity, the chief tribes in the country――the Picts, the Scots, the Britons, and the Saxons――were intently engaged in an intermittent warfare with one another, which seemed to be producing little result. In the seventh and eighth centuries these tribes often met in conflict, on debatable territory, between the Tay and the Forth, and between the Forth and the water of Almond, in the counties of Stirling and Linlithgow; in these districts many of their battles were fought. In short, it had become apparent in the seventh century that the banks of the Tay would be the original centre of the historic kingdom. This was mainly owing to a series of causes, which may be briefly indicated thus:――1. The unsubdued Celtic tribes still occupied Perthshire and Fife and Kinross, and the natural advantages which arose from the possession of this extensive region were very great, from every point of view. 2. To the northward and the eastward of the Tay the whole country was in the possession of the Celtic tribes. 3. While the region to the south of the Forth had been subdued and occupied by the Romans, and since their departure from the island the advance and success of the Angles on the south of the Forth, and their firm settlement in the Lothians, even though Pictish tribes still held Galloway, the existing conditions and circumstances clearly pointed out the banks of the Tay as the original centre of the historic kingdom. Accordingly Scone had become the chief seat or the capital of the Pictish tribes at the beginning of the eighth century. While Perth, in its immediate vicinity, became an important town, and Dunkeld, fourteen miles farther up the Tay, the ancient stronghold of the Caledonians, and the very gate to the central Highlands, became for a time the chief religious centre of the kingdom. Farther down below Scone, on the estuary of the Tay, there had long before this been an important settlement where the city of Dundee now stands. There can be no reasonable doubt that the famous Coronation Stone was in Scone, at the beginning of the eighth century, on which the kings were installed to the throne.

But the struggle between the different tribes continued till a pretty complete nationality was evolved. In reality the formation of a nation is often a much longer process than the creation of an empire, for mere force can never produce it, or a single great man, as it must have time to grow and form affinities, assimilate adverse elements and features, and subdue opposite interests and influences, till at length that unity on which combined action and organisation for common ends and the safety of the whole community comes into being, and then national life begins to operate. It took more than two thousand years to form the Scottish nation, and we have yet to note the most important stages of the process.

Angus, son of Fergus, appears to have fought his way and mounted the Pictish throne about the year 731. He attacked the territory of the Scots in Argyle and wasted the whole country in the year 736. It is said that he founded the monastery of St. Andrews. After a reign of thirty years he died in 761; and he was succeeded by his brother, Bruide, who reigned two years, and died in 763. A number of Pictish kings follow, but the events of their reigns are of little historic value. Constantine, who fought his way and ascended the throne of the Picts in 790, founded the church of Dunkeld; and after a reign of thirty years died in 820. His brother Angus, son of Fergus, succeeded him, and for five years he ruled over the kingdoms both of the Picts and Scots, and he died in 834. This was followed by a contest for the throne of the Picts, in which Alpin the Scot, who attacked the Picts, was slain.¹

¹ Chronicles, 138, 201, 209; Dr. Skene’s Celtic Scotland, Volume I., pages 288, 296, 299; _A Sketch of the History of Fife and Kinross_, by Sheriff Æ. J. G. Mackay, pages 8‒9.

But Kenneth, son of Alpin the Scot, succeeded his father in the small kingdom of Argyle in the year 839. The same year the Norsemen invaded the territories of the Picts and inflicted a crushing defeat upon them. This may have afforded the opportunity to Kenneth M‘Alpin to make a supreme effort to obtain the Pictish throne. Bred appears as the last of the line of Pictish kings, and Kenneth M‘Alpin placed himself upon the Coronation Stone at Scone in 844, thus becoming the real founder of the historic kingdom of Scotland. This great event, however, must be interpreted as the result of the long struggle of the chief tribes, as the accumulating force of circumstances and the necessities of life, and the new influence of a common religion, naturally tended to a greater concentration of power under some one of the leading tribes. Thus the foundation of the monarchy marked two distinct stages: 1, it concentrated more power in the original centre, whence the historic kingdom was gradually extended outward; 2, it supplied a continuous influence which operated effectively, though slowly, in developing the loose elements of separate tribal communities into a nationality. Henceforth the internal and external causes and agencies which have contributed to the formation of the kingdom, the development of the nation, and the progress of civilisation, may be continuously traced.

The actual kingdom which Kenneth M‘Alpin obtained, only comprised a limited portion of modern Scotland. It consisted of the district of Argyle, the counties of Perth, Fife, and parts of Forfar, Dumbarton and Stirling, with Scone as its chief seat of royalty, and Dunkeld as its centre of religious influence. The districts beyond this centre on the north-east, the west, and the south, were only gradually, and with extreme difficulty subdued, as the nation developed to its ultimate limits. After the establishment of the monarchy, under M‘Alpin, the reigning rulers were called Kings of the Picts, then Kings of Alban, and not till the tenth century was any part of the country called Scotland, but from the opening of the eleventh century this name gradually came to be applied to the whole country.

Kenneth M‘Alpin was a brave and able prince; but the circumstances in which he was placed needed all his energy, as the newly acquired territories were surrounded by bold and hostile foes; but he heroically faced all his enemies, and stifled in the bud any questions of his right to the kingdom, throttled the claims of all competitors, and asserted his supremacy. After a brilliant reign, according to the ideas of his time, having governed the Picts and the Scots jointly for sixteen years, he died in his dun at Forteviot, on the river Earn, in 860. It appears he had two sons, Constantine and Aed, and three daughters.¹

¹ Chronicles, pages 9, 21, 64, 65, 84, 135, 154, 361, 362.

SECTION VIII.

Introduction of Christianity.

The advent and spread of Christianity produced a great revolution in many parts of the globe. The Christian religion was a prime factor in the development of Scotland, as it became closely associated with the government, the institutions, the education, the music, the literature, the amusements, and the life of the people; indeed, its influence operated from the cradle to the grave.

It has been said that Christianity was early introduced into Britain. Although with the utmost effort to reach the truth, the mass of legends are difficult to digest. It is almost impossible to extract any definite historic information from such statements as these:――“Meanwhile the most blessed man, St. Ninian, being pained that the devil, driven forth from the earth within the ocean, should find rest for himself in a corner of this island in the heart of the Picts, girding himself as a strong wrestler to cast out his tyranny; taking moreover, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the breast-plate of charity, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word. Fortified by such arms, and surrounded by the society of his holy brethren as by a heavenly host, he invaded the empire of the strong man armed with the purpose of securing from his power innumerable victims of his captivity, whereupon, attacking the Southern Picts, whom still the Gentile error which clung to them induced to reverence and worship deaf and dumb idols, he taught them the truth of the Gospel and the purity of the Christian faith, God working with him, and confirming the Word with signs following.”¹

¹ Historians, Volume V.; Life of St. Ninian, pages 14, 15, 274‒281.

This worthy man was amongst the first teachers of the new faith in Scotland. He was the son of a British prince, and was educated in the Christian faith at Rome, and visited St. Martin at Tours, in France. His life was written by Ailred, a monk of the twelfth century, but it contains little reliable information; he rather presented a picture of the Church of his own time than an account of the life and labours of St. Ninian. Bede lived nearer to the saint’s time, and records that Ninian converted the Southern Picts, and built a church of stone, which was unusual among them. This church was in Galloway, at a spot called Whithern, and it developed into a monastery.¹

¹ Mon. Hist. Brit., pages 175, 176.

A few incidents will indicate the character of the matter embodied in the life of St. Ninian. One day, when the saint and his brethren assembled to dinner, there were no pot herbs or vegetables on the table. Ninian asked the reason of this, and was told that all that remained of the leeks had that day been committed to the ground, and the garden had not yet produced anything fit for eating. Then the saint ordered the brother to whom the keeping of the garden was entrusted to go and bring to him whatever he could find. The man, knowing that Ninian would order nothing in vain, entered the garden, and behold! leeks and other kinds of herbs not only grown but also bearing seed. He was much astonished, and thought that he saw a vision, but on returning to himself, and recollecting the power of the holy man, he thanked God, and then culled as much herbs as seemed sufficient, and placed them on the table before the saint. The brethren looked at one another, and magnified God working in his saints.¹

¹ Historians, Volume V. Life of St. Ninian, page 16.

St. Ninian restored the sight of a king of Strathclyde on whom God had inflicted the punishment of blindness for his pride and opposition to the saint, and when thus subdued and healed the king became friendly, and a ready supporter of the servants of Christ. Ninian died in 432, and was interred in his own church at Whithern. His biographer affirmed that the relics of the saint worked many miracles. “That at his tomb the sick were cured, the lepers cleansed, the wicked terrified, and the blind restored to sight; by all which our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen.”¹ We know, from later sources of evidence, that the relics of St. Ninian were objects of intense veneration down to the period of the Reformation.

¹ Historians, Volume V. Life of St. Ninian, pages 11, 12, 23‒26.

But the best evidence of the mission of St. Ninian in Scotland, and his place in the grateful remembrance of the people, is shown in the number of churches dedicated to his name. Churches were dedicated to him in twenty-five counties, stretching from Wigton to Sutherland, but his churches were most numerous in Ayrshire and Forfarshire; in all, upwards of sixty churches were dedicated to him.¹

¹ Ibid. Introduction, pages 13‒19. The late Bishop of Brechin, in his valuable Calendar of the Scottish Saints, gave a detailed list of St. Ninian’s churches.

It appears that the southern tribes of the Picts and the Strathclyde Britons had been only slightly touched by St. Ninian’s mission. This is not surprising; although it is clear that the early teachers of Christianity in Britain and in Ireland adopted an easier mode of proceeding than the modern missionaries in heathen lands. The early saints allowed many of the old and existing notions of the people to remain intact, and simply turning, or professing to turn them, to beneficial ends. This is the natural and reasonable way of accounting for the many miracles attributed to the saints, which were merely the counterparts of ideas and notions then floating among the tribes and in the minds of the inhabitants. To suppose, as has sometimes been done that these miracles were invented for the purpose of enhancing the power and importance of the clergy, only evinces an imperfect perception of the essential characteristics of the condition of the people and the period, and a defective appreciation of the operations of the human mind. No doubt the early teachers of Christianity in Scotland and elsewhere firmly believed in their power of working miracles, for this belief was in their minds, or something very similar to it, before they became Christians. Thus it was only a continuation and a higher development of their former notions and feelings, not at all a newly invented belief, as something very like it had existed in the country many centuries before this period. We will meet with curious and amusing illustrations of it almost to the end of our history.

About the middle of the sixth century St. Kentigern, better known as St. Mungo, began his work amongst the Britons of Strathclyde, where he encountered many and great difficulties. The people were nearly all heathens, and all the energy of the saint and his working of miracles produced little impression upon them. When King Morken ascended the throne, he scorned and despised the life and doctrine of the saint, openly resisted him, and attributed his miraculous powers to magical illusion. Then they came face to face, and the saint asked for some supplies of food to the brethren of the monastery; but the king spurned his petition and inflicted new injuries on him. He said to the saint――“Cast thy care upon the Lord and He will sustain thee, as thou hast often taught others, that they who fear God shall lack nothing, and that those who seek the Lord shall have everything which is good. Thus, though thou fearest God and keepest His commandments, thou art in want of everything, even thy necessary food; while to me, who neither seek the kingdom of God nor the righteousness thereof, all prosperous things are added, and plenty of all sorts smileth upon me. Thy faith, therefore, is vain, and thy teaching false.” The saint pleaded that it was part of the inscrutable ways of God to afflict just and holy men in this life, while the wicked were exalted by wealth; and yet the poor were the real patrons of the rich, seeing that the labour of the poor sustained the rich as the vines were supported by the elm. The king rose in a passion, and said――“What more desirest thou? If trusting in thy God, without human hands, thou canst transfer to thy mansion all the corn in my barns, I yield with a glad mind and gift, and for the future will be devoutly obedient to thy requests.”

When evening came the saint prayed earnestly to the Lord. Then, behold! the rain poured down in torrents, the waters of the Clyde rapidly rose into a flood and overflowed its banks where the king’s barns were, and carried them down the stream, and landed the whole at the saint’s dwelling, beside the Molendinar burn, which then flowed near the place now called the Salt Market in Glasgow. But the miracle only enraged the king, who uttered many reproaches against the saint, and when he approached the king rushed on him and struck him with his heel and smote him to the ground upon his back. The time had come to manifest the divine power on behalf of the saint. As Cathen, the king’s adviser, had instigated the whole matter, so after mounting his horse to ride off, and laughing at the saint’s discomfiture, his prancing steed stumbled, and the rider falling backward broke his neck and expired before the king’s gate. The king also was smitten with a swelling in his feet, which ended in his death, and the same disease afflicted his family till it became extinct.¹

¹ Historians, Volume V. Life of St. Kentigern, pages 69‒72, 348.

But the saint was forced to leave Strathclyde, and went to Wales, where he laboured many years. Afterwards, when King Riderch reigned in Strathclyde, the saint returned and spent the remaining years of his life amongst the Britons. This king seems to have favoured the saint, and promoted his labours among the people. After an active and earnest life spent in the service of humanity, St. Kentigern died about the beginning of the seventh century. Besides attaining to the rank of local saint of Glasgow, under the name of St. Mungo, his memory became widely and greatly revered in Scotland. He also left the impress of his energy on the people of Wales and of Cumberland, as in the latter district eight churches were dedicated to his name. His tomb and relics at Glasgow were objects of extreme veneration down to the period of the Reformation.¹

¹ Ibid., pages 73, 88‒95, 118, 119, 348‒370; History of Cumberland, by ♦R. S. Ferguson, M.A., page 114, 1890.

♦ “R. T.” replaced with “R. S.”

Before passing to the northern part of the country, the important labours of St. Cuthbert must be noticed. He was born on the southern side of the Lammermoor Hills, and when a boy followed a shepherd’s life. But Nature had gifted him with fine sensibilities and a glowing imagination, united in a vigorous physical frame, and the inner cravings of his mind led him to Melrose and to adopt a religious life. He became the apostle of the border counties. From his retreat at Melrose he carried his teaching of the Gospel to the people in the glens and the hillsides of the Cheviots and the Lammermoors, Ettrick, Teviotdale, Yarrow, and Annan Water. In his missionary efforts among the inhabitants of these localities he often spent several weeks at a time, and then returned to his monastery, like the bird to the ark. His energy was very great, and he faced toil and hardship bravely and cheerfully in the service of God and humanity. Afterwards St. Cuthbert was elected Bishop of Lindisfarne. Thus he became a conspicuous and worthy saint in the annals of the English Church.¹ He died in 687.

¹ Mon. Hist. Brit., pages 242‒243. The materials for the life and career of St. Cuthbert, and the many interesting incidents associated with him, are exceedingly voluminous, but the following are the main sources:――1, An Anonymous Life; 2, the Prose Life by Bede; 3, the Metrical Life by Bede; 4, the History of the Translation of his Body; 5, the Libellus of Reginald; 6, a number of Miscellanies. See T. D. Hardy’s Catalogue of the Materials relating to the History of Britain, Volume I., pages 297‒317.

The most renowned of the early saints who introduced Christianity among the northern tribes of Scotland was St. Columba, as all have recognised in him the features of a veritable hero. He was very fortunate in having two of his successors as biographers, who were near enough to his own time to give their accounts of him a special value. Though we may regret that Adamnan’s Life of St. Columba affords so little information about the state of society in his time, still we should recollect that it was intended for the instruction of his own age and contemporaries, not for the enlightenment of a remote posterity. Thus, in full harmony with the spirit of his time, and the notions and feelings of his own class, Adamnan makes “the Prophetic Revelations, the Miraculous Powers, and the Apparitions of Angels,” the main themes of his life of Columba. Assuredly these were the matters of interest to the monks, so it is only incidentally that facts relating to the real world were introduced. Meagre as the work is of facts, it does contain notices of customs and references to notions then floating in the minds of the inhabitants which are nowhere else to be found.

St. Columba was born on the 7th of December, 521, at Gartan, in the county of Donegal, in Ireland. He was closely related to the royal families of his native country, which gave him a great advantage from the outset of his career. He was carefully educated in Ireland, and when a youth became a pupil of the famous bishop, St. Finnian. About the year 553 he founded the monastery of Durrow, his chief institution in Ireland. It appears he was connected with some of the political disputes of his countrymen, and in 561 the battle of Cooldrevny was fought, and it was suspected that Columba had instigated it. A synod was assembled to excommunicate Columba, but the assembly was not unanimous, and protests were entered. What effect, if any, this may have had on his future course cannot be ascertained, as he left Ireland without any stigma on his character, repeatedly revisited it, and was received with the highest respect.¹

¹ Reeves’ Adamnan, Appendix Preface, pages 68‒75. Columba――“a member of the reigning family in Ireland, and closely allied to that of Dalriada in Scotland; he was eligible to the sovereignty of his own country. His half-uncle, Muircertach, was on the throne when he was born, and he lived during the successive reigns of his cousins, Domhnall and Fergus, and Eochaidh; of his first cousins, Ainmire and Baedan; and of Aedh, son of Ainmire. To this circumstance, as much as to his piety or abilities, was owing the immense influence which he possessed, and the consequent celebrity of his conventual establishments; in fact, he enjoyed a kind of spiritual monarchy collectively with the secular dominion of his relatives, being sufficiently distant in Iona to avoid collision, yet near enough to exercise an authority made up of the patriarchal and monastic.” Ibid., page 8, Note u.

In 563 Columba, with twelve companions, embarked in a wicker-boat, covered with hides, and after touching at Islay, landed and settled on the small isle of Iona. It lay on the confines of the territories of the Scottish and Pictish tribes, and Connal, the ruler of the former, gifted it to Columba, and shortly after its possession was confirmed to him by Brude, the King of the Picts. As Iona lay on the outskirts of the dominions of the two chief tribes, it afforded a convenient centre for intercourse, and there St. Columba founded his chief monastery, and thence sent forth missionaries to convert the rude tribes of the north of Scotland. The Scots of Argyle were then nominally Christians, but the Picts were not, and it was amongst the latter that Columba mostly laboured. He often visited the mainland, and gained a remarkable influence over its chiefs. He at first encountered many difficulties, but the native energy and spirit of the missionary overcame all obstacles. In the year 565 Columba sought out the Pictish king’s seat, which was on the south-side of the river Ness, on or near the old Castle Hill of Inverness. Brude, in his pride, had shut the gate against the holy man, but the saint, by the sign of the cross, and knocking at it, caused it to fly open. Columba and his companions then entered, the King advanced and met them, and received the saint with due respect, and ever after honoured him.¹

¹ Historians, Volume VI., pages 62, 276; Mon. Hist. Brit., page 176; Reeves’ Adamnan, pages 130‒153.

Columba and his disciples then proceeded with their work, and preached the Gospel among the Picts, and baptised them; sometimes whole families were baptised at once and recognised as Christians. It may be observed that Columba occasionally employed the aid of an interpreter when engaged in instructing the Picts in the doctrines of Christianity. This was quite a natural occurrence, for though Columba himself, no doubt, understood the Pictish dialect, it was, however, a different and a difficult matter to intelligibly explain the doctrines of Christianity to the Picts in their own local dialect. Columba founded many monasteries on the mainland and in the Western Isles in his own lifetime, and subsequently the monasteries and churches dedicated to him were very numerous. Every monastery consisted of a body of clergy, who from these centres went out in circuits amongst the surrounding tribes to teach and to convert them, and returned to the monastery as their common home for shelter and support. In this way, as monasteries were gradually established and spread over the country, the inhabitants were converted.¹

¹ Historians, Volume VI., pages 2, 25, 55, 58, 71, 77; Reeves’ Adamnan, pages 289‒298; Book of Deer, Preface, pages 1, 2.

A few incidents connected with Columba’s action and labour among the people may be narrated. When on one of his visits in the land of the Picts, he heard of a famous well which the heathen people, being blinded by the devil, worshipped as a god. The well had many evil qualities, and those who drank of it, or washed in it, were struck by demoniacal art, smitten with leprosy or some severe infirmity. Thus the people were seduced, and paid divine honour to the fountain. Columba having learned the state of the case, went boldly up to the well, and then the Magi rejoiced, as they thought that he too would suffer from the touch of the baneful water; but the saint raised his hands and invoked the name of Christ, then washed his hands and feet, and with his disciples drank of the water which he had blessed. Henceforth the demons departed from the well, and it never after injured anyone; but, on the contrary, it became famous for curing diseases.¹

¹ Reeves’ Adamnan, page 119.

St. Columba by the sign of the cross banished the demons which lurked in the bottom of the milking pail; and he also confounded the devilish art of a sorcerer who pretended to take milk from a bull. There is no evidence in the Life of St. Columba of any organised heathen priesthood in Scotland, or in the Isles around it. There is, however, evidence that the kings or great chiefs kept an adviser, one of which we have already met in the person of Cathen, the adviser of the King of Strathclyde, who tried issues with St. Mungo; and no doubt these advisers, who associated with the kings, were a sort of half-magicians and half-priests. The magi that Columba met with, professed to have power over winds and waters; but the saint easily outdid them. There was a certain Broichan who attended King Brude, and this man ventured to measure his powers with St. Columba; but the saint swiftly and utterly defeated him.¹

¹ Ibid., Adamnan, pages 146‒150; Historians, Volume VI., pages 59‒61.

St. Columba was more engaged in fighting demons than heathen priests. He went out one day to a sequestered spot in the woods to pray, and when he began a host of black demons suddenly attacked him with iron darts:――“But he, single-handed, against innumerable foes of such a nature, fought with the utmost bravery, having received the armour of the Apostle Paul. Thus the contest was maintained on both sides for the greater part of the day, nor could the demons, countless though they were, vanquish him, nor was he able by himself to drive them from the island, till the angels of God, as the saint afterwards told certain persons, and they, few in number, came to his aid, when the demons in terror gave way.” He was represented as being frequently engaged in encounters with demons.¹

¹ Reeves’ Adamnan, page 205. The greatest of Columba’s encounters with demons was related thus:――“Brandubh was killed on the morrow, and the demons carried off his soul into the air. And Maedhog (abbot of Ferns) heard the wail of his soul as it was undergoing pain, while he was with the reapers. And he went into the air, and began to battle with the demons. And they passed over Iona; and Columba heard them while he was writing; and he stuck the style into his cloak, and went to the battle to the aid of Maedhog, in defence of Brandubh’s soul. And the battle passed over Rome, and the style fell out of Columba’s cloak, and dropped in front of Gregory, who took it up in his hand. Columba followed the soul of Brandubh to heaven. When he reached it the congregation of heaven were at Celebration, namely, Te decet hymnus, and Benedic anima mea, and Laudate pueri Dominum; and this is the beginning of the Celebration of heaven. Columba did the same as the people of heaven. And they brought Brandubh’s soul back to his body again. Columba tarried with Gregory, and brought away Gregory’s brooch with him; and it is the hereditary brooch, being an heirloom in Iona, as the testamentary bell was in Armagh, of the coarb of Columba to this day. And he left his style with Gregory.” Ibid., note.

The form of Christianity introduced was essentially monastic, both in the north and the south. As Columba’s institution of Iona was the first in importance, and the chief religious centre in Scotland for a century and a half, it presents the best example. The island of Iona lies north-east and south-west, separated from the island of Mull by a channel about a mile broad; it is about three miles in length, and about a mile and a half in breadth. Its surface is very uneven, and mostly consists of small green patches and rocky projections; the best part of the cultivable land lies along its eastern shore. The original monastery consisted of a church, with its altar and recesses, a refectory, the cells and huts of the monks, and Columba’s house or cell, in which he read and wrote, having several attendants awaiting his orders; and one or more houses for the reception of strangers and visitors not belonging to the monastic family. All these erections were surrounded by a rampart and a ditch called a wall, which was probably intended as much for the restraint of the monks as for security. So far as ascertained, it appears that originally the whole of these buildings were formed of wood and wattles, which perhaps rested upon stone foundations. Outside the wall there were the cow-house and the stable, the barn, the kiln and the mill, the smithy and the carpenters’ workshop. Many of the monks themselves engaged in the labours of the field, among the corn and grass.

Those who entered into the conventual community were considered as specially devoted to the service of God. The Abbot of Iona was the head of the community, and his authority extended over all the monasteries and churches founded by St. Columba. The bishops in Iona and in Scotland in the lifetime of Columba, and for about a century after, were subject to the Abbots of Iona. St. Columba named his own successor, and afterwards a preference was given to the founder’s kin in the election of the Abbots. Thus the notions and feelings of clanship entered into the very constitution of the Columban monasteries; and the kin relation of many of the Abbots of Iona have been traced. In Ireland the feelings of clanship were even more marked in the succession of the Abbots or Coarbs than in Scotland. Dioceses and parishes were unknown in the early Scottish Church. The Celtic form of society was unsuited to such arrangements, as the state of intermittent warfare in which the people lived, often resulted in the extension of the territory of one tribe and the curtailment of another, which rendered even the area of the jurisdiction of clan monasteries exceedingly fluctuating.¹

¹ Historians of Scotland, Volume VI., pages 104, 105, Introduction; Todd’s St. Patrick, pages 154‒161, 172, 504, 505; Ancient Laws of Ireland, Volumes I., II., III.; Reeves’ Adamnan, pages 339‒341; Book of Deer, pages 102, 126‒128.

It seems probable that celibacy was enjoined by Columba on the members of his community in Iona, but marriage was common in his time among the secular clergy, and celibacy was not established in Christendom for long after his day. Women held a high position in the early Church of Ireland and Scotland, as they have always done in the organisation of Celtic society. Columba himself was much revered by the female sex, and there were convents for women even in his time, and female saints of great renown. In the Irish Church some of the coarbs were females, and St. Bridget attained a wide fame and influence not only in Ireland but also in England and in Scotland. This female saint was born about the middle of the fifth century and died about the beginning of the sixth, and the histories of her life are numerous and full of narratives about miracles.¹

¹ Todd’s St. Patrick, pages 11‒14, 171; Historians, Volume VI., pages 41, 42, 69, 71, 85.

Touching divine service, the members of the monastery of Iona were summoned to the church by the ringing of a bell, and at night they carried lanterns. The chief service was the solemn mass, when the offices were chanted, and in which certain saints were commemorated by name. On special occasions the abbot summoned the monks by the toll of the bell to the church in the dead of night, addressed them, asked their prayers, and then kneeled himself at the altar and prayed. Every Wednesday and Friday during the year, excepting the time between Easter and Whitsunday, were kept as fast days, and Lent was strictly observed. The chief festival was the Paschal solemnities, on which occasion the Eucharist was celebrated. Baptism was administered to adult converts, after being duly instructed in the faith, sometimes by the abbot in his travels through the country, and sometimes to an individual a little before his death.

Young men were admitted to the diaconate while students, and part of their duty was to attend the ministers of the altar. Priests’ orders were conferred by the bishop, but the previous imposition of the abbot’s right hand was required as the warrant for the bishop’s interference. Persons retiring from the world to live as associates or probationers in the monastery were admitted. When any one desired admission to the order, the application was submitted to the abbot, who could receive into communion at once or extend the probation over a period of years. The abbot exercised a discretionary power in the regulation of penance, and generally over the whole organisation of the community.

The interment of the dead was a religious office, which implied consideration of the future as well as the present. The faith in the Resurrection rendered it desirable to be buried among the honoured members of the society. The body of the deceased was laid out in the church, wrapped in linen clothes, where it remained for three days and nights, during which the praises of God were sung. Then the body was borne to the grave in solemn procession, and interred with due reverence.

The sign of the cross was much employed. It was customary to cross the pail before milking the cows, to cross tools and implements before using them, and so on. The sign of the cross was highly esteemed, and it was deemed effectual to banish demons, to restrain and prostrate wild animals, unlock doors, and endow pebbles with healing virtues. In St. Columba’s time charms were much used, which were produced by his blessing on a great variety of objects; but it is unnecessary to particularise further, as such notions and practices were not peculiar to St. Columba or his country, for they have been found prevailing among many other peoples widely separated from each other.

The members of the monastery had all things in common. Personal property was entirely disclaimed, according to Columba’s injunction.

Hospitality was a leading characteristic of the early monasteries. When a stranger arrived, sometimes he was at once introduced to the abbot, by whom he was kissed; at other times the interview was deferred. When an expected guest arrived, the abbot and brethren went to meet and welcome him, and he was then led to the oratory and thanks returned for his safety. From this he was led to a lodging, and water prepared to wash his feet. If a visitor happened to arrive on an ordinary fast-day, the fast was relaxed in his favour. Almsgiving was held in high esteem, and Columba often befriended the poor, but beggars who went about with wallets, were not held in such esteem, and grevious transgressors were excluded.

The ordinary food of the community of Iona was very simple. It consisted of bread, sometimes made of barley, milk, eggs, fish, occasionally mutton and beef, and some vegetables. Their clothing consisted of a coarse woollen cloth in its natural colour, and they wore sandals on their feet, which were removed before sitting down to meat.

Besides the religious services the regular employment of the Columban community consisted in reading, writing, and manual labour, according to the example of the saint himself, who allowed no time to pass unoccupied. The primary subject of study was the Scriptures, which all the members of the community had to prosecute, and to commit to memory the Book of Psalms. The Greek and Latin languages, and ecclesiastical writings were also included in their studies. Writing formed an important part of the monastic occupations, and Columba himself was much devoted to it, and many of his books were preserved, especially a volume containing hymns for the various services of each day in the week, which is mentioned by Adamnan. The stated manual labour was agriculture in its various branches, and there is evidence that the monks of Iona were the best agriculturists of the period in North Britain. As the monastery of Iona developed, and the number of its members increased, the work connected with the institution called into being new offices, agents, and servants, whose various duties were defined. In Iona we find the abbot, prior, bishop, scribe, anchorite, butler, baker, smith, attendant, and messengers, and at a later date the president of the Culdees; while the position of Iona necessitated a supply of boats and nautical appliances, and men accustomed with the sea, and several kinds of small vessels were used in connection with the monastery. Small portable boats were used for cruising, crossing rivers, and inland lochs; larger wicker-work boats covered with hides, which were furnished with masts and sails as well as oars, were used for carrying on communication with the mainland and with Ireland.¹

¹ Reeves’ Adamnan, pages 339‒369; _Sculptured Stones of Scotland_, Volume II., Preface, pages 14‒16, 17, 19‒21.

Columba had a severe sickness in the year 593, and he died on the morning of the 9th of June, 597, while kneeling at the altar; without a struggle his spirit gently departed. His remains were wrapped in fine linen clothes and interred in Iona.¹ Columba was a man of great energy and ability, and left behind him an imperishable name associated with the introduction of Christianity in Scotland.

¹ Reeves’ Adamnan, pages 227, 235‒240.

He was succeeded by his first cousin, Baithene, son of Brendan. He was nominated by St. Columba as his successor to the abbacy of Iona, and, having enjoyed it three years, he died in 600. He was succeeded by another first-cousin of St. Columba, Laisren, son of Feradhach; he held the abbacy five years, and died in 605.¹ Iona continued to prosper, and occasionally sent forth men who spread the light and established monasteries and churches beyond the bounds of Scotland. The institution of Iona performed good service in its day, and contributed several important elements to the civilisation of Scotland, which have operated in various ways along the roll of ages down to the present time. In spite of its solitary position, evil days came upon it; for in 801, the monastery was burned to the ground by the Norsemen. Again in 806 they landed on the island, and slew sixty-eight of the inhabitants; and they returned in 815 and killed a number of the monks. Such were the results of the early visits of these heathen Norsemen to our shores. By this time the influence of Iona had from other causes begun to decline, and before the end of the ninth century Dunkeld had become the chief religious centre in Scotland.

¹ Ibid., page 372.

It was already stated that Constantine, who ascended the throne of the Picts at Scone in 790, founded a church at Dunkeld; and it appears that the remains of St. Columba were enshrined sometime in the latter half of the eighth century, conveyed to Ireland and preserved there. Kenneth M‘Alpin in 850 removed the relics of St. Columba to the Church of Dunkeld, or at least some of them. Thus Kenneth, as it were, constituted Dunkeld――the mother church over the Columbans in Scotland; and hence the Abbots of Dunkeld assumed an important position.¹

¹ Ibid., pages 312, 318; Skene’s Celtic Scotland, Volume II., pages 291‒319.

The influence of these early saints, and especially of St. Columba, and their immediate successors, upon the subsequent religious feelings and sentiments of the people was great and abiding, and to us indeed, unrealisable in its natal vigour and glowing energy. For till the Reformation their deaths and miracles were continually commemorated as part of the belief and worship of the people. Their tombs, relics, and shrines, became objects of extreme veneration. Many of their relics were believed to possess marvellous powers, such as the Crosiers, and the Brecbennoch of St. Columba, which were often carried into battles to secure victory to the people who possessed them. These saints also took a firm and extensive hold upon the local history and nomenclature of the country, which is still discernible after thirteen centuries. The wells and springs among the valleys, the deep and winding glens, and in the cliffs of rugged mountains, often bear the names of these early saints; and, moreover, many of the wells had been blessed by them, and thus rendered famous for curing diseases.¹ The caves and rocks retain traces of the early teachers of the Gospel of peace, and the old markets all over the country were named after them; indeed, there were few places of any note that were not associated with the name of some early saint. Looking fairly at these results and assigning to them due importance, we may easily perceive the social influence which the new religion must have had upon the people; and seeing that the action of these saints had one common origin, the general effect was a tendency to draw the separate tribes slowly towards a union amongst themselves. Thus Christianity became an influence which contributed much indirectly to the development of the Scotch nationality, as well as to the civilisation of the people.

¹ There were few if any parishes in Scotland that had not one or more holy wells which were famed for their healing virtues, and many of them were resorted to till quite recent times. See Anderson’s Scotland in Early Christian Times, page 193, 1881.

SECTION IX.

_Gradual Extension of the Kingdom to the End of the Eleventh Century._

After the historic kingdom was founded, and while its development was proceeding from the centre outward, it was persistently attacked by external enemies. The Danes and Norwegians, under the name of Norsemen, threatened its total overthrow. The racial movement of the Saxons had been proceeding onward, since their settlement in the Lothians, slowly but effectively. The powerful tribes occupying the parts of the country not yet included in the kingdom were still warring against it. Thus there were external and internal conflicts going on at the same time; yet the natural vigour and energy of the people enabled them to struggle for centuries with these difficulties and adverse circumstances, and finally to attain success.

Kenneth M‘Alpin was succeeded by his brother Donald, who reigned four years. Constantine I., a son of Kenneth M‘Alpin, then ascended the throne, and soon found himself face to face with the Norsemen. In the middle of the ninth century these ruthless warriors extended their destructive ravages along the east and west coasts of Scotland; they entered by the firths and inlets, and penetrated far into the interior of the country, ransacked it on every side, inflicted much suffering and privation on the people, and prolonged the reign of confusion. They slew many of the inhabitants, and carried numbers of them off as captives, and at length they obtained a footing in Caithness, Sutherlandshire, and other parts along the coasts, where they established lasting memorials of their prowess in the memory of succeeding generations.

In 877 the Norsemen invaded the country in force, and entered Fife, attacked and defeated the Scots, and pursued them through the county. The Scots made a stand at Inverdovet, in the parish of Forgan, but they were completely defeated, and Constantine and many of his followers slain.¹ He was succeeded by his brother, Aed, who reigned one year. Eocha, a Briton, was then placed on the throne, but being too young to reign alone, another king called Giric was associated with him, and they both disappeared about 889. Donald, a son of Constantine I. ascended the throne in 889, and during his reign the Norsemen had obtained possession of Caithness, Sutherland, and Ross. Afterwards they invaded the southern districts; and the king, when fighting against them, was slain at Dunnotter, in Kincardineshire, in 900. He was succeeded by Constantine II., who soon found himself engaged in the struggle with the fierce and implacable Norsemen. They plundered Dunkeld and the surrounding country, but in 904 Constantine invoked the aid of St. Columba, and with the saint’s crozier carried at the head of his army, he attacked the Norsemen in Strathern, and completely defeated them and slew their leader.²

¹ Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, pages 9, 21.

² Ibid., pages 9, 21, 362; Robertson’s Early Kings, Volume I., pages 44, 45, et seq.

In 906 Constantine II. directed his attention to the affairs of the Church, and held an assembly on the Mote Hill of Scone. There the king and Cellach, the bishop of St. Andrews, and the people, all solemnly vowed to observe the laws and the discipline of the faith, and preserve the rights of the Church, and the record adds, “from this day the hill merited its name, the ‘Mount of Belief.’”¹ The stone on which the kings were installed to the throne had long been in Scone, many important meetings had been held there, and henceforth this sacred spot became inseparably associated with the sovereignty and the freedom of the kingdom.

¹ Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, page 9.

Distinct indications now appear of attempts to extend the dominion of the kingdom to the south-west, as when Constantine II. contrived to obtain the election of his own brother Donald as king of Strathclyde in 908, and thenceforth a branch of the Scottish line gave princes to Strathclyde, and thus facilitated its complete annexation in the near future.¹

¹ Ibid.

Constantine II., wearied with the struggle and the difficulties connected with his position, retired to the monastery of St. Andrews in 942, and resigned the throne to Malcolm, a son of his predecessor, Donald. Constantine lived ten years after his retirement, and died in 952. Malcolm I. was a bold man, and attempted to extend his power beyond the river Spey, but he failed. He seems to have obtained some footing in the region to the south of the Forth, sometimes called the Cumbrian kingdom, which was then in a state approaching disintegration. Malcolm reigned eleven years, and was slain at Fetteresso, in Kincardineshire. The struggle between the tribes in the northern and the southern districts of the county still continued to rage, and on the death of Malcolm, Indulf, the son of Constantine II., mounted the throne at Scone in the year 954. He extended the kingdom southward by taking advantage of the distracted and confused state of Cumbria; he seized possession of Edinburgh and added it to the kingdom. Indulf also repelled an attack of the Norsemen in Buchan, Aberdeenshire, and after a reign of eight years he died in 962. A contest for the throne then ensued between Duff, the son of Malcolm I., and Colin, the son of Indulf, and a battle was fought at Drumcrub, in Strathern, in which Duff defeated Colin; but two years later Colin expelled Duff, who died shortly after, and Colin was slain by the Britons in 971.¹

¹ Ibid., pages 10, 151, 171, 288, 302, ♦363, 364.

♦ Numeric misprint in original; “63” replaced with “363” as probable

The same year Kenneth II., a son of Malcolm I., ascended the throne at Scone; and immediately proceeded to throw up entrenchments at the fordable points of the Forth, and attempted to extend the limits of the kingdom southward. He attacked the Britons of Strathclyde and wasted a portion of their territory; and then turned his attention to Northumbria, which he invaded twice, and seems to have subdued and taken possession of some portions of it. Kenneth gave Brechin to the Lord, and thus endeavoured to strengthen his hold on the district around it by securing the influence of the Church. A gradual encroachment upon the local kings and chiefs was effectively proceeding from Scone, the centre of the monarchy; the kingdom was slowly extending in every direction, and the people under the influence of the Church and other attracting affinities were silently becoming a nation. Kenneth II. did much to consolidate the power of the Scots, and after reigning twenty-four years he was slain at Fettercairn, in Kincardineshire in 995.¹

¹ Ibid., pages 10, 152, 289, 365; Chartulary of Brechin, Preface, page 4.

Constantine III., a son of Colin, then succeeded to the throne, but his right was contested by Kenneth M‘Duff. After a severe struggle Constantine was slain in the second year of his reign. M‘Duff reigned eight years, and was killed in Strathern. He was succeeded by Malcolm II., a son of Kenneth II., who ascended the throne in 1005. Malcolm II. began his reign by an invasion of Northumberland, but was defeated, and many of his followers slain. He next attempted to extend his influence over the northern region of the country by the marriage of his daughter with Sigurd, the ruler of the Orkney Islands, and they had a son, Thorfinn, who after his father’s death was confirmed by Malcolm in the possession of Caithness and Sutherland. Having established his grandson in the northern extremity of the country, Malcolm again turned his attention towards the south. In the year 1018, twelve years after his former defeat, he took advantage of the distracted state of Northumbria, mustered all his followers, and marched southward to the Tweed, where he found the Northumbrian army. At Carham a great battle was fought, and Malcolm completely defeated his enemies, many of whom perished in the rout. The result of this battle was the cession of Lothian and the whole of the territory north of the Tweed, and thus Malcolm II. obtained a more important success than any of his predecessors had ever achieved. During his reign the kingdom of Strathclyde became incorporated into Scotland without any serious conflict.¹ The country then began to be called Scotia, and it had reached its permanent frontier on the south side, as it stood when the great struggle with England began, toward the end of the thirteenth century. But in the outlying districts of the north and the west there were still a number of small local powers not under the authority of the monarchy, and it was long ere the King of Scots overmastered them.

¹ Mon. Hist. Brit., page 594; _Chronicles of the Picts and Scots_, 131; Robertson’s Early Kings, Volume I., pages 92‒96.

The great Dane, Canute, had subdued England, and was at this time reigning as king of that country. It is stated in the Saxon Chronicle that in 1031 Canute marched with an army to the north and met Malcolm II. upon the borders of their dominions, that Malcolm submitted to him and became his man, but “retained his allegiance for a very short time.” Canute and his army returned to the south, and the result of the meeting disappeared with them. Malcolm reigned twenty-nine years, and died on the 25th of November, 1034.¹

¹ Saxon Chronicle; Skene’s Celtic Scotland, Volume I., page 398.

Upon the death of Malcolm the lineal descendants in the male line of Kenneth M‘Alpin, the founder of the Scottish dynasty, became extinct, and he was succeeded by his grandson Duncan, the son of one of Malcolm’s daughters. But other aspirants to the throne disputed Duncan’s right, and he soon became involved in a desperate struggle with the local chiefs beyond the Spey, and Earl Thorfinn, his own cousin, who was ruler of the Orkney Isles, of Caithness and of Sutherland. Duncan seems to have been a very able man; but when he ventured beyond the Spey, Thorfinn and Macbeth joined their forces and proved too strong for him, and after a severe struggle Duncan was slain by Macbeth, near Elgin.¹

¹ Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, pages 63, 65, 152, 175, 206; Historians, Fordun, pages 179, 180, 419.

Macbeth, the Mormaer of Moray, then marched southward and mounted the throne in 1040, and for five years reigned undisturbed. According to some authorities he was descended from Ferchar, the fifteenth King of Dalriada, and his wife, Gruoch, was a daughter of Bode, son of Kenneth, and thus related to the royal line; and, no doubt, Macbeth advanced his claim on these grounds to secure the allegiance of the people. In 1045 Crinan, father of the late King Duncan, and lay Abbot of Dunkeld, mustered all his followers and the opponents of Macbeth, and attempted to drive him from the throne; a severe battle ensued, in which Crinan was slain, and Macbeth gained a complete victory. Macbeth seems to have sent money to Rome, while he was liberal to the Church at home, as it is recorded that ‘Macbeth and his wife Gruoch, King and Queen of Scotland, confirmed to the monks of Lochleven the lands of Kirkness, with freedom from the king, or the king’s son, or the sheriff.’¹ He proved himself an able and vigorous ruler, and the kingdom seems to have enjoyed unusual tranquillity and prosperity under his sway.

¹ Reeves’ Adamnan, page 437; _Register of the Priory of St. Andrews_, page 114. Dr. Skene thinks that Macbeth visited Rome, but this is not likely, as he could hardly have ventured to leave Scotland so long.

But the late King Duncan left two sons――mere children at the time of his death, their mother being related to Siward, the Earl of Northumberland. This Earl was of Danish descent, and became connected with the Earls of Northumberland through marriage. In 1054 he mustered a large and well-equipped army, and a naval force to co-operate with it, and invaded Scotland to drive Macbeth from the throne. This army marched northward in quest of Macbeth, crossed the Forth at Stirling, and proceeded towards the Tay; the advance was opposed by the people at several points. Macbeth took up his position around the Hill-Fort of Dunsinnane, a great battle ensued, in which many were slain on both sides. But the result was not decisive, as Siward retired southward, and returned home to Northumberland; and he died in 1055. It seems, however, that Siward’s expedition had enabled Malcolm, son of Duncan, to obtain possession of the country between the Forth and the Tweed; but Macbeth was still king of the country beyond the Forth, and young Malcolm had to depend on his own resources to recover the kingdom from the grasp of his opponent. Malcolm was a prince of much energy, and after feeling his way, and gaining the support of a portion of the people; in 1057 he resolved to try issues with Macbeth. The war was carried beyond the river Dee, and on the 15th of August, 1057, Malcolm overtook Macbeth, and defeated and slew him at Lumphanan, in Aberdeenshire. But the struggle for the throne was continued by Lulach, who, on the death of Macbeth, became Mormaer of Moray; he was defeated and slain at Essy, in Strathbogie, on the 17th of March, 1058.¹

¹ Mon. Hist. Brit., page 453; _Chronicles of Picts and Scots_, pages 65, 78, 175, 206, 210, 309; Saxon Chronicle.

Having thus subdued his opponents, Malcolm III., son of Duncan, usually called Canmore, mounted the throne at Scone in March 1058. As a King of Scotland he had many advantages. He represented the powerful lay abbots of Dunkeld in the male line, and thus inherited their influence associated with the religious foundations dependent upon this monastery; in the female line he represented the royal family who had ruled over the kingdom for a hundred and fifty years; and he married the widow of Thorfinn, the late ruler of Orkney and the Northern district of Scotland, by whom he had a son Duncan. Malcolm’s dominions included the whole of modern Scotland on the south side; but to the northward his actual power terminated at the river Spey, his authority beyond this point was merely nominal. He was too much engaged in attending to the other portions of the kingdom, to find time to subject the northern region.

One effect of the Norman Conquest of England was to drive a number of the Saxon people northward into Scotland. In the summer of 1068, Edgar, a representative of the Saxon line of kings, his mother, and his two sisters, came to Scotland, and were warmly received by Malcolm. One of these distinguished visitors, Margaret, especially attracted Malcolm’s attention, and she became his wife; hence he had a strong motive to interest himself in the Saxon claims. Queen Margaret seems to have been an excellent wife, and she had a large family by the King. Her influence over her husband and the people of Scotland was reported to have been very great; it has been said that she softened and polished the King’s manners and taught him many important things, and that the Scots owe to her a deep debt of gratitude. No doubt she was a good wife, and an accomplished princess, and a very religious woman; still it is just possible that the compass of Queen Margaret’s influence over the people of Scotland may have been a little overdrawn. Dunfermline was her favourite place of residence, and doubtless the inhabitants of that town, and the people of Fife, were greatly benefitted by the Queen and her court in their midst.¹

¹ Turgot’s Life of Queen Margaret. “Her court was a model of purity. In it no wicked or scandalous word was spoken, and more civilised customs were introduced in dress and for the table, the use of linen more probably than tartan, though both have claimed her as their earliest patron. Charity was taught by example. The Queen fed the poor with food she prepared herself; at her cost were erected the first Scottish inns, resting-places on the roads and guest-houses on either side of the Forth for the pilgrims who came to Dunfermline by the ferry, called after her the Queen’s ferry, as that near Wemyss was called the Earl’s ferry, after the Earl of Fife. Her prayers were constant; and the little cave on the Linn, just below the present Drill Hall of the Volunteers, enabled her to practise them in secret. Such are some of the traits in the life by her confessor Turgot. It is the portrait of a friendly and courtly hand, but it bears marks of truth. Only one miracle is recorded.” _A Sketch of the History of Fife and Kinross_, by Sheriff Æ. J. G. Mackay, page 16, 1890.

Malcolm III. naturally lent his support to the cause of Edgar, and the disaffected chiefs of Northumbria, who were opposed to William the Conqueror. In 1070 Malcolm entered Cumberland with a large army, marched through it, and turning to the east ravaged Teesdale and the North Riding of Yorkshire; and drove a number of the inhabitants into Scotland as captives. These proceedings seem to have aroused the wrath of the Norman Conqueror, and he prepared to meet the Scottish King. In 1072 he mustered an army and a naval force to co-operate with it, and marched northward. The army crossed the ford and advanced into Scotland, while his ships lay in shore: but the record adds that “there they found nothing for their pains.” Malcolm and King William met and agreed to make peace on the conditions that the Scotch King was to receive a grant of certain fiefs in England, with the promise of an annual payment of twenty marks of gold, performing the usual homage in respect of these lands, and giving Duncan, his son by his first wife as a hostage, and promised to become William’s man or friend. Then King William returned home with all his forces.¹ Such are the facts recorded concerning what passed between the two Kings at this meeting, although groundless assumptions and futile inferences have often been founded upon it.

¹ Saxon Chronicle, Volume II., page 177; _Simon of Durham, de Gestis Regum_; Historians, Fordun, pages 203‒204.

In 1078 Malcolm appears to have penetrated into the province of Moray beyond the Spey. There is only an imperfect notice in the Saxon Chronicle of his proceedings, but so far he seems to have been successful in asserting his authority for a time. The following year Malcolm marched with his army into Northumberland, advanced to the river Tyne and wasted the country, slew some of those who offered resistance, and returned with a number of prisoners and much spoil. In the autumn of the following year, King William sent his brother Robert with an army to punish Malcolm. This army seems to have advanced some distance into Scotland; but Robert effected nothing of importance, and soon returned south to the Tyne, where he built a new castle. William the Conqueror died in 1087, and after this event a number of State prisoners and others kept under restraint in England, were then set at liberty. Malcolm’s son Duncan thus obtained his liberty, received the honour of knighthood, and was dismissed with marks of honour and presents. Still Duncan appears to have remained in England. Four years after the death of the Conqueror, Malcolm III. again advanced into Northumberland with an army, but on learning that a hostile force was mustering to oppose him, he returned home. The English king sent a fleet northward, and prepared to follow it with a land force, but the greater part of the fleet was destroyed by a storm before the land army reached Scotland. When the opposing armies approached each other, Malcolm who knew the condition and strength of the enemy, resolved to risk a battle. So Count Robert the leader of the English army offered to parley, and a peace was patched up, which King William shortly after declined to fulfil. So in the autumn of 1093 Malcolm once more mustered his army, and advanced into Northumberland. When attacking the castle of Alnwick he was slain along with his eldest son and the greater part of his army on the 13th of November;¹ and thus ended his reign of thirty-five years and seven months.

¹ Saxon Chronicle, Volume II. page 198; Hexham Priory: Its Chronicles, etc., Volume I. pages 177‒181, 207, 208, 216; Appendix pages 14‒16; Simon of Durham, de Gestis Regum.

Malcolm Canmore was a man of great natural energy and ability. He acted his part well in the rude and tumultuous times in which his lot was cast. The different races and tribes of the country acquiesced pretty generally in his government, and in his long reign the existing elements of nationality received a considerable turn in the lines of development, to which his personal characteristics, bravery and judgment, contributed their share. Four days after his death, Queen Margaret, his beloved wife, succumbed to the intense grief caused by the unexpected blow, and died. Malcolm III. left six sons, Duncan, the eldest, by his first wife; by Margaret, his second wife, Edmund; Ethelred, who was Lay Abbot of Dunkeld and Earl of Fife; Edgar, Alexander, and David. Then there occurred a political phenomena similar to that which had frequently happened in preceding times, and also in subsequent times, namely, a contest amongst different claimants of the throne.

On the death of Malcolm Canmore, his brother, Donald Bane, at once mounted the throne, and a conflict ensued between him and Malcolm’s sons. Donald Bane appears to have been well supported by the people between the Spey and the Forth, and he held his ground for six months. But when Duncan returned from England, where he had been retained as a hostage for his father, he brought with him a band of Norman adventurers and others, who expelled Donald Bane from the throne. The struggle, however, was continued. After a reign of six months, Duncan was slain at Mondynes in Kincardineshire. Then Donald Bane again ascended the throne at Scone, and reigned three and a half years. In 1097, Queen Margaret’s brother Edgar resolved to make an effort to place his nephew on the throne. He gathered a force in England, and with the sanction of the English King, advanced into Scotland. After a severe struggle, Donald Bane was defeated, and Edgar placed on the throne, and his uncle then returned to England. In 1099 Donald Bane was captured, and condemned to imprisonment for life at Rescobie, where he died, and was interred in Dunfermline. Edgar reigned eight years, died at Edinburgh in January 1107, and was buried at Dunfermline. The most important event of his reign was his surrender of the whole of the Western Isles to Magnus, the King of Norway.¹

¹ Saxon Chronicle, Volume II., pages 196, 197, 202; Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, page 175; Chalmers’ Caledonia, Volume I. page 618; Skene’s Celtic Scotland, Volume I., page 442.

The close of the eleventh century marks the beginning of a most important period in the history of Scotland, as new historic conditions then arose which operated upon the people and the organisation of society externally and internally. Seeing that I have found it necessary to render an interpretation of these new historic conditions, which differs somewhat from the current views of Scottish historians, this seems to be the most appropriate place for presenting an account of the social state of the people, their organisation, art, and culture, prior to the end of the eleventh century. At the end of that period the Celtic race still occupied the greater part of Scotland, and their language was spoken over a much wider area than that of any of the other races, although there were many Angles or Saxons in the southern portion of Scotland, where Celt and Saxon had been in contact for five centuries and had partly commingled, still the Saxons retained their own speech and, in some measure, their distinctive customs. In this region Celtic speech ceased and was superseded by Saxon, and latterly English.

SECTION X.

_State of Society from the Seventh Century to the end of the Eleventh._

In the preceding parts of the introduction little direct information as to the condition of the inhabitants could be found, and what was stated on this point had to be derived from a process of inference. From about the end of the seventh century onward social facts and incidents become more or less available, and increase in number and variety as we proceed towards the period of regular record. In this section I will present some of the features associated with kinship, early traces of tribal organisation, and its relation to the land, marriage customs, and other matters of a social and material character.

It has often been said that a common feeling of brotherhood, even among a small community, is a comparative late development; be this as it may, ample evidence has already been adduced in the fourth section to prove that the early tribes in Scotland had attained a considerable degree of organisation long before the arrival of the Aryan Celts in the island. So if we were to look for the earliest form of society in this country, we would require to go back to the prehistoric ages, which have been already treated, and without obtaining a more definite result, except by making a free use of conjecture and supposed analogies from primitive society in India and the ends of the earth.¹

¹ Maine’s Village Community, pages 21‒41. 1890.

The early form of Celtic society was the tribal community, which was based on actual consanguinity. Even in its most primitive form this is its natural base; although the tribe was the social unit and descent traced through females, still the natural associative elements led to the same result. Thus actual blood-relationship, kin, and kindred, was the original bond of union between the members of the Celtic tribe in its early form; whether kinship was traced through males or females did not affect the original associative bond of the tribe.

It has never been proved that society did not originate from single families, and indeed the point is not susceptible of proof on either view. But it is quite conceivable thus:――Following the instincts of human nature and the thinking faculty of the mind, the simple fact of blood-relationship or kinship is everywhere the first natural tie of social union which emerges; so this simple fact of kinship originating in single families may have become the recognised bond, as it is the natural associative factor, which in process of time linked the single families as they successively arose into the greater social unit of the tribe, and thus issuing in an organised community. In short, it is not only conceivable but even probable, that single families may have originally developed into tribal communities, and also into mighty nations.

I have already referred to the origin of historic conditions in Britain which affected the organisation of the early inhabitants of Scotland. One result of the operation of these conditions appears in the foundation of the historic monarchy at Scone in 844; external and internal causes were constantly modifying the tribal organisations throughout the four centuries under review. It seems evident that the independent tribes during these centuries were much larger and stronger than the clans in the north and west as we know them in more modern times. During the period under consideration the tribal organisations had arrived at the stage in which a number of tribes, not necessarily of one kin, were living under the rule of a local chief. In the pages of the chronicles these local rulers were sometimes called kings, but to the people over whom they ruled they were known as Mormaers and Toshachs. The prerogatives of the heads and all the officials of the tribe were strictly limited by custom. After the eleventh century the title of Mormaer began to fluctuate, and finally became represented by the Earl. Before the end of this period the central government had obtained a certain control over the heads of the local tribes in the districts between the Forth and the Spey.

Originally, under the tribal organisation, there was no private property in land. The land was the common heritage of every tribal community, and as such it was occupied and used in England, in Scotland, in Ireland, and in other quarters of the globe. But internal and external causes both, in process of time begin to operate and to modify this relation of the tribal community to the land. The long struggle of the chief tribes among themselves was touched on in the preceding pages, and this was one of the causes which affected changes in the original relation of the tribal community to the land. When one tribe conquered another, the spoil of the war usually was the common land of the defeated tribe; and then either the conquerors seized and colonised a part of this land or, as often happened, they restored the whole land to the conquered tribe to be held in dependence and under certain burdens to the tribe which had subjected them. On the other hand, when the victor tribe colonised and appropriated the common land of the conquered tribe, the land was not equally divided, seeing that a preference would be claimed and granted to those members of the tribe who had contributed most to the victory by which the land had been gained. Further, in cases where the land was restored to a subjected tribe, the superiority over it remained with the chief who had conquered it, and thus the chief of a conquering tribe acquired claims and rights over such lands as well as over the subject tribes which occupied them. But chiefs and leaders of tribes had other ways of acquiring rights in land; thus, when a tribe was in possession of an extensive tract of common land, colonies of families were sent out and each received a new patch of it, but whatever portion of this land remained unappropriated it was still the common land of the head of the tribe――that is to say, the chief or the king claimed a right of superiority over it. There is unimpeachable evidence that whatever rights the Kings of Scotland possessed in land were originally acquired by the means and proceedings indicated in the above sentences.¹ Again, the chief of a tribe often found means to aggrandise his own family, and whenever he became able or an opportunity occurred, he severed his own plot of land from the land of the tribe by enclosing it. In these ways the chiefs and officials of tribes and the kings acquired personal claims upon the lands of the tribal communities, and gradually personal rights connected with land were acquired; then step by step private property in land became established.

¹ “In the dreams of lawyers, as there has been an hereditary king from all eternity, so there has been an hereditary lord of the manor from a time only so far short of eternity as to give the king time to make him a grant. In the realities of history the king and the lord――that is, the lord on a great scale and the lord on a small one――are each something which has crept in unawares, something which has grown up at the expense of rights more ancient than its own. Each alike, king and lord, grew to its full dimensions by a series of gradual and stealthy encroachments on the rights of the people. As the king swallowed up the powers and the possessions of the nation, so the lord swallowed up the rights and the possessions of the mark.” Freeman’s _History of the Norman Conquest of England_, Volume V., page 460.

Socially and politically this period was essentially transitional and progressive. In the first part of it the leading tribes were struggling hard to create a central authority, and the foundation of the Monarchy was the result of this struggle. Though the land still belonged to the tribal community, the chiefs and the kings had acquired rights and claims in connection with it. In the seventh century the local chief of Buchan, Aberdeenshire, granted lands to the monks of the monastery of Deer. In the eighth century Angus, King of the Picts, granted a territory to the Church of St. Andrews free from all secular burdens. This grant was transferred by the ceremonial of the ‘altar sod’ as the mark of its genuineness. Thus St. Regulus, with the relics of St. Andrew the Apostle on his head, followed by the king and the chiefs of his country on foot, marched in solemn procession seven times round the land so bestowed on the Church. Brude, a King of the Picts, founded the monastery on the island of Lochleven, and several early grants of land to this monastery have been recorded. There were other early grants of lands to monasteries by Macbeth and his Queen, Malcolm Canmore, Duncan, and Edgar, Kings of Scotland. It thus appears that grants of land and land rights were common, and sanctioned by the usual customs of the country many centuries before formal charters were introduced.¹

¹ Chronicles, pages 186, 187; Register of the Priory of St. Andrews, pages 113, 114; Register of Dunfermline, page 3.

A number of entries of gifts and grants of lands to the monastery of Deer recorded in Gaelic belong to this period, and may be taken to stretch from the beginning of the eighth century to the early part of the twelfth. The names of eighteen granters of lands are recorded in the Book of Deer, which concludes with a charter in Latin, granted at Aberdeen by David I., in which the King declares that the clerics of Deer are free from all service of laymen and undue exaction, as it is written in their book, on which they had pleaded at Banff and sworn at Aberdeen. This shows that the Gaelic memoranda of these early grants of lands had been admitted in the regular courts as evidence of the tenure of the lands. The first grant was made by Bede, the Pictish Mormaer of Buchan, who gave to St. Columba and to Drostan “the town of Aberdour in freedom for ever from mormaer and toshach.” The next grant of land was by ♦Comgell, son of Aeda, after him Mordach, son of Morcunn, made a grant to Columba and Drostan. Then Matan gave the mormaer’s share of the land in Alteri, and Cuil, son of Baten, gave the toshach’s share of the same piece of land. Malcolm II. gave the King’s share in the lands of Bidbin, Pett meic Gobroig, and two davachs of Upper Rosabard. ♠Domnall and Cathal gave the land of Etanin to God and to Drostan; and then Carmech, Domnall, and Cathal immolated all these offerings from beginning to end to God and to Drostan, “in freedom from mormaer and toshach to the day of judgment.” Comgell, son of Cainnech, toshach of Clan Canan, gave certain lands, both mountain and field, to Christ, Drostan, and Columba, “free from chief for ever.” The names of seven of the old mormaers of the province of Buchan occur in connection with grants in the book.¹

♦ “Comgall” replaced with “Comgell”

♠ “Domnal” replaced with “Domnall”

¹ Book of Deer, pages 91‒95, and also the late Dr. Stuart’s very able and valuable preface to the volume.

We learn from the record of grants in the Book of Deer that the mormaer, the local ruler of the province, the toshach, and the King of Scotland, each had separate or divisible rights in the same piece of land, which either of them could convey to another party. This indicates an organisation and gradation of landed rights which is rather surprising, and seems to show a pretty advanced stage of society. The brief descriptions, too, which accompany some of these grants, such as “the field of the clerics,” the number of davochs is stated――a well-known measure of land in the north-east of Scotland, or “both mountain and field,” which seems to imply a townland of varying extent, and which probably included rights of commonage. The clauses of freedom from mormaer and toshach meant the exemption of the lands of the monastery from taxes of various kinds, which were exacted by the local officials from the people over whom they ruled in the form of land rent: as it was from this source that the polity and organisation of the tribe were kept up. Further, the development of the Central Government, and the extension of the kingdom, had then reached the stage when a tax upon all land was exacted. In spite of all the explicit declarations that the lands of the monastery were free from mormaer and toshach, these lands were still liable for their proportion of the national tax. As this was a tax from which no land in early times was ever relieved, although it might be paid in various ways, such as a portion of the produce of the soil, or in military service; still, in some form, it was everywhere exacted. The rents paid by the people, the occupiers and toilers of the land, was a customary rent due to the local chiefs and headmen of the tribe, and consisted of a part of the produce,――cattle, sheep, pigs, horses, corn, and the like. There is evidence that the people lived under this form of local organisation in comparative comfort.¹

¹ Book of Deer, Preface, pages 82‒89, 91‒95; _Sculptured Stones of Scotland_, Volume II., Preface, page 11. Those who desire to make a special study of the early Celtic tribal organisations in Britain and in Ireland, will find the original sources of information in:――1, _Ancient Laws of Ireland_, 4 Volumes; 2, _Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales_; 3, some fragments in the first volume of the _Acts of Parliament of Scotland_. These have all been published by the Royal Commission.

The names of two local clans were mentioned in the Book of Deer, the Clan Canan, and the Clan Morgan; and in each the toshach appears as the head and leader of the clan; and he also possessed rights in connection with the land, which rights, as we have seen, could be transferred to another party. It further appears that the Toshach at this period performed fiscal duties in connection with the taxes on land, and the local organisation of the tribe. We may then reasonably assume that similar tribal organisations prevailed in other parts of the country, at least from the Firth of Forth to Inverness; and also in Galloway and Argyle throughout this period. In the ancient laws of Ireland there was much care and humanity shown for all the members of the tribe who were unable to support themselves from old age or any other cause. On this matter the early law will compare favourably with that of the present day.¹

¹ Ancient Laws of Ireland, Volume II., pages 194, 341.

The culture of cereals was introduced in prehistoric times. Probably the earliest attempts at agriculture were made on the heights in association with the early settlements in similar positions. This seems probable from the fact that many of the chief towns of Scotland were originally erected on heights of moderate elevation. Agriculture was earnestly practised by the monks, who showed a noble example to the people. In this period the tillage of the soil was gradually advancing and spreading among the people, though the method of cultivation and the implements in use were still somewhat primitive. The staple food of the people consisted of oatmeal and some barley, milk, flesh, fish, venison, kail, and other vegetables, and small quantities of fruit. Cattle, sheep, and horses, formed the chief wealth of the people; and taxes and fines were paid in cows. There was as yet little manufacture, as most families had their own weavers, tailors, shoemakers, and carpenters, within themselves. The minute division of labour only arises after a comparatively advanced stage of civilisation has been reached, when a more complex and artificial state of society causes a greater multiplicity of wants and luxuries. The clothing of the people mostly consisted of woollen stuffs and furs of home manufacture. Their dwellings were mostly formed of wood, clay, and turf, sometimes raised on stone foundations. One class of houses were formed by a wall of upright stakes with twigs interlaced between them, and a second wall of the same kind placed at a short distance apart, and then the intervening space was filled with turf or clay, making a pretty solid wall, which was then roofed.¹

¹ Historians of Scotland, Volume V., pages 16, 17, 57, 66, 67, 68; Volume VI., pages 39, 50, 63, 97; _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume X., pages 616‒618; Book of Deer, pages 147‒154.

Shipbuilding had not made much progress. But they had vessels on which sails and oars were used, and these were then sufficient to carry on the intercourse and trade between the different quarters of the country. The centres of population were nowhere very dense. Scone, Dunkeld, Perth, Dundee, St. Andrews, Dumbarton, Stirling, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Paisley, and northward Brechin, Aberdeen, Burghead and Inverness, were centres of some trade and commerce, and having regular market-days at which business of all kinds was transacted. Markets arise at a comparatively early stage of social organisation and must have been quite common in every quarter of Scotland during this period.¹ Our towns and cities do not owe their origin to any king or chief in particular, as it was the intelligence and sagacity of the inhabitants which selected their sites in far gone ages, and their ♦descendants in succeeding ages who have extended and developed them by prolonged energy and industry.

¹ “In order to understand what a market originally was, you must try to picture to yourself a territory occupied by village communities, self-acting, and as yet ♠autonomous, each cultivating its arable land in the middle of its waste, and each, I fear I must add, at perpetual war with his neighbour. But at several points, points probably where the domains of two or three villages converged, there appears to have been spaces of what we should now call neutral ground. These were the markets. They were probably the only places at which the members of the different primitive groups met for any purpose except warfare, and the persons who came to them at first were persons specially employed to exchange the produce and manufactures of one little village for those of another.” Maine’s Village Communities, page 192.

♦ “descendents” replaced with “descendants”

♠ “automatous” replaced with “autonomous”

Touching the department of crime and punishment, among the old laws of Scotland, some fragments appear to embody customs which prevailed in this period, though perhaps they were only in operation in certain quarters of the country. One of these fragments is called “Laws of the Britons and Scots,” it is preserved in Latin, in Norman-French, and in the vernacular Scotch, and has by some been attributed to David I.; and, as I said, it can only be assumed to embody the customs of certain localities, one of which was Strathclyde, the province of the Britons; but its application to the Scots is not so clear. The code contains the fines paid in compensation for crimes, and its peculiar feature is that it was the injured party or his kin who received the fines. The scale of fines was regulated by the rank of the injured party and the nature of the crime committed, thus:――The fine for the slaughter of the King of Scotland is stated to be one thousand cows or three thousand shillings; for the King’s son, one hundred and fifty cows or four hundred and fifty shillings; the fine for slaying an Earl of Scotland is the same as for the King’s son; and for an Earl’s son, one hundred cows. For slaying a Thane one hundred cows; for a Thane’s son, sixty-six and two-thirds of a cow; for the nephew of a Thane, forty-four cows and twenty-one pence and two parts of a penny. All those of lower rank were called carls, rustics, and villains, or serfs; the fine for slaying a carl, is said to be sixteen cows; but there is no other fine specified for any other injury which might happen to be inflicted upon this class. The lives of the unmarried women were estimated at the same value as their brothers, but the lives of the married females at one-third less than that of their husbands.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume I., page 299; and also Laws of David I., pages 6‒8. On the same subject there is a vast mass of information in the _Ancient Laws of Ireland_, and the Early Laws of the Saxons, published by the Royal Commission.

The mulcts for smaller crimes and assaults were stated with equal minuteness. If any one drew blood from the head of the King’s son, or the head of an Earl, the fine was nine cows; in the case of an Earl’s son, or a Thane, six cows; of a Thane’s son three cows; and of a carl one cow. The women as before were placed on equality with their brothers. The fine for a blow without drawing blood was tenpence. As a matter of course, compensation was taken for theft and all other crimes, as well as murder and personal assaults. Another old fragment of Scotch law presents the following exposition of the system: “All laws are either man’s laws or God’s laws. By the law of God, a head for a head, a hand for a hand, an eye for an eye, a foot for a foot. By the law of man, for the life of a man, one hundred and fifty cows; for a foot, a mark; for a hand, as much; for an eye, half a mark; for an eir, as much; for a tooth, twelvepence; for each inch of the breadth of the wound, twelvepence; for a stroke under the eir, sixteenpence; for a stroke with a staff, eightpence, and if he fall, sixteenpence; for a wound in the face he shall give an image of gold,” and so on.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume I., pages 300, 301, ♦53, 72, 375, 376.

♦ probably “353” and “372”

Regarding social morality, much might be said on the relations of the different sexes. Marriage, like every social institution, has passed through many modifications.¹ It was not till after many thousands of years during which the lower passions sought gratification in various forms and degrees of intensity; not till long after the introduction of Christianity that marriage obtained its present position among the most civilised nations of Europe. The custom of capture seems to have been followed by that of purchase, and the custom of purchasing wives long prevailed in Europe, among the Jews, and many other communities. A sum of money, or something equivalent, was paid by the husband or his family to the family of the woman whom he desired to make his wife. Thus in early times a woman was supposed to be always under tutelage, in the position of a subordinate member of the family; and hence when married, she was still regarded as being under the protection of her own kindred. In the earliest of the Saxon Laws in England, which probably belong to the seventh century, the mode of purchasing a wife was stated thus:――“If a man buy a maiden with cattle, let the bargain stand, if it be without guile; but if there be guile, let him bring her home again, and let his property be restored to him. If she bear a live child, let her have half the property, if the husband die first. If she wish to go away with her children, let her have half the property. If the husband wish to have them, let her portion be as one child.”² From the same ancient code it appears that the Saxon was in the habit of carrying off young women by force.³ Even in the statutes of the first Christian King of Kent, ample provisions were made for the transfer of money or cattle as the price of the bride.⁴

¹ “The lowest races have no institution of marriage; true love is almost unknown among them, and marriage, in its lowest forms, is by no means a matter of affection and companionship.” Sir J. Lubbock’s Origin of Civilisation, page 50. Sir John thinks “that communal marriages, where every man and woman in a small community were equally regarded as married to one another,” was the first form of it, page 67. Again, he says, “I believe that communal marriage was gradually superseded by individual marriage founded on capture,” page 70. He illustrates the capture theory at great length, and with considerable force. But he has not proved that communal marriage was the original form; indeed individual marriage is as conceivable and far more natural than communal marriage.

² Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, page 9.

³ “If a man carry off a maiden by force, let him pay fifty shillings to the owner, and afterwards buy the object of his will of the owner.” Ibid. page 10.

⁴ Ibid., pages 45, 53. “The principle was carried out with the utmost consistency when the wife proved unfaithful to her owner, nothing was then considered but the market value of the woman; and the adulterer was compelled to spend the equivalent of her original price in the purchase of a new bride, whom he formally delivered to the injured husband. The Church was compelled to accept this with many other discreditable institutions, when it first made converts in England. In the laws of a king of Wessex, who lived at the end of the seventh and the beginning of the eighth century, the purchase of wives is deliberately sanctioned; and it is stated in the preface that the compilation was drawn up with the assistance of the Bishop of Winchester, and a large assembly of God’s servants.” Pike’s _History of Crime in England_, Volume I., page 91.

In the tenth century there was some improvement; though the essence of purchase was still recognised, it was more elaborately worked out, thus: “If a man desires to betroth a maiden or a woman, and if it so be agreeable to her and her friends, then it is right that the bridegroom, according to the law of God, and according to the customs of the world, first promise and give a pledge to those who are her forspeakers that he desires her in such ways that he will keep her, according to God’s law, as a husband should his wife, and let his friends guarantee that. After that, it is to be known to whom the fortesban belongs; let the bridegroom again give a pledge for this and let his friends guarantee it. Then, after that let the bridegroom declare what he will give her, in case she choose his will, and what he will grant her if she lives longer than he. If it be so agreed, then it is right that she be entitled to half the property, and to all if they have children in common, except she again choose a husband. Let him confirm all that which he has promised with a pledge, and let his friends guarantee that. If they then are agreed in everything, then let the kinsmen take it in hand, and betroth their kinsman to wife, and to a righteous life, to him who desires her, and let him take possession of the borh who has control of the pledge. At the nuptials there shall be a mass priest by law, who shall, with God’s blessing, bind their union to all prosperity.”¹ These minute arrangements embodied the feature of purchase, though it makes provisions to secure fair rights in the interest of the wife and children. The Saxons introduced slavery into Britain in some of its worst forms, but the custom of purchasing and endowing a wife involved the conditions that the husband must have had property and freedom, or the permission of his lord, and consequently marriage could not be contracted amongst the servile classes, who were simply regarded as cattle or stock, and joined or separated as it suited the interest and convenience of their masters. Indeed, for these unfortunate classes there was no law but their master’s will and caprice.² This social phenomena was a fatal and degrading weakness in the constitution and organisation of all the ancient empires and nations, and yet these empires and nations have often been held up as endowed with all the characteristics of humanity and all the emblems of true glory!

¹ Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, pages 108, 109. “With slavery in its worst form, the barbarians, who became masters of Britain after the Roman power was broken, introduced the custom of wife-buying. An unmarried woman was, among them, in the position of a chattel, for the sale of which the owner was entitled to make as good a bargain as possible. It was only natural that, in a community in which it was necessary to pay for taking a man’s life, it should be considered equally necessary to pay for the permanent possession of a woman’s person. The payment represented in each case a rude attempt to supersede a primitive condition of universal violence.” Pike’s History of Crime in England, Volume I., pages 90, 91.

² Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, pages 282, 337, 353. These statutes belong to the legislation of the Church, and probably attempted to make the condition of the serfs as endurable as possible.

“In short, as amongst the strictly servile classes marriage was scarcely a permanent bond until after the lapse of many generations of Christianity, so amongst the dependent freemen it could only be contracted with the permission of their lord.” Robertson’s Early Kings, Volume II., pages 127, 328.

In Scotland the institution of marriage was far from being on a proper footing among the people, or even amongst the clergy. The custom of selling and purchasing wives was not as yet extinct in Scotland, and marriages were contracted within the forbidden degrees of relationship. Indeed, long after this period the ties of wedlock were rather lax. The Church often attempted to regulate and enforce marriage as a public and solemn institution, but she came into contact with habits connected with the intercourse of the different sexes which were extremely difficult to overcome, and her efforts were only partly successful. The people did not observe the Lord’s Day, but followed their usual occupations as on other days. Queen Margaret is represented by her biographer as holding a council for the reform of the Church from its strange customs, and the people from their evil habits, and with the Sword of the Spirit she contended with the ecclesiastics for three days. Touching the observance of the Lord’s Day Margaret said: “Let us keep the Lord’s Day in reverence on account of the resurrection of our Lord from the dead on that day, and let us do no servile work on that day on which, as we know, we were redeemed from the slavery of the devil. The blessed Pope Gregory lays this down, saying that we must cease from earthly labour on the Lord’s Day, and continue instant in prayer, so that, if aught has been done amiss during the six days, it may be expiated by our prayers on the day of our Lord’s resurrection.” We are further told that “Many other practices which were contrary to the rule of faith and the observances of the Church she persuaded the council to condemn and to drive out of the bounds of her kingdom.” There is, however, nothing said about the marriage of the clergy themselves, nor about many of the high offices in the Church which were then filled by laymen, nor about the appropriation of benefices by certain parties, which were becoming hereditary in their own families.¹

¹ Statuta Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ, Volume I., pages 24, 309, 310; Volume II., pages 36, 37, 42, 59, 60, 68; Turgot’s Life of Queen Margaret.

Many of the monasteries in the Western Isles and in other parts of the country had suffered severely from the ravages of the Norsemen, but their fierce warfare was moderated after they obtained a right to these isles: and the monastery of Iona, which they had destroyed, was restored by Queen Margaret, re-endowed, and filled with monks; and it seems probable that some fragments of the ruins which still exist on the island belong to her time. The Abbey Church of Dunfermline was founded by Malcolm Canmore shortly after his marriage with the Princess Margaret, in honour of that important event. The discipline of the monasteries had somewhat declined, and their usefulness had become impaired; the lands which had been granted for religious uses had become partly secularised and diverted from their original end. Still there were many earnest and religious men connected with the Christian institutions of Scotland; there were communities of anchorites, sometimes called Culdees. Queen Margaret gives her testimony as to the purity and devotion of this class of clerics, for her biographer says that “There were many in Scotland, in different places, who, enclosed in separate cells, lived even on earth the life of angels.” Through them the Queen did her utmost to love and venerate Christ, often visited them, and commended herself to their prayers; as she could not induce them to accept any earthly gift from her, she implored them to prescribe for her some work of charity or mercy. Whatever they desired she devoutly fulfilled, either relieving the wants of the poor or comforting the sick and afflicted. As the religious devotion of the people brought many from all quarters to the church of St. Andrews, she erected dwellings on both sides of the Firth of Forth, so that the pilgrims and the poor might find everything ready there which was required for the refreshment and rest of the body. Servants were appointed there to minister to them, and vessels were provided to ferry them across without payment.”¹

¹ Book of Deer, Preface, pages 105‒106; _Register of Dunfermline_, page 3; Turgot’s Life of Queen Margaret, Chapter 9.

In the preceding pages of this section it appeared that in the tribal organisations personal rights in connection with the land had arisen. The local ruler of the tribe and other officials associated with the polity of the tribe had obtained personal rights in the land; in so far, at least, as they could dispose of such rights to other parties. It further appeared that the King of Scotland had acquired rights in tribal lands which he could dispose of, and also that all the lands within the kingdom were, in the eleventh century, subject to a national tax. The custom of commuting all forms of crime by a scale of fines, fixed according to personal rank, was noticed, and various customs and practices associated with the institution of marriage, were stated. A brief reference to the state of religion, and to Queen Margaret in relation to it, concluded the section. Taking a view of the entire movement since the foundation of the monarchy, its advance was remarkable; and nothing had, as yet, occurred to arrest the progressive development of the kingdom and the civilisation of the people.

SECTION XI.

Early Architecture. Sculptured Stones.

In preceding sections various early structures have been noticed, some of which were of a characteristic type, but the singular and curious structures now to be briefly described have occasioned much discussion. This class of erections are called Brochs. The area of their local distribution has been stated thus: Only three specimens are known south of Glenmore――1 in Berwickshire, 1 in Stirlingshire, and 1 in Perthshire:¹ in Inverness-shire, 47; in Ross-shire, 38; Sutherlandshire, 60; Caithness, 79; Orkney, 70; and in Shetland 75, making a total for the five northern counties of 369. But the greater part of those in Ross-shire and Inverness-shire are in the islands attached to these two counties.

¹ In the month of May, 1891, the members of the Galashiels Ramblers’ Club discovered what appeared to be a Broch on Crosslee Hill in the vicinity of that town. My friend, Mr. George Desson, gave an account of it which appeared in the North British Daily Mail of the 15th May. He says: “All that remains of the structure is the foundation of the walls, which measure 17 feet 6 inches thick, and about 2½ feet high. The walls are of circular form, and enclose a central area of 39 feet 6 inches in diameter; from the central court there are openings to three passages, which apparently led to chambers, two of which have not yet been cleared of the debris, but in the one that has been dug out there is a passage 6 feet long and 3 feet 8 inches wide, while the interior of the chamber is 14 feet long by 4 feet wide.”

The Brochs are all constructed on one typical form, so unvarying that they afford no indications for tracing the development of their special form through a series of stages. “I once heard an eminent Scotch antiquary, very familiar personally with their appearance, gravely maintaining that they were all erected at one time, and from one plan and specification. Though this is, of course, absurd enough, there is not, so far as I know, any example in any part of the world of so numerous a class of buildings which show so little difference in design and dimensions.”¹ The leading features of the Broch may be described as consisting of a circular tower of dry-built masonry, pretty wide and high, and enclosing a central area open to the sky, having all its apartments looking into the enclosed inner court, excepting the entrance to the central area, and having its chambers, stairs, and galleries, formed within the thickness of the enclosing wall. None of the existing specimens are complete, and their original height has not been precisely ascertained, but from the remains and indications of structure it has been inferred that they were from thirty to upwards of fifty feet in height. The only varying point is in their dimensions; as the external diameter of the Brochs varies from forty to seventy feet, so the inner court varies from about twenty to forty-five feet, owing partly to the thickness of the walls, which also vary from about nine to twenty feet. The wall is built solid for about ten feet, excepting the ♦entrance, and where it is partially hollowed by the construction within its thickness of oblong apartments with vaulted roofs. Above this the wall is built with a vacancy of about three feet wide between the inner and outer portions. Upwards, at every five or six feet, this vacancy is crossed by horizontal ranges of slabs inserted as ties between the outer and inner shells of the walls, and thus their upper surfaces form a floor to the space above and their under surfaces a roof to the space below. These spaces form galleries of some six feet high and three feet wide, separated from each other by the slabs of their floors and roofs, and they run round the tower, except where they are crossed in succession by the stair which gives access to them, and their dimensions contract as they approach the top of the tower. The galleries were lighted by ranges of windows above each other, which all looked into the central court enclosed by the wall of the tower. At various points of the inner court are placed the entrances to the apartments on the ground floor, within the thickness of the wall, and to the stair which ascends to the galleries. On the outside of the Broch there is only one entrance, a doorway opening off the tunnel-like passage leading into the central court; it is always on the ground level, from five to seven feet in height, and about three feet wide, passing direct through the thickness of the wall, and so varies from nine to twenty feet in length; at about four feet inward there is a rebute of the masonry faced with slabs, inserted edgeways in the wall, and forming cheeks for the door, behind which are the bar-holes, and behind them the opening to a guard-room built in the thickness of the wall.²

¹ The Brochs, etc. J. Fergusson; page 8.

♦ “extrance” replaced with “entrance”

² Anderson’s Scotland, pages 168, 200‒202; _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume III., page 189, 191‒193; Volume VII., pages 290‒292, 296‒300.

On the ground floor there are usually three or four apartments, in which the people who possessed the Brochs lived. In the central courts of several of them there were drains for conveying the surface water outside the building; and in many of them there were walls which secured a water-supply within the enclosed area of the building. In short, the Brochs clearly indicate a very definite intention in the minds of their constructors, for the design of the structure and the whole arrangements of its separate parts evince a most careful and elaborate adaptation of means and materials to attain the desired ends――shelter and defence. “The clever constructive idea of turning the house outside, as it were, placing its rooms within its walls, and turning all their windows towards the interior of the edifice, implies boldness of conception and fertility of resource. The height of the wall, which secured the inmates against projectiles, also removed its essentially weak upper part beyond the reach of assault, while the pressure of its mass knit the masonry of the lower part firmly together, and its thickness made it difficult to force an entrance by digging through it――if such a wall could be approached for this purpose when the whole of its upper materials were deadly missiles ready to the hands of the defenders.” The door, secured by its great bar, was too strong to be carried by a rush; and, placed four or five feet within the passage, it could only be reached by one man at a time, and the narrowness of the passage prevented the use of long levers. Even if it had been forced, and the entrance to the inner court gained, the enemy would have found himself, as it were, in the bottom of a well thirty to forty feet in diameter, with walls fifty feet high, pierced on all sides with ranges of loopholes commanding every foot of the space below. “In short, the concentration of effort towards the two main objects of space for shelter and complete security was never more strikingly exhibited, and no more admirable adaptation of materials so simple and common as undressed and uncemented stone for this double purpose has ever been discovered or suggested.”¹

¹ Anderson’s Scotland, Iron Age, pages 203‒4.

No doubt the origin of the Brochs is assignable to the circumstances and the conditions under which the people lived. As we have seen in the preceding pages the Norsemen commenced their inroads in these localities where the Brochs were erected, and these structures were the most suitable and effective defences against the attacks of marauding enemies, which could then have been devised. The hordes of Norsemen infested the northern and western districts of the country for several centuries before they conquered the people and settled down in any part of the mainland of Scotland. Thus we can easily realise the reasons and the motives which originated the Brochs, and induced the people to make the great and laborious efforts evinced in the remains of these constructions. Further, we know that the inhabitants of the localities where the Brochs are found, had long before the age of these structures learned to labour and to wait, as the chambered cairns of the Stone Age witness. The manifestation of the constructive faculty, a concentration of thought, of energy, and of labour, directed to the accomplishment of a common object, was no new thing which had suddenly started up in this ancient region. But new historic conditions had arisen, new enemies had appeared upon the scene, which changed the surrounding circumstances, and the genius and intelligence of the people rose to the occasion, and they made the best use of the means at their command to protect and defend themselves.

It has been stated that the Brochs are peculiar to Scotland. Though there are many round towers in Ireland and elsewhere, their type is not similar to the Scotch type. “Out of Scotland the type is totally unknown. It is a type possessing features so distinct and peculiar, so numerous and well-marked, so pronounced in their absolute individuality, that if it exists anywhere it is capable of being instantly recognised. But no single instance occurs in Ireland or Wales or Cornwall; no trace of it is found in England, France, or Scandinavia. It is absolutely confined to Scotland alone.”¹

¹ Anderson’s Scotland, Iron Age.

Attempts have been made, however, to show that the Scotch Brochs were erected by the Norsemen. The main ground on which it has been sought to assign these peculiar structures to this people is, because the Brochs are nearly all found in the localities which were at one time more or less occupied by them. This circumstance does afford a presumption in favour of assigning the erection of the Brochs to them, and if it were supported by other circumstances, and clear traces of Norse products associated with these structures, the presumption might be rendered decisive. No trace of this special type of building has been discovered in the Norsemen’s own lands, and further, it has been shown that the implements, tools, and objects associated with the occupation of the Brochs are not Scandinavian in their forms and characteristics, but on the contrary are characteristic of the groups of implements and objects of the Celtic area of Scotland in post-Roman times.¹ Thus the presumption founded on locality completely falls to the ground, and no other tangible trace of the Norsemen’s connection with the erection of the Brochs has, as yet, been discovered.

¹ Ibid., page 259. Dr. James Ferguson contends, with much determination, that the Brochs were erected by the Norsemen. Except the geographical presumption, which he uses with great ingenuity, he adduces no valid evidence whatever to establish his contention. See The Brochs, etc., of the Orkney Islands and the North of Scotland.

The traces of the life of the people who occupied the Brochs, disclosed by excavations and investigations in connection with their contents, are of considerable historic value, and may be briefly noticed. The objects found in and around the sites of the Brochs consist of manufactured implements, tools, and ornaments, of stone, bronze, and iron. Many stone querns――small hand mills for grinding grain,――stone pounders of various sizes, stone mortars, drinking-cups, hammer-stones, stone vessels of large size, stone spindle-whorles, and other tools; many articles in bone, such as combs of various kinds, long-handed ones, short round-backed, single-edged ones, and double-edged, some of which were ornamented; bone-buttons, pins in a variety of forms, and some of them ornamented, bone needles neatly made, and other bone objects. Bronze tweezers, pins, armlets, and other objects; several iron implements――spear-heads, daggers, knives, and chisels. Clay moulds for casting bronze pins, a large number of spindle-whorles for spinning with the distaff and spindle, many fragments of home-made pottery, and other articles of domestic use.

Amongst the refuse of the food of the Broch occupiers, the following were found:――Remains of animals, consisting of the ox, sheep of small size, the goat, the pig, the horse, dogs of various sizes, the reindeer, red-deer, and the roe; birds and fowls not in great numbers, but some of large size. Among the marine remains were a species of whale, the porpoise, the dog-fish, the cod, and haddock, and such edible shell-fish as the oyster, the mussel, the cockle, the periwinkle, and the limpet, were abundant.¹

¹ Anderson’s Scotland, Iron Age, pages 211‒258; _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume VII., pages 43‒46, 56‒79, 426‒436; Volume VIII., pages 188‒204; Volume X., pages 5‒23; Orkneyinga Saga, Introduction, pages 109, 110.

From the above statement of facts taken in connection with the characteristics of the Brochs themselves, it appears that the people who possessed and inhabited them were cultivators of the ground. They grew grain, kept flocks and herds, hunted the woods, and fished the sea for their food. They practised industries and arts which demanded intelligence and technical skill, and it seems almost certain that they manufactured all the weapons and implements which they used; and we know that they made their own ornaments, as the clay moulds, crucibles, and the cakes of rough metal, have been found in several of the Brochs. The women practised the arts of spinning and weaving, while the men made the implements of stone and bone and the ornaments. They had attained to a stage of considerable culture and civilisation, and it is clear that they were the people of the soil, and that they had been long settled on it. Indeed, there is not a shred of evidence, either circumstantial or recorded, that they were a horde of strangers who had newly effected a lodgment in a hostile country.

It was mentioned in a preceding section that the earlier religious erections in Scotland were usually formed of wood, which possibly rested upon a stone foundation. Fragments and remains of a number of examples of rude stone chapels and cells which were erected before the twelfth century still exist. They mostly occur in the Isles; and, beginning with those which appear to be the earliest, I will proceed to notice briefly the others in succession.¹

¹ There were also a number of caves associated with the names of the early saints and missionaries who were engaged, from the fifth century to the ninth, in spreading the Gospel among the tribes of Scotland, and the walls of these caves are covered with memorials of their devotion in the form of small crosses sculptured on the rocks. See _Sculptured Stones of Scotland_, Volume II., Appendix to Preface, pages 87, 88, et seq.

Loch Columcille, in Skye, was drained about seventy years ago by Lord Macdonald, and what was once an island in the centre of the loch is now an elevated spot in marshy ground. This patch of ground extends to about three acres, and on its northern side are the remains of an irregular circular enclosure of rude and uncemented masonry, measuring about sixteen yards in diameter from east to west, and eleven from north to south; within the enclosure there are traces of three cells and other erections, which were probably covered with beehive vaulting. One of the ruins, called St. Columba’s Church, measured internally twenty-two feet in length and twelve feet in width. On the small island of Eilean na Naoimh, which lies between Scarba and Mull, there are the remains of a number of beehive cells with dry-built walls, which were associated with a small church, also built of undressed stones without mortar of any kind. This church had only one small window placed in its east end, and the cells connected with it were very small. A considerable number of these small churches and cells have been found in the Western Isles and even in Orkney. Amongst the ruins of the monastery in the Isle of Inchcolm, there is a very early specimen of a stone roofed cell. It is irregular in form, and internally sixteen feet in length, six feet three inches wide at the east end, and four feet nine inches at the west end. The walls are three feet thick. The doorway was placed in the south wall near the west end, and it was five feet high and four feet wide, with inclining jambs and roughly arched externally by a radiating arch, but internally the arch was formed in the older overlapping principle. It had only one small window, placed in the east end. The roof was vaulted with stones in the form of a radiating arch, and the centring stones roughly wedge-shaped, and the space between the upper surface of the vaulting and the stone-roof was filled with small stones and a grouting of lime, in which were bedded the oblong roofing stones.¹ Such were the primitive forms of the earliest stone churches in Scotland.

¹ Muir’s Characteristics of Old Church Architecture, pages 2, 56, 141, 143, 205, 206; _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume II., page 489, et seq.; Reeves’ Adamnan, page 138.

The next stage showed an approach towards the form of the chancelled church, passing through various types, which may be briefly indicated thus:――A church with a chancel added on to the nave but not banded into it, which showed a transition from the single chambered structure to the double chambered form. In some specimens of this variety the opening from the nave to the chancel is flat-headed and formed with inclined jambs, and in others the end of the barrel-vault of the chancel roof opened directly into the nave. Then came the developed chancel arch, associated with other features which passed into the current architecture of the twelfth century. There are examples of the Celtic chancelled churches in the Isles, while the church of St. Regulus at St. Andrews presents a fine specimen of the fully developed form of this style.¹

¹ Anderson’s Scotland in Early Christian Times, pages 32‒37; Lectures on Mediæval Architecture, by Sir Gilbert Scott, page 24.

There are two characteristic round towers of ecclesiastical origin in Scotland, one at Brechin in Forfarshire, and the other at Abernethy in Perthshire. They are not now connected with the remains of an early Celtic church; but the Tower of Brechin stands in the churchyard, and the Abernethy one stands partly within and partly beyond the churchyard. They resemble the round towers of Ireland, and belong to that class of structures.

The round Tower of Brechin stands at the south-west angle of the Cathedral, which now embraces nearly one-fourth of its circumference. At the base its external diameter is fifteen feet three inches, and its internal diameter seven feet eleven inches, and the walls are three feet eight inches thick; at the top its external diameter is thirteen feet, and the internal eight feet one inch, and the walls two feet five inches thick. The height of the Tower from the base to the spring of the modern spirelet, which now crowns it, is eighty-six feet nine inches; it is perfectly circular and tapers regularly from base to summit. Internally it is divided into seven stories by string courses. It is built of a hard reddish sandstone, and the masonry is massive; the stones are cut and fitted to each other with remarkable neatness; the courses are mostly horizontal with some irregularity, and the joints are not uniformly vertical. There are six windows, one in the third story, another in the fourth, and four in the upper story, which show certain peculiarities of structure. The doorway, however, is the most interesting feature of the Tower. Its dimensions are these:――The breadth at the spring of the arch is one foot seven and a half inches, and at the sill one foot eleven inches; the height of the entrance to the centre of the arch is six feet one and a half inch; and its entire height from the base of the external ornament to the summit of the crucifix, which surmounts the centre of the arch, is eight feet eleven inches. This doorway is formed of four stones, with jambs inclined towards each other. The jambs have a raised band, and rows of pellets run all round the doorway between two narrow fillets, while about the middle of the jambs on each side there are raised panels with figures of ecclesiastics in relief; and on the lower part of the jambs on each side there are crouching figures of beasts, bearing a close resemblance to some of those carved on the early sculptured stones. From various structural relations and associated circumstances, it seems highly probable that this Tower was erected in the eleventh century.

The Abernethy Round Tower is built of stones dressed to the curve, laid in horizontal courses with the joints vertical, and thus it differs somewhat in its masonry from the Brechin Tower. But the general features of form and construction of the two towers are remarkably similar. The Abernethy Tower is seventy-two feet in height, and it is divided into six stories by string courses, and it originally had seven windows. It appears that the original purpose of these towers was to afford an asylum for the ecclesiastics, and especially a place of security in times of war for the precious relics of the famous saints, such as shrines, crosiers, books, and bells, which were regarded with extreme and almost incredible veneration both in Ireland and in Scotland.

Stone monuments of various kinds associated with the memory of the dead, have already been treated in the prehistoric sections; and once more attention must be directed to a somewhat analogous, but a later and more artistic series of monumental stones. This series class is known as the Sculptured Stones of Scotland. For various reasons it will be necessary to deal with them at some length. The transition from the rough and undressed standing-stones and circles which were treated in connection with interments, to those now to be handled, was not abrupt, the progress from the earlier classes of monuments to the later classes proceeded gradually. Points of much historic interest and importance, both of an ethnic and artistic character, are inseparably associated with the Sculptured Stones.

The earliest class of sculptured stones are generally of granite or whinstone, and undressed, with peculiar symbols and figures incised on one face of the stone only, and with no Christian symbol of the cross. Nearly one hundred of this class have been figured or described. The area in which they have been found stretches from the Firth of Forth to Caithness, or over the eastern half of the country. But they are most common in the region between the Tay and the Spey; scarcely a single example occurs south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, nor in the Western Isles nor Argyle. They are mainly distributed thus,――three between the Forth and Tay, six between the Tay and the Dee, thirty-six between the Dee and Spey, and twenty-one to the northward of the Spey. In the same districts there are (or were) forty-three standing slabs more or less dressed, and with both faces sculptured; and on these the peculiar symbols of the rough stones appear carved along with crosses of various design and degrees of ornamentation. As to the local distribution of this class, twenty-seven were found between the Forth and the Dee; six between the Dee and the Spey; and ten to the north of the Spey.¹ A large number of such monuments have doubtless disappeared through the action of various causes and agencies, long before an intelligent historic interest was directed to them in this country.

¹ Sculptured Stones of Scotland, Volume I., Prefix, pages 6‒8; Volume II., Appendix to Preface, pages 74, 75. The symbols occur on a fragment of a stone at Edinburgh, and on a rock in Galloway.

Within the above area, and in other quarters of the kingdom, there are other sculptured monuments which differ from both of the types just indicated, and which are also Celtic in their leading characteristics. In the West of Scotland two types of monumental stones occur: 1, The free-standing crosses, ornamented in a fine Celtic style, but differing from the eastern monuments in the absence of the peculiar symbols. 2, At a much later period the stone cross of the West Coasts and Islands became characterised by a style of art which differed from the distinctive forms of the pure Celtic art. The distinguishing features of this latter style, consisted in the elaboration of graceful forms of foliage, and a freer development of the knot and scroll work than appears on the earlier stone cross of the eastern division of Scotland.

A number of erect undressed stones, with incised crosses simply, and all of archaic character, have been observed here and there throughout the country, and this group seems to present the earliest examples of the unornamented series of crosses. A more complete classification of the early incised crosses without the figured and peculiar symbols, and the other series having these peculiar symbols incised on them but without any cross, may hereafter be attained by carefully tracing the indications of development, and then showing that both classes passed into the decorated type, which presents the curious symbols and the cross, and also combined them with other subjects and scroll ornamentation.

Although it cannot be proved by direct evidence that the rough upright stones with the peculiar symbols incised on them succeeded the rough unsculptured standing stones, found singly and in circles throughout Scotland, still there are many facts and associated phenomena which point to this conclusion. For that circles of rough pillar stones were placed around the graves of our ancestors ages before the introduction of Christianity into this country cannot be questioned. When, therefore, similar undressed stones have been found standing with peculiar figures incised on one of their faces, which figures cannot be proved to have any reference to Christianity, why should it be assumed that these figures were Christian in their origin? Let us try the point in this way. Is the Cross an essential symbol of Christianity or not? If the sign of the Cross was believed to be so full of virtue and power as it is represented to have been in this country in early Christian times, is it conceivable that Christians would have cut figures and symbols on stone monuments without a cross on them? We are told that it was then a custom to cross tools and implements before using them, and if these rough monuments be of Christian origin, we must suppose that, though the very tools with which the figures were cut had been crossed and blessed, yet the men who used these tools so far forgot themselves that they never thought of cutting a cross――the chief symbol of their religion――on any of these stones.¹ Instead of advancing a view which involves such unwarranted assumptions, it seems more in accordance with ascertained facts and associated circumstances, to infer that these rude sculptured stones existed in Scotland with the peculiar symbols cut on them before the great emblem of the Christian Cross had become known in this quarter of the globe. Upwards of a hundred examples of these rough pillar stones with the symbols but no cross have been found, and doubtless a much greater number existed in earlier times. The curious symbols were continued, like many other things, into Christian times, as they frequently re-appear in monuments wherein the main idea and leading feature is the Christian cross. The monuments of the Christian period were mostly formed of dressed slabs with sculptures on both sides. On one face a cross in the centre covered with ornamental work of intricate and varied patterns, and with the peculiar symbols still retaining their original outline as on the rough stones, although usually overwarped by ornaments appropriate to the Christian cross style. On the reverse of the same stone different objects or scenes were frequently depicted.

¹ Sculptured Stones of Scotland, Volume I., Preface, 2, 3; Volume II., Preface, 5‒7. Dr. Anderson deemed it unnecessary to discuss at any length the question of the pagan origin of these peculiar symbols which first appear on the rough unhewed stones; yet he makes a somewhat sweeping generalisation to the following effect:――“And now I sum up the whole bearings of the evidence, whether derived from the general features or from the special art characteristics of these monuments in one generalisation. They are monuments of Christian character and Christian time. There is no evidence to show that there was among our forefathers any pre-existing or Pagan custom of erecting such sculptured monuments in honour of the dead.... We may find the cover of cist, a rude unshapely block, sculptured on its under side with cups and circles, or with triangles and rudely formed spirals. But we have never found in Scotland any monuments erected over a Pagan grave which exhibits the least approach to a truly artistic decoration. The custom of erecting such monuments is Christian and Christian alone, so far as Scotland is concerned, and the art they exhibit and the letters they bear were brought into this country with the copies of the Gospels from which Christianity was taught to the people.” Scotland in Early Christian Times, pages 132‒133, 1881. Dr. Anderson’s one generalisation is far too dogmatic, and hardly in accordance with ascertained facts, or even consistent with some of his own conclusions in other parts of his writings.

The peculiar symbols may be briefly described. One of those which often occurs is a crescent combined with a rod, resembling the letter V, and terminating in ornamented extremities; the body of it is occasionally plain, but oftener filled with ornaments. Another symbol of frequent occurrence consists of two circles connected by two slightly curved lines; sometimes it appears alone, and more frequently associated with a bent figure terminating in ornamented extremities. The circles are sometimes plain, but usually filled with concentric circles, forms of spirals, of interlaced work, or bosses in relief. A symbol of frequent occurrence somewhat resembles the shape of a horse-shoe; it usually appears alone, but sometimes in combination with a bent rod. Amongst the more common figures used as symbols on these stone crosses, are the head of an animal which appears in a variety of combinations; a figure formed of three circles, a large one in the centre with a smaller one attached at each side; a smith’s anvil, a hammer and tongs, and the shears along with the mirror and comb.¹

¹ Sculptured Stones of Scotland, Volume II., pages 22‒23; Appendix to Preface, 1‒12, 19‒21; _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume X., pages 333‒347, 637‒640.

A number of the representations on these stones have been explained as scenes from the Bible.¹ But I have limited myself to a plain statement of what appears on the stones, without attempting to load them with far off interpretations. Although the primary purposes of these monuments was sepulchral and memorial; there can be no reasonable doubt that many of the accessories which appear upon them, such as the costume, the weapons, and many other distinctive objects, were those of the country and the period. In this relation as illustrative materials of unwritten history they have a considerable value. They afford illustrations of human life in Scotland, and show it in its common, as well as in its ecclesiastical and military characteristics. The scenes on these stones depict the dress of the warrior, the huntsman, the ecclesiastic, and the pilgrim. Such important tools and weapons of the period, as the knife, the axe, the dirk, the spear, the sword, the shield, and the bow, are all admirably represented. We learn from these representations that the horsemen of the age rode without spurs or stirrups, sat upon peaked saddle-cloths, and used snaffle-bridles with check rings and ornamental rosettes; that they travelled on horseback, and wore peaked hoods and cloaks; that when hunting, or on horseback armed, they wore a kilted dress falling a little below the knees, and a plaid across the shoulders. When travelling on foot they wore tight-fitting under garments, and a plaid loosely wrapped round the body, and sometimes a tight jerkin with sleeves and belt round the waist. They ♦wore their hair long, flowing, and curly, sometimes with peaked beards, at other times with moustaches on the upper lip, and shaven cheeks and chin.² They used long bows in war, and cross-bows in hunting. Their swords were long, broad-bladed, and double-edged, with triangular pommels and straight guards; their spears had long heads, and their shields were rounded and furnished with bosses. On horseback they fought with sword, spear, and shield; and on foot with sword and buckler. They used two wheeled carriages with poles for draught by two horses, the driver sitting on a seat over the pole, and the wheels had ornamented spokes. They used high chairs with side-arms, carved backs, and sometimes ornamented with heads of animals. Their boats had high prows and stern-posts. They used trumpets, and played beautifully on the harp. The ecclesiastics of the period wore long dresses, which were richly and elaborately embroidered; they walked about in loose short boots, and carried crosiers, and book sachels in their hands.³ Such are a few of the many historic and interesting facts which are portrayed with striking distinctness on these monuments.

¹ Dr. Anderson in his Scotland in Early Christian Times, has given Scriptural interpretations of certain scenes of some of the stones. See pages 144‒173.

♦ “were” replaced with “wore”

² “Long and flowing hair was at first evidence that the wearer was a noble, and always that he possessed unforfeited and unimpeached all the rights of a freeman. It conferred dignity on the wearer, and the highest and most illustrious were proud of it. It was the distinction in which the Carlovingian Kings of France most glorified; and Harold, Fairhair, and Canute the Great, considered that the length and beauty of their hair added to their lawful claims to popular admiration. In the earliest periods, beards and moustaches were worn of immense size, and were especially esteemed by such of the population as were of British descent. The want of them was considered by the laity as a mark of weakness and vulgarity, and by the clergy as evidence of effeminacy and dissolute life. The Anglo-Saxon priesthood persisted in wearing them, in defiance of canonical prohibition, till Dunstan compelled them to shave in an orthodox manner.

“If the right of wearing long hair was important to men, it was doubly so to women; for with them it was not only a mark of rank, but of chastity. Every young freewoman, while unmarried, was said to be in her hair, which she wore long and loose; and when she married, she was required to dress it in a different manner. If she misconducted herself, it was cut off altogether.” Sculptured Stones of Scotland, Volume II., Appendix to Preface, pages 6‒8, and Volume I., plates 61, 77, Volume II., plate 103. There is some very curious information touching the subject in the Ancient Laws of Ireland. It is worth mentioning that cropping the hair and beard is to this day a part of military and criminal punishment.

³ Sculptured Stones of Scotland, especially in Volume I. throughout, plates 26, 16, 29, 46, 52, 69, 76, 25, 43, 47, 58, 64, 70, 80, 82, 49, 93, 77, 61, 74, 126, Volume II. plates 16, 2, 4, 12, 129.

Touching the art of these monuments, the earliest type, the undressed pillars without the cross, exhibit little art. The peculiar symbols, already described, are simply formed by incised lines, with little ornamentation. The floriated ends of the sceptre appears in various forms, the divergent spiral, and attempts to represent the feathers of a bird by angular lines and long flowing lines. But the range of decoration is very limited in this class of monuments, although it is essentially and characteristically Celtic, and this was its earliest stage on stone.

When we come to examine the stones with crosses on them, we find that the art becomes developed to a high degree of perfection. It is clear that the leading ideal and aim of the art manifested on these monuments was decoration; and its prevailing characteristic is a decoration of panels separated from each other by borders and then treated as surfaces. These surfaces often result from the divisions of the general surface by the main design, which may be a cross embracing the entire length of the stone. At other times the cross is divided into panels, or the spaces on each side of the shaft. Again, there is sometimes a border of decoration round the chief subject, which is divided into panels. The general surface is always decorated in spaces which balance each other exactly. The greatest elaboration on the surface of the finest monuments is attained by the use of interlaced work. The designs are not very numerous; but the divisions and the variations of the decorative and the symbolic ornaments appear to be almost infinite, the combinations endless, and yet beautiful, balanced, symmetrical, and perfect specimens of art.¹

¹ Dr. Anderson has treated the art of these monuments at great length, and with much care and precision. See his Scotland Early Christian Times, pages 97‒135, 1881. The late Dr. John Stuart, the editor of the two volumes of the Sculptured Stones, has also, in his two prefaces and notes, presented much valuable information.

No other monuments show a greater profusion of ornament, or a style of decoration more striking and effective in its result. The art exhibits originality and individuality, always like itself in its distinctive characteristics. In short, these ancient monuments clearly indicate that the men who produced them were gifted with imaginative, reproductive, and elaborative faculties of a high order, associated with an intensity of feeling and a concentration of attention directed to the attainment of a definite end, rarely manifested anywhere.

It is probable that the more ornate and decorative features of this art were not originated and continuously developed as sculptures on stone. Although there is no reason whatever to doubt that the art of the rough incised stones bearing the symbols only, with no cross, did originate in Scotland, but its special characteristic consisted in incised work, which showed little decoration of any kind. The decorative and ornate characteristics of the art, no doubt, were first developed in the pages of the illuminated manuscripts; and this art of illuminating manuscripts was developed to a high degree of perfection at an early period in Ireland. The same art was practised in Scotland, though only a few specimens of it remain, which do not approach the perfection of the Irish examples. “It is interesting to compare these Irish illuminations with those of the Book of Deer, which may be presumed to be a work of Scotch art of a period not later than the volume of MacDuran, who died in 927, so the age of his work is the early part of the tenth century; and it will be remarked in the specimens here given, that the ornamented patterns composing the surrounding borders are identical with those on many of the crosses, and the design of the latter is, in many cases, the same as that of a page of the manuscripts, showing a rich border round the margin of the stone, with pictorial representations inside. The peculiar art of the Irish illuminations and the Scotch crosses is found on many bronze relics of the Christian period, as well as on those of an earlier age.”¹

¹ Sculptured Stones of Scotland, Volume II., Appendix to Preface, page 81. “The peculiarities of the Irish style consists,――1, in the entire absence of foliage or other vegetable ornament, the classical acanthus being entirely ignored; and 2, in the extreme intricacy and excessive minuteness and elaboration of the various patterns, mostly geometrical, consisting of interlaced ribbon work, diagonal or spiral lines, and strange monstrous animals and birds, with long top-knots, tongues, and tails intertwined in almost endless knots. The most sumptuous of the manuscripts――such, for instance, as the Book of ♦Kells, the Gospels of Lindisfarne and St. Chad, and some of the manuscripts of St. Gall――have entire pages covered with the most elaborate patterns in compartments, the whole forming beautiful cruciform designs, one of these facing the commencement of each of the four Gospels. The labour employed in such a mass of work must have been very great, the care infinite, since the most scrutinising examination with a magnifying glass will not detect an error in the truth of the lines or the regularity of the interlacing; and yet, with all this minuteness, the harmonious effect of colouring has been introduced.” O. Jones’s Grammar of Ornament, page 3, quoted in Sculptured Stones of Scotland.

Mr. Westwood says――“The principles of these most elaborate ornaments are, however, but few in number, and may be reduced to the four following:――1st, One or more narrow ribbons diagonally but symmetrically interlaced, forming an endless variety of patterns. 2nd, One, two, or three slender spiral lines, coiling one within another till they meet in the centre of the circle, their opposite ends going off to other circles. 3rd, A vast variety of lacerative animals and birds, hideously attenuated and coiled within one another, with their tails, tongues, and top-knots forming long narrow ribbons irregularly interlaced. 4th, A series of diagonal lines, forming various kinds of Chinese-like patterns. These ornaments are generally introduced into small compartments, a number of which are arranged so as to form the large initial letters and borders or tesselated pages with which the first manuscripts were decorated.” Sculptured Stones of Scotland, Volume II., Appendix to Preface, page 77.

♦ “Keels” replaced with “Kells”

It thus appears that it was only after the decorative elements of the art had attained a high degree of elaboration on parchment, that it began to be generally applied to stone in Scotland. It seems also probable that, looking to the profusion and quality of the ornament and decoration on the early stone monuments of Scotland, that there would have been something like a proportionate quantity on the pages of books which have perished. Some of the elements of this art are common, however, to a wider area than that of Celtic Scotland, Ireland, or Europe, being found, to a greater or less extent, in the art of many nations. Still the Celtic art of Scotland has distinctive characteristics of its own; in like manner as the art of other nations have special peculiarities which distinguishes each from that of others: for there is nothing in the world which stands absolutely alone and out of all relation. The essence of art belongs to the human mind and to humanity. But different nations have embodied their art in a variety of forms, differing in degrees of perfection and development, or in the elaboration given to certain elements of art, and special forms and characteristics.

The ethnic implications connected with these monuments remain to be considered, and may be shortly stated thus:――The region in which the greater number of these ancient monuments have been found, and those of the most distinctive and characteristic type, embraced the whole of eastern Scotland, from the Firths of Forth and Clyde to Caithness. This is the region where both the undressed stones bearing incised symbols on one side, but no cross, and the dressed stones bearing crosses and symbols; and here Celtic art attained the highest development which it ever reached in Scotland. It will be remembered that this was the country occupied by the people called the Picts. It is, therefore, a fair inference that these monuments were the work of the Pictish people. Further, it has been amply proved that the art of these monuments is essentially and intensely Celtic; and so the ethnic conclusion is, that the people also were intensely Celtic in spirit and race.

Touching the probable period of these monuments, taking them as a whole, it would be vain to fix on precise dates. But, excepting the rough stones with incised symbols on one side, the entire class of those with crosses probably range from about the middle of the ninth century to the end of the eleventh. Some of the incised stones may be a century or two earlier.

Having indicated the origin and the art of the sculptured stones, the early monuments with inscriptions on them comes in succession. Inscribed monuments of this period are rare in Scotland. Amongst the Celtic people of Britain and Ireland the earliest form of giving visible expression to a fact or event in writing was by using Ogham characters. The Ogham alphabet consisted of numbers of digit-like characters, which were arranged upon a stem line in groups when used on stone monuments, but it was sometimes used on metal work, in manuscripts, and on the wooden staves of the Irish poets. There are upwards of a hundred Ogham inscriptions in Ireland, and twenty-five in Wales, but there are only five examples known on the mainland of Scotland. One on a cross found at Scoonie, in Fifeshire; another on a fragment of a sculptured stone discovered in the churchyard of Aboyne, Aberdeenshire; one at Logie, in the Garioch; one on a stone found at Golspie, in Sutherlandshire, and another on the famous stone at Newton of Insch, Aberdeenshire. In the Orkney and Shetland Islands seven examples have been found, which together gives a total of upwards of one hundred and fifty characters. But the deciphering and reading of these Ogham inscriptions seems to be still beset with great difficulties, mainly owing to the uncertain value of the letters and the extremely archaic forms of the Celtic language in which they were written, and the remote circumstances associated with them.¹

¹ Sculptured Stones of Scotland, Volume II. Notices of the plates, page 6; _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume X., pages 133‒141, 602; Brash’s _Ogham Inscribed Monuments of the Gaedhil in the British Islands_, 1879.

In Iona there are a few monuments with Gaelic inscriptions, but undated. Another Gaelic inscription occurs on a finely decorated cross at St. Vigean’s, in Forfarshire. There are a few early monuments with inscriptions in partially debased Roman letters. One, called the Catstone, at Kirkliston, stands on the south bank of the Almond, in an area which, on examination, was found to be the site of an ancient cemetery. No other monument of this early period is known in Scotland still standing in the midst of its graves. Another inscription of the same class occurs on a rough slab at a spot called Yarrow Kirk in Selkirkshire. In the parish of Stoneykirk, Wigtonshire, there are early monuments with inscriptions in Latin, one of which has been translated thus:――

“Here lies the holy and excellent priests, to wit, Viventius and Maiorius.”¹

¹ Anderson’s Scotland in Early Christian Times, pages 247‒255; Reeves’ ♦Adamnan, page 418.

♦ “Adamnam” replaced with “Adamnan”

As the Ogham was the earliest form of writing among the Celtic people of Ireland and Britain, Runic was the earliest form of writing amongst the Teutonic race of Northern Britain. Thus monuments with Runic inscriptions occur in Scotland only in the districts which were colonised by the Norsemen. A few fragments have been found in the Northern Isles, and one complete monument only is known in the Hebrides, which once stood in the church of Kilbar, in the Island of Barra, and is now in the National Museum. It has a cross of Celtic form, and the Runic inscription states that――“Ur and Thur erected this stone after Raskur, Christ rest his soul.” Though the inscription is Norse, it appears that Celtic art held its ground even when the language failed. The same phenomena has been observed in a group of monuments in the Island of Man, which was the chief site of the Norse kingdom of Man and the Isles from 976 to 1266, and called in the sagas the kingdom of the Sudreys. On a cross at Ruthwell, in Annandale, there are inscriptions in two languages and two alphabets, the one set carved in Runes and the other in Roman capitals.¹

¹ Anderson’s Scotland in Early Christian Times, pages 227‒233; _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume XII., page 143, et seq.; _The Chronicle of Man and the Sudreys_, by Prof. Munch, Christiania, 1860.

Having in this section touched on the architecture of the Brochs, and the indications of culture among the people who erected and occupied them, the remains of early church structures were briefly noticed; and, after describing the round towers of Brechin and Abernethy, I proceeded to treat the Sculptured Stone monuments historically. Indicated the area in which they were found, touched on the origin of the rough stones with the incised symbols, the relative sources of Celtic art, and the special characteristics of the art of the Scotch stone monuments; and indicated the ethnic inference deducible from them, concluding with a reference to Celtic Ogham inscriptions and Runic inscriptions. In order to render the characteristics of early Celtic art in other forms more clear, the opening part of the next section will be devoted to the illustration of it.

SECTION XII.

_Characteristics of Early Celtic Art. Fragments of Early Literature._

The period of native Celtic art stretches back beyond the Christian era, as we have already seen in the prehistoric age; and it seems necessary to indicate the characteristics of this art as exhibited on metal work and other forms, as the culture and civilisation of ♦a people can only be traced and disclosed in its continuity by the historic treatment of the products of the mind and feeling as manifested in the whole circle of their action. Beginning with such objects as reach back to the Bronze Age culture, we may observe the continuous development of this form of decorative art.

♦ duplicate word “a” removed

A bronze mirror, along with other articles, was found in draining a bog in the parish of Balmaclellan, Kirkcudbrightshire. Its form resembles the mirrors which appear on the sculptured monuments, and the part where the handle is joined to the body of the mirror is concealed by a finely ornamented plate. A massive collar of cast bronze was found in digging a well at Stitchell, Roxburghshire, in 1747; it is jointed, and opens on a hinge in the centre, and fastening in front by a pin and socket. Its ornamentation resembles the double escaping and divergent spirals of the later Celtic art. Closely similar in ornament to this collar is an armlet of thin bronze, found in 1826 in the parish of Borgue, Kirkcudbrightshire. It is ornamented by three raised mouldings, beaten up from the back, and run round it, but concealed on each side of the hinges by two thin plates of bronze, which are ornamented in repoussè trumpet-like ornaments connected by curves. In 1806 a herd boy unearthed a hoard of gold objects on the side of the Shaw Hill in the parish of Kirkurd, Peeblesshire, which consisted of two twisted arm-rings, each weighing eight ounces, a broken ring of a similar form, forty small studs, and a hollow ornament weighing over four ounces. The bullion value of the whole amounted to about £110. The armlets are spirally twisted rods of gold, with flat extremities bent round to encircle the arm. The studs are spiral in form, and marked on the surface with a cruciform ornament in relief. These are a few examples selected out of many others which belong to the early Celtic school of art.¹

¹ Anderson’s Scotland, Iron Age, pages 126, 137, 138.

As the art developed, its leading characteristic was exhibited in metal work with striking effect and beauty. In 1826 a shepherd, when passing along the hillside of Hunterston, six miles from Largs, observed a flattened-like ring of metal partially protruding from the soil, which he picked up. It turned out to be a silver brooch, and a specimen of artistic work in metal which has rarely been surpassed. It is large, measuring about four and a half inches in diameter, and it is elaborately decorated in the Celtic style, and in many of its features resembles the illuminated decorations of the manuscripts of the Gospels. It thus belongs to the art of the early Christian period, and the beauty of its design and decoration is almost equal to that of the best manuscripts. “The skill of its workmanship is such that it is questionable whether it could be greatly surpassed by the most skilful workmanship of the present day. It is only when its details are examined with a magnifying glass that the fitness and beauty of their minutest rendering becomes fully apparent.”¹ A point of much interest connected with this brooch is that it bears on the plain portion of the back the autographs of two of its former owners scratched with a point in the surface of the silver; both the inscriptions belong to the later and more local variety of the Runic alphabet. The inscriptions are simple, mere markings of ownership, and have been read thus: 1, “Maelbritha owns this brooch; 2, Olfriti owns this brooch.”² The first name is Celtic, and both names were common among the mixed population of the Norwegian province of the Western Isles. The forms of the Runes indicate a date about the tenth century, which would agree with the period when Celtic art-workmanship was approaching the point of its highest expression.³

¹ Ibid. Scotland in Early Christian Times, page 3, 1881.

² Various readings of these scratched inscriptions have been given. Their decipherment has been made the subject of several papers――Finn Magnusen in the _Annaler for Nordisk Oldkindyghed og Historie_, 1846, pages 323, 399; P. A. Munch in the Memoires de la Sociéte des Antiquaires du Nord, page 202, 1845‒49; Dr. Wilson’s _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, Volume II., pages 267‒277; Professor Dr. George Stephens, in his great work, _The Old Northern Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and England_, has given details of the inscriptions along with a critical discussion. Volume II., pages 589‒599.

³ “The art of the brooch, as I have shown, is Celtic, and the inscriptions are such as would be carved by natives of the restricted area, whose population was partly of Norwegian and partly of Celtic origin.” _Scotland in Early Christian Times_, page 6.

In 1868, when the Sutherland railway was making through the parish of Rogart, a large earthfast stone was blasted, and in clearing away the rubbish one of the workmen found in the soil underneath the stone a hoard of brooches; and he at once left his work and disappeared. The number of the brooches found, was never ascertained, but two of them subsequently came into the possession of Mr. Macleod of Cadboll, and these two were known as the Cadboll brooches; and in 1888 they were purchased for the National Museum. A third one passed into the hands of the Duke of Sutherland, and is preserved in the museum at Dunrobin. The two now in the National Museum are penannular brooches of silver. The largest one is plated with gold, and measures four and a half inches in diameter, and the pin seven and three-fourth inches in length. The body of the brooch consists of a flattened band of silver, three quarters of an inch in width, and nearly a quarter of an inch in thickness, bent into a circular form and terminating at each extremity in an ornamental expansion of quarterfoil form, and an amber setting fills the centre of the terminal ornaments. Round this setting there is a circular space, enclosed by a plain raised border and quartered by similar partitions, each of which is filled with an interlacing pattern. The four semi-circular spaces surrounding the central circle, and forming the quarterfoils, are also enclosed by plain raised borders, and from each of these spaces there rises, to the height of half an inch, part of the body and neck of a large billed bird. Its eyes are set with green glass, the neck bends gracefully, and the long bill dips into the interior of the enclosed circle. In the middle of the bend of the circular part of the brooch, there is a circular space divided into four segments with a central setting of amber, and segments filled in with interlacing patterns. On each side of the circle there are two birds’ heads similarly placed, and ornamented as those at the extremities of the brooch. The surface of that portion of the ring of the brooch between the central group of the two, and the terminal groups of the four birds’ heads, is divided on each side into four panels filled with interlaced patterns. The pin is loosely attached to the brooch by a large loop open at the back, and the head is an oval expansion covered with interlaced patterns, continued down the front of the pin. The whole of these ornamental details are worked out with great delicacy and the utmost precision. “The brooch presents twenty-one different panels of interlaced work in gold, ten panels occupied by bird’s heads, and twenty-four settings of amber and glass.” The other brooch is smaller and simpler, though of the same class. These brooches present a striking speciality of form and decoration; they exhibit a class of ornamental metal-work not necessarily ecclesiastical in origin or use, but showing designs and patterns similar to the decorative art of the Celtic manuscripts.¹

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume VIII., page 305; Volume XXII., pages 271‒273. Anderson’s Scotland in Early Christian Times, pages 9, 11.

A considerable number of these early Celtic brooches in silver and other metal have been found in Scotland; and many of them are fine specimens of decorative art. There are other articles in silver and bronze which present this art, such as the massive silver chains of double circular links, which show upon their penannular terminal links symbols of a peculiar character, and are sometimes filled with enamel. Five of these chains, belonging to Scotland, are in the National Museum. One found in making the Caledonian Canal in Inverness-shire, consists of sixteen pairs of circular links, and a single link at one end. The links are solid bars of silver, each hammered round and bent circularly till the ends meet. It measured eighteen inches in length, and weighed ninety-two ounces. Another chain of a similar character, formed of rather smaller links, was found at Parkhill, Aberdeenshire. It consisted of twenty-three pairs of circular links, with a terminal link of a peculiar shape; and on the surface of this link there were dots on each side of a curved symbol, which sometimes appears incised on the sculptured monuments. On the opposite side there were triangular sunk spaces and three dots, and the sunk spaces had been filled with red enamel. A chain found at Whitecleuch in the parish of Crawfordjohn, in Lanarkshire, was formed of twenty-two pairs of circular links, with a penannular terminal link, on which there appeared two symbols, often found associated with the decoration of the sculptured monuments.¹

¹ Anderson’s Scotland in Early Christian Times, pages 42‒44.

The Crosier of St. Fillan is an interesting relic of ornamented art, and it has also an exceedingly interesting history.¹ There are many other relics and objects which might be used to illustrate the characteristics of Celtic art; but its central principle and leading features, which were essentially decoration and ornamentation, have now been sufficiently explicated for the purpose and scale of this history.

¹ Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume XII., pages 122, 134. Dr. Anderson has treated the relics of St. Fillan in several publications. From the latest of these the following may be quoted:――“Putting together the several indications gathered from these documents, we find that before the Reformation there were in Glendochart five different relics of St. Fillan, and that in the case of each separate relic the authority of the Church had been unable to prevail against the Celtic usage which had up to that time preserved the lay succession of hereditary Dewars, and which, in the case of the Quigrich, succeeded in preserving it, not only till the Reformation, but down to the time when the Society of Antiquaries succeeded to the keepership of that relic.

“The five relics of St. Fillan, in the possession of their hereditary Dewars, each with a croft of land held by the tenure of the keepership, were as follows:――1, The Quigrich or Crosier, in the keeping of the Dewar of the Quigrich, who held the lands of Cryetindewer in Eyich. 2, The Bernane, in the keeping of the Dewar Bhernane, who held the lands of Dewar Bhernane’s croft in Suy. 3, The Ferg, in the keeping of the Dewar-na-Ferg, who had Dewar-na-Ferg’s croft in Auchlyne. 4, The Man, or Mayne, in the keeping of Dewar-na-Mayne, who had the Dewar-na-Mayne’s croft at Killin. 5, The Meser, in the keeping of the Dewar de Meser, who had lands, including Coreheynan. The next question that arises is, how far the relics are now capable of being identified.

“The Quigrich is the ornamented head of the Crosier, now in the National Museum.... The Bernane, I think, may be identified as another relic of St. Fillan, also now in the possession of the Society.... The Ferg is quite unknown to me, and I am not prepared to hazard even a guess as to its identity.... The Mayne, according to the analogy of the word, ought to mean the hand, and we can readily conceive the application of this name to a very interesting and highly venerated relic of St. Fillan, viz., the miraculous left hand which he was wont to hold up when writing in the dark, as the servant, who looked through the chink in the door, saw that the left hand afforded a clear and steady light to the right hand.... In all probability the arm of St. Fillan was enshrined, at least as early as the Crosier or the bell; that it was preserved in a case or shrine in the early part of the fourteenth century, we learn from Boece’s account of the miracle which took place in the tent of King Robert the Bruce on the night before the Battle of Bannockburn. There can be no doubt that the relic of St. Fillan, which was at Bannockburn, was not the Crosier or the Bell, but the Mayne or enshrined arm and hand which used to give the miraculous light.... The Meser is not known, except from the single notice of its Dewar in 1468.” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Volume XXIII., pages 115‒118.

Turning to the earliest fragments of literature still preserved, it appears that they issued from Iona. Owing to the position and fame of St. Columba in his own lifetime, some of his many disciples would be ready to record those events of his life calculated to interest his followers and enhance the veneration of his memory. Cummene, son of Ernan, was the seventh Abbot of Iona, and succeeded to the abbacy in 657; and according to the standard of his time, he was a learned and accomplished man. One of his letters in Latin touching the Easter festival is extant; and he also composed in Latin a life of St. Columba. His life of Columba consists of twenty-seven short chapters, which chiefly deal with the miracles performed by Columba or on his account. Several manuscripts of Cummene’s life of Columba exist, and it has been repeatedly printed.¹ After presiding over the community of Iona, and the Columban Church for twelve years, he died in 669.

¹ Mabillon’s Acta Sanctorum ordinis Sancti Benedicti, i. ♦342, from the Compiegne MS.; in Acta Sanctorum, ii. 180, mainly from the Belfort MS; and by Pinkerton in _Vitæ Sanctorum Scotiæ_.

♦ “242, from the Compeigne” replaced with “342, from the Compiegne”

Adamnan, son of Ronan, was born in Ireland in the year 624; and, in virtue of his birth, claimed kin to St. Columba. On the death of Failbhe in 679, he was elected as ninth Abbot of Iona. Adamnan was the most accomplished of all St. Columba’s successors. He took an active part in all matters relating to the Church in his time. He went to Ireland in 697, where he was engaged in efforts to effect social reform among the people and the clergy; and probably it was at this time, from ♦697 till his return to Iona in 704, that he wrote his Life of Columba. His information for this work was derived partly from written and partly from oral sources. His written materials were Cummene’s Life of St. Columba which he cites by name; he had also another memoir, to which he refers thus――“Hanc prædictam visionem, non solum, paginis inscriptam reperimus, sed et ab aliquibus expertis senioribus, quibus ipse Virgnous retulerat, sine ullo didicimus cunctamine.” He also refers to poems on the praises of Columba written in the native language, “Scoticæ linguæ” (Gaelic); and other metrical compositions by St. Mura, who died about 645.¹ The narrative of Cummene was transferred almost verbatim, by Adamnan, into his own Life of Columba. The oral source of information available to Adamnan would have consisted of the recollections and reminiscences about Columba then current among his brethren in Iona and in Ireland. Thus he produced a work in complete harmony with the feeling, the spirit, and the thought of his age. He returned from Ireland to Iona in the summer of 704, and died on the 23rd of September, the same year, at the advanced age of seventy-eight.²

♦ “397” replaced with “697”

¹ Reeves’ Adamnan, pages 17, 237, 318, and Preface pages 5‒7. Among the poems in praise of Columba written in the native tongue, the celebrated Amhra was ascribed to St. Baithene Mor, a contemporary of Columba.

² Reeves’ Adamnan, Appendix to Preface pages 53, 56, 57.

Adamnan’s Life of Columba is somewhat prolix, and its main themes throughout are associated with supposed miraculous and supernatural events and circumstances. Still, incidentally it contains a considerable number of facts of more or less historic value. His account of the last scenes of St. Columba’s life is natural, beautiful, and pathetic. Seeing that the work was written in the latter years of the seventh century or the opening years of the eighth, it has a special value, as being the earliest writing of any length directly connected with Scotland. He was the author of a tract entitled De Locis Sanctis, which is written in a more flowing style than his Life of Columba. Besides these two works, Adamnan is said to have written a Life of St. Patrick; Poems; and some other works. These have not, however, been authoritatively recognised as his productions.

From the number of manuscripts of his life of St. Columba which were spread over the Continent, it appears that the work was highly esteemed, and a considerable number of his writings still exist in various libraries. His Life of Columba has also often been printed.¹ Adamnan was held in great respect while living, and after his death his memory was widely venerated both in Ireland and in Scotland. A number of churches were dedicated to St. Adamnan in Ireland, and in Scotland nine or ten churches were dedicated to his name, among which were Forglen, in the beautiful valley of the Deveron, lying in the lower division of Banffshire; Dalmeny, a parish in Linlithgow, and in Inchkeith; and several wells were called after him. His shrine and relics became objects of extreme veneration, and were latterly preserved in his church of Skreen in Ireland.

¹ Ibid., Preface, pages 8‒10, 12‒30. Adamnan’s _Life of Columba_ was first printed by ♦Canisius in his Antiquæ Lectiones, from a MS. preserved in the monastery of Windberg, in Bavaria, Volume V., pages 559‒621, 1604. This was reprinted in 1624, by Thomas Messingham, an Irish priest, who added titles to the chapters, and a few marginal glosses, together with testimonies of Adamnan and of St. Columba. In 1647, Colgan published it in his great work entitled, _Triadis Thaumaturgæ, seu Divorum Patricii Columbæ et Brigidæ, trium ♦Veteris et Majoris Scotiæ seu Hiberniæ sanctorum Insulæ, communium Patronorum Acta, etc._ It is inserted in the Bollandists’ Acta Sanctorum; in Pinkerton’s Vitæ Antiquæ Sanctorum, etc.; and Dr. Reeves’ very valuable edition, so often referred to in the preceding pages, contains a vast number of facts and interesting particulars.

♦ “Canisiu” replaced with “Canisius” “Veberis” replaced with “Veteris”

A few fragments of writings in Latin have been preserved: such as the Pictish Chronicle, which was compiled about the close of the tenth century, probably by the scribe or ferleiginn of the monastery of Brechin. This short chronicle has been preserved in Latin, which, however, seems to have been translated from a Gaelic original, as Celtic words here and there were left untranslated. It is known that a number of ancient writings existed, which have perished amid the internal and external struggles which subsequently ensued. As already indicated, references to writings in the native language of the people occur, which appear to have consisted of legends and lives of the saints.¹

¹ Chronicles, Preface pages 19‒23; _Register of the Priory of St. Andrews_; _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, Volume III., page 264.

The earliest specimen of Gaelic writing on parchment in Scotland occurs in the Book of Deer, a MS. which originally belonged to one of St. Columba’s monasteries in Buchan, Aberdeenshire. This book contains portions of the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, and the whole of the Gospel of St. John, and the Apostles’ Creed, all in Latin. It is written in one uniform hand, and in a character which has been assigned by the most skilful experts to the ninth century. After the Apostles’ Creed, the scribe who wrote the Gospels adds a colophon in Gaelic which has been translated thus: “Be it on the conscience of every one in whom shall be for grace the booklet with splendour; that he give a blessing on the soul of the wretchock who wrote it.”¹ For two centuries it appears that nothing was added to the original book. The fragment of an office for the visitation of the sick is in a different and a later handwriting. The memoranda written in Gaelic on the blank pages and the margins of the original manuscript belong to a period not later than the eleventh century and the early part of the twelfth. Thus, these memoranda afford a specimen of the written Celtic language of the period, which has been found in its main features to resemble the written Irish of the same age. Although this is the only example of vernacular Celtic now known to exist, still we cannot infer that this was all that Scotland had produced down to the twelfth century; in fact there can be little doubt that in many of the other monasteries similar writings in the vernacular were in use from an early period.

¹ Book of Deer, page 89.

The ferleiginn or man of learning was a prominent official in the monasteries of Ireland, and of those of the west and north-eastern regions of Scotland. The function of this official at first seems to have been mainly limited to the practice and teaching of penmanship; but from about the middle of the tenth century instruction in literature was added to his functions: so that ferleiginn lecturer, meant literally man of learning. This official appears as a member of the monastic community at Turriff, which stands on a fine commanding site near the river Deveron at the northern extremity of Aberdeenshire. It was thus one of the schools of the period. In some other parts of Scotland, the same functionary appears under the name of Scolofthes――Scolocs; in somewhat later times they appear in connection with several churches which belonged to St. Andrews. Touching the range of the learning of these functionaries there is little definite information.¹

¹ Reeves’ Adamnan, pages 365, 62‒63; _Miscellany of the Old Spalding Club_, Volume V., Preface, pages 56‒67, et seq.; Book of Deer, Preface, pages 185‒189.

The monasteries of Scotland, however, considered as schools in relation to the people, were not very efficient. Although in certain directions they had an educational influence upon the people which produced results, such as the introduction of letters and a standard of written Gaelic amongst themselves; and what education existed was supplied through the monasteries and the monks; but it does not appear that this written Gaelic was widely or generally taught to the young and rising generations during the period in question. The far greater part of the people were not taught to read at all, and whatever they received as education was imparted orally and retained through the memory. In connection with religious worship and the service of the church the people were fully informed about the lives, the works, and the miracles of the saints, and in this relation their religion still resembled the ancient worship of ancestors. But in relation to industry and art, the teaching and the example of the monastic communities had a marked and beneficial educational influence upon the people.

Legends, stories, and rhymes were common among the people. When writing was little practised and printing unknown, people depended far more upon their memories, and in these circumstances the retention of a few thousands of lines would imply no great stretch of memory. Homer was simply a reciter; he never wrote the immortal work which has been stamped with his name for more than two thousand years. As thought must precede articulate speech and written composition and connected expression in the natural order of development, so oral composition in rhyme and tale have everywhere preceded the forms of written composition. As a matter of fact, there have been several instances in Scotland, in quite recent times, of men who could neither read nor write, and yet they have composed many songs and poems of recognised merit, which, of course, were written down from their diction. Indeed, the greater part of the ballad literature of Scotland has been collected by a somewhat similar process, and also to a large extent the tales and ballad literature of other nations. We may then conclude, that the people of this period had an ample store of oral rhymes, tales, and traditions――the accumulated accretions of the preceding ages――which still continue to be orally learned and transmitted from generation to generation, with such additional variations as imagination and circumstances suggested to their minds.

At the close of the eleventh century the Celtic race possessed the whole of Scotland except the Lothians, in the south-east, which was occupied by the Angles. Caithness in the north, the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and the Western Islands, which had been colonised by the Norsemen. But the original heat of the Norse movement had begun to cool, and the Celtic race retained their own language in the Western Isles: a considerable number of Norse words, however, occur in these islands. Throughout the regions occupied by the Celtic race there were, no doubt, dialectical variations in the speech of the people in different districts, but they all essentially belonged to one language. In short, the people from the Firth of Forth to Caithness were still essentially of the same race as the tribes who contended with the Roman Legions at Mons Grampius in the year 86 A.D.

I. In conclusion the main points of the seven preceding sections of this Introduction may be recapitulated. New historic conditions arose through the Roman invasion, and their occupation of a portion of the country on the south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde. But the tribes on the north side of the Roman barrier remained unconquered and independent, and the Roman occupation produced no permanent impression upon them. After the departure of the Romans from the island, other migrations and external invasions by different races ensued which created new historic conditions. This resulted in a series of conflicts amongst the different races and tribes which was continued for several centuries.

1. But during this period a new moral power, Christianity, was gradually introduced into the territories of the contending races and tribes, and it affected their subsequent movements in various directions. The new religion tended to draw the tribes more together, and in the direction of greater unity of action and organisation.

2. The natural result of the internal struggle of the different tribes appeared in the foundation of the historic monarchy in 844. The centre and chief seat of the monarchy was on the banks of the Tay at Scone. The gradual extension of the kingdom outward from its centre, and its development, and the affinities and elements of the future nationality, were noted and explained.

II. The social state of the people from the seventh century to the end of the eleventh was treated in detail. After some remarks on the more primitive forms of tribal organisation, and the relation of the tribe to the land, which in very early stages of society was the common property of the tribe alone, the causes which tended to change and modify this condition of society, were then explained. It was shown how individual rights in land had arisen, the tribal organisation in relation to the land, the rights of the heads of tribes to impose taxes on land, and the right of the king to impose a national tax upon all land within his kingdom. The state of agriculture, the herds of cattle, the food, the clothing, and the dwellings of the people, and the origin of markets, were noticed. The custom of paying for all classes of crime, by a scale of fines fixed according to the rank of the injured party, was noticed and explained. Social morality, the relations of the different sexes, customs and forms associated with the institution of marriage, and the efforts of the Church to place marriage on a proper footing, were noticed; the state of the Church, the observance of the Lord’s day, and the efforts of Queen Margaret to reform abuses and minister to the poor.

3. Early architecture was historically treated in relation to the civilisation of the people. The local area in which the remains of the Brochs are found, was pointed out, the structure and characteristics of these singularly peculiar erections were then described, their origin and purpose was touched on, and it was observed that they exhibited a type of structure which was confined to Scotland alone. The traces of the daily life of the occupiers of the Brochs, their culture and civilisation as disclosed by the tools, implements, ornaments, articles, and remains found in and around these structures, were considered; and it was inferred, on sufficient evidence, that they cultivated the land, grew grain, and possessed herds of cattle and sheep, practised the arts of spinning and weaving, and made pottery. From this and other evidence and associated circumstances, it was concluded that the occupiers of the Brochs were the people of the soil, who had been long settled on it, and that they were not a horde who had suddenly effected a lodgment in a hostile country.

4. The early types of church architecture were briefly treated. It was indicated that these types passed through a series of changes and became merged in the architecture of the twelfth century. The round towers of Brechin and Abernethy were described, and their original purpose indicated.

5. The early sculptured stone monuments were treated at some length. Beginning with the undressed stones which present the peculiar symbols incised on them, the local area in which they occur, was pointed out; and it was observed that there was no Christian cross on any of them. From many associated circumstances and other considerations it was inferred that this class of stone monuments existed prior to the introduction of Christianity. After a brief description of some of the symbols, many of the scenes and articles depicted on the elaborate class of the sculptured monuments were treated historically in relation to the life of the people, the weapons, the dress, and the civilisation of the period. The art of the monuments was then briefly handled, and its relation to the art of the illuminated manuscripts, which attained its highest development in Ireland. The ethnic implication associated with the monuments was indicated, and a reference to Ogham and Runic inscriptions on monuments concluded the section.

6. The characteristics of early Celtic art, as exhibited in decorative metal work, was touched on, and the aim and principle of this art shown to consist in elaborate decoration. The literature of the period was then treated, the educational relation of the monasteries to the people, and the oral tales and rhymes current among them. Viewing the condition of the kingdom at the close of the eleventh century, it had reached a stage of political organisation and development which appeared in every way quite vigorous and capable of further progress. The diverse elements of race within the kingdom had long been slowly amalgamating, and barring foreign interference and encroachment these elements only required more time to develop into a complete nationality. The social organisation of the people of this kingdom, their culture, art, and civilisation, had attained to a stage of progress at least equal to anything as yet achieved by the people in the southern division of the island.

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