Читать бесплатно онлайн книгу автора  The Archæology and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland

Sir Daniel Wilson

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Such are some of the ancient chronicles of Scotland garnered for us in the eastern valley of the Forth. The banks of the Clyde have been scarcely less liberal in their disclosures. In 1780, the first recorded discovery of one of the primitive canoes of the Clyde was made by workmen engaged in digging the foundation of Old St. Enoch's Church. It was found at a depth of twenty-five feet from the surface, and within it there lay a no less interesting and eloquent memorial of the simple arts of the remote era when the navies of the Clyde were hewn out of the oaks of the Caledonian forests. This is a beautifully-finished stone celt, represented in the woodcut—doubtless one of the simple implements of its owner, if not, indeed, one of the tools with which such vessels were fashioned into shape; though it is undoubtedly more adapted for war than for any peaceful art. It measures 5½ inches in length, by 3⅗ inches in greatest breadth; and is apparently formed of dark greenstone. It is now in the possession of Charles Wilsone Brown, Esq., of Wemyss, Renfrewshire, having descended to him from a maternal relative who chanced to be passing at the time of the discovery, and secured the curious relic.[42] The excavations of the following year brought a second canoe to light, at a higher level, and still further removed from the modern river's bed. Close to the site of Glasgow's ancient City Cross, and immediately adjoining what was once the Tolbooth of the burgh—more memorable from the fancied associations with which genius has endowed it, than for the stern realities of human misery which were its true attributes—there stands a quaint, but not inelegant building, adorned with an arcade curiously decorated with grim or grotesque masks on the keystone of each arch. It was erected on the site of older and less substantial tenements, in the year 1781; and in digging for a foundation for it, in a stratum of laminated clay that lies beneath a thick bed of sand, another primitive British canoe was discovered, hollowed as usual out of a single trunk of oak.[43] Another is noted to have been found about 1824, in Stockwell, near Jackson Street, while cutting the common sewer; and a fourth, at a much higher level, on the slope of Drygate Street, immediately behind the prison.[44] In 1825 a fifth canoe was discovered, scarcely an hundred yards from the site of the former at the City Cross, when digging the sewer of London Street—a new thoroughfare opened up by the demolition of ancient buildings long fallen to decay. This boat, which measured about eighteen feet in length, exhibited unusual evidences of labour and ingenuity. It was built of several pieces of oak, though without ribs. It lay, moreover, in a singular position, nearly vertical, and with its prow uppermost, as if it had foundered in a storm.

This class of sepulchral monuments is rare in Scotland when compared with other monolithic structures that abound in almost every district of the country. Some few interesting examples, however, are still found perfect, while partial traces of a greater number remain to show that the cromlech was familiar to the builders of the Scottish monolithic era. One of the most celebrated Scottish cromlechs is a group styled, The Auld Wives' Lift, near Craigmadden Castle, Stirlingshire. It is remarkable as an example of a trilith, or complete cromlech, consisting only of three stones. Two of nearly equal length support the huge capstone, a block of basalt measuring fully eighteen feet in length, by eleven in breadth, and seven in depth. A narrow triangular space remains open between the three stones, and through this every stranger is required to pass on first visiting the spot, if, according to the rustic creed, he would escape the calamity of dying childless. It is not unworthy of being noted, that though the site of this singular cromlech is at no great elevation, a spectator standing on it can see across the island from sea to sea; and may almost at the same moment observe the smoke from a steamer entering the Frith of Clyde, and from another below Grangemouth, in the Forth.

The whole of these examples are constructed of rough and entirely unhewn blocks. The annexed figure represents a partially ruined cromlech, at Bonnington Mains, near Ratho, Mid-Lothian, which is interesting from some traces which it retains of artificial tooling. Along the centre of the large capstone a series of shallow perforations have been made at nearly regular intervals, and possibly indicate a design of splitting it in two. Such is the idea formed by Mr. F. C. Lukis in a somewhat parallel case, though any indication of artificial formation in such primitive structures is of the very rarest occurrence. Mr. Lukis remarks in a communication to the Archæological Association:—"I send a sketch of the cromlech on L'Ancresse Common, Guernsey, on which we have discovered a string of indentations, probably made with a view to trim the side prop to the required size of the capstone. These are the first appearances of art in any of the primeval monuments, and nowhere have we found anything of the kind excepting on a menhir in the parish of the Forest.... The use of these indents we can only guess at; but as they follow the fracture of the stone, (granite,) the early method of breaking stones would be explained."[81] The Bonnington Mains Cromlech is of large size. The capstone, which now rests on only two of its supporters, measures 11½ feet in length, and 10½ feet in greatest breadth. It bears the name of The Witch's Stone,[82] in accordance with the rustic legend which ascribes its origin to an emissary of the famed old Scottish wizard, Michael Scot. The term cromlech is probably derived from cromadh (Gaelic) or cromen (Welsh), signifying a roof or vault, and clach or lech, a stone. But the compound word is of ancient use in Scotland. An extensive district in the neighbourhood of Dunblane, Perthshire, which still bears the name of the Cromlix, is remarkable for various large transported blocks scattered over its surface. One of these, which has been supposed to have formed the capstone of a large cromlech, measures 15½ by 10 feet; but it is very doubtful if it owes either its form or position to human hands. According to the proposed derivation the name may be rendered the suspended stone; and its application to a district covered with transported rocks from the neighbouring Ochils, of a date long prior to the historic era, is in no way inconsistent with its more usual application to the primitive monolithic structures. We have no satisfactory evidence that these are Celtic monuments. The tendency of our present researches leads to the conclusion that they are not, but that they are the work of an elder race, of whose language we have little reason to believe any relic has survived to our day. On this supposition the old name of Cromlech is of recent origin compared with the structures to which it is applied; and of this its derivation affords the strongest confirmation. It is just such a term as strangers would adopt, being simply descriptive of the actual appearance of the monument, but conveying no idea of its true character as a sepulchral memorial.

This large, though very imperfect example of the dwellings of primitive communities of the ancient population of the Orkneys, may be properly classed with the weems of the Scottish mainland, though it is not entirely subterranean. The floor is nine feet below the natural surface of the ground; and from the mode by which the whole appears to have been in-roofed with immense overlapping stones, it must have projected somewhat above the surface, and was probably covered over with a raised mound of earth. In this respect it approaches, in some degree, to another class of buildings, which appear to be peculiar to Orkney and the neighbouring districts of Caithness and Sutherland, though it is possible enough that they may have been at one time no less common on the whole Scottish mainland. These structures, for which it may be convenient to retain the popular name of Picts' houses, are not strictly speaking, subterranean, but erected generally on the level ground, or, at furthest, excavated in part out of the side of a hill, so as to admit of a level entrance. Externally they are scarcely distinguishable from the larger tumuli, but on digging into the green mound it is found to cover a series of large chambers, built generally with stones of considerable size, and converging towards the centre, where an opening appears to have been left for light and ventilation. These differ very little from many of the subterranean weems, excepting that they are erected on the natural surface of the soil, and have been buried by means of an artificial mound heaped over them. Barry has minutely described one, which he calls an "ancient Pick house," opened at Quanterness, near Kirkwall.[103] Another relic of the same class was explored during the past year by Mr. George Petrie of Kirkwall, to whose valuable communications on kindred subjects I have already had occasion to refer. Through his kindness I have been favoured with a minute account of the result of his labours, as well as with the plans engraved, drawn from careful measurements taken at the time.

Of an entirely opposite character are the Cat Stanes found in various parts of Scotland, apparently deriving their name from the British Cad or the Celtic Cath, signifying a battle, and therefore marking the scene of some ancient conflict. In the immediate neighbourhood of the Camus Stone near Edinburgh, formerly stood two very large conical cairns, styled the Cat-stanes, until demolished by the same irreverent utilitarians who had found covetable materials in the rude memorial stone. Underneath the cairns were cists containing human skeletons and various bronze and iron weapons. Two iron spear-heads found in them are now preserved in the neighbouring mansion of Mortonhall; and according to the description of other relics formerly possessed by a neighbouring farmer, they would appear to have also contained celts and other weapons of bronze. A few yards to the north-west of the site which these cairns occupied, there still stands the Kel or Caiy Stone, a mass of the red sandstone of the district, measuring above eleven feet in height. On digging in the neighbourhood of this primitive monument a quantity of human bones have been found, irregularly interred, without cists or urns, and not far from it are still visible the rude earth-works of a British camp. Much more extensive intrenchments of an oval form existed in the immediate neighbourhood, prior to the construction of the new road, and are described by General Roy in tracing one of the Roman iters.[113] There is another standing-stone within the Mortonhall grounds, at about half a mile distant from the site of the Cat-stanes, and also two larger masses lying together, which are not improbably the remains of a ruined cromlech. Here, in all likelihood, has been the battle ground of ancient Scottish chiefs, contending, it may be, with some fierce invader. The locality is peculiarly suited for the purpose. It is within a few miles of the sea, and though inclosed in an amphitheatre of hills, it is the highest ground in the immediate neighbourhood, and the very spot on which a retreating host might be expected to make a stand ere they finally betook themselves to the neighbouring fastnesses of the Pentland Hills. A few miles to the westward of this is the oft-noted Catt Stane, in Kirkliston parish, on which the painful antiquary may yet decipher the imperfect and rudely lettered inscription—the work most probably of much younger hands than those that reared the mass of dark whinstone on which it is cut—IN [H]OC TVMVLO IACET VETTA .. VICTR .. About sixty yards to the west of the Cat-stone a large tumulus formerly stood, which was opened in 1824, and found to contain several complete skeletons, but nearly all traces of it have now disappeared.

Monolithic groups abound in many parts of the mainland as well as in the Western Isles, but nearly all characterized by some peculiarity. Some are inclosed by a trench, others by a fosse; and frequently the space between the great stones is filled up by an earthen wall. In several districts in the south of Scotland single and double ovals are found, and fragments of ancient groups, more or less imperfect, are common throughout the country. The woodcut represents an imposing monolithic group in the neighbourhood of Pitlochrie, Perthshire. One of the great level Highland moors stretches away beneath the eye, like a dark waveless lake, contrasting with the distant heights, among which Benlawers rears its pyramidal summit to an elevation of upwards of 4000 feet above the level of the sea. Amid this wild Highland landscape the huge standing stones, grey with the moss of ages, produce a singularly grand and imposing effect; and from the idea of lofty height which the distant mountains suggest, they convey a stronger impression of gigantic proportions than is produced even by the first sight of the giant monoliths of Salisbury Plain.

From references to the geographical divisions of Russia, as well as other internal evidence, this version of the legend is believed to have been written not later than the twelfth century. The tradition, however, is doubtless based on a much older belief, so that we cannot err in assuming that at the earliest period of intercourse between Scotland and Norway, sufficiently frequent to assimilate the popular superstition of the two countries, the Stone Period was only known as a state of society so essentially different from every historic tradition with which the people were familiar, that they referred its weapons and implements to the same invisible sprites by whose agency they were wont to account for all incomprehensible or superhuman occurrences.

Celts[158] and hatchets, or wedges, are among the most abundant of all the relics of the Stone Period. They have been discovered in considerable quantities in almost every part of Scotland, from the remote Orkney and Shetland Isles,[159] to the shores of the Solway and the banks of the Tweed. They are frequently found rudely executed, with little appearance of labour except at the edge; while other examples are characterized by the highest finish and the utmost degree of polish that the modern lapidary could confer on them. The manner of attaching the stone celt to a handle has been made the subject of some discussion, though sufficiently illustrated by the practice of the modern Polynesians and other savage tribes still using weapons of stone. M. Boucher de Perthes has succeeded in throwing some new light on the subject by researches in the neighbourhood of Abbeville, which point to the conclusion that the French celt has been inserted into the hollow portion of a stag's horn having a perforation in it to receive the handle.[160] Various other methods, however, have been shewn by which this primitive weapon could be hafted, so as to become available for the war axe of the northern warrior. The example found in the earliest ancient canoe of the Clyde, leaves no room to doubt that it was bound to the handle by thongs or portions of the haft passing round the middle. Both ends are highly polished, while the middle remains rough, having evidently been designed to be covered and concealed.[161] One stone celt has been found in Ireland, near Cookstone, in the county of Tyrone, still attached to its wooden handle, the artless rudeness of which could hardly be surpassed.[162] Much more efficient means, however, are frequently seen employed in corresponding weapons brought from the South Sea Islands than any of the ancient examples display; and these may suffice to illustrate the improved methods which experience would suggest to the rude Caledonian aborigines.

Among the larger implements of this period the most remarkable and varied are the Stone Hammers and Axes. They are of common occurrence, and present a variety of forms, evidently designed to adapt them to a considerable diversity of purposes. They are therefore available as evidence in estimating the degree of inventive talent manifested in the primitive state of society in which they were produced, showing as they do the intelligent savage coping with the untractable materials with which he had to deal, and supplying many deficiencies by his own ingenuity and skill. With these, as with the elf-bolts of the same period, we find in the reminiscences of early superstition the evidence of their frequent occurrence long after all traces of their origin and uses had been obliterated by the universal substitution of metallic implements. As we find the little flint arrow-head associated with Scottish folk-lore as the Elfin's bolt, so the stone hammer of the same period was adapted to the creed of the middle ages. The name by which it was popularly known in Scotland almost till the close of last century was that of the Purgatory Hammer. Found as it frequently was within the cist and beside the mouldering bones of its old Pagan possessor, the simple discoverer could devise no likelier use for it than that it was laid there for its owner to bear with him "up the trinal steps," and with it thunder at the gates of purgatory till the heavenly janitor appeared, that he might

The examples figured here furnish a few of the most characteristic varieties of Scottish hammers that have been preserved. They by no means equal in number those found in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. But only a very partial and extremely superficial investigation of such relics has yet been made, and we possess no national collection in Scotland, similar to that of the Christiansborg Palace of Copenhagen, to which the whole available financial and legal machinery of the kingdom is employed in gathering the primitive national antiquities so soon as they are discovered. The Old and New Statistical Accounts abound with notices of opened tumuli and cairns, and of their valuable archæological contents; but unfortunately in nearly every case these are either conveniently ascribed to Romans and Danes, or mentioned so vaguely that no use can be made of them as illustrations of the period to which they belong.

The name of Axe is, with sufficient appropriateness, applied to the double-edged stone implements, and to those of a wedge-shape which have the aperture for inserting the handle near the broad end, whereas other examples perforated sufficiently near the centre to admit of the free use of both ends are with equal propriety styled hammers. They are frequently finished with great neatness and art; not made, like the hatchet, of flint, but of a variety of kinds of stone, from the gray granite, of which the largest are generally made, to trap and even sandstone. Several examples have been discovered in an unfinished state, furnishing curious illustration of the laborious process of manufacture. One large one in particular in the Scottish Museum was found in digging the Caledonian Canal. It is made of gray granite, very symmetrically and beautifully formed, and with the hole partially bored on both sides. This was probably effected with water and sand by the tedious process of turning round a smaller stone until the perforation was at length completed. Tried therefore by the standard of value of the Stone Period, the hammer was perhaps a more costly deposit in the tomb of some favourite chief than the golden armillæ of later times. The Danish antiquaries are familiar with examples of unfinished stone implements, and also with a still more curious class, consisting of broken hammers and otherwise mutilated instruments, which have been perforated with another hole or ground to a new edge, affording striking evidence of the value of such implements to their primitive owners. The example figured here, partaking of the characteristics both of the hammer and axe, was dug up on the farm of Dell, in the parish of Abernethy, and is engraved from a sketch by the late Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart. It measures eight inches in length, and was found at a depth of about five feet from the surface, in a soil consisting of two feet of mould lying above peat moss.

Unperforated spherical stones, generally about the size of an orange, have been referred to along with other contents of the Scottish tumulus. It is not always possible to distinguish these from the stone cannon ball which continued in use even in James VI.'s reign. The circumstances under which they occur, however, leave no room to doubt that they ranked among the articles held in esteem by the primitive races of Britain, ages before the chemical properties of nitre, sulphur, and charcoal had been employed to supersede older projectile forces. The distinction is further confirmed by their being occasionally decorated with incised circles and other ornaments, as in the example shewn here, found near the line of the old Roman way which runs through Dumfriesshire on its northern course from Carlisle. Another of highly polished flint has already been described among the remarkable disclosures of a large cairn on the Moor of Glenquicken, Kirkcudbrightshire, and two of similar form were shewn me recently as a part of the contents of a cist opened in the course of farming operations on the estate of Cochno, Dumbartonshire, one of which was made of highly-polished red granite, a species of rock unknown in that district. Similar balls occur among the relics found in the barrows of Denmark. In the "Report addressed by the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries to its British and American Members," printed at Copenhagen in 1836, a class of primitive objects are described under the name of Corn Crushers. The engraving of one of these represents a rude block of stone flattened on the upper side. In the centre of this is a circular cavity, into which a smooth ball of stone has been made to fit, thereby supplying by a less efficient means the same purpose aimed at in the querne, discovered so frequently under a variety of shapes among the relics of various periods of early Scottish history. The shallow circular stone troughs or mortars so often found in Scottish burghs and weems belong to the same class. A still ruder device consists of a pair of stones which have evidently been employed in rubbing against each other, and it may be presumed with the same object in view, that of bruising the grain for domestic use. They have been occasionally noticed among the chance disclosures of the spade or plough in Scotland, and are of common occurrence in the Irish bogs. The author of the Account of Halkirk Parish, Caithness, thus describes the mortars above referred to, and also the pestles or crushers—manifestly a similar device to the Danish corn crushers—which are found together in the burghs:—"I have seen in them numbers of small round hard stones, in the form of a very flat or oblate sphere, of 2½ inches thick in the centre, and about four inches in diameter; also other round stones, perfectly circular, very plain and level on one side, with a small rise at the circumference, and about a foot in diameter. The intention of both these kinds of stones manifestly was to break and grind their grain."[176] It may reasonably be assumed, however, that neither the old British nor Scandinavian warrior deposited under the barrow of his chief, and alongside of his well-proved celt and spear, the homely corn crusher with which his wives or his slaves were wont to prepare the grain for domestic use. The decoration traceable on some of the stone balls confirms this idea; and it is more probable they were employed as weapons of war, like the pogamoggon of the Chippeway and Shoshonee Indians of America, some of which consisted of a spherical stone, weighing from half a pound to two pounds. This they inclosed in leather, and attached to a thong a yard and a half in length, which was wound round the wrist, the more effectually to secure its hold. Along with these objects may also be noted the roughly-shaped spherical discs of flint occasionally found with other stone relics in Scotland, and much more common in Ireland, where they bear the name of "Sling Stones."

One other class of primitive relics remains to be noted, belonging to the same early period. These are the ornaments, weapons, and tools of horn or bone; such as the lances or harpoons already described as found alongside of the stranded whales in the alluvial valley of the Forth. Such relics are by no means rare, notwithstanding the perishable nature of the material of which they are constructed. Barry describes among the contents of the Orkney tumuli, "swords made of the bone of a large fish, and also daggers."[178] The woodcut represents what should perhaps be regarded as a bone dagger. It was found in a stone cist near Kirkwall, lying beside a rude urn, and is now in the possession of Dr. Traill. It measures 7½ inches long, and appears to be made of the outer half of the lower portion of the right metatarsal bone of an ox. The notches cut on it are perhaps designed to give a firmer hold, while they also serve the purpose of rude attempts at ornament. Their effect, however, is greatly to weaken the weapon and render it liable to break. The cross may perhaps suggest to some the associations of a later period, but little importance can be attached to so simple and obvious a means of decoration. Possibly indeed so far from its affording any indication of the influence of "the faith of the cross," it should be regarded like the incised patterns hereafter alluded to, wrought on later bronze implements, as suggestive of the use of the poisoned blade by the rude aborigines of the Stone Period. Pennant has engraved an implement of horn, carved and perforated at the thick end, found in a large urn under a cairn in Banffshire, and another, closely corresponding to it, was discovered in 1829, in a large urn dug up in the progress of the works requisite for erecting the Dean Bridge at Edinburgh.[179] A curious relic of the same class was brought to light on removing part of a remarkable cairn which still stands, though in ruins, on the summit of one of the Ochil Hills, on the northern boundary of Orwell parish, Kinross-shire. It bears the name of Cairn-a-vain, and an ancient traditional rhyme thus refers to a treasure believed to be contained in it:—

Examples of this use of the antlers of the deer are by no means rare. It appears to offer some additional corroboration of the date assigned to those simpler rites of sepulture, which it has been suggested may probably indicate an era prior to the introduction of the small stone cist and the practice of interment in a sitting or folded posture; that in several examples which have been carefully noted, the body has been found laid at full length, and in one or two instances with the spreading antlers at the feet, like the sculptured lion or stag which reposes on the altar-tomb of our medieval chantries at the feet of the recumbent Christian knight.

One of the most interesting recent discoveries of this primitive class of implements was made by Mr. G. Petrie, during his exploration of a subterranean dwelling or weem at Skara, in the Bay of Scales, Sandwich. A large accumulation of ashes, bones of domestic animals, the tusks of a very large wild boar, scales of fish, &c., indicated the refuse of many repasts of its aboriginal occupants; and alongside of it, apparently in coeval rubbish, was found a stone cist, containing, among other remains, about two dozen oyster shells, each perforated with a hole large enough to admit the finger. Perchance they supplied to their simple owner a collar not less esteemed than the most coveted orders of a modern peer. A curious variety of bone implements were discovered at the same time. The larger of the two objects in the annexed woodcut represents a pin or bodkin, formed from the left metatarsal bone of an ox of small size, in which the natural form of the joint has been turned to account for forming its head. It measures 5-3/10 inches long. The smaller object is also of bone. One side of the head is broken away, but the perforation has not been in the centre; it measures 3½ inches in length. Others of the tools are still more simple—mere flat pieces of bone, roughly rubbed to an edge, and indicating the merest rudiments of art and contrivance. Two other examples from the same hoard are represented here, the smallest another pin, 2⅘ inches long, formed from the lower end of the metatarsal bone of a sheep, and the larger, perhaps intended as the handle of some implement of delicate structure. It appears to be fashioned from the metatarsal or metacarpal bone of a lamb, and is notched with a rude attempt at ornament, which, however, as in the dagger formerly described, must have greatly impaired its strength.[183] Along with these were also found a number of circular discs of slate, about half an inch thick, roughly chipped into shape, and about the size of a common dessert plate. The most ready idea that can be formed of them is, that they were actually designed for a similar purpose.

A great variety of stone vessels, of different forms and sizes, have been found in Scotland under different circumstances, but in nearly all of them the rudeness of the attempts at ornament, and the whole form and character, suggest the probability of their belonging to the earliest period, coeval with the stone celt and hammer, and the bone and flint spears of the Scottish aborigines. Even sepulchral urns of this durable material are not uncommon, especially in the northern and western isles. Wallace thus describes one found in the island of Stronsa:—"It was a whole round stone like a barrel, hollow within, sharp edged at the top, having the bottom joined like the bottom of a barrel. On the mouth was a round stone."[184] From the engraving which accompanies this description it may be more correctly compared in form to a common flower-pot, decorated with a series of parallel lines running at intervals round it. In the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of London there are two rude stone urns, believed to be the same exhibited to the Society by Captain James Veitch in 1822, which were discovered on the demolition of a cairn in the island of Uyea, Shetland, along with many similar urns, mostly broken, and all containing bones and ashes. They are formed of Lapis ollaris, and are described by Mr. Albert Way, in his valuable Catalogue of the Society's Collection, as two rudely-fashioned vessels of stone, or small cists, of irregular quadrangular form, one of them having a large aperture at the bottom, closed by a piece of stone, fitted in with a groove, but easily displaced. The other has a triangular aperture on one side, and is perforated with several smaller holes regularly arranged. The dimensions of the larger are about 9½ inches by 4, and the other 7 inches by 3½. Dr. Hibbert refers to another of the same class, but probably of superior workmanship, which he saw on his visit to the Island of Uyea. It was found along with various other urns, which he simply mentions as of an interesting description, and is noted as "a well-shaped vessel, that had been apparently constructed of a soft magnesian stone of the nature of the Lapis ollaris. The bottom of the urn had been wrought in a separate piece, and was fitted to it by means of a circular groove. When found it was filled with bones partly consumed by fire."[185] A fragment of another such urn in the Scottish Museum is described by the donor as part of a vase of a steatitic kind of rock, found in 1829 within a kistvaen on the island of Uyea, one of the most northern of the Zetland group. At an earlier period the opening of a barrow in the island of Eigg exposed to view a large sepulchral urn containing human bones. It is described as consisting of a large round stone, which had been hollowed, with the top covered with a thin flag-stone, and was found in a tumulus which tradition assigned as the burial-place of St. Donnan, the patron saint of the isle.[186] The singular stone urn figured here, from the original in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, is believed to have been brought from the Hill of Nowth, in the county of Meath, one of the most remarkable chambered cairns yet discovered. The urn is decorated with chevron ornaments, and figures supposed to represent the sun and moon. It is not to be imagined that, unless in some very rare and remarkable examples, cinerary urns thus laboriously hewn out of stone can belong to a period anterior to the use of those formed of the plastic clay. In so far, however, as we may judge from the few examples yet noted, they seem to be the work of a very remote era, when such were the rare and distinguished honours reserved perchance alone for the Arch-Druid, or high-priest of the unknown faith, whose strange rites were once celebrated within the Taoursanan, or mournful circles.[187]

In several instances these singular vessels have been found in the immediate vicinity of the so-called Druidical circles. In 1828 two of them were discovered under an ancient causeway leading from a circle of standing stones on Donside, in the parish of Tullynessle, Aberdeenshire. One of these, the handle of which is imperfect, is now deposited in the Scottish Museum, along with various other similar examples found in different parts of Scotland. The other had a handle about nine inches long carved out of the same stone, and terminating with a knob at the end. A similar relic was found some time before, when clearing out the area of another stone circle on the farm of Whiteside, in the same county. The frequency of their occurrence, indeed, would suggest their construction for more common use than the worship of the gods, were we not led to assume their designation for some special object, from the very great labour employed in making them.

It is a remarkable fact, that these vessels, thus laboriously hewn or wrought out of stone, should be most frequently found either in the neighbourhood of the rude monolithic structures, or of other apparently contemporary works of the earliest period. The very imperfect nature of many of their decorations, however, suffice to prove that they are the work of men destitute of efficient metallic tools, and who were little likely to attempt the hopeless task of hewing the giant columns of their temples into artificial forms. Many of these vessels, indeed, notwithstanding the attempts at decoration visible upon them, exhibit much less symmetry or finished workmanship even than the stone hammers and axes of the same period. So far as I am aware, the Druidical patera, so frequently found in Scotland, is peculiar to it, no similar vessel having been discovered among the primitive remains either of England or Ireland. In the remoter districts of Scotland these ancient vessels were regarded till recently with the same superstitious awe and dread which we have already seen attached to other unfamiliar relics of the same remote era. Mr. Colin M'Kenzie, in describing the antiquities of the island of Lewis, from personal observations made towards the close of last century, remarks in reference to the group of standing stones at Classernish, on the west side of that island, with its remarkable large central stone, surrounded by a deep hollow which retains the rain water:—"Were a ditch cut across the circle to a tolerable depth, some utensils, ashes, &c. might be found to throw more light on the subject. I have been told that a stone bowl was found, and afterwards thrown, through a superstitious dread, into the hollow round of the central stone."[188]

We shall not, probably, greatly err in assuming as one of the earliest types of the Scottish hand-mill, the rudely fashioned oaken querne already referred to, which was dug up from a depth of nearly five feet in the Blair-Drummond Moss. It is simply the section of an oak tree, measuring nineteen inches in height by fourteen inches in diameter. The centre has been hollowed out to a depth of about a foot, so as to form a rude oaken mortar; and in this, with the help of a stone or wooden pestle, its primitive possessor was doubtless wont to bruise and pound the grain preparatory to its conversion into food. The circumstances under which the Blair-Drummond querne was found, when compared with the other discoveries in the same locality, scarcely permit us to escape the inference that in it we possess a domestic utensil contemporary with the ancient canoes of the Forth and Clyde, if not with the stranded whales, and the rude harpoons of the carse land from which it was disinterred.

There is another class of relics, however, which we can feel no hesitation in ranking among the earliest remains of the Stone Period, though it may sometimes be difficult to determine whether we should regard them as mere personal ornaments or as charms employed in the mysterious rites of Pagan superstition, as it is not uncommon to find them used, at a very recent date, by their illiterate inheritors in some of the remoter districts of the Highlands and Isles. One relic, for example, in the Scottish Museum, consists of a flat reddish stone, roughly polished. It measures 4 inches in length, and about 2¾ inches in its greatest breadth, and is notched in a regular form, with two holes perforated through it. It was presented to the Society of Scottish Antiquaries in 1784, as a charm in use among the population of the island of Islay for the cure of diseases. From its correspondence with others of the earliest class of relics, it can hardly admit of a doubt that it belongs to the personal ornaments of the Stone Period, and may have owed the reverence of its more recent possessor to the fact of its discovery within some primitive cist, or in the charmed circle of Taoursanan, the origin of which is commonly ascribed to superhuman powers. It is worthy of note, indeed, that the word Druidheachd is no longer associated with the priesthood of the British groves, but is now only used by the Scottish Highlanders as applicable to sorcery or magic. Another, but much less perfect ornament of perforated reddish stone, in the same collection with the above, was found, along with several flint arrow-heads, in the island of Harris; and a third, still ruder, was discovered, with a similar arrow-head, on the Lomond Hills of Fifeshire. But perhaps the most singular relics of the Stone Period ever discovered in Scotland are two stone collars, found near the celebrated Parallel Roads of Glenroy, and now preserved at the mansion of Tonley, Aberdeenshire. They are each of the full size of a collar adapted to a small Highland horse; the one formed of trap or whinstone, and the other of a fine-grained red granite. They are not, however, to be regarded as the primitive substitutes for the more convenient materials of later introduction. On the contrary, a close imitation of the details of a horse collar of common materials is attempted, including the folds of the leather, nails, buckles, and holes for tying particular parts together. They are finished with much care and a high degree of polish, and are described as obviously the workmanship of a skilful artist. Mr. Skene, who first drew attention to these remarkable relics, suggests the probability of the peculiar natural features of Glenroy having led to the selection of this amphitheatre for the scene of ancient public games; and that these stone collars might commemorate the victor in the chariot race, as the tripods still existing record the victor in the Choragic games of Athens. But no circumstances attending their discovery are known which could aid conjecture either as to the period or purpose of their construction.[191]

There is no primitive race known to us which seems so fit to be selected as a type and standard of comparison in relation to cranial development, as the Aztecs or ancient Mexicans. They were the last dominant race among numerous native tribes, who, progressing from the rudimentary Stone Period, were excluded from influences such as those which in Europe superseded the ages of stone and bronze by the more perfect arts of civilisation. These changes archæologists are now agreed in associating with the introduction of iron. But if in this latter point also the parallel be admissible, then we must less conceive of the more perfect arts of civilisation being superinduced on those of the Archaic Period, than of the Allophylian nations being themselves superseded. More extended observations on the physical characteristics of these races will probably, to a great extent, determine this. Two skulls selected from Morton's Crania Americana are placed at the head of the table, and will afford a very satisfactory comparative estimate of the cranial capacity of the races of the Scottish tumuli. No. i. is figured in Plate XVII. of Dr. Morton's valuable work, from which it will be seen that it decidedly belongs to the Brachy-kephalic class of Retzius, which again nearly corresponds with the pyramidal division of Dr. Prichard. It is thus described by Dr. Morton:—"With a better forehead than is usual, this skull presents all the prominent characters of the American race—the prominent face, elevated vertex, vertical occiput, and the great swell from the temporal bones upward." No. ii. is figured in Plate XVIII. of the same work, and closely corresponds to it in type. It is described as "a remarkably well characterized Toltecan head from an ancient tomb near the city of Mexico, whence it was exhumed, with a great variety of antiques, vessels, masks, ornaments," &c. These, therefore, afford a fair comparative criterion of the capacity of the tumuli builders of Britain for the practice of arts analogous to those in which the later American races so greatly excelled at the epoch of the Spanish Conquest; and it will be seen that the comparison is, upon the whole, in favour of the superior intelligence of the British Brachy-kephalic race, as indicated by the cerebral mass and frontal development. No. 1. is an exceedingly interesting example of a skull of the Stone Period, in the Antiquarian Museum. It was found in 1822 in a rude cist in the parish of Banchory-Devenich, Aberdeenshire. On the top of the head is a hole nearly circular, rather more than an inch in diameter, which there can scarcely be a doubt was caused by the death-blow. In each corner of the cist lay a small pile of flint flakes.—No. 2 was taken from one of thirty cists found near Fifeness, in 1826, and described in a previous chapter.—Nos. 3, 4, and 5 were obtained from a group of rude cists discovered in the neighbourhood of Cockenzie, East-Lothian, in 1840. Nos. 3 and 4, as well as the two previous examples, are in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. No. 5 has been obtained from J. M. Mitchell, Esq., who was present when the graves at Cockenzie were opened, and is here figured as a characteristic example of the class. No relics were found along with these remains, but the cists were of the primitive circumscribed dimensions, and presented the rudest characteristics of early sepulture.—No. 6 is a skull in the Edinburgh Phrenological Museum found on the farm of Stonelaws, East-Lothian, where a number of rude primitive cists have been exposed in the course of agricultural operations. Some of these lie east and west, with the heads at the west end, according to Christian practice, but others are irregularly laid; and the example here noted was found with the head at the east end of the grave.—No. 7 was obtained from a cist discovered under a large cairn at Nether Urquhart, Fifeshire, in 1835. An account of the opening of several cairns and tumuli in the same district is given by Lieutenant-Colonel Miller, in his "Inquiry respecting the Site of the Battle of Mons Grampius."[204] Some of them contained urns and burnt bones, ornaments of jet and shale, and the like early relics, while in others were found implements or weapons of iron. It is selected here as another example of the same class of crania.—No. 8 was found in a cist under a tumulus opened at Newbattle, East-Lothian, in 1782. This, there can be little doubt, was the large encircled tumulus in the immediate vicinity of the Abbey, which was found to cover a cist nearly seven feet long. The cranium is well proportioned and of unusually large dimensions, and probably pertained to a chief of gigantic stature.—No. 9 is from a tumulus at Montrose. The whole of these, more or less, nearly agree with the lengthened oval form described by Professor Nillson as the second race of the Scandinavian tumuli. They have mostly a singularly narrow and elongated occiput; and with their comparatively low and narrow forehead, might not inaptly be described by the familiar term boat-shaped. It is probable that further investigation will establish this as the type of a primitive, if not of the primeval native race. Though they approach in form to a superior type, falling under the first or Dolicho-kephalic class of Professor Retzius' arrangement, their capacity is generally small, and their development, for the most part, poor; so that there is nothing in their cranial characteristics inconsistent with such evidence as seems to assign to them the rude arts and extremely limited knowledge of the British Stone Period.

No. 10 is an exceedingly characteristic example of an entirely different type of cranium. It was obtained under very remarkable circumstances, more particularly detailed in a subsequent chapter. On the demolition, in 1833, of the old Town Steeple of Montrose, a building of great antiquity, it was found that at some depth beneath its ancient foundations there lay the sepulchres of a much more remote period. Mr. William Smith of Montrose, remarks in a communication sent to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1834, along with the donation of an urn:—"The accompanying urn or vase is one of four of the same description found about the beginning of April 1833 below the foundation of the Old Steeple in Montrose, beside the skeleton of a human body,—two of them being at each side of the head, and two near the feet.... Exactly below the foundations of the Old Steeple the skeleton was discovered, with the vases disposed about it as mentioned. It measured six feet in length. The thigh bones, which were very stout, and the teeth, were the only parts in good preservation. The skull was a little wasted, and was given to the Rev. Mr. Liddell, of Lady Glenorchy's Chapel, who intended to present it to Mr. Combe of the Phrenological Society."[205] The skull, of which the measurements are given in No. 10, is the same here referred to, presented to the Phrenological Museum by the Rev. Mr. Liddell. It is a very striking example of the British Brachy-kephalic type; square and compact in form, broad and short, but well balanced, and with a good frontal development. It no doubt pertained to some primitive chief, or arch-priest, sage, it may be, in council, and brave in war. The site of his place of sepulture has obviously been chosen for the same reasons which led to its selection at a later period for the erection of the belfry and beacon-tower of the old burgh. It is the most elevated spot in the neighbourhood, and here his cist had been laid, and the memorial mound piled over it, which doubtless remained untouched so long as his memory was cherished in the traditions of his people.—No. 11 was found in a moss near Kilsyth, Stirlingshire. It is nearly black, and quite firm and sound, from the action of the peat. Its general characteristics clearly belong to this second group, but it has been injured in parts, and apparently subjected to great pressure, so as to render some of the measurements doubtful.—Nos. 12 and 13 are skulls found at different times, at a considerable depth, in a moss at Linton, Peeblesshire.—No. 14 is a very characteristic example of the Brachy-kephalic type of cranium. It was found in a cist under a tumulus in the parish of Ratho, Mid-Lothian, and alongside of the skeleton stood a small rude clay urn, within which lay several bronze rings.—No. 15 is also a good example of the same type. It was obtained, in 1849, from a cist partly hollowed out of the natural trap rock on the farm of East Broadlaw, in the parish and county of Linlithgow. It was covered with two unhewn slabs of stone, and measured internally about six feet long. The skeleton was in good preservation, and lay at full length. Only a few inches of soil covered the slabs with which it was inclosed. No relics were found in the cist, but some time prior to its discovery a bronze celt and spear-head were turned up in its immediate vicinity.

No. 16 is a cranium chiefly interesting from the circumstances under which it was found. During the construction of the Edinburgh and Hawick Railway, in 1846, extensive Roman remains were brought to light in the vicinity of the village of Newstead, Roxburghshire. These are described in a subsequent chapter. In the progress of the work the excavators exposed a group of circular shafts, or well-like pits, varying from three feet to about twenty feet in depth. They were filled with black fetid earth, intermixed with bones of animals, Roman pottery, mortaria, amphoræ, Samian ware, &c., whole and in fragments. In one of these shafts was found the entire skeleton of a man, standing upright, with a long iron spear at his side, and various specimens of Roman pottery in the debris with which the pit was filled.[206] Of the period, therefore, to which the cranium belongs, there can be no doubt, though no sufficient evidence exists to determine whether it pertained to a Roman legionary, or a contemporary native Briton. The latter is, perhaps, more probable. The skull is of moderate size, but exceedingly well proportioned, the teeth are in perfect preservation, with the crowns very little worn, and the markings of all the muscles are unusually strong and well defined.

Returning to the table of measurements.—No. 28 is a skull in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. It was found in what appears to have been an ancient tumular cemetery, at North-Berwick, East-Lothian, from whence also a specimen of early medieval pottery, figured in a later chapter, was procured. Many ancient relics have been obtained at the same place, including a circular silver fibula, apparently of the Anglo-Saxon era. A large surrounding area appears to have been used as a burial ground, probably for many centuries, as the encroachments of the sea frequently expose human bones, and the skeletons may be occasionally discerned in the newly exposed strata, after an unusually high tide.—Nos. 29 and 30 are crania in the Phrenological Museum from the same locality. Of these No. 29 is a markedly inferior example of cranial development. While all the measurements are small, the frontal diameter is inferior to that of No. 12, the smallest of all the Brachy-kephalic examples, which it exceeds in longitudinal diameter by half an inch. So extremely poor is the frontal development of this skull, that its diameter at the zygomatic processes is barely 3.5½. It is only introduced here in order to afford a series of examples selected without any reference to theory.

Amid the highly artificial results of modern civilisation we might find some difficulty in conceiving of such a social state, in which considerable taste and ingenuity were displayed in the forging of arms and tools, and in the manufacture of personal ornaments. But not only are we able to compare the results of the division of labour with the fruits of such isolated skill, in races only now beginning to develop these first elements of civilisation; we can also look upon the living representatives of the Caledonian at the dawn of his historic era. Dr. Layard, in describing a visit to an ancient copper mine in the Tiyari Mountains, remarks,—"In these mountains, particularly in the heights above Lizan, and in the valley of Berwari, mines of iron, lead, copper, and other minerals, abound. Both the Kurds and the Chaldæans make their own weapons and implements of agriculture, and cast bullets for their rifles—collecting the ores which are scattered on the declivities, or brought down by the torrents."[265] This affords a parallel modern picture of such a state of society as that we have to conceive of in the early dawn of the British Bronze Period. Martin, in his description of the Western Isles, written at the commencement of the eighteenth century, remarks of the islanders,—"When they travel on foot the plaid is tied on the breast with a bodkin of bone or wood, just as the spina worn by the Germans, according to the description of Tacitus." He then furnishes a detailed account of the ancient dress, even then becoming rare, and of the breast-buckle or brooch, of silver or brass, which appears to have formed, from the very earliest times, the most favourite personal ornament of both sexes. "I have seen some of the former," says he, "of an hundred marks value: it was broad as any ordinary pewter plate, the whole curiously engraven with various animals, &c. There was a lesser buckle, which was worn in the middle of the larger, and about two ounces weight. It had in the centre a large piece of crystal, or some finer stone, and this was set all round with several stones of a lesser size."[266] The Rev. John Lane Buchanan, visiting these islands nearly a century later, found the same customs unchanged, and the primitive metallurgic arts of the ingenious Hebrideans not greatly in advance of the modern Asiatic Kurds. This writer remarks of the females,—"All of them wear a small plaid, a yard broad, called guilechan, about their shoulders, fastened by a large brooch. The brooches are generally round, and of silver, if the wearer be in tolerable circumstances; if poor, the brooches, being either circular or triangular, are of baser metal and modern date. The first kind has been worn time immemorial even by the ladies. The married women bind up their hair with a large pin into a knot on the crown of their heads."[267] The same writer thus describes the practice of every necessary art and trade by the simple islanders:—"It is very common to find men who are tailors, shoemakers, stocking-weavers, coopers, carpenters, and sawyers of timber. Some of them employ the plane, the saw, the adze, the wimble, and they even groove the deals for chests. They make hooks for fishing, cast metal buckles, brooches, and rings for their favourite females."[268] They were, in fact, at that very recent period practising nearly the same arts as we may trace out at a time when the Phœnician traders were still seeking the harbours of Cornwall, and exchanging the manufactures of Carthage, and perhaps of Tyre, for the products of the English mines. A no less unquestionable proof of the unchanging character of the Celtic arts is to be found in the fact that the ornamentation, not only on many of the old Highland brooches and drinking horns, but invariably employed in decorating the handle of the Highland dirk and knife, down to the last fatal struggle of the clans on Culloden Moor which abruptly closed the tradition of many centuries, is exactly the same interlaced knotwork which we are familiar with on the most ancient class of sculptured standing stones in Scotland. The annexed figure of a Highland powder-horn of the seventeenth century is from one in the possession of Mr. James Drummond, bearing inscribed on it the initials and date, G. R. 1685. The triple knot, so common on early Scottish and Irish relics that it has been supposed to have been used as a symbol of the Trinity, is no less frequently introduced on the Highland targets and brooches of last century, and is shewn along with other interlaced ornaments, on an example of the latter introduced in a subsequent chapter.

Among all the varied primitive relics which have been from time to time discovered, both in Scotland and other countries of northern Europe, none exceed in interest the stone and bronze moulds in which the earliest tools and weapons of the native metallurgist were formed. They have been found in Scotland, England, Ireland, and in the Channel Islands, exhibiting much diversity of form, and various degrees of ingenuity and fitness for the purpose in view. Some of them are of bronze, and highly finished, examples of which from the British Museum are engraved in the Archæological Journal, (vol. iv. p. 336,) in Plate VII. vol. v. of the Archæologia, and elsewhere. If the account, however, furnished by Warburton to Stukely may be relied upon, such objects are by no means rare. According to him, a bushel of celts, each inclosed in a brass mould or case, was found in 1719, at Brough, in the Humber. Mr. Worsaae refers to another example of a number of bronzes found in Mecklenburg, accompanied by the moulds in which they were cast, together with pieces of unwrought metal; and similar bronze celt-moulds have been discovered at various times in different parts of France. In the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland there are casts of a pair of large and very perfect bronze celt-moulds, of unusual size and peculiar form, found at Theville, Arrondissement de Cherbourg.

But still more interesting are the ruder stone moulds, in some of which we may trace the first efforts of the aborigines of the Stone Period to adapt the materials with which they were familiar to the novel arts of the metallurgist. This is particularly observable in a mould-stone preserved in the Belfast Museum. It is polygonal in form, and exhibits upon four of its surfaces indented moulds for axe-heads of the simplest class. In this example there is no reason to believe that any corresponding half was used to complete the mould. The melted metal was simply poured into the indented surface, and left to take shape by its equilibrium on the exposed surface. Weapons formed in this way may frequently be detected, while others, full of air-holes, and roughly granulated on the surface, appear to have been made in the still simpler mould formed by an indentation in sand. Others of the stone moulds have consisted of pairs, like those of bronze. A very curious example of this description was found a few years since in the Isle of Anglesea, and is engraved in the Archæological Journal.[270] It is a cube of hone-stone, nine inches and a quarter in length, by four inches in breadth at its widest extremity. Each of the four sides is indented for casting different weapons: two varieties of spear, a lance or arrow-head, and a celt with two loops. Only the one stone was found, but another corresponding one is obviously requisite, by means of which four complete moulds would be obtained. At the Congress of the Archæological Institute, held at Salisbury in 1849, the temporary Museum contained a mould of serpentine, found in Dorsetshire, designed for casting spear-heads, and another of granite, found near Amesbury in Wiltshire, intended to cast ornamented celts of two sizes. Of the same class are two pairs of celt-moulds recently discovered in the parish of Rosskeen, Ross-shire. The site of this interesting discovery is about four miles inland, on the north side of the Cromarty Frith, on a moor which the proprietor is reclaiming from the wild waste, and restoring once more to the profitable service of man. In the progress of this good work abundant evidence demonstrated the fact, that the same area from which the accumulated vegetable moss of many centuries is now being removed, had formed the scene of a busy, intelligent, and industrious population ere the first growth of this barren produce indicated its abandonment to solitude and sterility. Near to the spot where the moulds were discovered there stood till recently a large sepulchral cairn; and in forming a road through the moss several cists were exposed containing human bones and cinerary urns. Amid these evidences of ancient population the two pairs of moulds were discovered, at a depth of only sixteen inches from the surface. They are very perfect, and are composed of a hard and very close-grained stone. One pair is notched and perforated through both moulds, so as to admit of their being exactly fitted and tied together for casting. Close to the spot where they were discovered there was also disclosed the remains of a rude inclosure or building of stone, containing a bed of ashes and scoriæ; so that here no doubt had been the forge of the primitive metallurgist, from whence, perhaps, the natives of an extensive district obtained their chief supplies of weapons and tools. These Scottish moulds give evidence both of taste and ingenuity. In one of them is also a matrix for forming a smaller implement, the use of which is not easy to determine, while both the celts are large and elegant in form. The woodcut represents one of the celts cast from the mould, which measures fully five inches long.

Rarely has a more interesting discovery been made, or one on an equally extensive scale, illustrative of the Scottish Bronze Period. Some of the most perfect and beautiful of these ancient weapons were presented to His Majesty George III.; others, doubtless also among the best specimens, were retained as family heirlooms, some of which were afterwards given to Sir Walter Scott;[272] but the remainder, including upwards of fifty pieces of swords, spear-heads, and fragments of other weapons, most of them more or less affected by fire, were presented to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and formed the very first donation towards the founding of their valuable collection of national antiquities. The royal gifts and nearly all the family heirlooms have disappeared, but the whole of those presented to the Society still remain in their Museum. The swords are of the usual leaf-shaped form, with perforated handles, to which horn or wood has been attached. Some of the larger broken spear-heads have been pierced with a variety of ornamental perforations, and in addition to these there were bronze rings and staples, similar to those found on various occasions with other remains of the same period. The accompanying woodcut represents one of these, measuring three inches in diameter, along with a larger one in the Scottish Museum, which was found along with several bronze celts and swords, on the estate of Kilkerran, Ayrshire, in 1846, and more closely resembles the examples most frequently met with both in style and dimensions.

The discovery of gigantic deer's horns and fragments of others along with the weapons and masses of melted bronze, would seem to add to the probability that some considerable manufacture of such weapons had been carried on, at some remote period, on the margin of the loch, and that these were collected for supplying them with handles. But other relics besides those which speak to us of the ingenious arts of the metallurgist, were dredged, along with the shell marl, from the bottom of the loch. "There were likewise brought up," says Sir Alexander Dick, "out of the same place with these brass arms, several human skulls and bones, which had been undoubtedly long preserved in the shell marl, which Dr. Monro and I examined very accurately, and by their very black colour we concluded they had been immersed in the marl for an immense time." Unfortunately neither the skulls nor the horns have been preserved. In this, as in a thousand other instances, we seek in vain for the minuter details that would confer so much value on the vague glimpses of archæological truths scattered through old periodicals, Statistical Accounts, and other unsatisfactory sources of information. Here we might say, with tolerable confidence, lay the manufacturer beside his tools. It becomes an interesting question to know if the deer's horns exhibited marks of artificial cutting, as this would go far to prove their use in the completion of the weapons beside which they lay, and might further help us in forming an opinion as to how they were applied. But still more, we would seek to learn if these skulls corresponded with either of the old types of the tumuli, or if they exhibited the later Celtic type intermediate between the lengthened and shortened oval, and were characterized by superior cerebral development such as their progress in the arts might lead us to expect. It is possible that some record of these facts has been preserved, since the skulls were submitted to one of the most distinguished anatomists of his day; but I have failed to discover any clue to such, after inquiries submitted both to Dr. Alexander Monro, and to Professor Goodsir who now fills the Chair of Anatomy in the University of Edinburgh.

Class I. consists of bronze implements made apparently in imitation of the older ones of stone, and to which the name of Celt-axes may therefore be very consistently applied. Of these a very primitive specimen in the Scottish Museum is little more than an imperfectly squared oblong piece of yellow bronze, or "Celtic brass," full of air-holes, and evidently cast in sand. It was found in the Moss of Cree, near Wigtown, in Galloway. The analysis of another nearly similar to this, and found a few miles from Edinburgh, has been given in the previous chapter. To this class also have belonged the implements cast in the polygonal stone mould now in Belfast.[295] The simplicity of the mould completely corresponds with the primitive character of the manufactures in which it was employed; the axe-heads having been fashioned merely by pouring the melted metal into the exposed indentation in the stone, as the previous examples were moulded in an impression in sand.

Class III. consists of axe-heads, not greatly dissimilar in general form to those of the first class, but larger, and exhibiting manifest evidence of the improvements of experienced workmen. For these the term Axe-blades, plain or incised, appears most suitable. They are sometimes finished with a broad flange along the sides, thereby securing at once economy of material with lightness and strength; and are, oftener than any other bronze relics, decorated with incised ornamental patterns corresponding to those which occur on the pottery of the same period. This kind of ornamentation, though frequently executed with considerable taste, presents a striking contrast to the graceful mouldings and perforations of the more advanced period. It appears to have been produced in the most simple manner, by striking the surface with a punch, sometimes (as in an example in the Scottish Museum, which measures 5¾ inches long) with no very marked attempt at a definite pattern. Other, however, are characterized by much more taste and evidences of design. The very fine specimen figured here, from a drawing by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Bart., is like the former, of bright yellow metal. It was discovered in the year 1818, a few inches below the surface on the Moor of Sluie, and not far from the river Findhorn, Morayshire. Various interesting relics have been found in this locality. In the month of March, of the same year, a cist was uncovered on the moor, within which lay a bronze spear-head of the primitive type, 11¼ inches in length, and perforated with four holes for attaching it to a handle. The point is considerably corroded and imperfect, and was apparently above an inch longer when complete: beside it lay two unusually large bronze celt-axes, about half an inch thick, and six inches long. Drawings and a description of these were communicated to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland at the time of their discovery, by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, and are now preserved among the Society's MSS. Various examples of similarly ornamented axe-blades, in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, are engraved in the fourth volume of the Archæological Journal. A very beautiful and unique specimen, found in the county of Tipperary in 1843, and now in the collection of the British Museum, is figured in the sixth volume of the same Journal.[296] An English engraved axe-blade, of analogous type, found near Clare, in Suffolk, along with eighteen others of various sizes, and with several similarly ornamented, is figured in the Archæologia;[297] and a few other examples of this rare class of primitive decorated weapons, from various localities, are preserved in the British Museum. These incised lines are supposed by many to have been designed for use as well as ornament, and several allusions, by ancient Irish writers, to the employment of poisoned weapons by the Celtic natives, are referred to in confirmation of the probability that the indented patterns were wrought on the axe-blade to adapt it for retaining the poison with which it was anointed preparatory to the conflict. The rarity of the occurrence of such incised lines militates in some degree against this theory; but it will be seen hereafter that other devices of more frequent adoption may have answered the same barbarous and deadly purpose.

Class IV. includes a variety of the implements to which archæologists are now generally agreed in applying the old Scandinavian term Paalstab, or its recently adopted English synonyme, Palstave, originally designating a weapon employed in battering the shields of the foe. Their general characteristics partake more of carpentering tools than of weapons of war, but in this, as in many other instances, it is difficult to draw the distinction with any certainty, where the objects might be of equal avail for both purposes. The palstave consists of a wedge, more or less axe-shaped, having a groove on each side, generally terminating in a stop-ridge, by means of which it was united to a cleft haft, and with projecting lateral ridges, designed still farther to secure its hold on the handle. Various improvements on the primitive form have obviously been suggested by experience. The woodcut represents a fine example in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, found on the farm of Kilnotrie, parish of Crossmichael, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. The original measures 6¾ inches in length. Notwithstanding the axe-like shape of a few of the largest of these implements, I cannot but think that the idea of the mode of hafting them by means of a bent stick, as recently assumed,[298] appears forced and improbable. In all the additions, apparently suggested by experience, for the purpose of more effectually securing it to the handle, no single example has been found with a bent groove, a hollow socket or perforation, or any other of the most simple and obvious adaptations of the metal to such a purpose. It cannot for a moment be supposed that such an improvement was beyond the skill or ingenuity of the metallurgist. In the example figured here, the hole through the end appears to have been produced in the casting. The labour of hewing the mould, or hammering the palstave into the desired shape, with which the old worker in stone was already familiar, would scarcely exceed that involved in the adaptation of each wooden haft. Mr. James Yates has suggested, in an ingenious communication to the Archæological Institute, that one of the most important uses to which bronze celts were applied was in destroying fortifications, entrenchments, and similar military works.[299] In illustration of this the author engraves two examples from the Nimroud Marbles, in which Assyrian soldiers are seen breaking through a wall of brick or small stones, by means of chisels not greatly dissimilar to our bronze celts, but fitted to a straight wooden handle. For such operations many of the larger palstaves would be no less suitable. The one here figured, from the original, measuring 7½ inches in length, in the valuable collection formed by Sir John Clerk at Penicuick House, seems peculiarly adapted for the purpose. Mr. Yates accordingly arrives at the conclusion, that "wherever we should now use the spade, the crow-bar, or the pick-axe, the ancients used the palstave or the hollow celt, fastened to a straight wooden shaft; and this was the practice, not only of the Romans, but of the Greeks and Macedonians, the Hebrews, Assyrians, and Carthaginians, and of all nations to which they extended the knowledge of their arts, or which were sufficiently advanced in civilisation to dwell in fortified places."[300] This farther conclusion inevitably follows, if we adopt the ingenious theory of Mr. Yates,—that the Britons of the Bronze Period had advanced to a similar state of civilisation; nor is it inconsistent with the ideas we are led to form of their skill and progress in the arts, that they had already reared the ingenious earth-works which still crown the summit of many a height both in England and Scotland. Against such works, however, even the largest of the bronze palstaves would prove but an inefficient implement, whether used as a crow-bar or hatchet, and if employed as a spade, the most of them would be of somewhat less avail than an ordinary tablespoon! It is not always easy to discriminate unhesitatingly between the true axe-head and the palstave. In many examples, where the general shape is completely that of the axe-blade, both the stop-ridge and side flanges are formed, while the narrow palstave no less frequently wants the stop-ridge. In Sir Robert Sibbald's History of Fife and Kinross, one of the latter class of palstaves is engraved, with a broad double flange, evidently adapted for insertion in a cleft handle, and which he has entitled a "brass axe found in a cairn of stones." Numerous other examples have been discovered under similar circumstances, leaving no room to doubt of their native origin, or of the estimation in which they were held by their primitive owners.

Class V. includes an improved variety of palstaves having a loop or ear attached to them, and in many instances the sides overlapping to a considerable extent, occasionally so much so as to meet, and form a perforation or socket for receiving the handle. In this class the overlapping flange is often only on one side, especially where it is turned over so as to form a socket; but in no example which I have examined is there any adaptation of it properly suggestive of the assumed theory of a bent handle, designed to admit of its use as an axe. If such was its mode of hafting, it exhibits a degree of clumsiness and inefficiency very inconsistent with the numerous traces of inventive skill and ingenuity observable in other relics of the same period. The example figured here is from one found in draining a field to the west of Blackford Hill, near Edinburgh. It is of the most common form, and measures 5¾ inches in length.

Such is an attempt to assign a consistent classification and nomenclature to a variety of bronze implements, hitherto most frequently described by British archæologists under the general name of Celts,—a matter perhaps of no very great moment, yet at least calculated to give facility and precision to future descriptions of the discovery of similar objects, and thereby to render such observations of greater avail to the archæologist. They are all more or less applicable to a variety of uses, both as mechanical tools and warlike weapons; and it is not improbable that in entering upon any very nice attempts at discriminating between the various purposes for which they were designed, we shall only ingraft on the products of primitive art a subdivision peculiar to modern civilisation. At a period much nearer our own time the same implement sufficed the Scottish border trooper for table-knife, couteau de chasse, and dagger; and it seems most probable that the older Briton carried the same bronze axe with him to battle with which he waged war against the giant oaks of his native forests. It is a matter worthy of note, however, and calculated to excite in us some surprise, that no bronze axe has yet been discovered, if I mistake not, either in Britain or Ireland, with a perforation through it,—the simplest of all means of securing it to a handle, and one which was already familiar to the workers in stone. The following description might indeed lead to a different conclusion, if we could depend on the strict use of the terms employed:—"On the banks of the Cree, in Galloway, there were several tumuli. In some of these, when they were opened in 1754, there were found the remains of weapons of brass, which were very much corroded. One of these was formed like a halbert; another was shaped like a hatchet, having in the back part an instrument resembling a paviour's hammer. A third was formed like a spade, but of a much smaller size, and each of these weapons had a proper aperture for a handle."[303] Unfortunately the researches of the Scottish archæologist are continually arrested by such tantalizing descriptions, conveyed in vaguest terms, and with no accompanying illustrations to help him to the true character of the objects; leaving him to mourn the apathy of Government, which refuses all aid to those who are striving to arrest such fleeting records of the past, and deposit them, where alone they ought to be, in national museums.

The earlier implements, chiefly constructed in imitation of the primitive stone models, were intended, for the most part, to be secured to the shaft by means of cords or leather thongs. But the worker in the new material soon learned its capabilities. The hollow socket was speedily superadded, generally accompanied with a projecting middle ridge to strengthen the weapon, and admit of its receiving more readily an acute edge and point. To these again were added the double loops, designed apparently for still further securing it to the shaft; and with this addition the merely useful and essential features may be supposed to terminate, though there is considerable variety in the forms which spear-heads of this class display. The most common and graceful shape might seem to be borrowed from the myrtle leaf. Several are engraved in Gordon's Itinerarium Septentrionale, (Plates L. and LI.,) from the collection of Sir John Clerk of Penicuick, including some interesting varieties. One, of very rude form, and which the author of course styles Roman, was found under a cairn in Galloway. Another, curiously incised with alternate chequers of diamond shape, is described as a hasta pura. A spear-head, decorated in the same style, though with a different pattern, was found near Bilton, Yorkshire, along with a quantity of other bronze weapons, in 1848.[308] But the most singular of all the "several sorts of hastæ or Roman spears," as Gordon delights to call them, is one figured on Plate LI., No. 6, of the Itinerarium, and which may be most fitly described as fiddle-shaped.[309] Neither of these remarkable examples is now to be found in the Penicuick collection. The woodcut represents a spear-head with two loops, which is one of the very commonest forms of the smaller class of Scottish bronze spears, most generally of the bright yellow metal, apparently peculiar to Scotland and Ireland. The other is a singular form of socketed spear, differing from any example I have met with elsewhere. It was found, along with various other bronze weapons and implements, in a moss near Campbeltown, Argyleshire, and is now the property of J. W. Mackenzie, Esq. It measures nearly seven inches in length, by one and a half inch in greatest breadth, and is covered with verd antique.

A very great variety is now discernible in the weapons of the period. The metallurgist had at length mastered the new art, and was rapidly advancing in taste as well as skill. His inventive powers supplied constant novelty in the multiplication of new forms and ornamental devices. The woodcut represents a very fine double-looped spear-head, five and two-fifth inches long, found near the river Dean, Angusshire, and now in the collection of Mr. Bell of Dungannon. Javelin and spear-heads, decorated with similar indented ornaments, have been met with both in Scotland and Ireland. The larger spear-heads also now occur "eyed," as it is termed, or perforated with a variety of ornamental openings, frequently surrounded with a raised border, and otherwise decorated according to the fancy of the designer. Among the broken and half-melted arms dredged out of Duddingstone Loch are numerous fragments of such Eyed Spear-heads, and several very beautiful perfect specimens are preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, as well as at Abbotsford, and in other private collections. They are extremely various in form, exhibiting such a diversity of design even in the simple patterns, as well as of ornamental details in the more elaborate ones, as amply to confirm the idea suggested by so many remains of the bronze period, that these relics were the products of no central manufactory, much less the importation of foreign traders, but were designed and moulded according to the taste and skill of the local artificer, most frequently for his own use. One remarkable feature in the largest and most elaborate of those in the Scottish Museum, represented in the annexed engraving, abundantly confirms the system of classification which gives it place among the later products of the Bronze Period. It measures fully nineteen inches in length, and was found on the lands of Denhead, in the parish of Cupar-Angus, Perthshire, about the year 1831. The bronze, like that of many other works of the same period, is extremely brittle, and the spear-head is broken and imperfect. One of the fractures near the point of the blade shews that a thin rod of iron has been inserted in the centre of the mould to give additional strength to this unusually large weapon, and suffices to connect it with the second transition-period, when the bronze was giving way to the more useful and abundant metal which now nearly supersedes all others in the useful arts. Of the simpler forms of the eyed or perforated spear, one of the most common is pierced with two segmental openings placed opposite to each other, or more rarely disposed irregularly so as to convey somewhat the appearance of an S or ogee perforation. I am indebted to Mr. Albert Way for a sketch of a very fine example of the former type, found at Ardersier Point, Inverness-shire, about 1750. It measures in length fourteen inches by two and three quarters in greatest breadth. This remarkably fine specimen was discovered in a tumulus lying by the side of a human skeleton. A similar spear was found in Northumberland in 1847, along with a bronze sword and other relics, the whole of which are now in the possession of the Hon. H. Liddell. But the eyed spear-head, which is common both in Scotland and Ireland, appears to be of rare occurrence in England, and is, I believe, unknown among the native antiquities of Denmark, though it has been so long the fashion with Scottish and Irish antiquaries to assign to these relics a Scandinavian origin. The Scottish bronze dagger of the same period is almost invariably found to consist of a two-edged blade, tapering to a point, and perforated with two or more holes for attaching a handle to it by means of rivets, but without the simpler, and, as it would seem, more obvious and secure fastening of a prolongation of the broad end of the blade for inserting into a haft. These weapons are also occasionally found elaborately ornamented, according to the prevailing style of the era. They generally retain the bronze rivets, thereby shewing that the handles had been of wood or horn, and not of metal, as is most frequently the case with the swords and daggers of the same era found in Denmark. The annexed figure represents a fine example of the Scottish bronze dagger, found at Pitcaithly, Perthshire, and now in the valuable collection of Mr. Bell of Dungannon. It measures fully six inches in length, by two inches in greatest breadth.

Helmets or head pieces of any kind belonging to the native Pagan era are of extremely rare occurrence. In a tumulus at Drimnamucklach, Argyleshire, pieces of a rudely adorned bronze helmet were found, and are now in the possession of Mr. Campbell, the proprietor of the estate. Gordon describes another example found in a cairn, near the water of Cree, Galloway, but it was so cracked and brittle, and probably also so rudely handled, that it fell to pieces on being removed.[312] There is every reason to believe that this piece of defensive armour was not generally used among the native Britons, nor indeed among the Scandinavian warriors of the Bronze Period. Only one imperfect fragment of a bronze helmet exists in the ample collections of the Christiansborg Palace at Copenhagen. Diodorus refers to the brazen helmet of the Gauls, but both Herodian and Xiphiline speak of the Britons as destitute of this defensive head-piece. Their matted locks, which they decorated with the large and massive hair-pins of gold, silver, or bronze, so frequently found with other relics, sufficed them alike for protection and ornament. This custom was probably common to all the northern races. But the indispensable defensive armour of the old British warrior was his shield, frequently made entirely of bronze or of wood covered with metal, and sometimes adorned with plates of silver and even gold.

Among the specimens of defensive armour preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, are two pieces of thin copper, decorated with indented ornaments, which were presented to the Society by Sir George Mackenzie of Coull, Bart., in 1828. They are described by the donor as pieces of copper, supposed to be plate armour, or the covering of a shield, found in a cairn, under an oak tree at Craigdarroch, Ross-shire. Various other portions were found along with these, and their appearance seems fully to justify the supposition of the donor. In the autumn of 1849 a remarkable discovery of bronze arms and other antiquities was made in the Isle of Skye. They included swords, spear-heads, celts, and a bronze pin with a hollow cup-shaped head similar to one figured in the Archæological Journal, a relic of one of the Irish Crannoges, or island strengths.[315] A gold armilla and other ornaments of the same precious metal are also said to have been obtained along with these ancient remains, and beside them lay the fragments of an oaken chest in which the whole appeared to have been deposited. The most of these valuable relics were secured by Lord Macdonald, but one curious and probably unique implement fell into private hands, and has since been deposited in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. In general appearance it resembles a bent spear-head; but it has a raised central ridge on the inside, while it is nearly plain and smooth on the outer side. It has a hollow socket, and is perforated with holes for securing it to a handle by means of a pin. The most probable use for which it has been designed would seem to be for scraping out the interior of canoes and other large vessels made from the trunk of the oak. But we necessarily reason from very imperfect data when we ascribe a specific purpose to the implements of a period the arts and habits of which must have differed so essentially from our own.

Another class of bronze implements not uncommon in Ireland, and occasionally mentioned among those discovered in Scotland, includes what are generally described as reaping or pruning-hooks. One of these, which was found at a depth of six feet in a bog in the neighbourhood of Ballygawley, county of Tyrone, now preserved in the British Museum, is figured in the Archæological Journal.[316] Another engraved in General Vallancey's Collectanea,[317] is described as "a small securis, called by the Irish a searr, to cut herbs, acorns, mistletoe, &c." About the year 1790, a similar instrument was discovered at Ledberg, in the county of Sutherland, by some labourers cutting peats, and was pronounced by the Earl of Bristol, then Bishop of Derry, to whom it was presented, to be a Druidical pruning-hook, similar to several found in England.[318] Perhaps among the same relics of primitive agricultural skill ought also to be reckoned a curious weapon or implement of bronze, occasionally found in Scotland, two examples of which are figured here. One of them is from the original in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. It was found among the remains of many large oak trees, on the farm of Rottenmoss or Moss-side, in the vicinity of Crossraguel Abbey, Argyleshire, and is not inaptly described by its donor as nearly resembling one of the common forms of the Malay Creess. It measures fourteen inches in length. The other and more finished implement of the same kind is in the collection formed by the distinguished Scottish antiquary, Sir John Clerk, at Penicuick House. It is furnished with a hollow shaft or socket for the handle. The same interesting and valuable collection includes other specimens of this primitive implement, constructed like that in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, with only a metal spike for insertion into the haft. Some examples of this relic of old agricultural skill are of extremely small dimensions, measuring only from six to eight inches in the length of the blade, and should perhaps more correctly be described as pruning-hooks or knives. But in this, as in so many other attempts to assign a use to obsolete implements, the most probable suggestions of their original purpose are at best but guesses after the truth.

Vessels of bronze are by no means so rare as those of the precious metals. They are not indeed often found in the tumuli, and have obviously been held in less esteem than the weapons and personal ornaments of the same metal. But among the interesting disclosures brought to light by the draining of bogs and lakes, and the ordinary processes of agriculture, no class of relics have been more frequently discovered than the various culinary and domestic utensils of bronze, generally known by the names of Roman tripods and camp-kettles. Some of these do undoubtedly belong to the Anglo-Roman era; but the whole have been much too indiscriminately assigned to the legionary invaders and colonists, whose occupation of Scotland was equally brief and partial, and whose relics must therefore form a very small proportion even of those of the later period to which they belong.

A still more remarkable example of pottery somewhat similarly disposed, was discovered more recently on the demolition of the old town steeple of Montrose. This venerable belfry tower, which was ascribed to the twelfth century, occupied the highest ground in the centre of the ancient burgh. After serving for centuries as clock-tower, belfry, and prison, the fabric at length became so ruinous that it was taken down in 1833. In digging the foundations for the new steeple, which occupies its site, the workmen excavated the ground about nine feet below the surface, and fully three feet below the base of the old tower. Remains of several bodies were found in the new ground: one of which lay with the head towards the west, and had a small pile driven through the skull. In another part, directly underneath the foundations of the old tower, was a skeleton disposed at full length in a rude stone cist, and with four urns beside it: two at the head and two at the feet. The skeleton measured six feet in length, and the skull, which has been already referred to, is now in the Edinburgh Phrenological Museum.[334] Only two of the urns were preserved; one of which is now in the Montrose Museum, and the other in the collection of the Scottish Antiquaries. The latter is a neat vessel of common form, and decorated with the usual style of incised chevron ornaments. There is something peculiarly interesting in the recovery of these memorials of long forgotten generations, over which later builders had reared the massive tower unconscious of their presence. The strong old Gothic masonry, after withstanding the storms of some seven centuries, has decayed and been swept away, and from beneath its foundations we recover the fragile yet more enduring memorials of primitive skill pertaining to a far older era, when the infant nation was just struggling into intelligent youth.

Among the most remarkable classes of domestic pottery found in the tumuli, are those evidently designed for suspension, and occasionally provided with a cover or lid made of the same material. Some of them are made round on the bottom, so as to be unfitted for setting on the ground, and it seems no improbable inference that in these we possess examples of the earliest artificial cooking vessels manufactured by native skill. They are familiar to continental as well as to British archæologists, and are figured in several works on Scandinavian antiquities. The example engraved here, from the original in the Scottish Museum, measures 4½ inches in height, and about 6½ inches in extreme diameter. It was found in one of a group of cists, under a large cairn, situated at a place called Sheal Loch, in the parish of Borthwick, near Edinburgh, and is minutely described by Dr. Jamieson in the Archæologia Scotica.[335] Five perforated projections are disposed at nearly equal distances around it, and the interior of the vessel bears evident marks of fire. Nothing but clay was found either in it or the inclosing cist, and no urns were discovered in any of the adjoining graves. It appears to be made of fine baked clay, and is of a much harder and more durable consistency than the majority of specimens of Celtic pottery. Urns perforated for suspension, though by no means common, are occasionally found in the British tumuli. The fragments of another, found in Fifeshire, with perforated ears, are preserved in the same collection with the above; and a third example, found in a cairn at Crakraig, Sutherlandshire, in 1818, and engraved in the Archæologia,[336] appears to have been of the same class. Reference has already been made to a small cup discovered during the construction of the "Queen's Drive" round Arthur Seat in 1846, and, as is believed, alongside of the cinerary urn, alluded to in a former chapter, which was broken in pieces by the workmen. The little cup is formed with great regularity, and ornamented with a uniform pattern, the lines of which seem as if they had been impressed on the soft clay with a fine twisted cord. It measures 1¾ inches in height, 3¼ inches in extreme diameter, and fully half an inch in thickness.[337] Another cup, in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, of still more regular proportions, and a higher style of ornamentation, was dug out of the foundation of an ancient ruin in the island of Ronaldshay, Orkney, and presented to the Society in 1831. Like the larger urns referred to above, it is perforated for suspension. Similar cups are of comparatively frequent occurrence; sometimes devoid of ornament, but generally symmetrical, and finished with a degree of art and skill indicative of their construction, and of the adoption of the ideas which led to their being deposited with the funeral urn, at a considerably later period than that of the rude hand-made pottery of the early tumuli.

In striking contrast to these minute sepulchral relics, many of the Scottish cinerary urns are of an unusually large size. So far as my opportunities of observation extend, it is much more common in Scotland than either in England or on the Continent to meet with urns measuring thirteen, fourteen, and even sixteen inches high. In the cairns, more especially where several urns are grouped together, one is very frequently much larger than the others, though not more ornamented; for the pottery of the largest size is generally comparatively plain. The woodcut represents one, now in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, measuring 11½ inches in height. It was found within the area of the modern Scottish capital, in digging for the foundation of the north pier of the Dean Bridge that spans a deep ravine through which the Water of Leith finds its way to the neighbouring port. Numerous cists and urns have been discovered in the extension of the New Town of Edinburgh towards the sea, attesting the presence of a busy and ingenious native race in ages long prior to the dawn of authentic history, on the same spot which has formed the centre of nearly all the most memorable events in the national annals in more recent centuries. Another urn in the Scottish Museum, measuring 12½ inches in height, was found near Abden House, in the parish of Kinghorn, Fifeshire, in 1848, by workmen engaged in cutting through the rocks on the sea-shore, preparatory to the formation of the Northern Railway. When discovered it lay in an inverted position on the flat surface of the rock, at a depth of five feet from the surface, and was full of ashes and burnt bones. In examples discovered under similar circumstances, it is not unfrequently observed that the inside of the urn exhibits considerable marks of exposure to heat and smoke. The incinerated remains would appear to have been carefully gathered together in a little heap while yet the glowing embers had only partially consumed the bones, and over this the inverted urn was laid, quenching the last fires that glowed within the ashes once ardent with impetuous life.

Various interesting personal ornaments obtained under similar circumstances, are preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, and one set in particular, found inclosed in an urn within a rude stone cist, on the demolition of a tumulus near the Old House of Assynt, Ross-shire, in 1824, very closely correspond in appearance to the description of the Renfrewshire relics. They include a necklace of irregular oval jet beads, which appear to have been strung together like a common modern string of beads, and are sufficiently rude to correspond with the works of a very primitive era. The other ornaments which are represented here, about one-fourth the size of the original, are curiously studded with gold spots, arranged in patterns similar to those with which the rude pottery of the British tumuli are most frequently decorated, and the whole are perforated with holes, passing obliquely from the back through the edge, evidently designed for attaching them to each other by means of threads.[342] Several other urns were discovered in a large cairn, a few miles distant from the tumulus which contained these interesting and tasteful relics of female adornment, as they are with great probability assumed to be; though it is well known that the modes of personal decoration which modern taste and refinement reserve for the fair sex are very differently apportioned in ruder states of society. The comparative anatomist can alone absolutely determine this question by future observations on the bones discovered along with similar remains. Meanwhile these examples are of peculiar value from the conclusion previously assumed by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, after examination of various sepulchral deposits containing similar relics, that the female barrow very rarely contains urns. Another sepulchral deposit of similar personal ornaments, including two fibulæ or discs of bituminous shale measuring one and a half inches in diameter, found in a grave at Letham, was presented to the Scottish Museum in 1820 by Sir David Brewster. It probably formed a portion of the contents of a group of cists discovered in a round gravel knoll or tumulus, near the Den of Letham, and described in the New Statistical Account of Dunnichen Parish, Forfarshire. They contained urns of red clay with rude ornaments upon them, and human bones irregularly disposed. "The neck-bones of some were adorned with strings of beads of a beautiful glossy black colour, neatly perforated longitudinally, and strung together by the fibres of animals. They were of an oval figure; large and small ones were arranged alternately, the large ones flat on the two opposite surfaces, the small ones round. They seemed to consist of ebony, or of some fine-grained wood which had been charred and then finely polished. On keeping them some time they split into plates, and the woody fibres separated. In some of these graves rusty daggers were found, which fell in pieces by handling."[343] One is almost tempted to challenge the completeness of this account, and to suspect the position of the necklaces, and perhaps the fibre-strings also, to be creations of the statist's imagination, more especially as the graves contained no perfect skeleton, but only loose bones. The woodcut represents a fibula of the same material, in the possession of James Drummond, Esq. It is drawn one-half the size of the original, which was recently found in a moss at Crawford Moor, near Carstairs, Lanarkshire. Simple as its form is it is not unfamiliar to the British antiquary. Sir R. C. Hoare describes and figures one exactly similar, found on opening a bell-shaped barrow at Blandford, and examples are referred to in the Ancient Wiltshire and other works.[344] Whether we regard this uniformity of type as evidence of the extent of intercourse anciently carried on among the most widely severed tribes, or of some system by which such relics were diffused by the wandering trader throughout the whole British islands, such comparisons cannot fail to interest the student of primitive history, trifling though they may appear, and to stimulate him to further investigation of such analogies.

Sir Robert Sibbald thus notices the occurrence of rings or armlets of shale in Scottish sepulchral mounds:—"Some full circles, of a black colour, very smooth, two or three inches in diameter, are found in the cairns or burroughs. They are very light, and when fire is put to them they burn and give a good smell, and seem to be made of odoriferous gums."[352] Mr. Ure appears to have tried the same costly experiment, and remarks as its result, that they burn with a clear flame. There formerly existed in the district of Logie, Forfarshire, a remarkable group of tumuli, called the Three Laws of Logie; which agricultural operations have since nearly obliterated. On opening one of these, it proved to contain four human skeletons, near to which was one of the above relics, described "as a beautiful ring, supposed to be of ebony, as black as jet, of a fine polish, and in perfect preservation. It is of a circular form, flat in the inside, and rounded without. Its circumference is about twelve inches, and its diameter four inches."[353] A large cairn, in the parish of East Kilbride, bore the name of Queen Mary's Mount, from the tradition that the unhappy Queen witnessed from its summit the Battle of Langside, and beheld the sceptre of a kingdom pass for ever from her grasp. But such touching historical associations could not suffice to rescue the venerable memorial from the hands of the destroyer. For years it supplied the whole neighbouring districts with materials for building stone fences, until some workmen employed in removing the remaining stones, in 1792, discovered a chamber containing about twenty-five urns full of earth and human bones. These urns, some of which have been engraved in Ure's History, were of the most primitive shape and character, "rudely formed, seemingly with no other instrument than the hand, and so soft as easily to be scratched with the nail. They were of different sizes, mostly about twelve inches deep, and six wide at the mouth. None of them were destitute of ornaments; but these were extremely rude, and seem to have been done in a hurry, with a sharp-pointed instrument. They were all placed with their mouths undermost upon flat stones; and a piece of white quartz was found in the centre of the mouth of each, larger and smaller, in proportion to the dimensions of the several urns."[354] A cist of about four feet square was placed exactly in the centre of the cairn, near to which was a bronze fibula of extremely rude form; another, still simpler in design, was found in one of the urns, and a bronze comb, equally characteristic of primitive arts, in a second; while alongside of them lay one of the rings of bituminous shale. The bronze relics are all engraved by Ure, so that a tolerably perfect idea can be formed of their design and workmanship. He pronounces them, according to the fashion of his time, to be Roman, but they bear no resemblance to the rudest specimens of Anglo-Roman art. Similar ornaments of shale have been discovered both in the Northern and Western Isles, furthest removed from Roman arts and influence. One example, which is here engraved one half the natural size, was found in the Isle of Skye, and presented to the Scottish Society of Antiquaries in 1782. It is supposed to be designed for the clasp of a belt. Two rings of the same material, each measuring 3½ inches in diameter, were discovered about two years later on the same island, and added to the Scottish Museum. Another, four inches in diameter, flat on the inside, and rounded without, as is most frequently the case, was obtained from a tumulus in the parish of Logie, Forfarshire, along with an urn full of ashes, and the remains of four skeletons.[355] In 1832, some labourers levelling a sandy field at Dubbs, in the parish of Stevenston, Ayrshire, came upon a paved area five feet under the surface, measuring six yards long and two broad. Across the one end lay a stone of about a ton weight, and at the other there was found a stone cist, measuring three feet in length by two in breadth. Within it were two urns, one of gray and the other of black pottery, both apparently filled only with earth, and beside them lay five studs or buttons of different sizes, formed of highly polished jet. The urns were broken, but the studs were preserved by the late Colonel Hamilton. They are convex on the one side, and concave on the other, with knobs left in the latter, seemingly for attaching them to the dress. The largest is more than an inch in diameter.[356] Two other rings of polished shale, similar to those already described, were discovered in 1786, lying beside a skeleton, on removing a large flat stone within the area of one of those circular towers in Caithness, commonly termed burghs, or Pictish Forts. Beside them lay a bone pin, and two fine oval brooches, (the Skaalformet Spande of Danish antiquaries,) such as have been frequently discovered in the Northern and Western Isles, and are now generally ascribed to the era of the Vikings.

An illustration of the mode of administering such an oath occurs in Viga Glum's Saga. In the midst of a wedding party Glum calls upon Thorarin, his accuser, to hear his oath, and taking in his hand a silver ring, which had been dipped in sacrificial blood, he cites two witnesses to testify to his oath on the ring, and his having appealed to the gods in his denial of the charge. These customs belong to a more recent era than that to which we refer the Scottish Bronze Period. But it is impossible to say to how remote an era we must look for their origin, or how long before the time of the Vikings, the Scandinavian and Celtic races, as well as their Allophylian precursors, had been familiar in their common cradle-land in the far east, with rites and usages from which the sacredness of this sacramental ring may have sprung.

In some degree akin to the personal ornaments of jet and shale are the large beads of glass or vitreous paste, and amber, so well known among the contents of British tumuli, and associated even in our own day, with the same superstitious virtues ascribed to them in the writings of the philosophic but credulous Pliny. The very same story, in fact, is told of the Adder-stane in the popular legends of the Scottish Lowlands as Pliny records of the origin of the Ovum Anguinum. The various names by which these relics are designated all point to their estimation as amulets or superstitious charms, and the fact of their occurrence, most frequently singly, in the sepulchral cist or urn, seems to prove that it was as such, and not merely as personal ornaments, that they were deposited along with the ashes of the dead. They are variously known as Adder Beads, Serpent Stones, Druidical Beads, and among the Welsh and Irish by the synonymous terms of Gleini na Droedh, and Glaine nan Druidhe, signifying the Magician's or Druid's glass. Many of them are exceedingly beautiful, and are characterized by considerable ingenuity in the variations of style. Among those in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries there is one of red glass, spotted with white; another of dark brown glass, streaked with yellow; others of pale green and blue glass, plain and ribbed; and two of curiously figured patterns, wrought with various colours interwoven on their surface. The specimens engraved here are selected from these. Among a curious collection of antiquities discovered in a barrow on Barnham Downs, and exhibited by Lord Landesborough at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London, March 7, 1850, there was a large glass bead, which had been broken and ingeniously repaired with a hoop of bronze,—a significant indication of the great value attached to it.

Somewhat analogous to the dilated penannular rings are another class of gold ornaments, which, so far as I am aware, have never yet been discovered except in the British Isles. They consist of a solid cylindrical gold bar, bent into a semicircle or segmental arc, most frequently tapering from the centre, and terminated at both ends with hollow cups, resembling the mouth of a trumpet, or the expanded calix of a flower. One remarkable example of these curious native relics, which is engraved in the Archæological Journal, presents the characteristics of an intermediate type between the simpler forms of the relics last described, and these Calicinated Rings.[375] The cups are formed merely by hollows in the slightly dilated ends; but it is further interesting from being decorated with the style of incised ornaments of most frequent occurrence on the primitive British pottery. It was dug up at Brahalish, near Bantry, county Cork, and weighs 3 oz. 5 dwts. 6 grs. In contrast to this, another is engraved in the same Journal, found near the entrance lodge at Swinton Park, Yorkshire, scarcely two feet below the surface. In this beautiful specimen the terminal cups are so unusually large, that the solid bar of gold dwindles into a mere connecting link between them. The annexed figure of a very fine example found by a labourer while cutting peats in the parish of Cromdale, Inverness-shire, somewhat resembles that of Swinton Park in the size of its cups. It is from a drawing by the late Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, and represents it about two-thirds the size of the original. Similar relics of more ordinary proportions have been brought to light, at different times, in various Scottish districts. One found in an urn in the north of Scotland, in the year 1731, is described in a letter from Sir John Clerk to Mr. Gale, written shortly after its discovery; and is further illustrated in the Reliquiæ Galeanæ, by an engraved figure the size of the original.[376] Shortly afterwards, Sir John Clerk writes to his correspondent announcing the discovery of several valuable gold relics, including two other calicinated rings, brought to light in consequence of the partial draining of a loch on an estate belonging to the Earl of Stair. "I begin to think," exclaims the astonished antiquary, "that there are treasures of all kinds in Britain; for lately in a loch in Galloway there have been found three very curious pieces of gold: one a bracelet, consisting of two circles, very artificially folding or twisting into one another; now in the hands of the Countess of Stair." The other relics are described as corresponding to an example of the calicinated ring found in Galway, and engraved in the Archæologia. (Vol. ii. Plate III. fig. 1.) One of these must have been an unusually massive and valuable example, as its weight is stated to have been 15 oz. Another smaller one found along with it, and weighing only 1 oz. 4 dwts., more nearly approaches to the type of the dilated penannular ring, the cup or bulb being covered with a flat oval plate of gold. A bronze relic, of the latter shape, formerly in the collection of Dr. Samuel Hibbert, is now in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. Bronze calicinated rings have occasionally, though very rarely, been found in Ireland. The only example I know of is in the collection of Councillor Waller of Dublin.

Some antiquaries have sought to assign a sacred significance to these singular relics, and to associate them with the mysterious rites of Druidical worship. Vallancey, in particular, supposes them to have been sacrificial pateræ. There is fully as much probability, however, in the simple conjecture that they served as clasps or fastenings for the mantle. The cups, which appear to possess such a mystic significance, were not probably left void in their original state. In the example first referred to, in the Reliquiæ Galeanæ, Sir John Clerk remarks,—"The parts at the extremities are hollow, like little cups or sockets, and the sides are very thin. There is a small circle within the verge, which has had a red substance adhering to it like cement, as if it had served to fix some kind of body within the sockets." A similar appearance is still more markedly observable in an example in the possession of Thomas Brown, Esq. of Lanfine, Ayrshire. Upon showing it to an experienced jeweller, he assured me it cannot admit of a doubt that the sockets have originally contained pebbles or jewels. If it be indeed the case that in this curious gold relic we have the clasp of the ancient British chlamys, worn by the native chief or by the arch-priest when robed in his most stately pontificals, then we see in it a British personal ornament which may stand comparison with the most costly and elegant Roman fibulæ, while its essential dissimilarity from every known classic type adds to the probability of its belonging to an earlier era than the Anglo-Roman period.

Another example found about forty years ago in Argyleshire was sold for a trifle to a Glasgow goldsmith, and consigned to the crucible.[384] In 1834, some workmen quarrying stones near the bridge over Douglas Water, Carmichael, Lanarkshire, discovered a pair of armillæ weighing twenty-nine sovereigns, which were destined to the same fate; but fortunately the Marquess of Douglas learned of the discovery in time to repurchase them ere they had been converted into modern trinkets, and they are now safe in that nobleman's possession. Mr. Albert Way illustrates his communication to the Archæological Journal, "On Ancient Armillæ of Gold," &c., with an engraving of one of a very beautiful pair, found in 1848 on the estate of Mr. Dundas of Arniston, at Largo, in Fifeshire, of the same type as those previously discovered in the Loch of Galloway. Mr. Way remarks of them,—"These beautiful ornaments are formed of a thin plate or riband of gold, skilfully twisted, the spiral line being preserved with singular precision. It would be easy to multiply examples of torc ornaments more or less similar in type found in this country, and especially in Ireland; but none that I have seen possess an equal degree of elegance and perfection of workmanship."[385] Mr. Dundas furnishes the following interesting note in relation to the discovery:—"The gold bracelets were found last winter on the top of a steep bank which slopes down to the sea, among some loose earth which was being dug to be carted away. The soil is sandy, and the men had dug about three feet, where the bracelets lay. It was at a place close to the sea-shore, called the Temple, which is part of the village of Lower Largo. An old woman who has lived close to the spot all her days, says that in her youth some coffins were found there, and one man was supposed to have found a treasure, having suddenly become rich enough to build a house." The neighbourhood of Largo Bay is celebrated in the annals of Scottish Archæology for one of the most remarkable hoards ever discovered, described in a later chapter as the "silver armour of Norrie's Law." Only a very small portion of this collection was rescued from the crucible; and the moiety of the Largo Bay relics which escaped the same fate appears to have been even less, if we may credit the extremely probable tradition of the locality. With the wonted perverse modesty of Scottish antiquaries, Mr. Dundas accompanies his account of the latter discovery with a reference to the advantages of the neighbouring bay as a safe anchorage, and the probability of its having been a favourite landing-place of the northern freebooters. How strange is it, that rather than believe in the possibility of the existence of early native art, this improbable theory should have been fostered and bandied about by intelligent writers without contradiction for upwards of a century. If there were no native arts and costly treasures, what, it may be asked, brought northern freebooters to our shores? Surely some less extravagant hypothesis may be suggested than that they crossed the ocean to bury their own golden treasures in our sands. It would seem, on the contrary, to afford undoubted evidence of a tumulus or sepulchral chamber being the work of natives or of resident colonists when it is found to contain objects of value. Only the confidence inspired by the universal recognition of the sacredness of such deposits could induce the abandonment of them under cover only of a few feet of soil. It was not until a very late period—towards the end of the ninth century—that the northmen established a footing even on the remoter Scottish islands; while their possession of any but a very small portion of the mainland in the immediate vicinity of their Orkney possessions was so brief and precarious, that it might well excite our surprise to discover any traces of their presence on the shores of the Forth.

Returning from this digression, which more properly belongs to the succeeding section, I am fortunately able, through the kind services of Sir James Ramsay, Bart. of Banff, to present an engraving of another gold armilla, of the same type as those discovered at Largo, in Fifeshire, but found alike remote from any convenient anchorage, or from any known Norwegian settlement on the Scottish shores. It is now the property of Lady Menzies, and though inferior in point of workmanship to those found at Largo, is an exceedingly tasteful example of primitive skill. The original bears obvious traces of the rough marks of the hammer, though they interfere very little with the beautiful reflected lights which its elegant spirals produce. It was found in the north-west of Perthshire, in what is described in Chambers' Gazetteer as "the black wilderness called the Moor of Rannoch; a level tract of country sixteen or twenty miles long, and nearly as many broad, bounded by distant mountains; an open, silent, and solitary scene of desolation; an ocean of blackness and bogs, with a few pools of water, and a long dreary lake." Yet how many such evidences may it contain of an era when the Scottish bogs were luxuriant forests, and such relics were the personal ornaments of the hunters that pursued the chase through their sylvan glades, or of the maidens and matrons that awaited their return! The Rannoch armilla is of sufficient size to encircle a lady's arm; and though exhibiting unmistakable traces of the imperfectly developed art and mechanical skill of the Archaic Period, its beauty is sufficient, in the estimation of its present noble owner, to induce her frequently to wear it along with the more elaborate productions of the modern jeweller's skill. A still more beautiful armilla, of a different type, and manifestly belonging to a later and more perfectly developed era of art, was discovered in 1846, at Slateford, about three miles west from Edinburgh, during the progress of the works required in constructing the Caledonian Railway. The labourer who found it decamped immediately with his prize. It was shewn by him to the Treasurer of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, but while negotiations were pending for its purchase, the discoverer took fright under the apprehension of having his spoil reclaimed, and before the clue could be recovered, it was consigned to the melting-pot. It was justly described by the distinguished Danish antiquary, Mr. Worsaae, who saw it during his visit to Scotland, as a relic that would have adorned any museum in Europe. Its loss affords another painful evidence of the necessity for some modification of the Scottish law of treasure-trove, as well as for a comprehensive system for the preservation of primitive works of native art. Fortunately a fac-simile was made of it previous to its destruction, and is now preserved in the Scottish Museum. Torcs of a similar type, terminating in solid cylindrical ends, are described by Mr. Birch as not uncommon, and are referred to a late period, possibly the fourth or fifth century.[389] Unfortunately no account could be obtained of the circumstances under which the Slateford Armilla was discovered. One nearly similar, found in Cheshire, and now in the possession of Sir Philip de Grey Egerton, is engraved in Dr. Smith's "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities," with other so-called Roman relics of unquestionable native origin.

In addition to torcs, armlets, and other ornaments for the neck and arms, metal rings of various kinds have been found in Scotland as in other countries, to which, though apparently designed for personal ornament, it is more difficult to assign an exact purpose. Several of these will fall to be described in the following section, as from their well defined characteristics more probably pertaining to the latest Pagan era; but others completely agree in their archaic style and workmanship with undoubted relics of the Bronze Period. To this class belong various bronze rings, generally with broad expanded ends overlapping each other, corresponding to a well-known class of continental antiquities, which the northern archæologists believe to have been worn about the head and entwined with the hair. Two of these, of very rude workmanship, now in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, were found a few years since about 300 yards from a large cairn, in the parish of Lumphanan, Aberdeenshire, which popular local tradition affirms to mark the spot where Macbeth fell by the hand of the Thane of Fife. One of these is figured here on a small scale. Its dimensions, however, are abundantly sufficient to admit of its encircling the head, and both ends terminate in broad flattened plates, probably designed to rest on the forehead. Similar features occur in those of a later date and much more ornamental character, some of which are referred to in a future chapter. With this class also may be noted, among the relics belonging to the period in the same collection, an annulus of bronze, hollowed on the under side, measuring two and three-fourths inches in greatest diameter; and several bronze rings of various sizes, the largest three and a quarter inches in diameter, found in an urn in the parish of Kinneff, Kincardineshire.

Hair-pins and bodkins are another class of relics contained in the tombs of this period, generally of bronze, though they have occasionally been met with, and especially in Ireland, both of gold and silver, and richly set with jewels. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharp, Esq., has in his possession three magnificent ornaments of the latter class, formerly in the collection of Major Surr, such as might rival the most costly and elaborate works of the modern jeweller. Among the rarest and most curious forms of the bronze pin is that with a head hollowed like a cup; one of which has already been referred to, found along with a variety of other bronze relics, in a bog in the Isle of Skye, and now in the possession of Lord Macdonald. It exactly corresponds to an Irish example engraved in the Archæological Journal. Others have the head decorated with a variety of grooves and mouldings, and occasionally perforated, as if for attaching to them some pendulous ornament. Perforated bronze implements are likewise found, which it can hardly be doubted were used as needles; and among the rare and most perishable contents of the tumuli have occasionally been recovered small fragments of knitted or woven tissues, the productions of the primitive weaver whose bones crumble into dust on being exposed, and almost literally vanish before our eyes. Douglas engraves in the Nenia some interesting fragments of such ancient manufactures, of the herring-bone pattern, found on opening some tumuli in Greenwich Park. But by far the most perfect specimen I have ever seen was procured by Dr. Samuel Hibbert, about the year 1838, from some labourers who had found it on the chance exposure of a stone cist, while excavating for railway work, near Micklegate Bar, York. This valuable relic is now in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. It appears to be a sleeve, or the covering for the leg, and somewhat resembles the hose worn by the south-country Scottish farmers, drawn over their ordinary dress as part of their riding gear. It has been knitted, a process which doubtless preceded the art of weaving, probably by many centuries. The fabric is still strong, and, in careful keeping, may long suffice to illustrate the domestic manufactures of the ancient Briton. This is one of the examples to which reference has been made in a former chapter, as shewing the source to which it is conceived some of the ornamental designs on the early British pottery are traceable; though the resemblance is less striking here than in some more imperfect specimens of such products of the primitive knitting needle or loom. The accompanying woodcut, representing a portion of the knitted fabric, will enable the reader who is familiar with the style of ornamentation on the pottery of the tumuli, to judge for himself how far this idea is justified by the correspondence traceable between them.

An abridged extract of the account furnished by Mr. J. W. Lukis of the remarkable structure of Gavr' Innis will best illustrate the peculiar features of such decorated sepulchral chambers. Gavr' Innis is a small island, about a quarter of a mile in length, situated in the department du Morbihan, Brittany. It is elevated somewhat above the neighbouring islands, and with its tumulus, which still covers the cromlech, forms one of the most conspicuous objects of the inland Archipelago. The tumulus is about thirty feet high, and three hundred feet in circumference. The cromlech beneath forms a large central chamber, with a passage, constructed like it of huge masses of granite, leading out to the south side of the mound.

Other cromlechs in Brittany are similarly decorated; and Mr. Lukis arrives at the conclusion that in some of them the stones must have been engraved prior to their erection, from the ornaments extending round the sides which are now covered by adjoining stones. The sculptured decorations at Newgrange are no less remarkable, and the same observation has been made in regard to them, that the carvings must have been executed before the stones upon which they appear had been placed in their present positions. We shall not probably err in assigning as contemporaneous works with these rare and most primitive examples of sculptured sepulchral chambers, the rude cists occasionally found decorated with similar devices, though otherwise entirely unhewn. The annexed view of one of these incised slabs is engraved from a drawing presented to the Royal Society of Edinburgh by Colonel Hugh Montgomery of Shielmorly, in 1785, and subsequently transferred to the Society of Antiquaries. It formed the cover of a cist, discovered in digging a gravel-pit at Coilsfield, in Ayrshire, and underneath it was found an urn filled with incinerated bones. The dimensions of the stone were about five feet in length by two and a half feet in breadth. The original drawing includes the representation of the portion of the urn shewn here, which it will be seen presents only the usual characteristics of primitive sepulchral pottery. A subsequent discovery of cinerary urns at the same spot has been assumed to authenticate one of the many dubious incidents recorded by our earlier chroniclers in relation to a no less celebrated hero than "Old King Coil." Near Coilsfield House is a large tumulus, crowned with two huge blocks of granite, which local tradition affirmed to mark the place of sepulture of the redoubted hero, of whom Boece records,—"King Coyll, unwarly kepit be his nobilis, was slane, in memory wherof the place quhare he was slane wes namit efter Coyll; quhilk regioun remanis yit under the same name, or litill different thairfra, callit now Kyle."[396] Certain zealous local antiquaries having resolved to put tradition to the test, the tumulus was opened in 1837, and found to inclose a cist covered by a circular stone about three feet in diameter, beneath which four plain urns were disposed, the largest of which measured nearly eight inches in height. The author of a recent topographical work on the district of Kyle has gravely assumed this discovery as giving "to the traditionary evidence, and to the statements of early Scottish historians in regard to Coil, except with respect to the date, a degree of probability higher than they formerly possessed!"[397] What more might not the antiquaries of Kyle have been able to establish had they known of the older discovery on the same spot, and of the mysterious symbols traced on the sepulchral stone!

On one side of this inscription appears a literal representation of imperial triumph:—captives stripped and bound, above them a mounted Roman armed and in full career, and over all a female figure, supposed to bear a wreath emblematic of Victory. On the other side is the Roman eagle perched on the prostrate sea-goat, the manifest counterpart of the literal exhibition of the conquered Caledonians. The origin of the singular emblem, however, is still open to question. It may be doubted if it was a Roman emblematic device, though familiar to them as the most usual form of Capricornus, for the imperial conquerors more generally adopted the most characteristic literal representations of the vanquished. It occurs on a rare coin figured by Gough, and now ascribed to Comius, about B.C. 45; but it may also be seen as the zodiacal sign, on a very remarkable calendar cut in marble, which was found in a ruined villa of Pompeii.

There are altogether in the Hunterian Museum six altars, twelve legionary inscriptions, and several centurial stones, all found along the line of the Caledonian Wall, besides a few more of each known to be in private hands. But nearly the whole of these have been so frequently described and engraved, that it would be superfluous to repeat their inscriptions here. One interesting discovery, however, made at Castlehill, since the publication of the Caledonia Romana, deserves to be noted. It was found during the spring of 1847, by the plough striking against it, where it lay imbedded in the soil with its edge upward, as if it had been purposely buried at some former period, in the shady ravine called the Peel Glen: a dark and eerie recess, where the Campestres Æterni Britanniæ, the fairies of Scottish folk-lore, have not yet entirely ceased to claim the haunt accorded to them by immemorial popular belief. The Roman relic discovered here is a square slab, considerably injured at the one end, but with the inscription fortunately so slightly mutilated that little difficulty can be felt in supplying the blank. The stone measures two feet six inches in greatest length, and two feet four inches in breadth. A cable-pattern border surrounds it, within which is the inscription.

This sculptured tablet is nearly the exact counterpart of another legionary inscription found about one hundred and fifty years since in the neighbourhood of Duntocher. In the latter the number of paces is defaced in the inscription, and unfortunately the duplicate recently discovered, which should have supplied the deficiency, is also mutilated, the break passing through where probably the additional mark of the fourth thousand originally stood. Both Horsley and Stuart guessed from the smallness of the space left for the figures in the former, that it must have been a round number, either III. or IIII. This argument is equally conclusive in regard to the inscription recently found, and little doubt can be entertained that the reading should be four thousand paces. It will doubtless appear to most men of this nineteenth century a matter of sufficient indifference, now that the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway occupies the line of the Roman vallum, whether the vexillation of the Twentieth Legion dedicated three or four thousand paces of their long obliterated wall to the Emperor whose name it bore. This tablet, however, establishes an additional fact suggested by some previous discoveries, that the legionaries were wont to erect these stones in pairs at the beginning and the end of their labours, thereby the more distinctly defining the extent of the work dedicated by them to the favourite emperor. The inscriptions heretofore found at the Castlehill Station, furnish no evidence of the presence of the Twentieth Legion as the garrison of that fort. At one time it appears to have been held by a detachment of the Second Legion, Augusta—the sculptors of the curious emblematic relievo of Caledonian defeat; and at another by the fourth cohort of Gaulish auxiliaries, as we learn from the votive altar of their prefect. The former were doubtless the contemporaries of the Twentieth Legion who, located at Duntocher, reared there the Roman fort, and constructed the vallum eastward till it joined the work of the Second Legion at Castlehill. This is confirmed by the diversity of the sculpture on the two slabs. Underneath each inscription is the wild boar, the symbol almost invariably figured on the works of the Twentieth Legion. They are disposed, however, in opposite directions, so that when the slabs were placed on the southern or Roman side of the wall, where they would be seen from the adjacent military road, the boars of the twin legionary stones would be facing each other.[415] Still more recent agricultural operations on the Castlehill farm have brought to light during the autumn of the present year, 1850, extensive indications of the remains of buildings in the immediate vicinity of the Peel Glen, where the tablet of the Twentieth Legion was discovered. The most remarkable feature hitherto exposed by these later operations is the singularly sculptured base of a column figured here; but these chance discoveries leave little room to doubt that a systematic trenching of the area of the fort would amply repay the antiquary for his labour.

Towards the close of 1846, during the excavations for the Hawick branch of the North British Railway, several circular pits or shafts were laid open a little to the east of the village of Newstead, and nearly on the line of the Roman road, an additional portion of which was exposed by the railway-cutting. Two of these shafts were regularly built round the sides with stones, apparently gathered from the bed of the river, and measured each two feet six inches in diameter, and about twenty feet deep. The others greatly varied both in width and depth, and were filled with a black fetid matter, mixed with earth, and containing numerous fragments of pottery, oyster shells, antlers of the red deer, and bones and skulls of cattle, apparently the Bos Longifrons: the skulls being broken on the frontal bone as if with the blow of a pole-axe, or possibly of the sacrificial securis. A piece of a skull discovered in the same place seems to have been that of a small-sized horse. In one of the pits the skeleton of a man was found standing erect with a spear beside him, and accompanied with mortaria and other undoubted remains of Roman pottery. The spear-head, which measures fourteen inches in length, and only one and a quarter in greatest breadth of blade, is figured here. The skull has been already described and compared with the crania of the Scottish tumuli in a previous chapter;[421] and the weapon represented here, as well as various mortaria, urns, coins, and other relics from the same locality, are now in the possession of John Miller, Esq., C.E., under whose direction the railway was constructed. A bronze kettle, lachrymatories, bricks, clay tubes, stones cut with the cable-pattern and the like familiar classic mouldings, and numerous other Roman remains, all attest the important character of the Roman town on this site. Coins from the same locality are also in the possession of Thomas Tod, Esq., of Drygrange, and Dr. J. A. Smith. In so far as these are to be received in evidence of the length of time during which the Eildon station was occupied, they extend over a longer period than we have any reason to believe the Roman colonists possessed the province of Valentia; including those of Vespasian, Domitian, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Severus, as well as of Diocletian, Maximianus, Carausius, Constantius Chlorus, and Constantine. It is to be borne in remembrance, however, that among the Britons of that early period a coin was money whose ever image or superscription it bore, and doubtless the Roman mintage continued to circulate long after the last of the military colonists had abandoned the province of Valentia.

Pennant describes in his Second Tour, "certain curiosities in a small but select private cabinet," found in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, which had escaped his notice on his former visit. Notwithstanding their very great local value they have experienced the usual fate of private collections, and are no longer known. "Among other antiquities in the cabinet of Mr. John Macgouan, discovered near this city, is an elegant brass image of a beautiful Naiad, with a little satyr in one arm. On her head is a wine-vat or some such vessel, to denote her an attendant on Bacchus; and beneath one foot a subverted vase, expressive of her character as a nymph of the fountains." If this beautiful group still exists the description must render it easily identified. Other relics in the same private collection, and it may be assumed, from the connexion, included in Pennant's description as discovered in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, are a bronze vessel with a perforated top, possibly designed for incense, and an iron scourge or flagrum, one of the dreadful instruments of torture used by the Romans, chiefly for the discipline of slaves, but afterwards employed in the persecutions of the primitive Christians. Lastly, it is not unworthy of note, in passing, that in the foundations of the ancient Chapel of St. Margaret, in the Castle, an early Romanesque work, there are bricks which may possibly be only fragments of medieval floor-tiles, but which more readily suggest the idea of their being traces of older Roman buildings, similar to those which remained in the contemporary Church of St. Michael at Inveresk, until its recent demolition, and are still recognised amid the later masonry of Dumbarton Castle, the Theodosia of Richard of Cirencester. Independently of this, however, evidence enough has, I think, been adduced to establish the fact that a Roman colonia existed on the site of Edinburgh. Yet it was not without reason that this was assumed as probable by older Scottish antiquaries in the absence of such proof, since the admirable military positions presented by the locality are too obvious to have escaped the practised eyes of the Roman engineers established on the neighbouring coast; especially as they had previously been occupied by the native Britons, as is manifest by the discoveries of their cists and cinerary urns, as well as of their primitive weapons, in the immediate vicinity. Taking these latter arguments into consideration, the mere fact of the Roman roads from Newstead—and perhaps Curia—from Cramond and Inveresk, all meeting in the valley between the Calton and the Castle Hills, is of itself good presumptive evidence in favour of a Roman post having occupied the site.

beside which lay the remains of a helmet and spear, nearly consumed by rust. Another stamped pig of lead was found at Kirkintilloch, on the line of the wall; and examples from various English localities, inscribed with the names and titles of Roman Emperors, are preserved in the British Museum, and in private collections. One of these, marked IMP. ADRIANI. AVG, supplies a new argument relative to ancient British metallurgy. It was found near the lead mines of Mr. More of Linley Hall, county Salop, where an old drift, distinguished from those of modern date by various evidences of imperfect mining, is still designated the Roman Vein. Ancient mining tools have been found in it, and Sir R. I. Murchison states his opinion that the block of lead is the product of the neighbouring British mine.[437] Another pig of lead, with its Roman inscription partially defaced by oxidation, was recently dug up at Chester, and is figured in the Journal of the Archæological Association,[438] along with one found at Broughton Brook, Hants, and still preserved at Bossington Park. The latter is inscribed NERONIS. AVG. EX. KIAN. IIII. COS. BRIT., and supplies a remarkably interesting example of the historical value frequently pertaining to such relics. The inscription refers to the Cangi or Kiangi, immediately prior to the reverses experienced by the Romans from the courage and skill of the heroic Boadicea. The precise date is furnished, Nero having been consul for the fourth time only the year before; and it is suggested, with great probability, that this block of lead was on its way for exportation, composing part of the tribute, the harsh exaction of which contributed to incite the Britons to resistance.

But by far the most remarkable of the recently discovered remains of the Roman occupants of Scotland is a medicine stamp, acquired by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, along with a very valuable collection of antiquities, bequeathed to them by E. W. A. Drummond Hay, Esq., formerly one of the secretaries of the Society. From his notes it appears that it was found in the immediate vicinity of Tranent Church, East-Lothian, in a quantity of debris, broken tiles, and brick-dust, which may not improbably have once formed the residence and laboratory of Lucius Vallatinus, the Roman oculist, whose name this curious relic supplies. It consists of a small cube of pale green stone, two and three-fifth inches in length, and engraved on two sides as in the annexed woodcut; the letters being reversed for the purpose of stamping the unguents or other medicaments retailed by its original possessor.

which may be rendered: DEÆ MINERVÆ, COHORTIS SECUNDÆ TUNGRORUM, MILITIA EQUESTRIS CONSTANTINI LEGIONIS, CUI PRÆEST CAIUS LUCIUS AUSPEX PRÆFECTUS. This altar remained a few years since, and I believe still exists, as here described. But it is no solitary addition to the relics of this second cohort of the Tungrians, whose memorials are even more abundant than those of the Second Legion, Augusta, on the wall of Antoninus. The Tungrians were among the first Roman legions to enter Scotland, and appear to have been long stationed at Blatum Bulgium. It was indeed to two Tungrian and three Batavian cohorts that Agricola was principally indebted for his victory over Galgacus. The valuable collection of Charles Kirkpatrick Sharp, Esq., includes three other altars, found about the year 1812 at Birrens, all of them the fruits of pious vows by the same Tungrian cohort. The largest of these is a beautiful altar, in the very finest state of preservation, of which the woodcut conveys a good idea. It measures fifty-five and a half inches in height by thirty inches in greatest breadth at top, and twenty and a quarter inches across the inscribed front. The inscription may be thus rendered: MARTI ET VICTORIÆ AUGUSTÆ CENTURIÆ TIRONUM MILITUM IN COHORTE SECUNDA TUNGRORUM, CUI PRÆEST SILVIUS AUSPEX, PRÆFECTUS. VOTUM SOLVERUNT LUBENTES MERITO.

By means of the Irvine MS. in the Scottish Antiquaries' Library, another altar pertaining to the same cohort is recovered, dedicated to the Father of Olympus. It is a plain squared stone, measuring four feet in height, two feet in breadth, and thirteen inches in thickness, without any ornament or moulding to relieve its bald form. It is stated by Mr. Irvine to have been taken out of the heart of the wall of the old church at Hoddam, when demolished, in 1815. The inscription is complete, and clearly legible; the mark ∞ is by no means of rare occurrence, signifying a thousand. Several of the letters in this, as well as in some of the previous examples, are joined for the purpose of abbreviation, but without affecting the reading.

It is only very recently, even in England, that the names of the potters stamped on Roman fictile ware, have attracted much attention or been carefully recorded. Through the exertions of Mr. Charles Roach Smith and other zealous archæologists, we are now in possession of ample means for comparing new discoveries with the potters' stamps of London, Colchester, and York; but no collection of Scoto-Roman pottery exists, so far as I am aware, with the exception of the few specimens in the Museum of Scottish Antiquaries. The following apology for a Scottish list must therefore meanwhile suffice. It may perhaps form the nucleus of a more ample one at a subsequent period, by which to enable us to test the question of native or foreign manufacture, and to trace out the sources from whence the Roman colonists of Britain imported their finer fictile wares. The Scottish Museum furnishes a few curious specimens from Castlecary, some of which are given here in fac-simile. The first occurs on fine black ware, and looks like the imperfect attempt of some native or provincial potter to imitate a Roman stamp which he probably could not read. The second and third may be most fitly described as cuneiform. The larger of the two is on thin unglazed red ware. The fourth is on a patera of fine glazed Samian ware, and furnishes a good example of the mode of joining the letters together, with which English antiquaries are familiar, not only on the pottery, but also on the altars and inscribed tablets of the Anglo-Roman period. All these impressions are clear and distinct, so that their peculiarities are designed. Two of the other Castlecary stamps are furnished me by Mr. Buchanan, and the remainder are in my own possession, having been picked up in the neighbourhood of the railway embankment since its completion. For those from Newstead I am chiefly indebted to Dr. J. A. Smith.

In many of the uncultivated districts of Scotland iron ore occurs in the forms already noted as the most easily adapted for conversion into metal; and it is by no means improbable that such sources may have supplied it to the Celtic metallurgists, long before they had learned the difficult processes requisite for converting the native iron-stone into metal. Whencesoever the art was derived, numerous Highland traditions and even the names of particular localities point to the excellency of the ancient Celtic smiths. In Blair-Atholl, for example, a district abounding with cairns and other primitive memorials, is Dail-na-Cardoch—the dale of the smith's shop, or rather of the iron work; and Dail-na-mein—the dale of the mineral. "Near these," says the old Statist of the parish of Blair-Atholl, "and along the side of the hill, down to Blair, are still to be seen the holes wherein they smelted the iron ore." Similar pits scattered over the northern moors are described as the kilns in which peats were charred for smelting. "There is still to be seen in Glenturret," says Logan in his Scottish Gael, "a shieling called Renna Cardick—the smith's dwelling—with the ruins of houses, heaps of ashes, and other indications of an iron manufactory. Old poems mention it as a work where the metal, of which swords and other arms were made some miles lower down the valley, was prepared. In Sutherland also are distinct marks of the smelting and working of iron with fires of wood."[452] In Islay is still shewn the spot where stood the forge of its once celebrated smiths, and the rocks from whence the iron was dug which they fabricated into the renowned "Lann-Ila," or Islay blades.[453] In the Sean Dana le Oisian also occurs the elaborated poetic description of the ancient bow and quiver, concluding 'S ceann o'n cheard Mac Pheidearain; i.e., and the head of the arrow from the smith MacPhedran. Among the curious relics preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries is the rude pair of iron forge-tongs figured above. They measure thirty and a half inches in length in their present imperfect state, and are described in the minutes of the Society as having been discovered buried under the steep bank of a river in Glenorchy, thirty feet below the surface. It is farther added, in the neighbourhood of the spot great quantities of charcoal were found, and other indications that anciently there had been a smelting work there, though no trace of it now exists in the history or traditions of the country.

These remarkable buildings can hardly be viewed with too great an interest by the Scottish archæologist. They are the earliest native architectural remains which we possess, the cromlechs and stone circles being at best only rudimentary and symbolic or representative forms of architecture. They constitute, therefore, a most important element in our national history, supplying very definite facts relating to an ancient era of which we have received no other information in any degree so trustworthy. The first point accordingly is to ascertain, with such accuracy and minuteness as may now be possible, the precise nature of these facts. Careful investigations have accordingly been carried on of late years, accompanied in several instances with excavations around the buildings and within the inclosed area, the results of which are worthy of note. In more than one instance human remains have been found on removing the accumulated rubbish and debris from these ancient ruins, suggesting the possibility of their correspondence to the Nuraghes of Sardinia, which they somewhat resemble in outward form. It is altogether inconceivable, however, to ascribe a sepulchral origin to these chambered towers; while the same excavations which have discovered the remains of the dead have also in most cases furnished no less conclusive evidence of the former presence of the living. But, it has been already observed, the archæologist finds both "knowledge and understanding" in the grave, and esteems it a conceivable source of valuable insight to have even these dead to question on the subject. Dr. Macculloch mentions the discovery of human bones in the Burgh of Glenelg, but without entering into details; but the results of a careful examination of another of these towers, near Dunrobin, in the summer of 1849, elicited more definite information. On removing the rubbish from the chambers and galleries, a human skeleton was found in one of them, while excavations within the open area disclosed abundant traces of a fire in the centre, and also discovered several stone quernes or hand-mills. The skeleton here appeared obviously to belong to a later period than the quernes and the central fire; but no accompanying relics of the deceased were found to tell how long the fire of the old garrison had been extinguished ere the chamber of their fort was made a receptacle for the dead. More satisfactory results attended the examination of the Burgh of Burghar, another of these singular towers in the parish of Evie, Orkney. It is described by Mr. A. Peterkin, in a letter addressed to Dr. Hibbert in 1825, as the most perfect though not the largest of several in the neighbourhood. Several barrows occur in the vicinity, some of which have been opened and found to contain urns. The central area of the Burgh of Burghar was nearly filled up with the accumulated ruins and rubbish of centuries, and resisted more than one effort to explore it; but the son of the clergyman of the parish renewed the attempt in the spring of 1825, and succeeded in partially investigating the contents of the ruined area. On digging out the earth and rubbish, he found a human skeleton, beside which lay part of a deer's horn, and the rude bone comb represented here, about one-third the size of the original, which is now deposited in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. Mr. Peterkin appears also to have forwarded the skull to Dr. Hibbert, though it has not been preserved. His description of it has already been noticed in a former chapter.[471]

Mr. W. H. Fotheringham of Kirkwall, Orkney, has communicated to me an account of the recent exploration of another ruin of a circular fort, apparently belonging to the same class of buildings as those previously described. It occupies as usual an isolated promontory, called the How of Hoxay, in South Ronaldshay, immediately opposite to the Bay of Scupa. Rising abruptly from the small Bay of Hoxay is the How or Height of Hoxay, on the top of which are the remains of a circular building. Until brought to light in the course of recent excavations it was entirely buried beneath the accumulated soil, and presented only the appearance of an earthen tumulus. It has now been completely exposed externally, and the inclosed area excavated to the surface of the rock, so that the work of exploration has been most effectually performed. The external wall measures fourteen feet in thickness, and about eight feet in greatest height, and incloses an area of about thirty feet in diameter. The construction of the wall is singular, the exterior and interior facings appearing to have been carefully built with unhewn stones fitted together with great nicety, and the intervening space filled up with stones thrown in with little care or design. No cement had been used, but the wall is still strong and without any displacement in the facings, though so much ruined that no certain idea can now be formed of its original height. The great quantity of stones which lay both within and about it served, however, to shew that only a small portion of the original fabric remains. The accompanying view of the most perfect side of the interior will convey a better idea of the general appearance and details than any description could do. The two upright stones about half way up the wall on the left of the drawing appear to be the side-posts either of a door or outlook, to which the projecting step below was probably designed to give access; but it was found built up like the other parts of the walls, and the proprietor having since, in a misdirected zeal for the preservation of the ruin, had the whole pointed with lime, it is no longer possible to detect the additions of later builders. Round the inner circumference of the wall upright flag-stones project at intervals of six feet apart. Only six of these now remain, but the fragments of others were discovered among the debris. In the recesses formed by these projecting stones there were found several stone quernes, a shallow stone mortar and pestle, or corn-crusher, of the rudest and most primitive construction, and also two smaller circular stone vessels, the one seven and the other five inches in diameter, and both about four and a half inches deep. The remains of the doorway in the eastern and most ruined part of the wall appear to have been of an unusually intricate construction, but these also have unfortunately been obliterated by later repairs, the whole wall having been raised to a uniform height, and a platform and flagstaff superadded in very questionable taste. The proprietor was actuated in his labours by a sincere desire for the preservation of this venerable ruin, and antiquaries must respect his motives, though he has not effected it exactly in the way they would have wished. I am favoured by Mr. Fotheringham with the following description and sketch:—"As to the door on the east side, the information I have got is that it was contracted by means of slates thus; and that at the side of the door was a chamber in the thickness of the wall leading from the interior, from which there was an aperture or slit to the widest part of the doorway, either for the purpose of outlook, or for projecting a weapon against a hostile intruder." This arrangement in the construction of the doorway more nearly approaches the plans for outlook and defence with which we are familiar in medieval military architecture. It is greatly to be regretted that no opportunity was afforded for more accurate observation.

Lieutenant-Colonel Miller in his "Inquiry respecting the Site of the Battle of Mons Grampius," thus describes some of the antiquities of the locality, which he conceives, with considerable probability, to be relics of native art contemporary with the Roman invasion of North Britain in the second century:—"At a point near Gateside a vast cairn stood until about forty-two years ago, and there the last stand of the Caledonians in a body seems to have been made. Upon removing this cairn many bones were found, and great quantities of iron. Many of the pieces were very small, so as to be called knives and forks by the workmen. Others again were very large; too much so, one might almost suppose, from the account I have had of them, even for the enormes gladios of the Caledonians. None of them have unfortunately been preserved, as they were probably completely oxidized, and reckoned of no value. Great numbers of beads were also found in the cairn, and distributed about the country at the time as curiosities. A few of these are still preserved, and serve to convey rather a favourable idea of the state of the arts at the time. Some of them were of a long elliptical form, and made of jet; others were made of a bluish glass, and shaded with spiral or circular lines; while others were white, enamelled with red and blue spots, the colours of which are as vivid as ever."[472] The same writer describes a great variety of stone and bronze relics found under a variety of circumstances throughout that district of Fifeshire. Many of these, however, must have belonged to very different periods, and most probably also to different races that succeeded each other in the occupation of the fertile region of country lying between the estuaries of the Forth and Tay, though all are pressed by him into the service, in order to add to the accumulated evidence by which he seeks to assign a precise site to the famed battle-field of Agricola and Galgacus. On the 22d November 1849, some farm-servants engaged in draining a field at East Langton, in the parish of Kirknewton, Mid-Lothian, found a skeleton about three and a half feet below the surface. The body lay south-west by north-east, imbedded in moss about three inches thick. Near the feet were found an iron knife, and a dagger with the remains of a wooden handle and a square gold plate and knob on the end of the haft, both greatly corroded and adhering together from the rust. There were also found in the same grave a wooden comb, broken and very much decayed, and a rude bodkin of bone measuring three and a quarter inches long, which had doubtless been employed in fastening the dress of the deceased. The knife is perforated with three holes, by which a handle must have been attached to it, but it is too much corroded to afford any correct idea of its original form. Near to these lay a wooden vessel and an earthen urn coated with green glaze, and rudely ornamented with a waved pattern; both of which were broken by the carelessness of the workmen. The accompanying woodcut represents the dagger and bone pin, the former of which measures with the handle thirteen and a quarter inches long. Nearly at the same time a quantity of billon pennies of James II., of the Edinburgh Mint,[473] were discovered in the field where this interesting sepulchral deposit was found. But it had been in cultivation upwards of fifty years, and there is no reason to think that any connexion was traceable between the two discoveries.

The glazed pottery accompanying the iron weapons at East Langton is a characteristic feature of the sepulchral deposits of the last Pagan period in Scotland, and is perhaps one of the earliest indications of Anglo-Saxon influence. During the progress of the railway works for constructing a branch line of the North British Railway to North-Berwick, in 1848, two stone cists were discovered on the Abbey Farm, both of them measuring a little more than four feet in length, and each containing a human skeleton. In one of them was found an iron sword and dagger, both so much corroded as to break and crumble to pieces in the careless hands of the railway navies. At the side of the skeletons, in both cists, were urns of rough grey ware, ornamented externally with parallel grooves running round them, and internally covered with a green glaze. The woodcut represents one of these rescued in a partially dilapidated state from the railway excavators, and now in the possession of Andrew Richardson, Esq. It measures fully six inches in height, and it will be seen bears a singularly close resemblance to another urn of somewhat smaller dimensions, found in Aberdeenshire, and described below.

The Old Statistical Account of the parish of Rathen contains a description of three cairns at Memsie, on the eastern coast of Aberdeenshire, which, it is remarked, "were very large, till of late, that great quantities of the stones have been taken away from two of them. The remains of human bones were lately found in one of them." The renewed invasion of one of these cairns about the year 1824 led to the discovery of the small urn here engraved. It measures four and a quarter inches in height, three inches in diameter at the bottom, and four at the top. Externally it is rough and destitute of any ornament, except the six parallel grooves which appear in the woodcut. Within it is entirely coated with a dark green glaze. Unfortunately, however, its most remarkable features no longer exist. Mr. John Gordon of Cairnbulg remarks in a letter with which he accompanied the donation of the urn to the Society in 1827,—"The urn has two projecting ears opposite each other, which fitted into corresponding double ones attached to a lid, by which the vessel, when found, was closely covered; and the whole of the projections were perforated to admit a pin which completed the fastening. The lid was unfortunately broken in opening the urn. It was made of the same materials, and fitted into the mouth which was formed for its reception." Part of the rim has also been broken away, but enough remains to shew, that above each projecting ear is an opening into which the lid had fitted as an additional security. No mention is made of anything having been found within the urn thus carefully secured, but beside it lay a sword, unfortunately no longer known to exist. It is described as "one-edged; the hilt of brass, the blade iron, seventeen inches and a quarter long, one inch and a quarter broad at the guard, from whence it tapers to the point; when found it was enclosed in a wooden scabbard." It appears to have borne considerable resemblance to an iron sword found by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, in a tumulus opened by him at King's Barrow, in the Vale of Warminster, "which had a handle of oakwood. The blade was about eighteen inches long, two inches wide, and single-edged."

The iron relics of the Teutonic Period by no means yield the same amount of information as we have been able to derive from the older weapons and implements of bronze, chiefly owing to the extreme susceptibility of the newer metal to oxidation under nearly all the circumstances in which both classes of antiquities are discovered. This want, however, we shall find abundantly supplied from other sources, including the contemporary works in bronze. Among the most characteristic remains of the defensive armour of this period frequently met with, the umbones of shields occupy a prominent place. The larger ones are of sufficient size to admit the hand, and resemble in this, as well as in other respects, those frequently met with in England. They suffice to shew that the shield was not worn on the arm like the Roman clypeus, but held by a bar crossing the centre of the projecting boss, the hollow of which received and protected the hand. In this it closely corresponded to the bronze buckler of the previous period, which probably continued to be used contemporarily with it. An example of an iron umbo found in Morayshire is figured on a subsequent page. Another, referred to in a brief summary given in the Nenia Britannica, of relics found at Westray, Orkney, is described as "a very small iron vessel like a head-piece, only four and a half inches in the hollow, bruised apparently by a sword or an axe." In the Scottish Museum is a small iron boss, found at Corbiehall, near Carstairs, Lanarkshire, which is only slightly raised in the centre. The locality where it was discovered has furnished many Roman remains, among which it most probably ought to be classed. In general form it closely resembles an exceedingly beautiful boss of a Roman shield in the same collection, made of bronze, and decorated in relief with a crowned female figure seated, holding Victory in her hand, and surrounded with the spoils of war.

In the month of November 1830, some labourers engaged in digging for stones, in a field near Quendale, Orkney, came upon the remains of an old building, and, in digging among the rubbish, they found a decayed horn, which appeared to have been wrapped up in a piece of cloth, but the whole crumbled to pieces on exposure to the air. On the outside of the horn were what were at first supposed to be metal hoops, but which proved to be six silver bracelets. They were penannular, and tapered nearly to a point at the ends. The largest of them were square, and ornamented with a kind of herring-bone pattern; the remainder were round. The weight of the heaviest was nearly six ounces, that of the least one ounce, and one which weighed nearly one and a-half ounce, had silver wire coiled round it. Within the horn were pieces of other bracelets, and a quantity of Anglo-Saxon silver coins, including those of Ethered, Athelstan, Edwg, Eadgar, and Ethelred; and alongside were also discovered several broken stone basins. A few of the coins were preserved, but the armillæ, and the remainder of the hoard, were disposed of to a goldsmith in Lerwick, and melted down. Slight sketches of the armillæ, and a deposition taken before the sheriff-substitute of Zetland by the discoverers, are deposited in the library of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Barry describes another hoard extremely similar to this, found at Caldale near Kirkwall. Two horns were discovered by a man while digging peats: they contained about three hundred silver coins of Canute the Great, and near them lay "several pieces of fine silver, in the form of crescents or fibulæ, differing from one another a good deal, both in figure and dimensions. Some of them were flat, others angled; some round, some nearly met at the ends; others were wider at the extremities; one resembled in shape the staple of a door, and another a loop for hanging clothes upon."[486] A portion of the coins alone escaped the usual fate of British relics of the precious metals. A silver armilla, of the same type as those discovered at Cuerdale, was found, in the year 1756, in a cist, along with a quantity of burnt human bones, underneath a large cairn at Blackerne, Kirkcudbrightshire, when the stones composing the cairn were taken to inclose a plantation. It is now in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. A silver bracelet, of a rarer and more artistic design, was found at Brough Head, Morayshire, by labourers engaged in digging the foundation for a new house, and is figured of the full size in the Archæologia Scotica.[487] The woodcut represents another remarkable Scottish relic, a massive silver chain, found in the year 1808, near Inverness, in the course of the excavations for the Caledonian Canal. It now forms one of the most valued treasures of the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. It weighs a little more than ninety-three ounces, and each link is open, and only bent together, so that it may perhaps be assumed with considerable probability, that it was designed to be used in barter, being in fact silver ring money. There are thirty-three links in all, each of them measuring one and nine-tenths inches in diameter, and about two-fifths of an inch in thickness, excepting two at one extremity, and one at the other, each of which are two and one-fifth inches in diameter. With this exception the links appear to be of uniform size, and would probably be found to correspond in weight. An additional link, which was in an imperfect state, was destroyed by the original discoverers, in an attempt to ascertain the nature of the metal. Another silver chain is described in the New Statistical Account, which was found within the area of an intrenched camp, about two miles above Greenlaw, Berwickshire, at the confluence of the Blackadder and Faungrass rivers.

The bronze relics of this period are much more abundant, and here it is that we, for the first time, come in contact with examples bearing undoubted traces of Scandinavian art, though these belong more correctly to the succeeding era, and will be treated of in detail, among objects of the primitive Christian Period of Scotland. The distinguishing characteristic of the ornamentation of the last Pagan era, as has already been remarked, is its definiteness and positive development of a peculiar style, along with the imitation of natural forms. A very great similarity, however, is traceable in the ornamentation of the whole northern races of Europe throughout a very considerable period; and in numerous cases it is only by a careful discrimination of details, or from some well-defined objects peculiar to certain districts or countries, that we are able to assign a specific epoch or nationality to discoveries. The interlaced ornament, or "runic knotwork," as it is customary to call it, is not unfrequently referred to as of Scandinavian origin; but of this there is not the slightest evidence.[488] It was familiar to the Greeks and Romans, and in its classic forms is known to architects by the term Guilloche, borrowed from the French. A beautiful and early example of its use occurs on the torus of the Ionic columns of the Erectheum at Athens. It pertains, in like manner, to Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, Irish and Scottish Celtic art, and more or less to that of all the Northern races of the last Pagan era; while it forms a no less characteristic ornament of early Christian art. In Scotland especially it is the commonest decoration of a very remarkable class of monuments, more particularly referred to hereafter, but of which it is sufficient meanwhile to say that they do not occur, so far as I am aware, in any part of the Hebrides, or in the Orkney and Shetland Islands, where the Scandinavian influence was longest predominant in Scotland, and its relics are still most frequently found. The suggestive source of the beautiful interlaced patterns may be very naturally traced, as in the ornamentation of the earlier pottery, to the knitting and netting of the primitive industrial arts; nor is it at all necessary to assume that it was introduced from Greece to the north of Europe, though it is found, to a certain extent, common to both. But, indeed, many of the earlier decorations of the Scandinavian Bronze Period are also to be found in use by the Romans. The annular ornaments figured in the Guide to Northern Archæology occur on almost every Anglo-Roman patella; the spiral and double spiral ornaments are both frequently met with on mosaics; and an urn, shewn in the same work, is surrounded with one of the simplest varieties of the frette, a still more familiar classic pattern.[489] The only essentially characteristic ornaments of the arts of the northern European races are the serpentine and dragon patterns. In so far as these are not the obvious creations of fancy, they are clearly traceable to an eastern source, the traditions of which, it will be seen, are even more obvious in monuments of Scottish than of Scandinavian art.

So much has been already said in reference to the legitimate conclusions deducible from the various relics of primitive art, that it will now suffice to indicate a few of the objects most characteristic of this period. One of the most familiar of these is the snake bracelet. Examples of it have been very frequently found in Scotland, and several very fine ones are preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. The annexed woodcut represents one of these, weighing thirty-one ounces. It was found at Pitalpin, near Dundee, in 1732, and bears considerable resemblance to another, and still more beautiful one, found, about the year 1823, among the sand-hills of Culbin, near the estuary of the river Findhorn, Morayshire. The circumstances attending the discovery of the latter are thus narrated by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, in a communication which accompanied a drawing of it exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland:—"Some of the sand-hills of Culbin are a hundred feet in perpendicular height; but the material composing them being an extremely comminuted granite sand, is so loose and light, that, except in a dead calm, it is in eternal motion, so that parts of the original soil are laid entirely bare. Though flints are not included in the mineralogical list of this country, yet there is one small spot among the sand-hills where flinty fragments are often picked up; and as elf-bolts, or flint arrow-heads, have been not unfrequently found on this spot, it is supposed that a manufactory of those rude aboriginal weapons may have once existed there. The finder having accidentally lost his gun-flint, went to the spot to look for a flint to replace it, and in searching about he discovered the antique."[490] The weight of the bracelet is two pounds nine ounces avoirdupois, and the form of the snake-heads, with which both ends terminate, seems to indicate that they have been originally jewelled. It can hardly be supposed that either of the above beautiful, but ponderous ornaments, were designed to be worn on the wrist. Such a weight would cumber the sword-arm of the most athletic hero; and this is still further confirmed by the form of the example found at Pitalpin, the inner edges of which are so sharp that they would not only gall the arm, but would even be apt to wound it on any violent action. Such ponderous bracelets were, in all probability, honorary gifts or votive offerings, though there is also reason to believe that they may have been regarded in the same light as the Scandinavian sacramental rings previously referred to. A very remarkable passage in illustration of this occurs in the Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 876, where it is recorded that when the Danes made peace with Alfred, at Wareham in Wessex, they gave him the noblest amongst them as hostages, and swore oaths to him upon the holy bracelet. (Halza Beage.)[491] Examples, however, of bronze snake bracelets of lighter weight, and evidently designed to be worn, are of more frequent occurrence. In 1833 there were exhibited at a meeting of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, two bronze bracelets in the shape of serpents, found in the district of Bunrannoch, Perthshire, on the northern declivity of the mountain Schehallion. The one weighed one pound two ounces, the other, one pound fourteen and a-half ounces avoirdupois, and they are described as similar to the armilla found at Findhorn.[492] Another example in the Society's Museum, covered with verd antique, is a light and beautiful bracelet, of the same type, weighing only ten ounces.

Among the earliest definite forms of Northern art, the serpent or dragon is the most common subject adopted for direct imitation, or as a suggestive basis for the play of fancy, by the primitive artist. The woodcut represents a singular bronze ornament in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, the history of which is uncertain, though its style of workmanship completely accords with that of other well-known native relics. It is figured about one-third the size of the original. The protuberances on the snake-formed bracelets and other relics, evidently designed originally to represent the scales of the serpent, appear to have latterly become a conventional ornament, and are to be found on bronze relics unaccompanied by any more defined features of the snake or dragon. The annexed woodcut represents a very curious bronze relic in the Scottish Museum, whereon the triple snakelike form and scales are represented, but without the head or any more distinct characteristic of the reptile. It measures five inches in its greatest diameter, exclusive of the projecting scale-like ornaments. The exact locality where it was found has not been noted; but another example in the same collection, a little smaller in size, is believed to have been dug up in Argyleshire. It measures externally four and four-fifths inches in greatest diameter. Its most probable use is as a decoration of the arm, or possibly as a neck ornament; but it is quite inflexible, and if worn on the neck must have been permanently affixed to the inheritor of this cumbrous badge of honour. The larger of the two, which is figured here, weighs fully two pounds avoirdupois.

Of the commoner forms of torcs, head-rings, armlets, and other personal ornaments of this period, examples are not rare in Scotland, though the want of any efficient system for securing them from destruction, when of the precious metals, or of being buried in private collections and almost as effectually lost for nearly all useful purposes, renders it difficult to obtain accurate accounts of the great majority of discoveries. Some of the simpler bronze torcs and head-rings have already been described among the relics of the Archaic Period. But one of the most beautiful neck ornaments ever found in Scotland is a beaded torc discovered by a labourer while cutting turf in Lochar Moss, Dumfriesshire, about two miles to the north of Cumlongan Castle; and exhibited by Mr. Thomas Gray of Liverpool at the York Meeting of the Archæological Institute. It is engraved on Plate III., along with the bronze vessel in which it was inclosed. The beads, which measure rather more than an inch in diameter, are boldly ribbed and grooved longitudinally. Between every two ribbed beads there is a small flat one formed like the wheel of a pulley, or the vertebral bone of a fish. The portion which must have passed round the nape of the neck is flat and smooth on the inner edge, but chased on the upper side in an elegant incised pattern corresponding to the ornamentation already described as characteristic of this period, and bearing some resemblance to that on the beautiful bronze diadem found at Stitchel in Roxburghshire, figured on a subsequent page. The beads are disconnected, having apparently been strung upon a metal wire, as was the case in another example found in the neighbourhood of Worcester. A waved ornament chased along the outer edge of the solid piece seems to have been designed in imitation of a cord; the last tradition, as it were, of the string with which the older necklace of shale or jet was secured. Altogether this example of the class of neck ornaments to which Mr. Birch has assigned the appropriate name of Beaded Torcs, furnishes an exceedingly interesting illustration of the development of imitative design, in contradistinction to the more simple and archaic funicular torc, which, though continued in use down to a late period, pertains to the epoch of primitive art.

Various other personal ornaments have been discovered in Scotland, manifestly belonging to this later era when artistic design had been fully developed, and its works were characterized by a well-defined style. Of one of the most remarkable of these a drawing has fortunately been preserved, made to illustrate a communication to the Scottish Society of Antiquaries in 1787, though the original, it is to be feared, must no longer be sought for. The cairn in which the relic was found is thus described: "At Cluinmore, near Blair-Atholl, there is a beautiful green cairn, called Sithain-na-Cluana, i.e., the Fairy Hill of Clune. It is about twenty paces high obliquely, and about one hundred and twenty paces in circumference. Upon the top of it there are the two side stones of the altar still remaining, upon which there are engraven some hieroglyphics, so much defaced that they are not readable unless the stones were turned over and narrowly examined."[493] A rough square outline is marked, "the urn, now open, 1½ ft. long;" and following it is the sketch, of which the annexed woodcut is an exact copy, of the same size. It is described as the "Large bronze ring found in the cairn of Clunemore." Rings of a similar character to this, though differing greatly in their details, have been frequently found in Denmark, and various fine examples are preserved in the valuable collection at Copenhagen. But the most remarkable feature of this very curious relic is the hooded snake's head which terminates one of the ends, the other having been most probably finished in like manner. It appears to have almost exactly corresponded to those on the large snake bracelet found near Findhorn, and like it seems to have been jewelled. Objects of this class are named by the Danish antiquaries, Rings for the Hair. A comparison of this example, with one engraved in Mr. Thom's edition of Mr. Worsaae's Primeval Antiquities, (p. 34,) will best illustrate their general resemblance, and the very marked difference of their details. Whether we assume it to have been designed as an ornament for the head or the neck, the Clunemore ring, with its singular snake-head finials, could not fail to prove a very striking article of personal adornment. Besides these hair-rings, the Danish tumuli furnish numerous gold and bronze bands, diadem and coronet shaped ornaments, and other head-dresses, nothing similar to which are known in this country. Various examples of these are engraved both by Lord Ellesmere and Mr. Worsaae, including a very remarkable one figured in the Primeval Antiquities, which was found a few years since in the neighbourhood of Haderslev, and has an inscription engraved on the inner side, in Runic characters, supposed to denote the name of the original possessor. Other rings which occur among Scandinavian sepulchral deposits are classified by Danish antiquaries among articles supposed to have been connected with Pagan worship. These include several varieties of penannular rings not greatly differing in general form from the British gold relics already described under that name. But besides these there are others of a much larger size, one of which, figured by Mr. Worsaae, is described as "a large ring or girdle of massive gold mixed with silver, which is rivetted together in the middle of the front, and is conceived to have been the ornament of an idol; for it can scarcely be supposed that any human being could have constantly worn such a ring."[494]

The descriptions already given of the circumstances under which objects belonging to this era have been found, have supplied some sufficiently characteristic illustrations of the sepulchral rites of the period. Very few well-defined examples, however, of tombs of the era immediately preceding the introduction of Christianity have yet fallen under the notice of observers competent to furnish a satisfactory report of their appearance, or of the peculiarities which have marked the mode of interment in Scotland during this last Pagan age. They are indeed comparatively rare, arising, in part at least, from the period having been one probably of greatly shorter duration than those which have been previously considered; but also we may assume, from increasing civilisation having limited the sepulchral honours of the cairn, or the huge barrow, with its costly deposits, to a very few of the most distinguished chiefs. This latter conclusion receives ample confirmation from many cists found without any superincumbent heap, the contents of which, though of little moment, frequently suffice to connect them with the age of iron. To those tombs of this period, already referred to in previous chapters, one or two additional examples of special interest, however, remain still to be added. Lieutenant-Colonel Miller thus describes a discovery made on his estate of Urquhart, Fifeshire, in the autumn of 1832:—"In trenching the ground within about three hundred yards of Melford, on the Eden, I came upon the remains of two cairns, adjoining which was dug up a spear-head. It was under the root of a tree about an hundred years old, about three feet under the surface, and is the only one of iron that I have met with." The spear-head, which is figured here, measures, in its present imperfect state, only six and a half inches long. The Colonel also describes a dagger, which had very much the appearance of a breakfast knife, but was completely oxidized. There was dug up along with these a small vase, quite entire when found, and in form somewhat resembling a tea-cup, but which was carelessly left on the ground, and broken in the course of subsequent operations. Besides this, several pieces of pottery were met with, one of the thickest of which was strongly vitrified, and also a bronze fibula, and a considerable quantity of bones and ashes.[499] In another cairn, called Gaskhill, near the village of Collessie, in the same county, there was discovered, a few years since, an iron sword, now preserved at Kinloch House. Though greatly corroded, its original form is still sufficiently distinguishable. It measures fully eighteen inches in length, with one edge, returned from the point a short way on the back; differing in this respect from the pointless sword of the ancient Caledonian, as described by Tacitus, though corresponding to other examples found in Scotland, such as those already referred to, which were discovered in the parish of Cummertrees, Dumfriesshire, in 1834. In the course of the following year, a large tumulus on the farm of Dasholm, near Garscube, Dumbartonshire, was partially demolished, within which was a stone-chamber containing a bronze or copper relic, described as the visor of a helmet, with a spear-head, the blade of a sword, two small picks, and various other relics, all of iron, but concerning the original use of many of which the discoverers could form no idea.[500] The tumulus has been only very partially explored, and it is not improbable that it may furnish equally interesting contents to some future excavator. In 1836, another large tumulus was opened in the neighbourhood of the Clyde Iron Works, Lanarkshire, which contained, besides two cinerary urns filled with ashes, two bronze bridle-bits, and various other relics, supposed to have formed portions of horse furniture. The relics included in the latter class may justly rank among the most interesting remains peculiar to the Iron Period.

A very curious discovery of the tomb of a British charioteer, with the skeleton of his horse, was made in the year 1829, in the neighbourhood of Ballindalloch, a small post-town in the county of Moray. It is thus communicated in a letter to the secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland:—"A labourer in digging for moor-stones here, a few weeks since, on a moor about a mile from Ballindalloch, found at a depth of above a foot from the surface, a quantity of bones, among which appear to have been a human skeleton, and also the skull and bones of a horse. The whole had been covered up, to my great regret, before I heard of it; but the labourer tells me that there were a quantity of rings and bits of iron, one of them like a great hoop: but all completely rusted. I have been fortunate enough to get hold of what I take to be the bridle [bit] of the horse, two bronze rings, joined by a double link of iron, and also some bronze rings which may have belonged to its harness. There were also some bits of wood, oak I find it to be from a fragment I have; but it was all too much decayed to tell what it had been."[503] The letter is accompanied with a sketch of what is described as "a curious little iron cup found in the grave." It is shewn in the annexed woodcut, and will be at once recognised by the archæologist as the umbo which formed the centre of the shield, and received and protected the hand of its wearer. The fragments of oak found along with it may have also included part of the shield, as well as portions of the war-chariot. Scarcely a doubt can be entertained that in this discovery we have one of the rare examples of the tomb of a British chief, with his arms and his chariot and steed laid beside him,—a piece of wild barbarian pomp which puts all the modern "boast of heraldry" to shame. A bridle-bit in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, which answers closely to the above description, was found in 1822, along with the remains of the horse and rider, about two feet below the surface, in levelling May Street, in the New Town of Largs; and was accordingly assumed as a relic of the celebrated battle fought there with the Norwegian king, Haco, in 1263.[504] It consists of two plain bronze rings, measuring each three and three-quarter inches in diameter, and united by a double link of iron.

Independently of the great interest which justly attaches to the British war-chariot, as an evidence of skill and of considerable progress in civilisation, the horse furniture which usually accompanies it furnishes one of the most illustrative class of relics of the artistic skill of the period. Among these the bridle-bits have most frequently attracted attention. The examples found in Scotland differ in no very remarkable degree from those with which the archæologists both of England and Ireland are familiar. They consist generally of two large bronze rings, united by two or sometimes three links of the same metal. They are frequently highly ornamented, and the marks of later repair observable on many of them suffice to shew the great value attached to them. The beautiful example figured here, was found about the year 1785, in the bottom of a deep moss at the east end of Birrenswork Hill, Dumfriesshire, a locality rich in the remains of Roman and British arts, and where the traces both of Roman and native intrenchments are still visible. The outer diameter of the rings of the bridle-bit measures two and seven-tenth inches, and the ornamental appendages projecting into each ring still retain considerable traces of the red and blue enamel with which they have been filled. It must have been made for a small horse, as the centre piece measures somewhat less than two inches within the perforated loops. It appears to have been long in use. The large rings are much worn, and have been ingeniously repaired by rivetting a new piece to each. The small loops or eyes also attaching them to the bit have had a fresh coating of metal superadded where they were partially worn through.

A remarkable discovery of ornaments, bronze rings, bridle-bits, and other portions of horse furniture was made in a moss at Middleby, Annandale, in the year 1737. The whole of these were secured by the zealous Scottish antiquary, Sir John Clerk, and are still preserved, along with numerous other objects collected by him, at Penicuick House. The bridle-bits, though plainer than the one figured above, are of the same type, and one of them corresponds to it in the want of uniformity of the two rings, which is probably to be accounted for from their being designed for a pair of charioteer's horses, the more ornamental ring being designed for the outside, where it would be most exposed to view. The duplicate of this appears, from a note in the handwriting of Sir John Clerk attached to the example still preserved at Penicuick House, to have been presented by him to Mr. Roger Gale. Drawings of the principal objects of this valuable collection were forwarded to the Society of Antiquaries of London at the time of their discovery, by Sir John Clerk, and are still preserved.[505] One or two of the most remarkable objects found at Annandale are figured here from the originals at Penicuick House. They are nearly identical in type with the collection of antiquities found within the extensive intrenchments at Stanwick, on the estate of the Duke of Northumberland, and since presented by His Grace to the British Museum. Some of the principal objects are engraved in the York volume of the Archæological Institute, the Stanwick relics having been exhibited during the Congress of 1846. Another discovery of nearly similar character was made at Polden Hill, Somersetshire, in 1800.[506] These also have been secured for the British Museum, and correspond with the Annandale bridle-bit, figured above, in the beauty of their enamel as well as in the form and ornamental details of many of the articles. The great beauty of these objects and the amount of decoration expended on the horse furniture, prove at once the high state of the arts at the period to which they belong, and also the wealth and luxury of the people, which enabled them to lavish such costly ornamentation even on their harness and the furnishings of their war-chariots. No account is known to have been preserved of the circumstances attending the interesting discovery at Middleby, but the place where they were found precludes the idea of their having belonged to a sepulchral deposit. By far the most ample notice we possess of one of the latter, affording a valuable illustration of the precise use of the objects of antiquity described above, as well as of the rites and customs of their owners, occurs in an account of the opening of some barrows on the Wolds of Yorkshire, communicated to the Archæological Institute by the Rev. E. W. Stillingfleet, Vicar of South Cave, in that county. The following account of the contents of one of these, which proved to be the sepulchre of a British charioteer, is abridged from Mr. Stillingfleet's interesting narrative.

Of the Sculptured Standing Stones of Scotland, including these primitive Christian monuments, a few of the best known examples have been repeatedly engraved, but generally on so small a scale, and with so little attention to accuracy of detail, that they have failed to secure that interest among British archæologists which their great number and the very beautiful and singular character of their sculptures merit. The reproach of leaving these remarkable national monuments unillustrated has, however, been to a great extent removed by the publication of Mr. Patrick Chalmers' magnificent work on the Ancient Monuments of the County of Angus,[526] which furnishes an extensive series of examples of the various sculptured stones long ascribed to a Danish origin, but now nearly all recognised as peculiar to Scotland. Attempts to decorate Scottish sepulchral memorials by means of sculptured ornaments appear to have been made from an early period. Several curious examples have already been noted of stone cists, otherwise entirely unhewn, the covers of which have been rudely ornamented with incised patterns similar to those which are seen on the gigantic chambered cairn of New Grange, near Drogheda. But greater interest perhaps attaches to another though more simply decorated Scottish cist pertaining apparently to a much later period than the cairn of New Grange, or the incised cists which have been classed with that remarkable primitive sepulchre. On a rising ground about half a mile to the east of the town of Alloa, called the Hawkhill, is the large upright block of sandstone sculptured with a cross which is represented in the annexed engraving. It measures ten and a quarter feet in height, though little more than seven feet are now visible above ground. A similar cross is cut on both sides of the stone, as is not uncommon with such simple memorials. During the progress of agricultural operations in the immediate vicinity of this ancient cross, in the spring of 1829, Mr. Robert Bald, C.E., an intelligent Scottish antiquary, obtained permission from the Earl of Mar to make some excavations around it, when, at about nine feet north from the monumental stone, a rude cist was found, constructed of unhewn sandstone, measuring only three feet in length, and at each end of the cover, on the under side, a simple cross was cut. The lines which formed the crosses were not rudely executed, but straight and uniform, and evidently finished with care, though the slab itself was unusually rude and amorphous. The cist lay east and west, and contained nothing but human bones greatly decayed. Drawings of the cross and cist, and a plan of the ground, executed by Mr. Bald, are in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries. Here we possess a singularly interesting example of the union of Christian and Pagan sepulchral rites: the cist laid east and west, according to the early Christian custom, yet constructed of the old circumscribed dimensions, and of the rude but durable materials in use for ages before the new faith had superseded the aboriginal Pagan creeds.

No sculptured memorials of the singular class so abundant in Scotland, have been discovered in Ireland, any more than in Norway, Sweden, or Denmark, though so long ascribed to a Scandinavian origin. They are manifestly native monuments, though betraying the same traces of the influence of early Irish art, or at least indications of a period when the peculiar style of their ornamentation was common both to Scotland and Ireland, with which we are familiar in the works of the closing Pagan era. Only one known period of Scottish history answers to these requirements, and seems to point out the ruder class of sculptured standing stones as the monuments of the Pagan Picts, and the more elaborate ones, accompanied with the symbol of the Christian faith, as belonging to that period which has been slightly sketched in a preceding chapter, when Christianity was introduced to the Scottish Picts at the very time in which we possess numerous proofs of the most intimate intercourse between the two countries. What we chiefly want at present for the elucidation of Scottish Archæology is not theories but facts; yet such historical coincidences, though doubtless open to challenge, are not unworthy of note, and cannot justly be ranked along with the vague theoretical speculations, destitute of any foundation but the fancy of their originators, which have discovered in these Scottish sculptures Egyptian, Phœnician, Braminical, or Druidical symbols, as it chanced to suit the favourite theory of the hour.

A most lively fancy is apparent in many of these designs; but others are possessed of a much higher value as illustrations of the manners, customs, dresses, weapons, musical instruments, &c., in use at the period when these monuments were erected. Thus in the very curious piece of sculpture figured in the annexed engraving, we have a representation of the use of the bow and arrow, and of a car drawn by two horses. It is now preserved at Meigle along with others, the supposed relics of the tomb of the frail Guanora, Arthur's queen, who, according to Hector Boece, was made captive by the Picts, after the defeat and death of Modred on the banks of the Humber, and passed the remainder of her life in captivity within the strong fortress of Dunbarré or Barry Hill. Thus strangely do we find the romantic tales of the old troubadours, once familiar through medieval Europe, located by popular tradition in the district of Strathmore. Mr. Chalmers conceives that scarcely a doubt can be entertained of the reference to the monument at Meigle ascribed to Queen Guanora, and of which the engraving represents one of the most curious portions, in the following note, under the year 1569, in the Extracta e Cronicis Scotiæ:—"At Newtylde[536] thair is ane stane, callit be sum the Thane Stane, iii eln of heicht, v quarteris braid, ane quarter thik and mair, with ane cors at the heid of it, and ane goddes next that in ane cairt, and twa hors drawand hir, and horsmen under that, and fuitmen and dogges, halkis and serpentis: on the west side of it, ane cors curiouslie grauit; bot all is maid of ane auld fassane of schap. It is allegit that the Thane of Glammis set thir tua stanis quhen that cuntrey wes all ane greit forrest." This description is of great value, not only as preserving a tradition associated with the stone at a period very near the time of Boece, yet differing entirely from his romantic tale of Queen Guanora, but much more so, in that it conveys a tolerably definite idea of what the monument actually was in the sixteenth century.

There can be no question that many of those sculptured monuments are designed to commemorate particular events, though they have long since proved faithless to their trust. Most of such, however, would probably be of less interest to us than the minute and varied information which we are still able to deduce from the primitive historic memorials. We see in them the warrior on horseback and on foot, armed with sword, spear, battle-axe, and dirk, and bearing his circular buckler on his arm,—a much larger shield than that previously described among the later relics of the Pagan era, and, indeed, closely resembling the Highland target, which continued in use in Scotland till the final extinction of the patriarchal system and hereditary customs of the Highland clans, after their last struggle on Culloden Moor. Nor are the sculptures less minute in their illustrations of domestic habits and social arts. In Plates II. and VI. of Mr. Chalmers' valuable work, we have representations of ancient chairs, and figures apparently of priests and monks. In the former, also, and in Plate XIII., are a harp and harper, the latter executed with much spirit, though now greatly defaced; while hunting and hawking scenes frequently occur, accompanied with very graphic representations of the beasts of chase. There is, moreover, a peculiar style running throughout the whole of these sculptures, and a certain action and contour in the figures and animals, which mark them with as distinctive a character as belongs to any medieval or modern school of art. The engraving on Plate IV. represents one of the most elaborate of these Pictish hunting scenes, fully answering to the description of the old Scottish chronicler, of "horsemen, fuitmen, and dogges, halkis and serpentis." It occurs on what is believed to have formed part of a stone coffin, which was dug up in the immediate vicinity of St. Andrew's cathedral, and is now preserved in St. Mary's College there. Along with this slab, which measures five and three-fourths feet long, by two and one-fourth feet broad, there was found what appears to have formed one end, and part of the other, of the same sarcophagus or monument. Both are covered with intricate knotwork, and in the more perfect of the two there are four compartments, two of which are occupied each with a pair of apes, and the others with globes, each encircled with two serpents. Not the least curious feature of this elaborate design is the introduction of well executed apes and other animals, which we would have supposed entirely unknown to the ancient sculptor. Besides these the ram, the horse and hawk, the fawn, the greyhound pursuing the fox in the thicket, and the tiger or leopard, as the fierce assailant of the horseman seems to be, are all executed with great fidelity and spirit. In addition to these there is a nondescript monster, a sort of winged griffin, preying upon a prostrate ass. But by far the most valuable portions of this curious design are the human figures, with their variety of character and costume. Here manifestly is the Patrician, with his long locks and flowing robes, and his richly decorated dirk at his side, while the plebeian huntsman betrays his humble rank, not only in his homely dress and accoutrements, but even in the lean and half-bred cur which forms his companion in the chase. But the engraving will furnish a much more satisfactory idea of these curious details than any description could convey. The most common decoration of this remarkable class of native Scottish monuments, apart from the symbols and sculptured figures so frequently introduced, is the interlaced knotwork which appears to have been so favourite a device of Celtic art. It occurs on the sculptures, the jewelry, the manuscripts, and the decorated shrines and book-cases of early Irish Christian art, and has been perpetuated almost to our own day on the weapons and personal ornaments of the Scottish Highlanders. The annexed illustration represents a very characteristic example of the common Highland brooch, from the original in the collection of C. K. Sharp, Esq. It is of brass, rudely engraved, evidently with the imperfect tools of the native mountaineer. The tongue is of copper, and the brooch measures four and one-tenth inches in diameter. Amid its decorations will be recognised the triple knot, the supposed emblem of the Trinity, along with other interlaced patterns, such as occur in the bosses of sepulchral and monumental crosses of the seventh and eighth centuries. Precisely the same ornaments may be seen on the Highland targets, preserved among the memorials of the field of Culloden; while other combinations of this favourite pattern formed the universal decoration on the handle of the Highland dirk, from the earliest known examples to those belonging to the same fatal field, on which the unbroken Celtic traditions of Scotland were involved in the fortunes of the fated Stuart race.

One other peculiar and indeed altogether unique inscription occurs on a rude unhewn standing stone of granite in the vicinity of the Maiden Stone, with its mysterious symbols, at Newton, in Garioch, Aberdeenshire. The column measures fully six feet in height, and about two feet in greatest breadth. On its upper part is the inscription, extending to six lines, in large and sufficiently distinct, but entirely novel and unintelligible characters. It has been more than once engraved, and repeatedly submitted to eminent antiquaries, but still remains undeciphered. General Vallancey, the well-known Irish antiquary, professed to read the two first words of it. What indeed would he not have undertaken to decipher? These he rendered Gylf Gomarra, Prince Gomarra, apparently from some slight or fancied resemblance of the characters to the corresponding Roman letters, but his G and F are manifestly the same, and the whole still remains an enigma. The side of the same stone, however, bears another inscription, also shewn in part in the annexed engraving, which appears to have escaped the notice of earlier observers, though introduced as a mere ornament in the representation inserted in the Transactions of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries. It has recently been pronounced by Irish antiquaries an Ogham inscription, and as such, is an object of considerable interest, no other example of the use of that simple and extremely primitive character, which the older antiquaries of Ireland have made the subject of so many extravagant theories, having been discovered in Scotland. It does not necessarily follow that the two inscriptions belong to the same period, though found on one stone; but both are as yet equally dumb and irresponsive oracles.

Various early inscriptions in the same old Celtic character as that engraved on the St. Vigeans' Cross are still to be found in Scotland, and particularly in the Western Isles, where it had doubtless been in general use, prior to the adoption of the later Church letters common to medieval Europe. Of this class are two stones at Iona, adorned with simple crosses, one of which has been made the subject of some very fruitless speculation. "No one of the inscriptions in Iona," says Mr. H. D. Graham, "has been so much written about as this, and antiquarians do not agree as to its signification. It is in the old Gaelic character, and has been usually interpreted into Donull fada Chasach—The cross of Donald Longshanks."[538] An older decipherer reads it, "Cormac Ulphada hic est situs," indicative of the sepulchre of Cormac Barbatus, one of the kings of Ireland, buried there A.D. 213; and a third assigns it as the memorial of a king of France, who according to equally credible tradition found his last resting-place in the sacred isle. Mr. Graham has accordingly designated it in his Illustrations of the Monuments of Iona, "the disputed inscription," though finding for it a new reading, which assigns it to a Macdonald of the Glengary line, A.D. 1461. The inscription reads: Oꞃ̄ ꝺo mail Ꝼaꞇaꞃic, or with the first word extended:

Various other stones, with crosses cut upon them, evidently of the same date as those thus inscribed, lie scattered among the remarkable tombs of the Relig Oran, or St. Oran's Burial Ground,—that sacred spot, the resting-place of saints, and kings, and old island chiefs, so deeply interesting to every Scottish heart,—but these are the only examples of this early class on which inscriptions are now decipherable. Many of the tombs of a later date are ornamented with figures and floriated patterns in relief, characterized by singular beauty and great variety of design. The style of ornamentation on some of them is peculiar to the Western Isles and the neighbouring Scottish mainland: but such ample justice has been done to them in the recent beautiful series of views of the "Antiquities of Iona," by Mr. H. D. Graham, that it is unnecessary to resort to the less intelligible process of verbal description. The intermingling of foliage, scroll-work, chain-work, geometric patterns, and knotwork, with animals, figures, and sacred or warlike implements, is characterized by a profuseness and variety of design such as the sepulchral monuments of scarcely any other single locality or age can equal. The greater number of them, however, belong to a later period than that now under consideration, but on this very account, as well as for other reasons, we must dissent from the conclusions as to the origin of their style of art, advanced by the Rev. J. S. Howison, in his valuable papers on the Antiquities of Argyleshire. The well-ascertained dates of some of the most remarkable of these monuments fix their era from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. The accompanying illustration supplies a characteristic example, in the mutilated cross of Lauchlan M'Fingon, the father of Abbot John of Iona, who died A.D. 1500, and had a more important tomb, adorned with his recumbent figure in full canonicals, within the cathedral, though his name figures on the cross in St. Oran's Chapel, erected as we may presume by himself. It is a valuable illustration for our present purpose, as the inscription and date are still perfectly legible: ✠ Hec: est: Crux: Laeclanni: Maic: Fingone: et: eius: filii: Johannis: abbatis: de: Hy: facta anno: domini: M^o: CCCC^o: LXXX^o IX^o. The lymphad, which figures as one of the herald's quarterings of the Mackinnons, is indeed believed to have been derived from the Northmen, but in the form it assumes on this and other Iona sculptures, it bears as little resemblance to the long-oared war galley so frequently engraved on native Scandinavian monuments and relics as the accompanying ornaments do to any known device of Northern origin. The late era to which some of the most characteristic of these sculptures belong, should alone suffice to disprove the idea "that the Scandinavians were the authors of this particular kind of art exhibited by the stone crosses, as also by the sepulchral monuments of Argyleshire;"[541] but no such monuments are now to be found in any of the Scandinavian kingdoms, and since the style must have arisen somewhere, it is surely not more difficult to conceive of it originating in Scotland than in Norway, Sweden, or Denmark. In so far as it is derived, its suggestive originals appear to have been much more Irish than Scandinavian. Its peculiar individuality, however, arises from the same cause as the very singular characteristics of Irish ecclesiology. Both Scotland and Ireland stood more apart than any other of the kingdoms of Christendom from the Crusades and other great movements which conferred so remarkable a homogeneity on medieval Europe. The earlier arts were consequently left there to develop new forms and modifications long after they had been elsewhere entirely superseded by the later styles of medieval art. At the period to which the beautiful monuments of Argyleshire are referrible that district stood singularly isolated, sharing only very partially even in the influences of Scottish art, and still less in its social progress, while at the same time the peculiar sanctity indissolubly associated with its ancient shrines kept alive the spirit in which these originated. Scarcely any circumstances can be conceived more favourable for the development of a new style of art; and hence not only the peculiarity but the endless variety discoverable on the monuments of Argyleshire, and especially in the Relig Oran of Iona. A Scotsman may be pardoned even for some excess of zeal in advancing his claims for sole hereditary right to that historic ground, and the moss-grown sculptures with which it is paved, where

Next in interest to these scale plates of silver are a pair of bodkins, measuring in length rather more than six and a half inches, and engraved here the size of the originals. They are both alike, with the exception that on the reverse side of one is an imperfect indication of the Z symbol, the figure of which is interrupted by the attachment of the pin. The form of the head is peculiar, though not unique, pins of nearly similar fashion having been found in Ireland. A brass bodkin of this type, in the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin, is almost precisely the same in form and dimensions, and only differs in the ornament introduced in the front of the head.[548] Another example of the same type, found at Lagore, County Meath, is figured in the Archæological Journal.[549] It is made of bronze, and is inferior in point of workmanship, but is equally valuable from the undoubted evidence it affords of the native origin of this peculiar form of pin, and of the other relics discovered along with it. The front of the head in the Largo bodkin is beautifully chased in the same style of ornaments as the scale plates, and the central projecting stud bears a Greek cross patée, thus presented, as on the Scottish sculptured stones, in connexion with these mysterious symbols. The mode of introducing the symbol on the bodkin is peculiarly suggestive of its use as a charm. It is engraved where it was evidently not intended to be seen, and where indeed its form is by no means adapted as a decoration to the peculiar shape of the work on which it is introduced. The spiral ornaments on the opposite side are, on the contrary, arranged for effect; and though corresponding to those on the double circles of the scale plate, are suggestive only of decorative design, the same peculiar form being greatly varied in pattern, and even frequently left blank on the sculptured stones. Another smaller pin of the same class is in the Durham collection. It appears to have been jewelled, but is very imperfect. It measures one and a quarter inch in length.

Two ornaments, described by Mr. Buist as "circles or armlets," appear to be the large ring fibulæ of a type common both as Irish and early Highland brooches. The most perfect of the two, which measures five and three-quarter inches in diameter, is represented here half the size of the original. The acus or tongue is wanting in both of them. The torquated hoop is a rare feature in such ornaments, and indeed much seldomer found in works of silver than of gold. It forms the simplest style of ornamentation, and, though by no means inelegant, corresponds very imperfectly with the fully developed style of art indicated in the other contents of the Largo tumulus, with perhaps the exception of a silver disc, figured in the Archæological Journal, half the size of the original.[550] This measures three inches in diameter, and has a central boss with a circular depression, which may not improbably have been set with a jewel of amber or stone. The torquated hoop of the silver fibula does not appear the best adapted for the free movement of the acus, but this seems rarely to have been much attended to. Where, as in these examples, the hoop is disunited, the acus is generally of great length, not infrequently measuring two, and even two and a half times the diameter of its circle. Nothing more was required for fastening such a fibula after the tongue had been passed through the dress, than to turn it slightly past the opening, for which purpose its perforation is always sufficiently wide. The revived taste for archæological pursuits has once more restored this ancient form adapted to the fashions of modern dress, and one of the most favourite Scottish patterns bears the name of the Maid of Norway's Brooch.

Such are the few but valuable relics which have escaped the crucible, amounting altogether only to about twenty-four ounces out of the estimated 400 ounces of pure silver found in the Norrie's Law tumulus by its unprincipled ravisher. That they exhibit the high progress attained by native artists at the period to which they belong can hardly admit of a doubt. The analogy which the forms both of the fibulæ and bodkins suggest—so clearly traceable to types of most frequent occurrence in Ireland—fully corresponds to the historic origin of the races and the arts of Scotland, already traced out in the previous chapter. Their peculiar devices, found only on the earliest Christian monuments of Scotland, no less distinctly refer these remarkable relics to that native transition-period from the fourth to the eighth century, when Pagan and Christian rites were obscurely mingled; and the revelations of the old sepulchral mound shew that the anticipations of the dying warrior still derived their most vivid power more from the heathen valhalla than the Christian paradise. We shall not perhaps greatly err in limiting the era of the Norrie's Law tumulus from the third to the sixth century. We must even allow for the lapse of a sufficient interval between the last surviving witness of the deposition of its treasures, and the advent of that new creed and system which finally abolished the sacredness that formed the old safeguard of the Pagan treasures of the dead. But in addition to every other cause of regret for the barbarous destruction of these beautiful examples of the arts as practised in Scotland a thousand years ago, we have reason to believe that an opportunity was lost—perhaps the only one that can ever occur—of ascertaining the precise epoch, and even the meaning of the remarkable Scottish symbols with which they were decorated. Mr. Buist remarks in his report,—"A considerable number of coins, now wholly lost sight of, and said to have borne these symbolic markings, were found along with the armour at Norrie's Law, and about forty of the same kind were found in an earthen pot at Pittenweem in 1822. It is said that these were destitute of inscription or written character." No great importance can be attached to such vague descriptions of coins chiefly derived from the recollections of persons probably little familiar with any but those of the present currency. But of the fact of coins having been found no doubt can be entertained. Nor is this the only instance of such being met with in a Scottish tumulus, though hitherto they have only been discovered to be destroyed.

To this period belongs the very characteristic and beautiful ornament, usually designated the shell-shaped brooch, and which is equally familiar to Scandinavian and British antiquaries. In Scotland especially, many beautiful examples have been found: several of them are preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, and from these the following is selected as surpassing in beauty of design and intricacy of ornament, any other example of which I am aware. It consists, as usual, of a convex plate of metal, with an ornamental border, surmounted by another convex plate of greater depth, highly ornamented with embossed and perforated designs, the effect of which appears to have been further heightened by the lower plate being gilded so as to shew through the open work. In this example the gilding still remains tolerably perfect. On the under side are the projecting plates still retaining a fragment of the corroded iron pin, where it has turned on a hinge, and at the opposite end the bronze catch into which it clasped. The under side of the brooch appears to have been lined with coarse linen, the texture of which is still clearly defined on the coating of verd antique with which it is now covered. But its peculiar features consist of an elevated central ornament resembling a crown, and four intricately chased projections terminating in horses' heads. It was found in September 1786, along with another brooch of the same kind, lying beside a skeleton, under a flat stone, very near the surface, above the ruins of a Pictish house or burgh, in Caithness. It measures nearly four and a half inches in length, by three inches in breadth, and two and two-fifth inches in height to the top of the crown. Like many others of the same type, it appears to have been jewelled. In several examples of these brooches which I have compared, the lower convex plates so nearly resemble each other, as to suggest the probability of their having been cast in the same mould, while the upper plates entirely differ.

These oval brooches are most frequently found in pairs, and may be presumed to have been worn on the front of the shoulders or breast, as shewn in a curious piece of sculpture, evidently of nearly the same period, which is built into the church wall of Invergowrie. It is engraved in Mr. Chalmers of Auldbar's "Ancient Sculptured Monuments of Angus," (Pl. XXII.) and represents, apparently, three dignitaries, probably priests, as two of them hold books in their hands. The two outer figures are adorned with large brooches on their shoulders, while the central, and perhaps more important figure, is without them, but wears instead a circular ornament on the lower front of his garment. Along with the pairs of oval brooches is frequently found a third, flat and sometimes trefoiled. One of these, referred to more particularly on a subsequent page, found along with a pair of oval brooches, in a barrow on the Island of Westray, in 1839, was first observed on the exposure of the skeleton, apparently laid on the abdomen, while the others were beside the ribs, as if worn on the breast. Another example from the Island of Sangay is figured in the Vetusta Monumenta, (vol. ii. Pl. XX.) A beautiful pair, made of a white-coloured metal, found under peculiar circumstances in a tumulus in Yorkshire, and another from the neighbourhood of Bedale, are figured in the Archæological Journal.[558] Various other specimens are preserved, both in public and private collections, but none of those that I have seen appear to equal in elaborateness or beauty of design, the Caithness brooch figured above.

The additional marks are mostly irregular lines, with no distinctive character, and executed with so little care, that it is not improbable they have been introduced merely to occupy the remaining space with a uniform texture. What is decipherable reads in good Scottish Celtic: Malbritha a daimiheh i dæol Maolfridi; i.e., Malbritha his friend in recompense to Maolfridi: a is the possessive pronoun his; daimheach, a friend or relative; i or h-i, the old Celtic preposition in; and dìol, a reward for service done. It must be borne in remembrance that the spelling of the Scottish Gaelic is entirely modern. It is the sound therefore that is chiefly to be looked to, but the variations even in the spelling are not important. No Scandinavian scholar can examine the fac-simile of the inscription, and question the fact that the concluding portion actually contains the masculine name which Professor Magnusen was at such needless pains to try and educe from that of Malbritha. The chief value, however, to the Scottish antiquary of the reading now given, arises from no identification of these old Celtic friends, but from its establishing the fact—in itself so probable—that they did actually employ the Scoto-Scandinavian Runes in writing their own native language.

Directly opposite to the Ayrshire coast, and within sight of the Bay of Largs, a small island protects the entrance to Lamlash Bay, in the Isle of Arran, the well-known anchorage where Haco mustered his shattered fleet after his overthrow. In the Norwegian account of the expedition, after the narration of the fatal storm and conflict, it is stated, "The king sailed past Kumbrey (Cumbray) to Melansay, where he lay some nights."[560] This Melans ey, or isle, there can be little doubt is Holy Island, in the Bay of Lamlash, which contains the cave assigned by immemorial tradition as the residence of St. Molio or St. Maoliosa, a disciple of Columba, and a favourite Celtic saint. The island corresponds in geological structure to the southern district of Arran, presenting along the shore the common red sandstone strata, overflowed by a great mass of claystone and claystone porphyry, which towers above it in rugged and picturesque cliffs, fringed by the dwarf oak and birch, to a height of about a thousand feet. The cave of St. Molio is little more than a waterworn recess in the sandstone rock at an elevation of about thirty feet from the present level of the sea. On the shore below, a circular well is pointed out as St. Molio's Bath, and a large block of sandstone cut perfectly flat on the top, and surrounded with a series of artificial recesses or seats, bears the name of the Saint's Chair. Such relics are by no means rare in Scotland. They appear to have been singularly characteristic of Celtic hagiology. The Bath of St. Cuthbert was once a favourite resort in Strathtay; that of St. Woloc exists in Strathdeveron; and that of St. Fillan remains in the strath of Perthshire which still bears his name. St. Kentigern also had once his "bath," "bed," and "chair," near the Molendinar Burn. The Stone Chair of St. Marnan is still at Aberchirder; that of St. Fillan was recently preserved at the Mill of Killin; while another of these singular Celtic relics, placed at a commanding point, near Achtereachan, Glencoe, where a bend of the glen enables it to command both views, bears the name of Cathair Malvina, or the Chair of Malvina, one of Ossian's heroines.

The traces of the use of Runic characters are still abundant in the Isle of Man, and undoubtedly belong to the period of the general adoption of Christianity there, though it is not possible to assign to them a precise date. But the above are not the only Runes inscribed on St. Molio's cave. The whole surrounding surface of the rock is covered with crosses, evidently the marks of pious but illiterate pilgrims, who thus recorded their visit to the Holy Isle. Among these, however, are also traceable initials, monograms, and other more perfect evidences of the former concourse of pilgrims to the sacred spot. The annexed fac-simile of a group of them shews the curious character of these primitive holographs; but among them the experienced eye will at once discern the Runic characters, not regularly and boldly cut as in the former inscription, but irregularly scratched, as with the hasty hand of the wayfaring pilgrim. It is hardly necessary now too curiously to investigate the primitive record, though the letters are for the most part sufficiently distinct and well defined. The ᚳ, or k, is not a Scandinavian but an Anglo-Saxon Rune: a mixture by no means improbable by a Celtic inscriber. The whole probably imply no more than the proper name Akiethir, though it does not present, as in the former case, one familiar to our ears. Possibly like some other Runic inscriptions, it reads from right to left, in which case we should perhaps recognise it as a female name, Ritheika.

While the Isle of Man still retains many interesting traces of Scandinavian influence, in its memorial crosses graven with inscriptions in the Northern Runes, it is surprising how very partial are the indications of the same influence in the older northern jarldom. Only two imperfect Runic inscriptions have been observed in Shetland, and are described by Dr. Hibbert from drawings by Mr. Low.[566] One of them on a slab or grave-stone at Crosskirk, in Northmavine, is too much mutilated to render any attempt at restoration or decipherment of its meaning possible. The other was fixed in the wall of the Parish Church of Sandness, where it probably still remains; but, if there be no error in Dr. Hibbert's engraving of it, it only adds another to the frequent examples in Scotland of the term Runic being applied to designate any strange or incomprehensible device on a sepulchral monument. In Orkney no Runic monument is known to exist, though it cannot be doubted that many such must have been erected during the earlier years of the independent occupation of the Northern Islands by the Norwegian Jarls. Some of these, it is not impossible, may even yet be brought to light; though the continuous presence of a busy population during the intervening centuries affords too satisfactory means of accounting for their destruction to render such discoveries very probable at this late date. The annexed illustration of a later and more complicated Runic inscription than any known British example, is the remarkable memorial stone found in 1824 on the Island of Kingiktorsoak, Greenland, under the parallel of 73°, proving the zeal with which the old Scandinavian colonists pushed their adventurous course even to the extreme north of the inhospitable region of Greenland. It is introduced here chiefly to shew the complicated and much more intricate character of Scandinavian inscriptions of a later and well ascertained period; the era of the colonisation of Greenland being sufficiently established as a historical fact. Mr. C. C. Rafn finds in the concluding Runes the date 1135. During the recent repairs executed on St. Magnus Cathedral at Kirkwall, some singularly interesting discoveries were made connected with the period of its earliest Scandinavian bishops. A tomb was opened accidentally in the choir of the cathedral, which from the inscription accompanying it appears to have been the place to which the remains of William, according to Torfæus, first resident Bishop of Orkney, were translated, after the elongation of the cathedral, towards the close of the twelfth century. Along with the bones were interred a leaden plate inscribed in the common Church letters of the period:—H. Requiescit. Williamus. Senex. felicis. memorie. On the reverse of the plate are the words, pmus epis. Further excavations in the east end of the choir, and close to the presumed site of the high altar, led to the discovery of two curious pieces of sculpture, in bas relief, representing St. Olaf and St. Magnus. These, however, as well as the tomb of Bishop Tulloch, with crosier, paten, and chalice inclosed, and other discoveries made at the same period, belong to a later era than that of Runic literature, and are only referred to now as suggesting the possibility of still earlier relics of the Scandinavian period of Orcadian history being yet brought to light, while the first of them shews that the Runic character had fallen into disuse soon after the introduction of Christianity in the north.

Its literal rendering is:—Auolfir sunr þurulfs hins rauþa risti krus þana aft friþu muþur sina; betraying like the others the variations of a provincial dialect, or a foreign use of the old Norse tongue. More correctly it is:—Eyolfr sunr þórolfs hins rauða reisti kross þenna eft Friðu móður sína; i.e., Eyolf, the son of Thorolf the Red, raised this cross after (or in memory of) Frida his mother. This exceedingly simple memorial of affection, contrasting in its brevity so strikingly with the inflated extravagancies of modern monumental inscriptions, affords a good example of the most usual style of the Manx Runic legends. One cross at Kirk Andreas is raised by Sandulfr suarte, or Sandulf the Black, in memory of his sons and wife; while on another imperfect fragment of a cross may still be traced the words:—Oskitil uilti i trigu aiþsuara sinn; i.e., Oskitil betrayed in truce his sworn friend. The precise object of this unusual memorial cannot now be guessed at with any degree of certainty, though the fragment preserves sufficient that is peculiar to excite our regret at its recovery in so imperfect and dubious a state. Another mutilated cross at Kirk Michael is interesting as an additional example of a Runic inscription containing names essentially Celtic in character. Part of the inscription is so much defaced by the weather as to baffle any attempt at a consistent rendering of its meaning, but of the portion copied below no doubt can be entertained. It is presented here in fac-simile, as an illustration of the style of engraving of the Manx inscriptions, though it differs in the use of ᛋᛏ for the more common Runic characters introduced on the other crosses as equivalent to the s and t.

The inscription literally reads:—Mal-lymkun raisti krus thana eftir Mal-muru fustra sun; i.e., Mallymcun raised this cross, after Malmor his foster-son. The frequent allusions in Runic inscriptions to the foster-father, brother, or son, shews the singular estimation in which such peculiar ties of adopted relationship were held by the northern races at that early date, as they have continued to be even to our own day among the Scottish Highlanders. But the most thoroughly Scandinavian in character of all the Manx Runic crosses is the beautiful one which stands in the churchyard at Kirk Braddan. I am not aware if crosses of this form are found in Denmark or Norway, but in nearly all the principal details, especially on the shaft, it differs entirely from the other Manx crosses, and corresponds to those on Scandinavian relics of the Iron Period. It has been broken in two, and otherwise mutilated; but the two principal pieces have been clasped together with iron bands, so that a good idea can still be formed of it in its perfect state. The shaft is decorated with the common dragon ornaments, intricately intertwined over its whole surface; thus greatly differing in style from the Runic crosses wrought by the skilful hands of Gaut, as well as from the contemporary standing stones of the Scottish mainland. This, therefore, we may be justified in assuming, is the work of some Norwegian artist, whose style was derived from his own fatherland, though in some degree modified by the favourite models of Celtic art which have influenced the form of other Christian monuments in the island. It is probably one of the latest of all the Runic memorials in Man, while at the same time it presents the Scandinavian characters accompanying a style of art to some extent derived from the same foreign source. It can hardly indeed admit of doubt, that in some at least of the Manx monuments we must recognise the adaptation of the Norse literature and dialect to native memorials. The cross cut in relief on the flat slab, with the subordinate accompaniments illustrative of feats of war or the chase, appear to be peculiarly characteristic of primitive Pictish art; while the perforated head with interlaced ornamentation, such as that which is here associated with the old dragon pattern and other Pagan devices of Scandinavia, is more directly traceable to the early Christian arts of Celtic Ireland. The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland possesses a complete cast of this beautiful cross, taken when the iron clamps were removed for the purpose of being renewed, and which thus supplies a portion of the Runic inscription which can no longer be seen. It is as follows:—

Other remarkable Anglo-Saxon memorials have been discovered within the ancient kingdom of Northumbria, as well as beyond its southern limits. One of the most interesting of these is a square font, at Bridekirk, in Cumberland. It is covered on each of its four sides with singular sculptures, in some of which a resemblance may be traced to the decorations of the Scottish standing stones. On the east side a curious group represents the baptism of our Saviour, who stands in a square font with a nimbus encircling his head, and over him is the dove perched on a tree. On the south side is a Runic inscription interwoven among ornaments, which still remains to be satisfactorily explained.[576] Mr. Rolfe of Sandwick has in his possession the silver hilt of a sword found in an Anglo-Saxon barrow, and inscribed in Runic characters.[577] A few other examples of the use of the Anglo-Saxon Runes in England have been discovered from time to time,[578] and receive the attention justly due to objects of such high interest, now that English archæologists have learned that it is to themselves and not to Scandinavian scholars that they must look for the elucidation of the literature of their own Anglo-Saxon progenitors.

No. 4 was another cist on the north side of the mound, but it had been previously disturbed, and contained only portions of a human skeleton.—No. 5 was opened on the north-east side of the mound. It inclosed part of a small skeleton, which Mr. Rendall pronounces to be "evidently that of a female." This also contained a pair of oval brooches, an ornamental pin or bodkin, and a pair of combs. The woodcut represents one of the combs, which was presented to Mr. Croker. It is much to be regretted that the valuable series of Scoto-Scandinavian relics, thus brought to light by the disturbance of this tumular cemetery, have already been dispersed in many private hands, so as to be irrecoverably lost. Their value would have been greatly augmented as the illustrations of an important period in our national history, could the entire collection have been kept together, and deposited in some accessible public museum.[584]

These objects of Northern antiquity, however, form a class by themselves, and bear no analogy to the prevailing types of the last Pagan period, either in the Scandinavian countries or in Britain. However clearly the facts above referred to shew that they pertain to the antiquities of Norway and Denmark, they cannot be assigned to the same era of Northern art, which produced the beautiful oval brooches and other contemporary relics. They seem rather to point to a later period of intercourse with the East, when the Cufic coins, which are familiar to Northern antiquaries, were introduced. The oldest of these date as early as the year 79 of the Hegira, or A.D. 698, but they have been found of A.D. 1010, and may be presumed to have reached the north of Europe at a somewhat later period than the last of these dates.

Beautiful as some of the relics of Scandinavian art found in Scotland are, they can hardly be considered equal to contemporary examples of native workmanship, such as the very fine early Scottish brooch found in the vicinity of the mounds of Dunipace, and figured on a previous page. Compared with the Caithness oval brooch, selected as the very best of its class, it will, I think, be generally acknowledged as exhibiting both a more defined and a higher style of art. But independently of the beauty of this native relic, nothing is more remarkable than the striking contrast which it presents in form, and style of ornament, to any known class of Scandinavian personal ornaments, while, like most of the later native examples, it bears a close affinity to the contemporary productions of Irish art. The woodcut shews the ornamental interlaced knotwork on the upper portion of the acus, which, in the complete view of the brooch, is concealed by the central ornament.[586] In its imperfect state it is sufficiently apparent that this had been of the same disproportionate length as is frequently found in Irish examples, otherwise greatly varying in form. This is particularly the case with the ring fibulæ, generally of silver. One of these, found in county Antrim, and engraved in the Archæological Journal, measures above six and one-fourth inches long,[587] while a larger and still more beautiful one, in the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin, is nearly fourteen inches in length. This singular feature in the brooches of the early Christian Period both of Scotland and Ireland, most probably had its origin in some peculiar fashion of the Celtic dress, superseded in the former country during the vital changes which affected it in the eleventh century. The annexed woodcut shews another beautiful Scottish brooch, also from the collection of Mr. John Bell of Dungannon. It is of less costly material than the Dunipace brooch, being made of bronze, but, like it, it has been jewelled, and is otherwise little inferior in point of workmanship. It was found accidentally amongst old brass, in a brazier's shop in Glasgow, and is engraved here the full size of the original.

Another of the chesspieces referred to is in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, and furnishes a most beautiful example of the skill of the early carvers. It is also wrought from the walrus ivory, and may be presumed to have formed a warder or rook-piece of the set. It represents two mailed knights, armed with sword and shield, and may be ascribed to the early part of the thirteenth century. The shields are shorter than in the Lewis figures, and the devices afford an interesting means of comparison. Several of the ornamental patterns wrought on the shields of the former bear such close resemblance to heraldic distinctions that they admit of intelligible description according to rules of blazonry, yet they are all evidently mere arbitrary ornaments and not bearings; whereas on one of the shields of the latter knight we have a curious and very early example of dimidiation in heraldry,—a fleur-de-lys dimidiated on a diapered field,—a figure little likely to be chosen for mere ornament. The history of this interesting relic is unknown. It was presented to the Society by Lord Macdonald in 1782, as the handle of a Highland dirk. From his extensive possessions in the Isle of Skye, it is not improbable that it may have been found there, where the frequent discovery of relics of different periods attests the ancient presence of a population skilled in the useful and ornamental arts. It measures three and five-eighth inches in height, and is fully equal, in point of workmanship, to any of the Lewis figures, though certainly exhibiting no characteristics which should suggest any doubt of its native workmanship.

The annexed woodcut exhibits another chesspiece, apparently of a still later date, preserved in the collection formed by Sir John Clerk at Penicuick House. Attached to it is a parchment label in the handwriting of the old Scottish Antiquary, which thus describes it: "An ancient piece of sculpture on the tooth of a whale. It was found by Jo. Adair, geographer, in the north of Scotland, anno 1682. All the figures are remarkable." John Adair, geographer for Scotland, was appointed by the Lords of the Scottish Privy-Council, in 1682, to make a survey of the whole kingdom, and maps of the different shires. This he effected, and published the first part of his work, but, unfortunately, obstacles arising apparently from the tardy advances of the necessary funds, prevented the second part—including his voyage round the Western Isles and an account of the Roman wall—from ever appearing, and his papers, it is to be feared, no longer exist.[607] It was, no doubt, while he was engaged on this survey, that the interesting relic was discovered which is figured here. It has evidently formed a queen-piece, though consisting in all of seven figures. The queen is represented crowned, and seated on her throne, with a lap-dog on her knee, and apparently a book in her right hand. On her left is a knight in full armour, with drawn sword, and from whose costume we can have little hesitation in assigning the work to the early part of the fourteenth century. On the right hand of the throne stands a trouvere or minstrel playing on the crowde, an ancient musical instrument somewhat resembling the violin. Behind are four female figures, holding each other by the hand, and the one next to the minstrel bearing a palm-branch. This curious chesspiece is of great value; as adding another link to the chain of chronological evidence by which we trace the continuous native production of these costly relics of ancient pastime in our own country.

It is with extreme hesitation that I venture to hint a doubt in regard to any of the conclusions arrived at in the "Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland anterior to the Anglo-Norman Invasion," regarding it, as I do, as a nearly perfect model of critical analysis and research. Yet even Dr. Petrie occasionally seems not to have entirely escaped the influence of that temptation to assign the remotest conceivable antiquity to these national monuments, which proved so effectual a stumblingblock to his predecessors. Notwithstanding the evidence adduced for the date assigned to the erection of the Round Tower of Kildare, it is impossible to overlook the fact, that the doorways both of that and of the tower at Timahoe are decorated with ornaments and mouldings, which, though not without their own peculiar details, essentially correspond to those found throughout Europe on works of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. If the record of erection at a particular date, with the absence of any notice of rebuilding, were to be accepted in proof of the date of styles, there is probably no single phase of medieval ecclesiastical architecture which might not be proved on such evidence to be coeval with the earliest. The silence of all authorities as to the re-erection of churches once built is a species of negative proof of the smallest possible value. In the ruined nave of Holyrood Abbey at Edinburgh, the experienced eye may detect work of nearly every period from the twelfth to the seventeenth century; yet in some places the mouldings of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are so ingeniously engrafted on the original Romanesque work, that it is hardly possible precisely to define the amount of change. The ingenuity with which the old masons have thus remodelled churches to bring them into correspondence with the progressive developments of pointed architecture, completely baffles the attempt to fix from single examples, such as the remarkable doorway of Timahoe, the work of a precise date. The form of arch, the chevron mouldings, decorated capitals, the sculptures on the imposts, are all such as the experienced eye would assign to the era of the Romanesque or Anglo-Norman style; and this idea is rather strengthened than weakened by the finely-jointed character of the ashlar-work, as such well-finished masonry is rarely met with in any English edifice prior to the twelfth century. The well-known details common to the Romanesque style are undoubtedly accompanied, as might be expected, by others peculiar to Ireland; but these examples referred to do not differ more from any twelfth century building in England or Scotland than does the beautiful stone-roofed Church of Cormac, on the Rock of Cashel, to which Dr. Petrie assigns, on indisputable evidence, the date of 1134. I am induced to direct attention to these points—otherwise foreign to the subject in hand—because the few marked characteristics which can be referred to on the round towers of Scotland correspond with those in Ireland which, according to all received ecclesiological analogies, seem to indicate an earlier date than the towers of Timahoe or Kildare, or the presumed contemporary monastery of Rathairn, and can hardly be supposed to be works of a later period. On this point I find it difficult to follow Dr. Petrie, who assigns to these specimens of ecclesiastical architecture, marked by details corresponding with works of the eleventh and twelfth centuries in England and Scotland, a date not later than the close of the eighth century, while the tower of Donaghmore, which bears considerable resemblance to the Scottish round tower at Brechin—though greatly inferior in the amount or richness of ornament—is ascribed to the early part of the tenth century, or fully a century prior to the date of the corresponding Scottish building. Yet there are also points of resemblance of a sufficiently marked character, both in the peculiar masonry and details of the Timahoe and Brechin Towers. The pellet and bead moulding on the soffit of the former also very closely corresponds with the finish of the architrave in the Scottish doorway, though their decorations otherwise greatly differ.

It can hardly admit of doubt that the simple little church and tower of St. Magnus, Egilshay, were built from Irish models. Even if its origin were satisfactorily traced to Norwegian founders, the frequent expeditions of the Northmen to Ireland would suffice to account for this. St. Olaf visited Ireland before his memorable visit to the Orkneys, on his way to Norway, bent on introducing the new faith into his own country. Sigurd, the Jarl whom he converted by the summary alternative of embracing Christianity or forfeiting his dominions, fell in the great battle of Clontarf, in Ireland, A.D. 1014, in which Danes and Northmen of Northumberland, the Orkneys, Hebrides, and Man, fought along with other foreign auxiliaries, on behalf of the Danish colonists of Ireland, against the famous Irish monarch, Brian Boru, while among his allies were the Scottish Maormors of Lennox and Marr. Gray's celebrated ode of "The Fatal Sisters" is a paraphrase of an ancient poem in the Icelandic Saga, on the battle in which the Northmen suffered so terrible a defeat. In this contemporary poem, Hilda, the Scandinavian goddess of war and victory, is introduced with her weird-sisters, the Valkyries, who attended on the field of slaughter to convey the spirits of the dying heroes to the hall of Odin, and otherwise received in the Scandinavian mythology nearly the same attributes as the Parcæ of the Greeks. These Scandinavian Fates are represented as having been seen at Caithness, in Scotland, by a man named Darraudar, on the very day of the battle of Clontarf. They were on horseback, riding swiftly towards a hill, into which they entered, and on looking through an opening of the rock he saw twelve gigantic females weaving a web at a strange loom. Their shuttles were weapons of war, their warp was weighted with human heads, and they wove with human entrails the ghastly texture of "the loom of hell." As they plied their shuttles they sang a dreadful incantation, on finishing which they tore the web into twelve pieces, and each taking her portion they mounted their black steeds and rode off, six to the north and six to the south. That same day they appeared on the field of Clontarf busied amid the heaps of the slain. Such was the creed of the Norse Jarls sixteen years after the conversion of Sigurd of Orkney by St. Olaf, and the sole fruit of their last visit to Ireland. It is not to them, therefore, that we must look for the introduction of the models of the first Christian churches of Orkney. It is much more probable that the earlier missionaries of St. Columba were themselves the architects of the humble little fane which remains on the island of Egilshay, as well as of many others that once adorned the neighbouring isles. It closely corresponds in general characteristics with Dr. Hibbert's account of the ancient churches of Shetland, of which traces still exist. "All the ecclesiastical buildings," he remarks, "appear to have been devoid of the least show and ornament, the ingenuity of the architect extending little farther than in constructing a round vaulted roof. The pointed arch, the pinnacled buttresses, or rich stone canopy, never dignified the chapels of humble Hialtland. The number of them, however, was remarkably great. The parish of Yell, for instance, boasted twenty chapels, where only two or three are used at the present day."[615] The venerable little Church of Egilshay has fallen into like decay, and the inhabitants are now compelled to seek a place of worship on a neighbouring island.

The ecclesiastical foundation of Brechin, so far as we know, is fully four centuries later than that of Abernethy, and belongs to the era of the kings of the Scottish race. The ancient Pictish Chronicle concludes in the reign of Kenneth, the son of Malcolm, 967-991, and is supposed to have been written at that early period. It sums up the brief record of his reign in these words: "This is he who gave the great city of Brechin to the Lord." It does not perhaps necessarily follow that no earlier church existed at Brechin; but to this period we may assign, on the authority of the ancient Chronicle, the first royal foundation; and in the absence of other evidence, I should have felt little hesitation in fixing it as the period when the present round tower was built. Dr. Petrie, however, assigns a date about thirty years later, and promises more precise information derived from the Irish annalists, from whence we may hope for other valuable additions to the Annales Scotorum. Meanwhile, we have obtained an approximation to the desired date, concerning which the indefatigable investigator of the history of these peculiar structures only remarks, "The round tower of Brechin in Scotland there is every reason to believe was erected about the year 1020, and by Irish ecclesiastics."[621] In dimensions this ancient structure somewhat exceeds that of Abernethy, measuring eighty-five feet to the cornice,[622] above which a roof or spire of later date has been added when the cathedral church was re-erected in the thirteenth century. In every other respect it offers superior attractions to that of Abernethy, surrounded as it is with the more recent yet venerable and characteristic memorials of ancient ecclesiastical art, and adorned with sculptures of a singular and very remarkable character. The masonry of the tower, as will be seen from the drawing of the doorway, is of that kind which has been traced as gradually arising out of the cyclopean work of ancient Greece. The stones are polygonal, carefully hewn, and fitted to each other with the utmost neatness and art; the courses of masonry being mostly horizontal, though with more or less irregularity, and the joints not uniformly vertical. It is the same style of work which characterizes the walls of the ancient cities of Etruria, and is also found in Ireland to have succeeded to the ruder primitive cyclopean masonry. But the peculiar feature of the Brechin Tower is its sculptured doorway. Its dimensions are as follows: The breadth at the spring of the arch is one foot seven and a half inches, and at the base one foot eleven inches. The height of the entrance to the centre of the arch is six feet one and a half inch, and the entire height of the doorway from the base of the external ornament to the summit of the crucifix which surmounts the centre of the arch, is eight feet eleven and a half inches.[623]

The portions which remain of the original Romanesque structure of Alexander I.'s foundation on Inchcolm, erected about 1123, are characterized by the same unornate simplicity; nor is it till the reign of David I. that we have any certain examples of the highly decorated late Romanesque work. Even in the Abbey of Jedburgh much of the original work is heavy and plain, compared with the singularly rich details which lighten the solid masses of Kelso Abbey. Of Holyrood Abbey, founded by David I. in the same year with that of Kelso, comparatively little use can be made in fixing the chronology of Scottish medieval architecture. From its vicinity to the capital, and its long occupation by the Court, every invading army spoiled or burnt it, and almost every abbot made some new additions or repairs, till it has become a complete ecclesiological enigma. In the cloister doorway, on the south side of the nave, it presents undoubted remains of the original foundation of David I. The west tower, the arcades in the aisles, and various other portions, indicate that the main walls of the building belong to the transition-period, prior to the complete development of the First-pointed style; most probably in the minority of Alexander III. The great west doorway and the centre aisle are in the very best style of late First-pointed; while the external north wall and its richly decorated buttresses, as well as various additions on the south side, are reconstructions of Abbot Crawfurd, who succeeded to the abbacy in 1457, as appears from his arms still visible on various parts of the new work. The unique windows of the west front, with segmental arches and nondescript tracery, though bearing some resemblance to portions of the palace in Stirling Castle, ascribed to the reign of James IV., will, we suspect, be more correctly assigned to the era of his unfortunate descendant, Charles I., whose cipher is carved on the beam of the great doorway below. The beautiful arcade of early but unusually rich First-pointed work, and with sculptured heads in the spandrils, which adorns the west front of the tower, is in some respects unique, and is certainly unsurpassed in the richness of its details by any contemporary work.

The cathedral of St. Magnus at Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, has already been referred to as an exceedingly interesting specimen of late Romanesque work, commenced about the year 1136; so that from the banks of the Tweed to these remote northern isles we find the Romanesque style universally adopted in the first years of the twelfth century. One curious and unique example of this period, however, must not be overlooked. The remarkable little church and tower of St. Rule, at St. Andrews, have excited scarcely less interest than the round towers of Brechin and Abernethy, and have been the subjects of equally vague speculations. The slender tower, measuring upwards of an hundred feet in height, by twenty feet eight inches in breadth at base, while the choir is only thirty-one and a half feet long,[641] is well calculated to arrest the attention, though the edifice is, as a whole, more remarkable for its singular and perfectly unique features than for the grace or consistency of its proportions. The remarkable excess in height over all the other measurements of the tower prevails, though to a less extent, in the entire design. The accumulated soil covers the bases of the columns of the chancel arch, and thus detracts from this peculiar characteristic of the primitive metropolitan cathedral; but even now, while the interior of the choir measures only nineteen feet ten inches in breadth, the present height of the chancel arch is twenty-one and a half feet, and that of the arch in the tower, formerly connecting the nave and choir, is twenty-four feet two inches; from the floor to the top of the side walls is twenty-nine feet seven inches, and to the apex of the original high-pointed roof, as shewn on the tower wall, is fifty-five feet five inches.[642] Assuming the existence of three steps at the chancel arch, we shall not probably err in adding to all the latter measurements at the least from four to five feet, thereby presenting a remarkably striking contrast to the very narrow proportions of the choir. The details are extremely simple. The sections of the piers and arch mouldings of the chancel figured here will suffice to shew that they partake somewhat of the meagreness of the larger features, while they are entirely devoid of the massiveness so peculiarly characteristic of the older Romanesque. Nevertheless, in this, as in other details of the building, the architect has shewn much ingenuity in economizing the limited means and materials at his command: the tenuity and apparent meagreness of design of the chancel arch, as seen in section, producing in reality an effect of greater breadth and solidity than a number of less distinct and boldly relieved features could have effected. The columns are finished by simple double-cushioned capitals, surmounted by a plain chamfered abacus, from which springs the arch, one of the most singular features of this curious building. Its details are shewn in the section, but the arch considerably exceeds a semicircle; and mounted on its lofty piers, with the tall, narrow tower beyond, presents a remarkable but by no means unpleasing effect. From the excessive height which prevails throughout all the most prominent features of the church of St. Rule, it possesses, as a whole, little in common with such sombre and massive structures as Kirkwall or Dunfermline, or with the more ornate little Romanesque churches of Leuchars or Dalmeny. Its walls, indeed, which have so well withstood the tooth of time, are only two feet seven inches thick. A careful examination of its details, however, leaves no room to doubt that it belongs to the twelfth century, when the older Romanesque was being modified by many novel additions prior to its abandonment for the First-pointed style; and there can be little risk of error in recognising in the church of St. Rule the basilica of Bishop Robert, the founder of the Priory of Canons Regular of St. Andrews, about A.D. 1144. The bishop had much to reform at St. Andrews ere either his new foundation or his Episcopal see were placed on the creditable footing in which he left them to his successor; and we may, with little hesitation, ascribe the singular proportions of the church of St. Rule to the desire of giving with his first slender means the utmost dignity that they admitted of to the metropolitan church. The early chapter seals of St. Andrews afford some of the few undoubted examples of a designed and tolerably accurate portraiture of an ancient church. The oldest of these, a seal attached to a charter A.D. 1160, but itself no doubt of a somewhat earlier date, shews the miniature cathedral as it probably originally appeared, with central and west towers, choir, and nave, but altogether of much smaller dimensions than the greater number of parish churches. The windows of two lights in the top of the tower may be compared to the plainer example, divided by a cylindrical shaft, with cushioned capital, and moulded base, in the lower part of the tower of Dunblane Cathedral, a fragment of the first cathedral of St. Blane, possibly of the time of Canmore, and certainly not later than the reign of Alexander I. But the lighter and more ornate style of those of St. Rule fully accord with the later date assigned to it here.

Examples of the semicircular-headed doorway are of constant occurrence throughout the whole Scottish Decorated period, accompanied with the utmost variety and extent of decoration. The west door of the Abbey Church, Haddington, is a very pleasing example of two orders repeating the favourite roll-and-fillet moulding, with a deep hollow between filled with floriated decoration. It is divided into two doorways by a central shaft, and both it and the jam-shafts have richly floriated capitals and moulded bases. The triple, round-headed windows of the tower, and indeed the whole style of its decoration, are no less markedly characteristic of the peculiarities of the Scottish Decorated period. A still more beautiful doorway, of similar construction, formed, till the year 1829, the entrance to a chapel added to the south aisle of the collegiate church of St. Giles at Edinburgh in 1387. It is now rebuilt between two of the pillars of the central tower, but shorn of many of its finest adjuncts. Similar illustrations might be greatly multiplied, as in the vestry door of the cathedral at Iona, filled in with a trefoil arch; in the beautiful cloister doorway of Melrose Abbey; in the gracefully proportioned priests' door of the collegiate church of Seton, on the south side of the choir, adorned with the arms of Sir William Seton on a shield couche, about the year 1400, but more probably the work of his son; who was buried there in 1441; and in the richly decorated south doorway of Holyrood Abbey, with ogee canopy, and flanking buttresses, the work of Abbot Crawfurd about 1458. The same form of doorway was to be seen, accompanied with several varieties of detail, in the collegiate church of the Holy Trinity at Edinburgh, founded by Mary of Gueldres, the widow of James II., in 1462, and recklessly demolished in the progress of the North British Railway operations in 1848. In some respects this was the finest example of late decorated work in Scotland. The entrance from the north transept to the chantry chapel, latterly used as the vestry, was by a neat round-headed doorway, with a simple roll-and-triple-fillet moulding, with a broad hollow externally running continuously round the arch, and with a hood-mould enriched with flowers in the hollow, springing from moulded corbels.

The same convenience which suggested the use of the round instead of the more elevated pointed arch, also occasionally led to the use of the still more depressed segmental arch, as in the chantry doorway at Bothwell; or even to the two-centred flat arch with segmental curves, as in the great doorway of the beautiful screen and organ-loft at Glasgow, and in a smaller doorway, the work of Abbot Crawfurd, circa 1460, now built into the east arch of the north aisle of Holyrood Abbey. The segmental arch is most frequently employed in monumental recesses, as at St. Bridget's Douglas, St. Kentigern's Borthwick, and in the choir at Seton; but other Scottish churches exhibit the semicircular arch employed for the same purpose, as in the magnificent tomb of Margaret, countess of Douglas, at Lincluden, and in the recesses under the great north and south windows of the transepts at Seton. One of the most beautiful Scottish examples of a late segmental arched doorway, which is figured here, is that of the vestry or chantry chapel of Bothwell Church, Lanarkshire.

The window tracery of the same period, and accompanying the other features of the Scottish Decorated style already described, partakes of the like character and forms. The pointed window-head is subdivided by round-headed lights, and these again are filled in with foliated details, the result of which is exceedingly pleasing in the best examples, from the striking contrasts produced by the combination of pointed and circular forms, as well as from the flowing tracery frequently resulting from the union of the two, and producing the pear-shaped light which predominates in Scottish Decorated tracery. This latter source of expression has led some writers to describe Scottish tracery as exhibiting an approximation to the French flamboyant style. Nothing, however, can be more unwarranted. The ogee form is almost never designedly adopted, and even seems to be often purposely avoided, as in the Paisley window already cited, and in many similar examples. The window figured below, from the south aisle of the nave of Dunkeld Cathedral, is a very characteristic example of the mode of introducing the circular and semicircular forms, to modify the ogee tracery lines which so greatly predominate in the true French flamboyant. The multiplication of descriptions of minute details of tracery could, however, very partially serve to convey any distinct idea of the peculiar characteristics of Scottish window tracery. The woodcut of one of the windows on the south side of the nave of St. Michael's Church, Linlithgow, may suffice as a characteristic illustration of the most familiar combinations of the style. Another though greatly inferior example of the same class of Scottish Decorated tracery from Melrose, is engraved in the Glossary of Architecture. (Plate CCXLVIII., vol. iii.) One remarkable Scottish specimen of ecclesiastical architecture must not be omitted to be noticed, as a singular instance of the local peculiarities developed by the building materials of particular districts. The west front of the cathedral of St. Machar at Old Aberdeen, is chiefly curious as shewing the form which the style assumed when produced with the intractable granite of the country. Its erection dates about 1380-1400;[649] but instead of one large west window, divided by light monials and tracery into numerous lights, the breadth of front is filled in with a series of tall, narrow, lancet-like, but round-headed windows, with no other ornament than a cusped trefoil in the head. The towers on either side are equally simple and unornate, and are chiefly interesting as genuine specimens of granite Gothic, of which the modern town exhibits some more ornate, but greatly less satisfactory examples.

From some of the few dates which have been given it will be perceived that the close of the Scottish Decorated period is as totally disconnected with that of England as is the development of its peculiar and most characteristic features. The large collegiate church of St. Giles at Edinburgh, the cathedral of the bishopric during the brief period of the existence of the see, exhibited, till its recent remodelling, a most interesting progressive series of examples of this style, from its simplest to its latest pure state. The destruction of so much of this by the misdirected zeal of modern beautifiers is a source of just regret to the Scottish ecclesiologist, as the dates of many of the additions were ascertainable, and afforded a safe guide in tracing out the gradual development of the style. But enough still remains in the interior to be well worthy of study. The oldest portion is the north aisle of the choir, with its longitudinal vault, shewing what was the style of the centre aisle of the nave previous to 1829, and also of the choir prior to the erection of the present beautiful clere-story about 1466. The date of the north aisle may not improbably be yet ascertained precisely; meanwhile, in the absence of such evidence, its mouldings and other details appear to justify the assignment of its erection immediately after the burning of the church and town by Edward III. in 1355. A charter of David II., dated A.D. 1359, confirms under the great seal the endowment of the altar of St. Catherine there with the upper lands of Merchiston. Like the neighbouring abbey, however, it was repeatedly spoiled, burned, repaired, and rebuilt. In the archives of the burgh a contract is still preserved made in the year 1380 between the Provost and certain masons to vault over a part of the church,—probably the simple but fine ribbed vault of the nave demolished in 1829. A small aisle of two bays, built between the north transept and a fine late Romanesque porch,—only defaced in the latter end of the last century, and finally demolished in our own day,—appeared from its style to be of nearly the same date. The woodcut shews the singular sculptures on one of the bosses in the eastern bay, which appeared from the original painted glass formerly in its window to have been the chapel of St. Eloi, the patron saint of the ancient corporation of Hammermen.

In 1385 the church was again burned by the army of Richard II.;[651] and in 1387, as appears by the agreement with "Johne Johne of Stone and Johne Skayer, masounys," still preserved among the city archives, the five chapels were added on the south side of the nave. One of these included the beautiful porch and doorway already described, which is required by the contract to be "in als gude maner als the durre standand in the west gavyl of ye foresaid kyrk."[652] From this, therefore, we may presume that the great west door—demolished as appears from the burgh records, along with the whole west wall in 1561—was also in the favourite Scottish form of the rounded arch. Various entries in the accounts of the Great Chamberlain of Scotland, rendered at the Exchequer between the years 1390 and 1413, shew that the cost of the restoration of the main building had been borne by Government, while the city was engaged in extending it by the addition of a second aisle on the south side of the nave; and to this period there can be no hesitation in assigning the present south aisle of the nave,—closely corresponding in style to the five chapels built in fulfilment of the contract of 1387. The next addition was a second aisle added to the north side of the nave, forming two bays to the west of the ancient Romanesque porch defaced in 1760. This beautiful little fragment still remains, with its light and elegant clustered pillar adorned with large blazoned shields on a rich foliated capital, from which spring the ribs of its groined roof and the arches which connect it with the adjoining aisle. The heraldic devices on the shields supply a clue to the date as well as to the singularly interesting associations connected with this portion of the church, from which I have given it the name of the Rothesay Chapel. They consist of the arms of Robert Duke of Albany, second son of Robert II., and of Archibald fourth Earl of Douglas, two Scottish nobles found acting in concert only on one other occasion, when David Duke of Rothesay was starved to death in the dungeon of Falkland Palace, A.D. 1401. It seems only a legitimate inference to assume that this chapel may have been founded by them as an expiatory offering for that dark deed, and a chaplain appointed to say masses at its altar for their own and their victim's souls. A Parliament holden at Holyrood, 16th May 1402, enacted the solemn farce of examining them as to the causes of the prince's death, and a public remission was drawn up under the King's seal, declaring their innocence in terms which leave no doubt of their guilt.[653] It amply accords with the spirit of the age to find the two perpetrators of this ruthless murder, after having satisfied the formalities of an earthly tribunal, proceeding to purchase peace with heaven.

While this transient attempt at the naturalization of the English Tudor style of architecture in Scottish art has thus left some few enduring traces, it is worthy of note that its most characteristic feature, the four-centred arch, is nearly, if not quite unknown in Scotland, otherwise than as a modern exotic which figures in the favourite perpendicular rifacciamentos of ecclesiastical facades, wedded too often to the bald church or meeting-house with about as much congruity as the ill-assorted pair that figure in Hogarth's well-known wedding scene. Whatever might have resulted under more favourable circumstances, the new style was destined to no full development in Scotland. By a charter dated 1st August 1513, Walter Chepman, burgess of Edinburgh, memorable as the introducer of the printing-press to Scotland, founded and endowed an altar in the south transept, or "Holy Blood Aisle" of St. Giles's Church, "in honour of God, the Virgin Mary, St. John the Evangelist, and all saints." It was a period of national happiness and prosperity, in which learning and the arts met with the most ample encouragement. Only one brief month thereafter all this was at an end. James and the chief of his nobles lay dead on Flodden Field; Scotland was at the mercy of Henry VIII.; the Crown devolved to an infant; and faction, ignorance, and bigotry replaced all the advantages of the wise and beneficent rule of James IV. It is not by slow degrees, but abruptly, like the unfinished page of a mutilated chronicle, that the history of Scottish medieval art comes to an end. Yet the favourite forms and mouldings of the Decorated Period lingered long after in the domestic architecture of the country. The ornamental ambries found in the castellated mansions, and even in the wealthier burghal dwellings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, partake so much of the character of earlier ecclesiastical features, that they are frequently described as fonts, stoups, or piscinæ; and even when standing, as is their usual wont, by the side of the huge old fashioned fire-place, they have been assumed to afford evidence that the domestic halls and kitchens of our ancestors were their chapels or baptistries. Some few of these relics of obsolete tastes and manners still linger about the old closes of Edinburgh, though now rapidly disappearing before the ruthless strides of modern innovation. The vignette shews the form of one of these ornamental ambries from a singular antique mansion in the Old Town of Edinburgh, which bore the date 1557, and was believed to have been occupied for a time as the residence of the Queen Regent, Mary of Guise. Another large chamber in the same building bore evidence of having been at one time used as a private oratory, and in it was a curious and still more highly decorated niche, which, however, exhibited somewhat of the debased excesses pertaining to that closing period in which the pure Gothic passed into the picturesque but lawless style of the Elizabethan age. Nevertheless its pierced stone-work served to illustrate the lingering adherence to the earlier national style of window-tracery far down into the sixteenth century.

Stone coffins are no less abundant, but also rarely marked by any peculiar features; the later Scottish sepulchral rites being no doubt for the most part such as were common to medieval Europe. One of the most interesting discoveries of this class was made during recent repairs of the nave of Dunfermline Abbey. In the centre of the nave, towards its east end, a stone coffin of the form and dimensions of those of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was found under the paving. On removing the lid it disclosed a singular leathern shroud, which remained in good preservation, although the body it was intended to protect had long mouldered into dust. The prepared leathern skin is double, and has been wrapped entirely round the body, like the bandages of a mummy; it is laced across the breast, and stitched with a strong leathern thong entirely up the back from the neck to the heels, and along the soles of the feet. It has been removed to the Dunfermline Museum, where it is preserved suspended in a glass case—in some respects a more eloquent memento mori than the Egyptian's "imperishable type of evanescence:" a shroud which has escaped the mortality of the corpse within its folds. The coffin has been assigned by local antiquaries as that of Edward, the eldest son of Malcolm Canmore; but there is no evidence to justify multiplies the evil tenfold, the Rev. J. S. Howson, on comparing it with the numerous sculptured crosses of the district, so faithfully described by him in the Cambridge Camden Society's Transactions, and finding that "the scroll-work on the bell-case, and the figure of our Saviour, are closely similar to the corresponding representations on the Argyleshire crosses," jumps to the conclusion that they also must needs be Scandinavian.[668] The very opposite conclusion would seem unavoidable, were it not that this idea of the supremacy of Scandinavian art in Scotland has superseded reasoning, and maintains its ground in defiance of evidence. History leaves no room to doubt that the Scandinavian invaders devastated and destroyed many native works, and greatly retarded the full development of the arts of civilisation of the Scottish Christian era. Scottish antiquaries certainly display a truly forgiving spirit in crediting them with the invention of what little escaped their sacrilegious ravages. I cannot avoid characterizing the supplementary observations on the Kilmichael-Glassrie bell-shrine in the Archæologia Scotica, which have furnished the basis of the later conclusions, as extremely foolish. A woodcut, copied from an edition of King Olave Tryggiason's Saga, printed in 1665, and with a scutcheon of the debased form only introduced in the seventeenth century, is gravely produced as an ancient representation of the Norwegian king, in order that by comparing his crown with that worn by the crucified Saviour on the bell-case, its decided Scandinavian character may be seen. The crown is neither more nor less than the common one, surmounted by three fleurs-de-lis, which, had a native origin been sought for it, might have been seen along with the Maltese or Greek cross patée, referred to in the same article, on almost any Scottish silver coin from Malcolm Canmore to James IV., when it is for the first time superseded on our native currency by a close crown. It is no less common on contemporary English, and indeed European coins; and as an argument, one way or other in the present question, is utterly valueless. On equally inconclusive grounds the Greek cross patée is pronounced to be Scandinavian. In proof of the thorough consistency of its form with the usages of the early British Church centuries before the first Scandinavian convert had abandoned the Pagan creed of his fathers, it may suffice to observe that it closely corresponds to the beautiful gold cross found in a grave in the Cathedral of Durham, on the breast of an ecclesiastic, believed, at the time of its discovery, to be that of St. Cuthbert, which would assign it to the seventh century. It is sufficient for our purpose, however, that both its style and the circumstances under which it was discovered equally prove its great antiquity and its native workmanship, points perhaps hardly requiring to be discussed.[669] The "well-known Runic knots" are next quoted, these being what we are familiar with on decorative borders of Irish MSS., some of which date two centuries prior to the first known descents of Scandinavian Vikings on our shores, and which are no less common on Anglo-Saxon MSS. and relics, on Anglo-Norman and Scottish Romanesque architecture, and indeed predominated in the prevailing style of ornament for a time throughout Europe. Lastly, we have a figure copied from an ancient "Runic monument," representing a person ringing a large suspended belfry-bell, measuring—if any proportion is preserved—about three feet in height.[670] This, therefore, can manifestly have no possible bearing on the history of the little Scottish hand-bell, or rather bell-case, which measures somewhat less than six inches high.

It remains to be seen if any such ecclesiastical implements or symbols of office ever pertained to the Scandinavian Church, though it is not improbable that they may have been in general use throughout the earlier Christian countries of Europe some centuries before Scandinavia abandoned the creed of Odin. In Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, at any rate, we have abundant evidence of their ancient prevalence, and of the great sanctity universally attached to them; and, indeed, in Ireland, from whence the bell of St. Columba, as well as so much else that pertains to the early Christianity of Scotland, appear to have been derived, the small consecrated bell is still comparatively common. In the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy there are eighteen different examples, including several of an exceedingly primitive character. One of the most remarkable, though not the earliest, of these is the inscribed Cɭoᵹ ḃeɑnuɩᵹhꞇ̇e, or Blessed Bell, called by Dr. Petrie the Bell of Armagh, which may serve as an example of this singular class of ecclesiastical Celtic relics. Giraldus Cambrensis, in his Welsh Itinerary, refers to the universal veneration with which these portable bells were regarded in Scotland and Ireland, as well as in Wales, remarking that men were more afraid of swearing falsely by them than by the Gospels, because of some hidden and miraculous power with which they were gifted, as well as for fear of the saint to whom they pertained. The following account of this unique relic furnished to me by Mr. Bell of Dungannon affords a singularly lively illustration of the superstitions with which such relics have been regarded even in our own day:—

With such indubitable evidence of the use of the consecrated bell as one of the most essential ecclesiastical implements of the first missionary bishops, we can be at no loss to account for the origin of the beautiful relic found on the farm of Torrebhlaurn, in the parish of Kilmichael-Glassrie, Argyleshire. The accompanying accurate engraving (Plate VI.) renders any minute description unnecessary. It is an ornamental square case or shrine, attached to the bottom of which is a thin plate of brass pierced with a circular hole in the centre. Inside this case, but entirely detached from it, is the rude and greatly corroded iron bell. When first discovered it appeared to have been carefully wrapped in a piece of woollen cloth then almost entirely decayed. The hole in the lower plate is large enough to admit of the insertion of the finger, and was perhaps designed to allow of the bell being touched as a consecrated and miraculously gifted relic, without removing it from its case. Dr. Petrie remarks on the quadrangular form of the Irish portable bells as an evidence of their great antiquity, and refers to the inscribed one in the Dublin Museum as a remarkable example of the transition to the later circular form in the ninth century.[676] A bell of the oblong rounded form rudely fashioned out of a sheet of bronze, found at Marden, in Herefordshire, is engraved in the Archæological Journal.[677] The simplicity of its form and construction abundantly justify its assignment to nearly the same early period.

An author of the seventeenth century affirms that the venerable relic survived even in the reign of Charles I.;[680] nor is there anything inconceivable in this, when so many others of the same kind are still preserved. But it is not at all probable that the bell on which the citizens of Glasgow, in 1587, expended two shillings in repair was of so unpractical a form as their old burgh seal proves the original campana of their patron saint to have been. More probably it was a large bell in the tower of St. Mungo's Cathedral, for the repair of which the specified sum might then prove amply sufficient, as appears from a somewhat earlier entry in the same Burgh Records: "Decimo Maii, 1577, to George Burell, for ane tag to þe towng of þe hie kirk bell, xx^d."[681] From the inscription on the present great bell of the cathedral it appears that it was presented by Marcus Knox, a wealthy citizen, in 1594, the old one, after repeated repairs, having at length, it may be presumed, entirely given way. The woodcut represents another of these ancient Celtic relics, which, though preserved along with other memorials of Ireland's saints, in the valuable collection of Mr. Bell of Dungannon, pertains to one of the primitive apostles of his own native land, the celebrated Scottish missionary bishop, St. Ninian or St. Ringan. The Clog-rinny, or bell of St. Ninian, is rude enough to have been contemporary with the Candida Casa of Whithern in Galloway, and to have summoned to the preaching of the missionary bishop the first of the tribes of North Briton converted to the worship of the true God.[682]

On the Island of Inniskenneth, which is affirmed to derive its name from Kenneth, a friend of St. Columba, whom the prayer of the saint rescued from drowning—probably the St. Kenanach of Irish hagiology—there are the ruins of an ancient chapel of small dimensions, about sixty feet in length, and near to it the remains of a cross, with numerous tombstones both of early and recent date. Here, towards the close of last century, according to the Old Account of the Parish, an ancient bell, most probably that of St. Kenanach, and described by the Statist as "a small bell used at the celebration of mass," was then preserved in the chapel.[689] This example, it is possible, may still be preserved in private hands; and with so many evidences of the recent existence of these relics of the first preachers of the faith in Scotland, it is not unreasonable to conceive that others may also be in safe keeping among the heirlooms of the older Highland families, which a wider diffusion of a just spirit of reverence for our national antiquities may bring to light. Meanwhile, these notices suffice to shew that the beautiful bell found at Torrebhlaurn is by no means unique in Scotland. Probably none of the earlier Christian missionaries were without such a potent relic; and the only Scandinavian influence which history would justify us in connecting with them, is the diminution of their number and the spoiling and slaying of their owners, down to the comparatively late date of St. Olaf's conversion, and his mission to the Pagan Norsemen of the Orkneys, armed with more carnal weapons than the bishop's crosier and consecrated bell. With these venerable memorials of the first preachers of Christianity to the heathen Picts and Scots, may also be mentioned a more modern relic of the same class, a graceful little hand-bell, presented to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1783, but of which the previous history is unknown. It is decorated, in basso-relievo, on the one side with the temptation of Adam and Eve, and on the other with the crucifixion. It is no doubt also an old ecclesiastical bell, though belonging to a period long subsequent to the era of St. Kentigern or St. Fillan.

The ancient crosier of St. Molocus, another favourite Celtic saint, has in like manner escaped the ravages of time, and the iconoclastic zeal of the reformers of the sixteenth century, and after being preserved for centuries in the immediate vicinity of the cathedral of Lismore, has recently come into the possession of the present Duke of Argyle. It is known in the district by the simple name of the Baculum More, or big staff; and consists of a plain curved staff, formerly decorated with silver at the top, but long since spoiled of its costlier ornaments. The right of its curatorship, and probably also of bearing it before the bishops of Argyle, appears to have been hereditary, and conferred on its holders the possession of a small freehold estate, which remained in the hands of the lineal descendant of the old staff-bearer till within the last few years. This estate was latterly held under a deed granted by the Earl of Argyle in 1544, the ancient crosier being preserved in verification of the right, till it was recently delivered up, in return for new titles granted, in order to enable the late owner, the last of his race, to dispose of the freehold, which could no longer descend to his heirs. The original charter of confirmation grants,—"Dilecto signiffero nostro Johanni M'Molmore vic Kevir, et heredibus suis masculis de suo corpore legitime procreatis seu procreandis quibus deficientibus at nostram donationem reuerten. omnes et singulas nostras terras de dimidietate terrarum de Peynebachillen et Peynehallen extenden. ad dimidiatem merce terrarum jacen. in Insula de Lismor, cum custodia magni bacculi beati Moloci," &c.[691]

Two other ancient episcopal crosiers remain to be noticed, each of them associated with Scottish sees. The one here engraved was found, in its present imperfect state, along with a glove and other relics, in the course of some excavations in the choir of the cathedral of Fortrose, when a stone coffin was discovered, which doubtless contained the remains of one of the old bishops of Ross. This interesting relic was presented by Sir George Mackenzie to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1822, and is now preserved in their Museum. It retains traces both of colour and gilding, and though greatly decayed and imperfect, is still characterized by considerable elegance. It measures the segment of a circle of about five inches in diameter.

The use of wooden vessels as chalices was, for obvious reasons, abandoned at an early period, so that the calices lignei became in later ages a proverbial illustration of the obsolete simplicity of primitive ages. "We may now take up that old regrait," exclaims Fountainhall, in moralizing on the immense wealth first acquired by the Church, about A.D. 600, "when ther ware calices lignei ther ware then sacerdotes aurei, but now when our chalices are of gold and silver, we have got ligneos sacerdotes."[695] Vessels of wood, even though mounted and jewelled, like the Dunvegan chalice, were very early disused in the services of the altar; and the mazer cup or maple bowl constituted one of the most prominent implements in the conviviality of the Middle Ages. The name indeed ceased at an early period to be exclusively reserved for those manufactured from the wood of the maple tree, from whence the mazer had derived its name, and was at length applied to all drinking cups of a certain class, of whatever material. Among the beautiful examples of medieval art recently exhibited at the London Royal Society of Arts, was a beautiful mazer bowl of silver-gilt, of fifteenth century workmanship, which belongs to Oriel College, Oxford. Of the same class also, probably, were some of the Scottish cups enumerated in a curious inventory of the treasure and jewels of James III., "fundin in a bandit kist like a gardeviant," among which are the "foure masaris, callit King Robert the Brocis, with a cover," and again, "the hede of silver of ane of the coveris of masar." The same "Collection of Inventorys of Royal Wardrobe and Jewell-house," from 1488 to 1606, furnishes some interesting minutiæ in regard to the royal plate and jewels, and the consecrated vessels for the service of the altar. Besides the mazers, there is "ane cowp callit king Robert the Bruce coupe, of silver owirgilt,"—another pleasing evidence of the reverence with which the name of the saviour of his country continued to be regarded. The royal plate and jewels are of an exceedingly curious and costly character, while among the "chapell geir" we find "ane chesabill of purpour velvot, with the stoyle and fannowne, orphis, twa abbis," &c. Another of "crammosie velvot, furniset with a stole and a fannoun only;" another "of black velvot, with croce upoune it, broderrit of clayth of gold." Altar cloths, broidered and jewelled; "ane challeis and ane patene gilt;" "ane caise of silver for the messbreid, with ane cover;" "ane litil cors with precious stanis;" "ane lytill box of gold with the haly croce, send be the Duk of Albany to the kingis graice;" "ane croce of silver, with our Lady and Sanct Johne, gilt." Of silver, "ouregilt," in Edinburgh Castle, "twa chandleris, ane chalice and ane patine, ane halie watter fatt," &c.; "ane bell of silver;" "ane bassing; ane laver of fyne massy gold, with thrissillis and lelleis crounit upoun the samen," &c. The list indeed, of which these are only a few illustrations, greatly exceeds what might have been anticipated at a period succeeding many years of national disaster and suffering. It is to be regretted that scarcely a solitary example of the medieval Scottish "chapell geir," or of the royal mazer, or convivial bowl, remains to illustrate the usages of our ancestors. We learn, however, from these old inventories, that there was no lack of either, and also that the value attached to the mazer cup dates in Scotland, as elsewhere, from a very early period. This probably originated in part from superstitious feelings, arising from some special virtue attached to the wood of the maple tree. But its close grain, the beauty of its variegated surface, and its susceptibility of high polish, were doubtless the chief reasons for its continued use as the material for the pledge-cup and wassail bowl; and when it was replaced by other woods, or even by the precious metals, the old name was still retained. The woodcut represents a mazer of very simple form, and probably of an early age, made not of the maple but the ash, a tree famed of old for many supernatural qualities. It was found in the deep draw-well, in the ruined castle of Merdon, near Hursly, built by Bishop Henry de Blois, A.D. 1138.[696] The ciphus de mazero frequently figures among the household effects of citizens of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and is no less commonly alluded to by the elder poets, as in Robert de Brunne's version of Wace's Brut, written in the latter part of the thirteenth century, where "mazers of rich price" are specified among the gifts bestowed by king Arthur on his foreign guests. The mazer figures also in the inventory of goods of the Sheriff of Nottingham, taken by "Lytell John," as printed by Wynken de Worde, in the popular black-letter ballad,—"A Lytell geste of Robyn Hode;" and it is thus introduced in the fine old Scottish ballad of "Gill Morice,"

One branch of medieval art—the fictile ware—naturally possesses peculiar attraction to the Archæologist, as the offspring of the primitive arts already minutely considered. So far as may be judged of Scottish medieval pottery from the few examples preserved, it does not greatly differ from contemporary English fictile ware. One curious specimen found in 1833 at Perclewan, in the parish of Dalrymple, Ayrshire, is described as "a pitcher of earthenware like that represented in prints in the hand of the woman of Samaria, at the well of Sychar."[702] It is glazed, as is most usual with medieval pottery, of a greenish colour, and is curiously decorated on the front with the face and hands of a man in relief. From the description it appears to bear a close resemblance to a fictile vessel found at the bottom of an old well, discovered under the foundation of houses in Cateaton Street, City, London, taken down in 1841.[703]

Fragments of pottery, of a similar character to the most abundant class of early English medieval pottery, were dug up at a considerable depth, during the progress of excavations on the Castlehill of Edinburgh in 1849, for constructing a large reservoir, but they were unfortunately too much broken by the workmen to admit of any very definite idea being formed of their shape. The annexed woodcut is from an example in my own possession, which was dug up a few years since in the ancient tumular cemetery in the neighbourhood of North-Berwick Abbey, East-Lothian. It measures eleven and a quarter inches in height, and about five and a half inches in greatest diameter, and is covered, both externally and internally, with the usual greenish glaze, common on contemporary English pottery. Various similar specimens appear to have been discovered in the same locality, but in most cases only to be destroyed,—such coarse earthenware being naturally regarded as scarcely worth the trouble of removing. The example figured here represents a small but very curious specimen of Scottish fictile ware, in the collection at Penicuick House, of the precise age of which we have tolerably accurate evidence. It was found on one of the neighbouring farms in the year 1792, filled with coins of Alexander III., and of Edward I. and II. of England. It measures only three and three quarters inches in height; and is perforated at nearly uniform intervals with holes, as shewn in the engraving. It is of rude unglazed earthenware, and is unsymmetrical, as represented here.

The annexed woodcut represents a still more curious relic, apparently pertaining to the same class of objects, though greatly more primitive in form and construction. It appears to be a tobacco pipe fashioned in red sandstone in the form of an animal's head, and with the perforation for inserting the straw or reed by which it must have been completed, made obliquely through one of the eyes. It was found in digging a drain at the village of Morningside, at the base of the Pentland Hills, where numerous traces of primitive population have been brought to light, and was presented to me by Dr. David Skae, Physician of the Royal Asylum there. It is figured here about two-thirds the size of the original.

In the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries there is a curious collection of Irish "Danes' pipes," precisely similar in form to those found in Scotland. A variety of examples of the same kind, found both in England and Ireland, are also figured in the Dublin Penny Magazine,[707] along with certain "clay pipe-stoppers, evidently appendages to pipes with small bowls," but which those who can still remember the obsolete fashions of the past generation have no difficulty in recognising as the periwig curlers of much more recent times than the Danes, if not the Elves! The conclusion arrived at by the writer in the Dublin Penny Magazine is, that these Danes' pipes are neither more nor less than tobacco pipes, the smallest of them pertaining to the earlier years of Queen Elizabeth's reign, when the rarity and value of tobacco rendered the most diminutive bowl sufficiently ample for the enjoyment of so costly a luxury. From this he traces them down to the reign of Charles II., by the increasing dimensions of the bowl. It is not improbable that these conclusions may be correct, notwithstanding the apparent indications of a much earlier origin, which circumstances attendant on their occasional discovery have seemed to suggest. The following description of a curious Scottish memorial of the luxury would, however, seem at least to prove that we must trace the introduction of tobacco into this country to a date much nearer the discovery of the New World by Columbus than the era of Raleigh's colonization of Virginia. The grim old Keep of Cawdor Castle, associated in defiance of chronology with King Duncan and Macbeth, is augmented, like the majority of such Scottish fortalices, by additions of the sixteenth century. In one of the apartments of this later erection, is a stone chimney, richly carved with armorial bearings and the grotesque devices common on works of the period. Among these are a mermaid playing the harp, a monkey blowing a horn, a cat playing a fiddle, and a fox smoking a tobacco pipe. There can be no mistake as to the meaning of the last lively representation, and on the same stone is the date 1510—the year in which the wing of the castle is ascertained to have been built.[708]

The arms and armour are no less characteristic of the medieval than of earlier periods, and are not without minuter national details well worthy of note. There was indeed from the very commencement of the Scottish medieval period in the eleventh century, to the final disarming of the Highland clans in 1746, two completely diverse modes of warfare and military accoutrement prevailing in Scotland. The old Celtic population, occupying for the most part the Highland fastnesses, retained many of the usages of their forefathers under partially modified forms, and even in the decoration of their weapons and defensive armour preserved the ancient style, which is still traceable on the Pictish monuments of Scotland. Many of the circular Highland targets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries present exactly the same interlaced knotwork as may be seen on bosses and limbs of early crosses, and even on relics belonging to the last Pagan era. A mere glance, however, at a few characteristic examples must suffice here; and among these none is more noticeable than the old claymore with reversed guard, which is sculptured on so many of the ancient tombstones of Iona and of the Western Isles. In the portrait of James I. of Scotland, which accompanies the old folio edition of the Scots Acts, the king bears a weapon of this description. It occurs, however, on tombs of a much earlier period, and is now very rarely to be met with. One good small example is in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, and another larger and very fine specimen, the handle of which is here engraved, is in the valuable collection of W. B. Johnstone, Esq. The claymore is figured in the sculptures both of Iona and Oronsay with a considerable variety of details. In some the blade is highly ornamented, and the handle varies in form, but all present the same characteristic, having the guards bent back towards the blade. A curious variety of this peculiar form is seen in a fine large two-handed sword preserved at Hawthornden, the celebrated castle of the Drummonds, where the Scottish poet entertained Ben Jonson during his visit to Scotland in 1619. It is traditionally affirmed to have been the weapon of Robert the Bruce, though little importance can be attached to a reputation which it shares with one-half the large two-handed swords still preserved. The handle appears to be made from the tusk of the narwhal, and it has four reverse-guards, as shewn in the cut. The object aimed at by this form of guard doubtless was to prevent the antagonist's sword from glancing off, and inflicting a wound ere he recovered his weapon, and in the last example especially it seems peculiarly well adapted for the purpose. Among the curious collection of ancient weapons in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, is a sword the blade of which measures thirty-two and a half inches long, and has a waved edge, returned a short way over the back. It was discovered among the ruins of Bog-Hall Castle, near Biggar, Lanarkshire; while the handle, which is made of the section of a deer's horn, and is still more remarkable than the blade, was found at a great depth in a morass, on the property of Sir Thomas G. Carmichael, Bart., in Tweeddale.

The later two-handed sword, though still so familiar to us, is perhaps the most interesting in an archæological point of view, of all the military relics pertaining to the Medieval Period. The huge, ponderous, and unwieldy weapon, seems the fittest emblem that could be devised, of the rude baron of the thirteenth century, who lived by "the good old rule" of physical force, and whose hardy virtues—not unsuited to an illiterate age—are strangely mistaken for the evidences of a chivalry such as later ages have not seen. Calmly reasoning from this characteristic heirloom, as we have done from those of remoter and less known periods, we discern in it the evidence of just such hardy, skilless, overbearing power, as history informs us was the character of the medieval baron, before the rise of the burgher class readjusted the social balance by the preponderance of rival interests. The weapon figured here is a remarkably fine and unusually large specimen of the old Scottish two-handed sword, now in the possession of George Seton, Esq., representative of the Setons of Cariston. It measures forty-nine inches in the blade, five feet nine inches in entire length, and weighs seven and a half pounds. But the chief interest of this old relic arises from the well-authenticated family traditions which associate it with the memory of its first knightly owner, Sir Christopher Seton of that Ilk, from whom some of the oldest scions of the Scottish Peerage have been proud to trace their descent. He was married to Christina, sister of King Robert the Bruce, whom he bravely defended at the battle of Methven. He was shortly after taken prisoner by Edward I., and basely hanged as a traitor. "So dear to King Robert was the memory of this faithful friend and fellow-warrior, that he afterwards erected on the spot where he was executed a little chapel, where mass was said for his soul."[709] Besides this fine example of a Scottish two-handed sword, may be mentioned that ascribed to Sir William Wallace, preserved at Dumbarton Castle; that of Sir John Graham of Dundaff, (slain 1298,) in the possession of the Duke of Montrose; another "Wallace sword" at Kinfauns Castle; and other specimens at Talyskir, in the Isle of Rasay; at Abbotsford; and in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries.

Numerous other remarkable specimens of ancient Scottish arms and armour are preserved both in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries and in other public and private collections; but a mere reference to these without copious illustrations could be of little avail to the antiquary. The Scottish Museum includes a variety of specimens of the old quarrel-head, or Wallace Bolt, as it is generally termed; ancient swords, lance and spear heads, cross-bows, daggers, dirks, hunting knives, and the old Highland Lochaber-axe, with the more modern fire-arms, and other military accoutrements, including the singularly complicated purse-clasp, described by Sir Walter Scott as that of the celebrated outlaw Rob Roy, with four pistols ingeniously concealed in it for defence of the contents of the purse. Still more recent relics preserve associations with the victors of Prestonpans and the vanquished of Culloden Moor. But such objects belong perhaps fully more to the poet than to the archæologist, and are too frequently employed to add a fictitious interest to collections, the real use and value of which have yet to be appreciated.

One other class of relics, singularly characteristic of medieval customs and civilisation, includes the instruments both of punishment and of torture, of which Scotland may lay claim to the questionable boast of having some peculiarly national examples. At a period when criminal punishment avowedly assumed the character of retaliation and revenge, and when torture was recognised as a legitimate means of eliciting evidence, Scotland was not behind the other countries of Europe in the full use of both. The execution at Edinburgh, in 1436, of the murderers of James I., the poet king, and especially the horrible scenes attending on the death of Sir Robert Graham and the Earl of Athole,—crowned, in fearful mockery, with a red-hot iron diadem as king of traitors,—sufficiently illustrate the ferocious spirit which went hand in hand with medieval chivalry. One of the most curious historical relics of this class is the Scottish Maiden, employed, so far as we know, for the first time in the execution of some of the inferior agents in the assassination of Rizzio. By this instrument were beheaded the Regent Morton, Sir John Gordon of Haddo, President Spottiswoode, the Marquis and Earl of Argyle, and many more of the noblest and best blood in Scotland. The Earl of Argyle is reported to have said, with a grave humour worthy of Sir Thomas More: it was the sweetest maiden he had ever kissed. It now forms one of the most remarkable national relics in the Scottish Museum, having, it may be presumed, performed its last office as the instrument of death. It is impossible to look without feelings of peculiar interest upon this ancient Scottish guillotine, so directly associated with the great of past ages; though the vindictive spirit which sought at times to give an added ignominy to a violent death cheated it of the blood of the gallant Kirkaldy, of Montrose and Warriston, as well as of others of lesser note, who figure in the Scottish chronicles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The Boots and Thumbkins are two instruments of judicial torture, especially associated in Scotland with the sufferings of the Covenanters during the reign of Charles II. Neither of them, however, were invented so recently. Torture, which the Roman law permitted only to be used in compelling the evidence of slaves, bore no such limitation in medieval Europe; and the name of the Question, commonly applied to it, abundantly shews the direct purpose for which it was employed. Examples of this barbarous mode of seeking to elicit the truth are frequently to be met with in the earlier Acts of Sederunt of the Court of Session: as in a case of suspected perjury, 29th June 1579, where the King's Advocate produces a royal warrant for examining "Jhone Souttar, notar, dwelland in Dundee, and Robert Carmylie, vicar of Ruthwenis, witnes in the action of improbatioun of ane reversioun of the lands of Wallace-Craigy; and for the mair certane tryall of the veritie in the said matter, to put thaim in the buttis, genis, or ony uther tormentis, and thairby to urge them to declair the treuth." One pair of thumb-screws in the Scottish Museum, of unusually large size, is said to have been the instrument employed by the authorities of the ancient burgh of Montrose for eliciting confession; and a ruder pair, of peculiar form, in the Abbotsford collection, is figured in the illustrated edition of the Waverley Novels.[711] Sir Walter Scott has given fearfully vivid life, in his "Old Mortality," to the tribunal of the Scottish Privy Council, where such horrible appliances were last in vogue. Happily they too are consigned to the cabinet of the antiquary, telling of times which are, we may hope, as truly left behind as the aboriginal Stone Period, with its primitive arts and superstitions, and its simple sepulchral rites.

The Scottish JOUGS and BRANKS are old instruments of punishment, popularly associated, for the most part, with judicial visitations of a more homely and less revolting character than those previously referred to, though not altogether free from sterner associations. The jougs, which consist of an iron collar attached by a chain to a pillar or tree, form the corresponding Scottish judicial implement to the English Stocks: applied, however, not to the legs or arms, but to the neck. They are still to be met with attached to the porch of our older village churches, or occasionally to some venerable tree in the surrounding churchyard, their application having been most frequently reserved in the olden time for the enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline. The woodcut represents a fine old pair of jougs, the property of Sir William Jardine, Bart., which were found imbedded in a venerable ash tree, recently blown down, at the churchyard gate, Applegirth, Dumfriesshire. The tree, which was of great girth, is believed to have been upwards of three hundred years old, and the jougs were completely imbedded in its trunk, while the chain and staple hung down within the decayed and hollow core. The more usual form of the jougs is simply a flat iron collar with distended loops, through which a padlock was passed to secure the culprit in his ignominious durance. Along with this may be mentioned a singular and probably unique relic of old Scottish judicature, preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, to which it was presented in 1784. It consists of the brass collar of a Scottish slave of the eighteenth century. The collar is inscribed in accordance with the terms of the following verdict, which shews that the case was not singular; and having been dredged up in the Frith of Forth, it seems sufficiently probable that the unhappy victim may have chosen death in preference to the doom from which there was no other release.

The BRANKS is another Scottish instrument of ecclesiastical punishment, chiefly employed for the coercion of female scolds, and those adjudged guilty of slander and defamation. It may be described as a skeleton iron helmet, having a gag of the same metal, which entered the mouth and effectually brankit that unruly member—the tongue.[714] It is an instrument of considerable antiquity, and has probably not unfrequently been employed for purposes of great cruelty, though in most examples the gag is not designed to wound the mouth, but only to hold down the tongue. In the Burgh Records of Glasgow, for example, under date of April 1574, "Marione Smyt and Margaret Huntare" having quarrelled, they appear, and produce two cautioners or sureties, "þat þai sal abstene fra stryking of utheris in tyme cuming, under þe pane of X lib., and gif thai flyte to be brankit."[715] One very complete specimen still preserved at St. Mary's Church, St. Andrews, is popularly known as the Bishop's Branks, and is usually said to have been fixed on the head of Patrick Hamilton and of others of the early Scottish martyrs who perished at the stake during the religious persecution of James V.'s reign. This tradition, however, is not borne out by history in the case of Hamilton, and is probably the addition of a later age, though the instrument may possibly have supplied both Archbishop and Cardinal Beaton with a ready means of restraining less confirmed recusants, and thereby nipping the new heresy in the bud. But the real origin of its present title is to be traced to the use of it in much more recent times, by Archbishop Sharp, for silencing the scandal which an unruly dame promulgated openly against him before the congregation. A view of the Bishop's Branks is given in the Abbotsford edition of The Monastery, where it is described as formerly kept at St. Mary's Church. It still remains there, in the custody of the sexton, and is regarded with such general interest as is likely to secure its preservation. The annexed woodcut is drawn from another example, which was discovered in 1848 behind the oak panelling in one of the rooms of the ancient mansion of the Earls of Moray, in the Canongate, Edinburgh. The term Branks, it may be added, is also used in Scotland to designate a rude substitute for a horse's bridle and bit, formed most frequently of a halter and stick. Some few years since the frightful instrument represented below was preserved in the old steeple at Forfar, where it bore the name of the Witch's Branks or Bridle, and is described in the Old Statistical Account of the parish of Forfar as the bridle with which the wretched victims of superstition were led to execution. The field, it is added, where they suffered is pointed out to strangers as a place of curious interest. The witch's bridle was carried off from Forfar to add to the antiquarian treasures of the late well-known collector Mr. Alexander Deuchar of Edinburgh. The date 1661 is punched on the circle, along with what seems to read Angus s.[716] The object aimed at in applying so dreadful a gag to those who were condemned to the stake as guilty of witchcraft and dealing with the devil, was not so much the purposed cruelty which its use necessarily involved, as to prevent the supposed possessors of such unearthly gifts from pronouncing the potent formula by means of which it was implicitly believed they could transform themselves at will to other shapes, or transport themselves where they pleased, and thus effectually outwit their tormentors. It furnishes a melancholy index of the barbarism which prevailed in our own country at so very recent a period, that educated men could be found to give credit to such follies, or that even among the most illiterate and rude, executioners could be enlisted to apply to a woman an instrument the very picture of which is calculated to excite a shudder.

[1] Carlyle's Miscellanies, second edition, vol. v. p. 301.

[2] Archæol. Scot., vol. ii. p. 506; vol. iv. p. 119.

[3] Trans. Camb. Camden Soc., vol. i. pp. 76, 91, 176.

[4] Archæol. Scot, vol. iii. p. 103.

[5] Report by the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, Copenhagen, 1836, p. 61.

[6] Expostulation.

[7] I should regret if I were thought, by the above remarks, to reflect on the present official staff of the British Museum, including as it does men no less distinguished for their learning than for their intelligent zeal for archæological investigation. One evil attendant on the present defective system of management of the Museum by a body of Trustees, composed, for the most part, of irresponsible ex officio members, is, that the Keepers are converted into mere custodiers, responsible for the safety of the collection, but altogether destitute of the powers of an efficient curatorship, such as in the hands of Councillor C. J. Thomsen of Copenhagen led to the development of the entire system which has given to Archæology the character of a science. Wherever the fault lies, however, it is indisputable that the departments of ethnography and antiquities, in the British Museum, are arranged almost without an attempt at systematic classification: one consequence of which is, that in nearly every town of any importance throughout the kingdom we see local museums established, containing a confused jumble of antiquities, natural history, and foreign curiosities, but without any single characteristic of a scientific collection. The present popular idea of a museum, in this country, differs, indeed, in no degree, from the estimate of an exhibition of giants and dwarfs, or any other vulgar show; nor is this grave error likely to be discarded till the great model museum in London sets the example of a systematic arrangement, devised on some other principle than that of merely pleasing the eye.

[8] One instance, though by no means a solitary one in my own experience, will suffice to shew the pernicious effects of this antiquated relic of feudal claims, even in impeding research. Some considerable space is devoted, in the last section of this volume, to Runic relics; but one of considerable interest is omitted to be noticed,—a bronze finger ring inscribed in Anglo-Saxon Runes with the word Æikhi, probably the name of the original owner. It was found in the Abbey Park, St. Andrews. But its possessor, a gentleman of considerable antiquarian zeal, refused to permit of its being engraved or more distinctly referred to here, on the sole ground of his apprehension of exposing himself thereby to the claims of the Crown.

[9] Sir Thomas Browne. Hydriotaphia, or Urn Burial.

[10] Bacon's Essays, LVIII.

[11] Hugh Miller's First Impressions of England and its People.

[12] Ruskin's Seven Lamps of Architecture, p. 66.

[13] Natural History of the Varieties of Man, by Robert Gordon Latham, M.D., p. 528.

[14] British Association for the Advancement of Science, Report for 1837, p. 31.

[15] Natural History of Varieties of Man, by R. G. Latham, M.D., p. 553.

[16] Primeval Antiquities of Denmark, by J. J. A. Worsaae, translated, and applied to the illustration of similar remains in England, by W. J. Thoms, F.S.A., &c., p. 133.

[17] "An Inquiry into the Expedients used by the Scots before the Discovery of Metals," by W. C. Little, of Libberton, Esq. Archæologia Scotica, vol i. p. 389.

[18] "The Antiquities of Ireland and Denmark; being the substance of two communications made to the Royal Irish Academy at its Meetings, Nov. 30, and Dec. 7, 1846."

[19] Albert Way, on "Ancient Armillæ of Gold."—Archæological Journal, vol. vi. p. 55.

The zeal for Archæological investigation which has recently manifested itself in nearly every country of Europe, has been traced, not without reason, to the impulse which proceeded from Abbotsford. Though such is not exactly the source which we might expect to give birth to the transition from profitless dilettantism to the intelligent spirit of scientific investigation, yet it is unquestionable that Sir Walter Scott was the first of modern writers "to teach all men this truth, which looks like a truism, and yet was as good as unknown to writers of history and others, till so taught,—that the bygone ages of the world were actually filled by living men."[1] If, however, the impulse to the pursuit of Archæology as a science be thus traceable to our own country, neither Scotland nor England can lay claim to the merit of having been the first to recognise its true character, or to develop its fruits. The spirit of antiquarianism has not, indeed, slumbered among us. It has taken form in Roxburgh, Bannatyne, Abbotsford, and other literary Clubs, producing valuable results for the use of the historian, but limiting its range within the Medieval era, and abandoning to isolated labourers that ampler field of research which embraces the prehistoric period of nations, and belongs not to literature but to the science of Nature. It was not till continental Archæologists had shewn what legitimate induction is capable of, that those of Britain were content to forsake laborious trifling, and associate themselves with renewed energy of purpose to establish the study on its true footing as an indispensable link in the circle of the sciences.

Meanwhile the close relations which subsist between the researches of the ethnologist and the archæologist, and the perfect unity of their aims, have been recognised by Nillson, Eschricht, and other distinguished men in various countries; and while the two sciences have advanced together, in harmony and with mutual advantage, Scandinavian archæologists have given an impetus to the study of Primitive Antiquities, which has already done much to establish its value as the indispensable basis of all written history. The facilities afforded to the Scandinavian archæologist by the purity of his primitive remains, and the freedom of his ethnographic chronicles from those violent intercalations of foreign elements which render both the ethnology and the historical antiquities of Central Europe so complicated and difficult of solution, peculiarly fitted him for originating a comprehensive yet well-defined system. The comparatively recent close of the Scandinavian primitive periods has preserved in a more complete form those evidences by which we recover the knowledge of the first rude colonists of Europe, whose records are distorted and nearly effaced within the wide pale of Roman sway. The isolation, moreover, of these northern kingdoms preserved them from being the mere highway of the first Asiatic nomades. Whatever traces of early wanderers they retain are well-defined, so that to them we may look for clear and satisfactory evidence in illustration of one portion at least of the primal north-western tide of migration from which the origin of all European history dates. It chances, however, from various accidental causes, that the revival of archæological research in Britain, influenced by canons directly supplied from Scandinavian sources, has a tendency to authenticate some of the most favourite errors of older British antiquaries. Based, as nearly all antiquarian pursuits in this country have heretofore been, on classical learning, it has been accepted as an almost indisputable truth, that, with the exception of the mysteriously learned Druid priests, the Britons prior to the Roman Period were mere painted savages. Hence, while the artless relics of our primeval Stone Period were generally assigned to native workmanship, whatever evinced any remarkable traces of skill distinct from the well-defined Roman art, was assumed of necessity to have a foreign origin, and was usually ascribed to the Danes. The invariable adoption of the latter term in preference to that of Norwegians or Norsemen, shews how completely Scottish and Irish antiquaries have abandoned themselves to the influence of English literature, even where the appropriation of its dogmas was opposed to well-known historical facts. The name of Dane has in fact for centuries been one of those convenient words which so often take the place of ideas and save the trouble and inconvenience of reasoning. Yet this theory of a Danish origin for nearly all native arts, though adopted without investigation, and fostered in defiance of evidence, has long ceased to be a mere popular error. It pervades both the Scottish and English Archæologiæ, and the great majority of works on every department of British antiquities, and has till recently proved a perpetual stumblingblock to the Irish antiquary. It is, moreover, a cumulative error,—certain Scottish relics, for example, found in Argyleshire, as well as others in the Isle of Man, being assumed in the Archæologia Scotica to be Scandinavian,[2] an able writer in the Transactions of the Cambridge Camden Society, taking these assumptions as indisputable facts, employs them in proving that other equally undoubted native works of art are also Scandinavian.[3] So, too, a writer in the Archæologia Scotica, ascribing a similar origin to the monolithic structures of the Orkney and Shetland Islands,[4] is quoted by Danish antiquaries[5] as referring to an established truth, and as proving, accordingly, that similar structures in the Hebrides are also the work of the Northmen! Pennant, Chalmers, Barry, Macculloch, Scott, Hibbert, and a host of other writers might be quoted to shew how this theory, like a snow-ball, gathers as it rolls, taking up indiscriminately whatever chances to lie in its erratic course. Even the poets have lent their aid to propagate the same prevalent error. Cowper, for example,—no uneducated or superficial writer,—thus strangely postdates Britain's birth-time:—

Meanwhile the close relations which subsist between the researches of the ethnologist and the archæologist, and the perfect unity of their aims, have been recognised by Nillson, Eschricht, and other distinguished men in various countries; and while the two sciences have advanced together, in harmony and with mutual advantage, Scandinavian archæologists have given an impetus to the study of Primitive Antiquities, which has already done much to establish its value as the indispensable basis of all written history. The facilities afforded to the Scandinavian archæologist by the purity of his primitive remains, and the freedom of his ethnographic chronicles from those violent intercalations of foreign elements which render both the ethnology and the historical antiquities of Central Europe so complicated and difficult of solution, peculiarly fitted him for originating a comprehensive yet well-defined system. The comparatively recent close of the Scandinavian primitive periods has preserved in a more complete form those evidences by which we recover the knowledge of the first rude colonists of Europe, whose records are distorted and nearly effaced within the wide pale of Roman sway. The isolation, moreover, of these northern kingdoms preserved them from being the mere highway of the first Asiatic nomades. Whatever traces of early wanderers they retain are well-defined, so that to them we may look for clear and satisfactory evidence in illustration of one portion at least of the primal north-western tide of migration from which the origin of all European history dates. It chances, however, from various accidental causes, that the revival of archæological research in Britain, influenced by canons directly supplied from Scandinavian sources, has a tendency to authenticate some of the most favourite errors of older British antiquaries. Based, as nearly all antiquarian pursuits in this country have heretofore been, on classical learning, it has been accepted as an almost indisputable truth, that, with the exception of the mysteriously learned Druid priests, the Britons prior to the Roman Period were mere painted savages. Hence, while the artless relics of our primeval Stone Period were generally assigned to native workmanship, whatever evinced any remarkable traces of skill distinct from the well-defined Roman art, was assumed of necessity to have a foreign origin, and was usually ascribed to the Danes. The invariable adoption of the latter term in preference to that of Norwegians or Norsemen, shews how completely Scottish and Irish antiquaries have abandoned themselves to the influence of English literature, even where the appropriation of its dogmas was opposed to well-known historical facts. The name of Dane has in fact for centuries been one of those convenient words which so often take the place of ideas and save the trouble and inconvenience of reasoning. Yet this theory of a Danish origin for nearly all native arts, though adopted without investigation, and fostered in defiance of evidence, has long ceased to be a mere popular error. It pervades both the Scottish and English Archæologiæ, and the great majority of works on every department of British antiquities, and has till recently proved a perpetual stumblingblock to the Irish antiquary. It is, moreover, a cumulative error,—certain Scottish relics, for example, found in Argyleshire, as well as others in the Isle of Man, being assumed in the Archæologia Scotica to be Scandinavian,[2] an able writer in the Transactions of the Cambridge Camden Society, taking these assumptions as indisputable facts, employs them in proving that other equally undoubted native works of art are also Scandinavian.[3] So, too, a writer in the Archæologia Scotica, ascribing a similar origin to the monolithic structures of the Orkney and Shetland Islands,[4] is quoted by Danish antiquaries[5] as referring to an established truth, and as proving, accordingly, that similar structures in the Hebrides are also the work of the Northmen! Pennant, Chalmers, Barry, Macculloch, Scott, Hibbert, and a host of other writers might be quoted to shew how this theory, like a snow-ball, gathers as it rolls, taking up indiscriminately whatever chances to lie in its erratic course. Even the poets have lent their aid to propagate the same prevalent error. Cowper, for example,—no uneducated or superficial writer,—thus strangely postdates Britain's birth-time:—

Meanwhile the close relations which subsist between the researches of the ethnologist and the archæologist, and the perfect unity of their aims, have been recognised by Nillson, Eschricht, and other distinguished men in various countries; and while the two sciences have advanced together, in harmony and with mutual advantage, Scandinavian archæologists have given an impetus to the study of Primitive Antiquities, which has already done much to establish its value as the indispensable basis of all written history. The facilities afforded to the Scandinavian archæologist by the purity of his primitive remains, and the freedom of his ethnographic chronicles from those violent intercalations of foreign elements which render both the ethnology and the historical antiquities of Central Europe so complicated and difficult of solution, peculiarly fitted him for originating a comprehensive yet well-defined system. The comparatively recent close of the Scandinavian primitive periods has preserved in a more complete form those evidences by which we recover the knowledge of the first rude colonists of Europe, whose records are distorted and nearly effaced within the wide pale of Roman sway. The isolation, moreover, of these northern kingdoms preserved them from being the mere highway of the first Asiatic nomades. Whatever traces of early wanderers they retain are well-defined, so that to them we may look for clear and satisfactory evidence in illustration of one portion at least of the primal north-western tide of migration from which the origin of all European history dates. It chances, however, from various accidental causes, that the revival of archæological research in Britain, influenced by canons directly supplied from Scandinavian sources, has a tendency to authenticate some of the most favourite errors of older British antiquaries. Based, as nearly all antiquarian pursuits in this country have heretofore been, on classical learning, it has been accepted as an almost indisputable truth, that, with the exception of the mysteriously learned Druid priests, the Britons prior to the Roman Period were mere painted savages. Hence, while the artless relics of our primeval Stone Period were generally assigned to native workmanship, whatever evinced any remarkable traces of skill distinct from the well-defined Roman art, was assumed of necessity to have a foreign origin, and was usually ascribed to the Danes. The invariable adoption of the latter term in preference to that of Norwegians or Norsemen, shews how completely Scottish and Irish antiquaries have abandoned themselves to the influence of English literature, even where the appropriation of its dogmas was opposed to well-known historical facts. The name of Dane has in fact for centuries been one of those convenient words which so often take the place of ideas and save the trouble and inconvenience of reasoning. Yet this theory of a Danish origin for nearly all native arts, though adopted without investigation, and fostered in defiance of evidence, has long ceased to be a mere popular error. It pervades both the Scottish and English Archæologiæ, and the great majority of works on every department of British antiquities, and has till recently proved a perpetual stumblingblock to the Irish antiquary. It is, moreover, a cumulative error,—certain Scottish relics, for example, found in Argyleshire, as well as others in the Isle of Man, being assumed in the Archæologia Scotica to be Scandinavian,[2] an able writer in the Transactions of the Cambridge Camden Society, taking these assumptions as indisputable facts, employs them in proving that other equally undoubted native works of art are also Scandinavian.[3] So, too, a writer in the Archæologia Scotica, ascribing a similar origin to the monolithic structures of the Orkney and Shetland Islands,[4] is quoted by Danish antiquaries[5] as referring to an established truth, and as proving, accordingly, that similar structures in the Hebrides are also the work of the Northmen! Pennant, Chalmers, Barry, Macculloch, Scott, Hibbert, and a host of other writers might be quoted to shew how this theory, like a snow-ball, gathers as it rolls, taking up indiscriminately whatever chances to lie in its erratic course. Even the poets have lent their aid to propagate the same prevalent error. Cowper, for example,—no uneducated or superficial writer,—thus strangely postdates Britain's birth-time:—

Meanwhile the close relations which subsist between the researches of the ethnologist and the archæologist, and the perfect unity of their aims, have been recognised by Nillson, Eschricht, and other distinguished men in various countries; and while the two sciences have advanced together, in harmony and with mutual advantage, Scandinavian archæologists have given an impetus to the study of Primitive Antiquities, which has already done much to establish its value as the indispensable basis of all written history. The facilities afforded to the Scandinavian archæologist by the purity of his primitive remains, and the freedom of his ethnographic chronicles from those violent intercalations of foreign elements which render both the ethnology and the historical antiquities of Central Europe so complicated and difficult of solution, peculiarly fitted him for originating a comprehensive yet well-defined system. The comparatively recent close of the Scandinavian primitive periods has preserved in a more complete form those evidences by which we recover the knowledge of the first rude colonists of Europe, whose records are distorted and nearly effaced within the wide pale of Roman sway. The isolation, moreover, of these northern kingdoms preserved them from being the mere highway of the first Asiatic nomades. Whatever traces of early wanderers they retain are well-defined, so that to them we may look for clear and satisfactory evidence in illustration of one portion at least of the primal north-western tide of migration from which the origin of all European history dates. It chances, however, from various accidental causes, that the revival of archæological research in Britain, influenced by canons directly supplied from Scandinavian sources, has a tendency to authenticate some of the most favourite errors of older British antiquaries. Based, as nearly all antiquarian pursuits in this country have heretofore been, on classical learning, it has been accepted as an almost indisputable truth, that, with the exception of the mysteriously learned Druid priests, the Britons prior to the Roman Period were mere painted savages. Hence, while the artless relics of our primeval Stone Period were generally assigned to native workmanship, whatever evinced any remarkable traces of skill distinct from the well-defined Roman art, was assumed of necessity to have a foreign origin, and was usually ascribed to the Danes. The invariable adoption of the latter term in preference to that of Norwegians or Norsemen, shews how completely Scottish and Irish antiquaries have abandoned themselves to the influence of English literature, even where the appropriation of its dogmas was opposed to well-known historical facts. The name of Dane has in fact for centuries been one of those convenient words which so often take the place of ideas and save the trouble and inconvenience of reasoning. Yet this theory of a Danish origin for nearly all native arts, though adopted without investigation, and fostered in defiance of evidence, has long ceased to be a mere popular error. It pervades both the Scottish and English Archæologiæ, and the great majority of works on every department of British antiquities, and has till recently proved a perpetual stumblingblock to the Irish antiquary. It is, moreover, a cumulative error,—certain Scottish relics, for example, found in Argyleshire, as well as others in the Isle of Man, being assumed in the Archæologia Scotica to be Scandinavian,[2] an able writer in the Transactions of the Cambridge Camden Society, taking these assumptions as indisputable facts, employs them in proving that other equally undoubted native works of art are also Scandinavian.[3] So, too, a writer in the Archæologia Scotica, ascribing a similar origin to the monolithic structures of the Orkney and Shetland Islands,[4] is quoted by Danish antiquaries[5] as referring to an established truth, and as proving, accordingly, that similar structures in the Hebrides are also the work of the Northmen! Pennant, Chalmers, Barry, Macculloch, Scott, Hibbert, and a host of other writers might be quoted to shew how this theory, like a snow-ball, gathers as it rolls, taking up indiscriminately whatever chances to lie in its erratic course. Even the poets have lent their aid to propagate the same prevalent error. Cowper, for example,—no uneducated or superficial writer,—thus strangely postdates Britain's birth-time:—

And Danish howlings scared thee as they past."[6]

In nothing is the want of the intelligent cooperation of the kindred sciences which bear on the study of antiquities more apparent than in the present state of our public collections. The British Museum contains the elements of a collection which, if arranged ethnographically and chronologically, would form the most valuable school of popular instruction that Government could establish; and no other country rests under the same manifest duty to form a complete ethnological museum as Britain: with her hundred colonies, and her tribes of subject aborigines in every quarter of the globe, losing their individuality where they escape extinction, by absorption and assimilation to their European masters. Were an entire quadrangular range of apartments in the British Museum devoted to a continuous systematic arrangement, the visitor should pass from the ethnographic rooms, shewing man as he is still found in the primitive savage state, and destitute of the metallurgic arts; thence to the relics of the Stone Period, not of Britain or Europe only; but also of Asia, Africa, and America, including the remarkable primitive traces which even Egypt discloses. To this would then fitly succeed the old monuments of Egyptian civilisation, the Nimrud marbles, the sculptures of India, and all the other evidences of early Asiatic arts. The Archaic Greek and Colonial works should come after these, followed by the master-pieces of the age of Pericles, and these again by the monuments of imperial Rome. Thus by a natural sequence we return to British remains: the Anglo-Roman relics piecing on like a new chapter of European history, at the point where our island first appears as a part of the old Roman world, and followed in succession by our native Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, Norman, and Medieval antiquities. The materials for all this, if we except the primitive British relics, are already acquired; and while to the thousands who annually throng the Museum, in idle and profitless wonder, this would at once convert into intelligible history, what must now be to the vast majority of visitors a confused assortment of nearly meaningless relics, even the most profound scholar might derive from it information and pleasure, such as would amply repay the labour of re-arrangement. The immense practical value of collections to the archæologist renders their proper arrangement a matter of grave importance, and one which cannot be allowed to rest in its present extremely imperfect state.[7]

Some of the wretched fruits of the different system still pursued in this country are referred to in the following pages;[8] yet with the earnest desire of the officers of the Scottish Exchequer, to whom the enforcement of the present law is committed, to avert, if possible, the destructive consequences which it has heretofore operated to produce, it is manifest that nothing more is needed than to adopt the essential practical feature in the Danish plan, which gives the actual finder the sole claim to reward, and also holds him responsible and liable to punishment. Until this indispensable change is effected, the Scottish archæologist must continue to deplore the annual destruction of national treasures, not less valuable to the historian than the chartularies which are being rescued with so much labour and cost from their long-neglected repositories.

Wilkinson places the era of Menes, the founder of Egyptian monarchy, and probably one of the earliest wanderers from the eastern cradle of our race, some 2200 years B.C. Bunsen, aiming, in his "Ægyptens Stelle in der Weltgeschichte," at fixing the exact year, assigns that of 3643 B.C., or, in other words, 1295 years before the commonly accepted era of the Deluge. Yet even this has not satisfied all the requisites of newly discovered data. Fleury, in his "L'Egypte Pharaonique," carries back the Menean age some 1600 years farther into the past; and Böckh, following out an independent series of investigations, fixes the same era, in his "Manetho und die Hundssternperiode," for the year B.C. 5702. The world's early historic chronology, it is now universally admitted, has been misinterpreted. The last date is just 1698 years before the creation of the world, if we are still implicitly to accept Archbishop Usher for our guide. But even this it is possible may yet be revised, as too scanty for the events which it must comprehend; unless, following the example of one distinguished archæologist, Mr. S. Sharpe, we consign all Egyptian history prior to the era of Osirtesen I. to the same order of fabulous or mythic inventions as the crude traditions of our own chroniclers, and esteem Menes as no more than the classic Saturnus, or the Scandinavian Odin. It is not our province here to do more than indicate the fact, that all early chronology is liable to correction by the contributions of new truths, its most accredited data being at best only approximations to the desired end. "Oblivion is not to be hired. The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been: to be found in the register of God, not in the records of men. Twenty-seven names make up the first story before the Flood, and the recorded names ever since contain not one living century. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The night of time far surpasseth the day; and who knows when was the Equinox?"[9]

It is in curious consistency with human nature that we find the order of its investigations in the inverse ratio of their relation to itself. In the infancy of our race men studied the stars, bringing to the aid of their human sympathies the fancies of the astrologer to fill the void which Astronomy could not satisfy. The earth had grown older, and its patriarchal age was long past, when Cosmogony and Geology had their rise. Now at length when the studies of many generations have furnished materials for Astronomy, and the history of the earth's crust is being patiently unravelled by numerous independent labourers, some students of the past have inquired if the annals of our own race may not also be recoverable. Men with zeal no less earnest than that which has done so much for Astronomy and Geology, have found that this also lay around the older generations, recorded in characters no less intelligible, and containing the history of beings no less interesting to us than the Saurians or Mammoths, to whose inheritance we have succeeded. Bacon has remarked, in treating of the vicissitudes of things,[10] "The great winding-sheets that bury all things in oblivion, are two—deluges and earthquakes." But the weft of our historic winding-sheet is of a feebler texture, and its unnoted folds envelop an ampler oblivion, which also will yield secrets worth the knowing. Not a day passes that some fact is not stored in that strange treasury, some of them wittingly, but far more unwittingly, as the chronicles of man. To decipher these and to apply them as the elements of a new historic chronometry, are the legitimate ends of Archæology.

The visitor to the British Museum passes through galleries containing fossil relics of the secondary and tertiary geological periods—the gigantic evidences of former life, the tropical fauna of the carboniferous system, and all the organic and inorganic proofs by which we are guided in investigating the physical changes, and classifying the extinct beings, that pertained to the older world of which they speak. Thence he proceeds to galleries filled with the inscribed sarcophagi and obelisks, the votive tablets, the sculptured altars, deities, or historic decorations of Assyria, Egypt, India, Greece, and Rome, relics which belong no less to extinct, though newer systems and orders of being. "The antiquities," says an eminent geologist, when instituting a nearly similar comparison, "piece on in natural sequence to the geology; and it seems but rational to indulge in the same sort of reasonings regarding them. They are the fossils of an extinct order of things newer than the tertiary; of an extinct race, of an extinct religion, of a state of society and a class of enterprises which the world saw once, but which it will never see again; and with but little assistance from the direct testimony of history, one has to grope one's way along this comparatively modern formation, guided chiefly, as in the more ancient deposits, by the clue of circumstantial evidence."[11] Such are the reflections of an intelligent geologist, suggested by a similar combination of geological and historic relics to that which offers itself to the visitor of our great National Museum. But it is even in a more absolute sense than the geologist dreams of that the antiquities piece on to the geology, and show the researches of the archæologist to follow up the closing data of the older systems without a pause. He labours to build up that most important of all the branches of palæontology which pertains to ethnological investigations, and which when brought to maturity will be found not less valuable as an element in the elucidation of the history of nations and of mankind, than the grammatical construction and the affiliations of languages, which the ethnologist now chiefly favours. The archæologist applies to the accumulated facts of his own science the same process of inductive reasoning which the geologist has already employed with such success in investigating still earlier states of being. Both deal with unwritten history, and aim at the recovery of annals long deemed irretrievably erased. Nor is it merely in a parallelism of process, or a continuity of subject, that the affinity is traceable between them. It will be found that they meet on common ground, and dispute the heirship of some of old Time's bequests. The detritus records archæological as well as geological facts. The more recent alluvial strata are the legitimate property of both; while above these lie the evidences of still later changes on the earth's surface—the debris of successive ages, the buried ruins, the entombed works of art, and "the heaps of reedy clay, into which chambered cities melt in their mortality"[12]—the undisputed heirlooms of the archæologist. The younger science treats, it is true, of recent periods, when compared with the eras of geological computation, and of a race newer than any of those whose organic remains are classified in the systems into which the strata of the earth's crust have been grouped. But this race which last of all has peopled the globe, once teeming with living beings so strangely diverse from all that now inhabit it, is the race of man, whose history embraces nobler records, and has claims to a deeper interest for us than the most wonderful of all the extinct monsters that once

The visitor to the British Museum passes through galleries containing fossil relics of the secondary and tertiary geological periods—the gigantic evidences of former life, the tropical fauna of the carboniferous system, and all the organic and inorganic proofs by which we are guided in investigating the physical changes, and classifying the extinct beings, that pertained to the older world of which they speak. Thence he proceeds to galleries filled with the inscribed sarcophagi and obelisks, the votive tablets, the sculptured altars, deities, or historic decorations of Assyria, Egypt, India, Greece, and Rome, relics which belong no less to extinct, though newer systems and orders of being. "The antiquities," says an eminent geologist, when instituting a nearly similar comparison, "piece on in natural sequence to the geology; and it seems but rational to indulge in the same sort of reasonings regarding them. They are the fossils of an extinct order of things newer than the tertiary; of an extinct race, of an extinct religion, of a state of society and a class of enterprises which the world saw once, but which it will never see again; and with but little assistance from the direct testimony of history, one has to grope one's way along this comparatively modern formation, guided chiefly, as in the more ancient deposits, by the clue of circumstantial evidence."[11] Such are the reflections of an intelligent geologist, suggested by a similar combination of geological and historic relics to that which offers itself to the visitor of our great National Museum. But it is even in a more absolute sense than the geologist dreams of that the antiquities piece on to the geology, and show the researches of the archæologist to follow up the closing data of the older systems without a pause. He labours to build up that most important of all the branches of palæontology which pertains to ethnological investigations, and which when brought to maturity will be found not less valuable as an element in the elucidation of the history of nations and of mankind, than the grammatical construction and the affiliations of languages, which the ethnologist now chiefly favours. The archæologist applies to the accumulated facts of his own science the same process of inductive reasoning which the geologist has already employed with such success in investigating still earlier states of being. Both deal with unwritten history, and aim at the recovery of annals long deemed irretrievably erased. Nor is it merely in a parallelism of process, or a continuity of subject, that the affinity is traceable between them. It will be found that they meet on common ground, and dispute the heirship of some of old Time's bequests. The detritus records archæological as well as geological facts. The more recent alluvial strata are the legitimate property of both; while above these lie the evidences of still later changes on the earth's surface—the debris of successive ages, the buried ruins, the entombed works of art, and "the heaps of reedy clay, into which chambered cities melt in their mortality"[12]—the undisputed heirlooms of the archæologist. The younger science treats, it is true, of recent periods, when compared with the eras of geological computation, and of a race newer than any of those whose organic remains are classified in the systems into which the strata of the earth's crust have been grouped. But this race which last of all has peopled the globe, once teeming with living beings so strangely diverse from all that now inhabit it, is the race of man, whose history embraces nobler records, and has claims to a deeper interest for us than the most wonderful of all the extinct monsters that once

Of late years the direct evidence of the character of the primitive races of Europe, furnished by their sepulchral remains, has been made the subject of careful investigation by distinguished ethnologists, both of Denmark and Sweden. Eschricht, Nillson, and Retzius, have all aimed by this means to recover the traces of the colonists of the north of Europe, and have discovered different physical types, apparently corresponding to the successive stages of advancement in civilisation, which the more direct archæological evidence establishes. Arguing from these results, Professor Nillson arrives at the conclusion that the northern relics of the Stone Period are not the memorials of the Celtæ, but of a much older and unknown race, which in the course of time has disappeared before the immigration of more powerful nations. Similar ideas are now generally gaining ground among ethnologists. "Within their own pale," Dr. Latham remarks, "the Celts were the encroaching family of the oldest, the Romans of the next oldest, and the Anglo-Saxons and Slavonians of the recent periods of history."[13] On like grounds to those by which Professor Nillson arrives at the conclusion that the Celtæ were preceded in the north by other races, Danish and Swedish ethnologists concur in rejecting the idea of the Fins having been the aboriginal race of Scandinavia. The earliest people, whose remains are found accompanied with the primitive class of implements, prior to the introduction of metals, appear to have belonged to a family of different physical character from those of any of the Arian races, and have been supposed to present features of greater affinity to the nations of Northern Asia. Professor Nillson, who has carefully examined the skeletons of the aboriginal Swedish colonists, and especially noted the conformation of their crania, states that they are readily distinguished from all the subsequent inhabitants of Scandinavia. They present the same peculiar form of cranium which has been recognised as existing among several ancient peoples, such as the Iberians or Basques of the Pyrenees, the Lapps and Samoyedes, and the Pelasgi, some traces of whom are still found in Greece.[14] The last noted coincidence is of considerable interest, both from the ancient prevalence there of cyclopean architecture, and other traces of primitive arts of unknown antiquity, and also from its vicinity to the Asiatic centre of aboriginal emigration. Dr. Latham remarks, in reply to the question, "Is there reason to believe that any definite stock or division of our species has become either wholly extinct, or so incorporated as to be virtually beyond the recognition and analysis of the investigator? With the vast majority of the so-called extinct stocks, this is not the case; e.g., it is not the case with the old Gauls of Gallia, who, though no longer extant, have extant congeners—the Welsh and Gaels. To an extinction of this kind among the better known historic nations of Europe and Asia, the nearest approach is to be found in the history of the Pelasgi."[15] It will be of no slight interest if we can trace the congeners of this ancient people among the extinct aborigines of the north of Europe.

Of late years the direct evidence of the character of the primitive races of Europe, furnished by their sepulchral remains, has been made the subject of careful investigation by distinguished ethnologists, both of Denmark and Sweden. Eschricht, Nillson, and Retzius, have all aimed by this means to recover the traces of the colonists of the north of Europe, and have discovered different physical types, apparently corresponding to the successive stages of advancement in civilisation, which the more direct archæological evidence establishes. Arguing from these results, Professor Nillson arrives at the conclusion that the northern relics of the Stone Period are not the memorials of the Celtæ, but of a much older and unknown race, which in the course of time has disappeared before the immigration of more powerful nations. Similar ideas are now generally gaining ground among ethnologists. "Within their own pale," Dr. Latham remarks, "the Celts were the encroaching family of the oldest, the Romans of the next oldest, and the Anglo-Saxons and Slavonians of the recent periods of history."[13] On like grounds to those by which Professor Nillson arrives at the conclusion that the Celtæ were preceded in the north by other races, Danish and Swedish ethnologists concur in rejecting the idea of the Fins having been the aboriginal race of Scandinavia. The earliest people, whose remains are found accompanied with the primitive class of implements, prior to the introduction of metals, appear to have belonged to a family of different physical character from those of any of the Arian races, and have been supposed to present features of greater affinity to the nations of Northern Asia. Professor Nillson, who has carefully examined the skeletons of the aboriginal Swedish colonists, and especially noted the conformation of their crania, states that they are readily distinguished from all the subsequent inhabitants of Scandinavia. They present the same peculiar form of cranium which has been recognised as existing among several ancient peoples, such as the Iberians or Basques of the Pyrenees, the Lapps and Samoyedes, and the Pelasgi, some traces of whom are still found in Greece.[14] The last noted coincidence is of considerable interest, both from the ancient prevalence there of cyclopean architecture, and other traces of primitive arts of unknown antiquity, and also from its vicinity to the Asiatic centre of aboriginal emigration. Dr. Latham remarks, in reply to the question, "Is there reason to believe that any definite stock or division of our species has become either wholly extinct, or so incorporated as to be virtually beyond the recognition and analysis of the investigator? With the vast majority of the so-called extinct stocks, this is not the case; e.g., it is not the case with the old Gauls of Gallia, who, though no longer extant, have extant congeners—the Welsh and Gaels. To an extinction of this kind among the better known historic nations of Europe and Asia, the nearest approach is to be found in the history of the Pelasgi."[15] It will be of no slight interest if we can trace the congeners of this ancient people among the extinct aborigines of the north of Europe.

Of late years the direct evidence of the character of the primitive races of Europe, furnished by their sepulchral remains, has been made the subject of careful investigation by distinguished ethnologists, both of Denmark and Sweden. Eschricht, Nillson, and Retzius, have all aimed by this means to recover the traces of the colonists of the north of Europe, and have discovered different physical types, apparently corresponding to the successive stages of advancement in civilisation, which the more direct archæological evidence establishes. Arguing from these results, Professor Nillson arrives at the conclusion that the northern relics of the Stone Period are not the memorials of the Celtæ, but of a much older and unknown race, which in the course of time has disappeared before the immigration of more powerful nations. Similar ideas are now generally gaining ground among ethnologists. "Within their own pale," Dr. Latham remarks, "the Celts were the encroaching family of the oldest, the Romans of the next oldest, and the Anglo-Saxons and Slavonians of the recent periods of history."[13] On like grounds to those by which Professor Nillson arrives at the conclusion that the Celtæ were preceded in the north by other races, Danish and Swedish ethnologists concur in rejecting the idea of the Fins having been the aboriginal race of Scandinavia. The earliest people, whose remains are found accompanied with the primitive class of implements, prior to the introduction of metals, appear to have belonged to a family of different physical character from those of any of the Arian races, and have been supposed to present features of greater affinity to the nations of Northern Asia. Professor Nillson, who has carefully examined the skeletons of the aboriginal Swedish colonists, and especially noted the conformation of their crania, states that they are readily distinguished from all the subsequent inhabitants of Scandinavia. They present the same peculiar form of cranium which has been recognised as existing among several ancient peoples, such as the Iberians or Basques of the Pyrenees, the Lapps and Samoyedes, and the Pelasgi, some traces of whom are still found in Greece.[14] The last noted coincidence is of considerable interest, both from the ancient prevalence there of cyclopean architecture, and other traces of primitive arts of unknown antiquity, and also from its vicinity to the Asiatic centre of aboriginal emigration. Dr. Latham remarks, in reply to the question, "Is there reason to believe that any definite stock or division of our species has become either wholly extinct, or so incorporated as to be virtually beyond the recognition and analysis of the investigator? With the vast majority of the so-called extinct stocks, this is not the case; e.g., it is not the case with the old Gauls of Gallia, who, though no longer extant, have extant congeners—the Welsh and Gaels. To an extinction of this kind among the better known historic nations of Europe and Asia, the nearest approach is to be found in the history of the Pelasgi."[15] It will be of no slight interest if we can trace the congeners of this ancient people among the extinct aborigines of the north of Europe.

Two later races are supposed to have succeeded each other in Scandinavia prior to its colonization by the true Swea race, the first settlement of which in Scandinavia Professor Nillson assigns to a much more recent date than has been commonly supposed—probably some time in the sixth century. Mr. Worsaae justly remarks, in his "Primeval Antiquities of Denmark,"—"It is a vain error to assume that certain races must incontestably be the most ancient, because they are the first which are mentioned in the few and uncertain written records which we possess."[16] Unfortunately extremely little attention has been hitherto paid to the size and form of the crania found in British tumuli. Some few examples, however, have been preserved, and will furnish the elements of a brief inquiry into this interesting department of Physical Archæology, in a subsequent chapter. To this branch of evidence it is probable that much greater importance will be attached when it has been thoroughly investigated, since to it we may look, with considerable confidence, for a distinct reply to the inquiry, which other departments of archæological evidence suggest as to the existence of primitive races in Britain prior to the Celtæ. So far as our present limited data admit of general conclusions being drawn, we find traces of more than one race, differing greatly in physical characteristics from any of the successive colonists of Britain within the era of authentic history. Professor Nillson is of opinion that the type of the old Celtic cranium is intermediate to the true dolicho-kephalic and brachy-kephalic forms, a conclusion in which Dr. Thurnam and others concur. Such is not the form of cranium of either of the races of the Scottish tumuli, and in so far, therefore, as such forms may be assumed to be permanent, we are necessarily led to the conclusion, that in these we recover traces of the Allophylian pioneers of the human family in Britain.

It is long since the evidences of a primitive state of society, still abounding in the midst of modern civilisation, attracted the attention of the antiquary. It was indeed almost a necessary consequence of the accumulation of large collections of antiquities. The private hoards of "nick nackets,"—including in general a miscellaneous assortment of relics of all ages, only sufficient to produce a confused notion of useless or obsolete arts, without creating a definite idea of any single era of the past,—may be aptly compared to the disjecta membra of some beautifully-proportioned and decorated vase. Hoarded apart, the pieces are nearly without value, and to new possessors become even meaningless. But should the whole, by some fortunate chance, be re-assembled in a single collection, it becomes possible for a skilful manipulator to piece the fragments together, and replace them with an elegant and valuable work of art. Thus it has proved with more than one archæological museum. In 1780 the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland was established, and its collection of national antiquities begun. A brief but most suggestive paper, read at one of its meetings in 1782, and published in the first volume of its Transactions, shews the speedy results of such valuable reconstructions, by means of an intelligent comparison of the primitive relics of Scotland.[17] But the resources of private zeal proved inadequate to the effective pursuit of these researches into Scottish Archæology, and the national funds found other, though not always more valuable objects for their expenditure. The hint was lost, but the accumulation of materials for future students was happily not altogether abandoned.

"About forty years ago," says J. J. A. Worsaae, the eminent Danish antiquary, writing in 1846, "the general character of scientific pursuits was in our country (Denmark) much the same as in most other parts of Europe. Great pains were spent in collecting all sorts of objects illustrating the changes of the globe upon which we live, and the distribution and habits of animals and plants—in short, all the departments of Natural History; whilst, strange to say, people for the most part neglected traces of men, the remains not only of their own ancestors, but also of all the different races who have been spread over the world. The antiquities, with the exception of those of Roman and Greek origin, were regarded as mere curiosities, without any scientific value."[18] Notwithstanding all the zeal of British archæologists of late years, so much of this spirit still remains among us, that it would be easier, perhaps, even now, to secure the purchase by the Trustees of the British Museum, of a Roman statue or an Egyptian tablet, than of valuable relics of British antiquity.

It is not necessary here to enter on the question, of curious interest and value, as to whether the primeval state of man was essentially one of barbarism, from whence he progressed by slow degrees to social union, arts, civilisation, and political organisation into communities and nations. The investigations of chronologists the further they are pursued, seem only the more certainly to confer on primitive civilisation a more remote antiquity. At the same time, they confirm the idea, that the long accepted chronology of Archbishop Usher, still attached to our English Bibles, cheats the world, at the lowest computation, of fully 1400 years of its existence—a trifle perhaps in the age of worlds, but no unimportant element in the history of human civilisation, when we remember that between the era of the Mosaic deluge and the accession of the Egyptian Menes, we must account for the peopling of Egypt, the establishment of its social and political constitution, and the founding of a civilisation, the monuments of which are still among the most wonderful that human intellect and labour have produced. Not the least important branch of this inquiry relates to the primeval inhabitants of our own quarter of the globe; of whom as yet we know only with any degree of certainty of the Celtæ, occupying a transitional place in the history of the human family—at once the earliest known intruders and the latest nomades of Europe. It seems probable, from all the traces we can recover of the original condition of this race, that it was more their deficiency than their excess in the energy which we expect to find in the colonists of new regions, that drove them onward in their north-western pilgrimage, until their course was arrested by the Atlantic barriers. They seem to have fled ever forward, like night before the dawn, carrying with them knowledge sufficient to cope with the savage occupants of the wilds they invaded, yet bearing into these few arts but such as still pertain to the primitive races of mankind. In older literary notices of this people, whose language, manners, and arts are still traceable in our own land, we have only a secondary interest, believing that some records of them are recoverable, noted for us long before they had excited foreign interest. But, still more, we doubt not that similar records also preserve the history of older British tribes, in comparison with which the ancient Celtæ must be regarded as of recent origin. "The antiquities of the earlier periods," says a distinguished English antiquary, "including all remains which bear no evident stamp of Roman origin or influence, claim our most careful investigation. Exceedingly limited in variety of types, these vestiges of the ancient inhabitants of Great Britain are not more interesting to the antiquarian collector on account of their rarity, than valuable to the historian. They supply the only positive evidence in those obscure ages, regarding customs, warfare, foreign invasions, or the influence of commerce, and the advance of civilisation amongst the earliest races by which these islands were peopled."[19] Perhaps when we have bestowed on these primitive remains the degree of careful investigation which they merit, we shall find the variety of types less limited than is now conceived to be the case. The archæologists of Denmark justly value the absence of all relics of Roman art and civilisation, from the confidence it has given to their researches into the true eras to which their own primeval antiquities belong. Such gratulations, however, can only be of temporary avail. The influence of Roman arts and arms furnishes an element in the civilisation of modern Europe too important not to be worthy of the most careful study. When the distinctive characteristics of Roman and primitive art have been so satisfactorily established as to admit of their separate classification without risk of error or confusion, the British collections, with their ample store of Anglo-Roman relics, will furnish a far more comprehensive demonstration of national history than those northern galleries, which must remain destitute of any native examples of an influence no less abundantly visible in their literature and arts, than in that of nations which received it directly from the source. In this respect the Scottish antiquary is peculiarly fortunate in the field of observation he occupies. While he possesses the legionary inscriptions, the sepulchral tablets, the sculptures, pottery, and other native products of Roman colonists or invaders, he has also an extensive and strictly defined field for the study of primitive antiquities, almost as perfectly free from the disturbing elements of foreign art as the most secluded regions of ancient Scandinavia.