Chapter V: Is the Great Pyramid of Gizeh a Metrological (7)

The vulgar name of the monument, the Cat-stane, seems, as I have already hinted, to be a name synonymous with Battle-stane, and hence, also, so far implies the fall of Vetta in open fight. Maitland is the first author, as far as I am aware, who suggests this view of the origin of the word Cat-stane. According to him, "Catstean is a Gaelic and English compound, the former part thereof (Cat) signifying a battle, and stean or stan a stone; so it is the battlestane, in commemoration probably of a battle being fought at or near this place, wherein Veta or Victi, interred here, was slain."[202] I have already quoted Mr. Pennant, as taking the same view of the origin and character of the name; and Mr. George Chalmers, in his _Caledonia_, propounds the same explanation of the word:--"In the parish of Liberton, Edinburghshire, there were (he observes) several large cairns, wherein were found various stone chests, including urns, which contained ashes and weapons; some of these cairns which still remain are called the _Cat_-stanes or Battle-stanes.[203] Single stones in various parts of North Britain are still known under the appropriate name of _Cat_-stanes. The name (he adds) is plainly derived from the British _Cad_, or the Scoto-Irish _Cath_, which signify a battle."[204] But the word under the form _Cat_ is Welsh or British, as well as Gaelic. Thus, in the _Annales Cambriae_, under the year 722, the battle of Pencon is entered as "Cat-Pencon."[205] In his edition of the old Welsh poem of the Gododin, Williams (verse 38) prints the battle of Vannau (Manau) as "Cat-Vannau."

The combination of the Celtic word "Cat" with the Saxon word "stane" may appear at first as an objection against the preceding idea of the origin and signification of the term Cat-stane. But many of our local names show a similar compound origin in Celtic and Saxon. In the immediate neighbourhood, for example, of the Cat-stane,[206] we have instances of a similar Celtic and Saxon amalgamation in the words Gogar-burn, Lenny-bridge, Craigie-hill, etc. One of the oldest known specimens of this kind of verbal alloy, is alluded to above a thousand years ago by Bede,[207] in reference to a locality not above fourteen or fifteen miles west from the Cat-stane. For, in his famous sentence regarding the termination of the walls of Antoninus on the Forth, he states that the Picts called this eastern "head of the wall" Pean-fahel, but the Angles called it Pennel-_tun_. To a contracted variety of this Pictish word signifying head of the wall, or to its Welsh form Pengual, they added the Saxon word "town," probably to designate the "villa," which, according to an early addition to Nennius, was placed there. "Pengaaul, quae villa Scottice Cenail [Kinneil], Anglice vero Peneltun dicitur."[208]

The palaeographic peculiarities of the inscription sufficiently bear out the idea of the monument being of the date or era which I have ventured to assign to it--a point the weight and importance of which it is unnecessary to insist upon. "The inscription," says Lhwyd, "is in the barbarous characters of the fourth and fifth centuries." Professor Westwood, who is perhaps our highest authority on such a question, states to me that he is of the same opinion as Lhwyd as to the age of the lettering in the Cat-stane legend.

To some minds it may occur as a seeming difficulty that the legend or inscription is in the Latin language, though the leader commemorated is Saxon. But this forms no kind of valid objection. The fact is, that all the early Romano-British inscriptions as yet found in Great Britain, are, as far as they have been discovered and deciphered, in Latin. And it is not more strange that a Saxon in the Lothians should be recorded in Latin, and not in Saxon or Keltic, than that the numerous Welshmen and others recorded on the early Welsh inscribed stones should be recorded in Latin and not in the Cymric tongue.

Doubtless, the Romanised Britons and the foreign colonists settled among them were, with their descendants, more or less acquainted with Latin in both its spoken and written forms. As early as the second year of his march northward for the conquest of this more distant part of Britain, or A.D. 79, Agricola, as Tacitus takes special care to inform us, took all possible means to introduce, for the purposes of conquest and civilisation, a knowledge of the Roman language and of the liberal arts among the barbarian tribes whom he went to subdue.[209] The same policy was no doubt continued to a greater or less extent during the whole era of the Roman dominion here as elsewhere; so that there is no wonder that such arts as lapidary writing, and the composition of brief Latin inscriptions, should have been known to and transmitted to the native Britons. There was, however, another class of inhabitants, besides these native Britons, who were, as we know from the altars and stone monuments which they have left, sufficiently learned in the formation and cutting of inscriptions in Latin,--a language which was then, and for some centuries subsequently, the only language used in this country, either in lapidary or other forms of writing. The military legions and cohorts which the Roman emperors employed to keep Britain under due subjection, obtained, under the usual conditions, grants of lands in the country, married, and became betimes fixed inhabitants. When speaking of the veteran soldiers of Rome settling down at last as permanent proprietors of land in Britain--as in other Roman colonies,--Sir Francis Palgrave remarks, "Upwards of forty of these barbarian legions, _some of Teutonic origin_, and others Moors, Dalmatians, and Thracians, whose forefathers had been transplanted from the remotest parts of the empire, obtained their domicile in various parts of our island, though principally upon the northern and eastern coasts, and _in the neighbourhood of the Roman walls_."[210] Such colonists undoubtedly possessed among their ranks, and were capable of transmitting to their descendants, a sufficient knowledge of the Latin tongue, and a sufficient amount of art, to form and cut such stone inscriptions as we have been considering; and perhaps I may add, that in such a mixed population, the Teutonic elements[211] in particular, would, towards the decline of the Roman dominion and power, not perhaps be averse to find and follow a leader, like Vetta, belonging to the royal stock of Woden; nor would they likely fail to pay all due respect, by the raising of a monument or otherwise, to the memory of a chief of such an illustrious race, if he fell amongst them in battle.

* * * * *

Besides, a brief incidental remark in Bede's History proves that the erection of a monument like the Cat-stane, to record the resting-place of the early Saxon chiefs, was not unknown. For, after telling us that Horsa was slain in battle by the Britons, Bede adds that "this Saxon leader was buried in the eastern parts of Kent, where a monument bearing his name is still in existence"[212] (hactenus in orientalibus Cantiae partibus monumentum habet suo nomine insigne).[213] The great durability of the stone forming Vetta's monument has preserved it to the present day; while the more perishable material of which Horsa's was constructed has made it a less faithful record of that chief, though it was still in Bede's time, or in the eighth century, "suo nomine insigne."[214]

* * * * *

The chief points of evidence which I have attempted to adduce in favour of the idea that the Cat-stane commemorates the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa may be summed up as follows:--

1. The surname of VETTA upon the Cat-stane is the name of the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, as given by our oldest genealogists.

2. The same historical authorities all describe Vetta as the son of Victa; and the person recorded on the Cat-stane is spoken of in the same distinctive terms--"VETTA F(ILIUS) VICTI."

3. Vetta is not a common ancient Saxon name, and it is highly improbable that there existed in ancient times two historical Vettas, the sons of two Victas.

4. Two generations before Hengist and Horsa arrived in England, a Saxon host--as told by Ammianus--was leagued with the other races of modern Scotland (the Picts, Scots, and Attacots), in fighting with a Roman army under Theodosius.

5. These Saxon allies were very probably under a leader who claimed royal descent from Woden, and consequently under an ancestor or pre-relative of Hengist and Horsa.

6. The battle-ground between the two armies was, in part at least, the district placed between the two Roman walls, and consequently included the tract in which the Cat-stane is placed; this district being erected by Theodosius, after its subjection, into a fifth Roman province.

7. The palaeographic characters of the inscription accord with the idea that it was cut about the end of the fourth century.

8. The Latin is the only language[215] known to have been used in British inscriptions and other writings in these early times by the Romanised Britons and the foreign colonists and conquerors of the island.

9. The occasional erection of monuments to Saxon leaders is proved by the fact mentioned by Bede, that in his time, or in the eighth century, there stood in Kent a monument commemorating the death of Horsa.[216]

* * * * *

If, then, as these reasons tend at least to render probable, the Cat-stane be the tombstone of Vetta, the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, this venerable monolith is not only interesting as one of our most ancient national historic monuments, but it corroborates the floating accounts of the early presence of the Saxons upon our coast; it presents to us the two earliest individual Saxon names known in British history; it confirms, so far as it goes, the accuracy of the genealogy of the ancestors of Hengist and Horsa, as recorded by Bede and our early chroniclers; while at the same time it forms in itself a connecting link, as it were, between the two great invasions of our island by the Roman and Saxon--marking as it does the era of the final declinature of the Roman dominion among us, and the first dawn and commencement of that Saxon interference and sway in the affairs of Britain, which was destined to give to England a race of new kings and new inhabitants, new laws, and a new language.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 128: The farm is called "Briggs, or Colstane" (Catstane), in a plan belonging to Mr. Hutchison, of his estate of Caerlowrie, drawn up in 1797. In this plan the bridge (brigg) over the Almond, at the boathouse, is laid down. But in another older plan which Mr. H. has of the property, dated 1748, there is no bridge, and in its stead there is a representation of the ferry-boat crossing the river.]

[Footnote 129: In this strategic angular fork or tongue of ground, formed by the confluence of these two rivers, Queen Mary and her suite were, according to Mr. Robert Chambers, caught when she was carried off by Bothwell on the 24th of April 1567. (See his interesting remarks "On the Locality of the Abduction of Queen Mary" in the _Proceedings of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries_, vol. ii. p. 331.)]

[Footnote 130: The comparative rapidity or slowness with which bones are decomposed and disappear in different soils, is sometimes a question of importance to the antiquary. We all know that they preserve for many long centuries in dry soils and dry positions. In moist ground, such as that on which the Cat-stane stands, they melt away far more speedily. On another part of Mrs. Ramsay's property, namely in the policy, and within two hundred yards of the mansion-house of Barnton, I opened, several years ago, with Mr. Morritt of Rokeby, the grave of a woman who had died--as the tombstone on the spot told us--during the last Scottish plague in the year 1648. The only remains of sepulture which we found were some fragments of the wooden coffin, and the enamel crowns of a few teeth. All other parts of the body and skeleton had entirely disappeared. The chemical qualities of the ground, and consequently of its water, will of course modify the rapidity of such results.]

[Footnote 131: _Prehistoric Annals of Scotland_, p. 96.]

[Footnote 132: _Statistical Account of Scotland_, collected by Sir John Sinclair, vol. x. pp. 68, 75.]

[Footnote 133: The _Scots Magazine_ for 1780, p. 697. See also Smellie's _Account of the Institution and Progress of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_ (1782), p. 8.]

[Footnote 134: Rowlands' _Mona Antiqua Restaurata_, second edition, p. 313. The inscription is printed in italics by Rowland. I have printed this and some of the following readings in small Roman capitals, in order to assimilate them all the more with each other.]

[Footnote 135: _Philosophical Transactions_, vol. xxii. p. 790.]

[Footnote 136: _Historical Inquiries concerning the Roman Monuments and Antiquities in Scotland_, p. 50.]

[Footnote 137: _The History of Edinburgh_, p. 508.]

[Footnote 138: _Tour in Scotland_ in 1772, Part ii. p. 237. When describing his ride from Kirkliston to Edinburgh, he observes: "On the right hand, at a small distance from our road are some rude stones. On one called the _Cat-stean_, a compound of Celtic and Saxon, signifying the Stone of Battle, is this inscription: IN HOC TUMULO JACET VETA F. VICTI; supposed in memory of a person slain there."]

[Footnote 139: Camden's _Britannia_, edited by Richard Gough, vol. iii. p. 317. Mr. Gough cites also as Mr. Wilkie's reading, "IN HOC TUM, JAC. CONSTANTIE VICT."]

[Footnote 140: In the VETTA of this line the cross bar in A is wanting, from the stone between the upright bars being chipped or weathered out.]

[Footnote 141: _Archaeologia Cambrensis_ (for 1848), vol. iii. p. 107.]

[Footnote 142: See his "Chronicon," in the _Monumenta Historica Britannica_, pp. 502 and 505. Nouns, and names ending thus in "r," preceded by a vowel, were often written without the penultimate vowel, particularly in the Scandinavian branches of the Teutonic language; as Baldr for Balder and Baldur; Folkvangr for Folkvangar; Surtr for Surtur and Surtar, etc. (See the Glossary to the prose Edda in Bohn's edition of Mallet's _Northern Antiquities_, and Kemble's _Saxons in England_, pp. 346, 363, etc.) For genealogical lists full of proper names ending in "r" with the elision of the preceding vowel, see the long tables of Scandinavian and Orcadian pedigrees printed at the end of the work on the pre-Columbian discovery of America, _Antiquitates Americanae_, etc., which was published at Copenhagen in 1837 by the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries. In the first table of genealogies giving the pedigree of Thorfinn, the son of Sigurd, of the Orkney dynasty, etc., we have, among other names--Olafr, Grismr, Ingjaldr, Oleifr (_Rex Dublini_); Thorsteinn Raudr (_partis Scotiae Rex_); Dungadr (_Earl of Katanesi_); Arfidr, Havadr, Thorfinnr, etc. (_Earls of Orkney_); etc. etc.]

[Footnote 143: _Inscriptions Chretiennes de la Gaule, anterieures au VIII. Siecle._ See Plates Nos. 10, 11, 15, 16, 24, 25, etc.]

[Footnote 144: The name LIBERALIS is probably the Latinised form of a British surname having the same meaning. Rydderch, King of Strathclyde, in the latter part of the sixth century, and the personal friend of Kentigern and Columba, was sometimes, from his munificence, termed Rydderch _Hael_, or, in its Latinised form, Rydderch _Liberalis_. The first lines of the Yarrow inscription appear to me to read as far as they are decipherable, as follows:--

HIC MEMOR IACIT F
LOIN:::NI:::: HIC
PE::M
DVMNOGENL

The true character of the G in the fourth line was first pointed out by Dr. Smith. It is of the same form as the G in the famous SAGRAMANVS stone, etc.]

[Footnote 145: The exception is the letter D in DVO, which verges to the uncial form.]

[Footnote 146: In the inscription all the words are, as usual, run together, with the exception of the Jacit and Mulier, which are separated from each other by the oblique linear point. See a plate of the inscription in the _Archaeologia Cambrensis_ for 1855, p. 153.]

[Footnote 147: _Caledonia_, vol. ii. p. 844.]

[Footnote 148: _New Statistical Account of Scotland_, vol i. p. 138. For the same supposed corruption of the name Constantine into Cat-stane, see also Fullarton's _Gazetteer of Scotland_, vol. ii. p. 182.]

[Footnote 149: The brief history of Kenneth, his parentage, reign, and mode of death, as given in one of the earliest Chronicles of the Kings of Scotland, quoted by Father Innes (p. 802), contains in its few lines a very condensed and yet powerful story of deep maternal affection and fierce female revenge. The whole entry is as follows:--"Kinath Mac-Malcolm 24, an. et 2. mens. Interfectus in Fotherkern a suis per perfidium Finellae filiae Cunechat comitis de Angus; cujus Finellae filium unicum praedictus Kinath interfecit apud Dunsinoen." The clumsy additions of some later historians only spoil and mar the original simplicity and force of this "three-volume" historical romance.]

[Footnote 150: Tom. i. p. 219, of Goodall's edition.]

[Footnote 151: _De Rebus Gestis Scotorum_, chap. lxxxi. p. 200.]

[Footnote 152: _Joannis Forduni Scotichronicon_, tom. i. p. 219.]

[Footnote 153: _Chronicon de Mailros_, p. 226 (Bannatyne Club edition).]

[Footnote 154: Wyntown's _Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 183.]

[Footnote 155: In the _Scotichronicon_ instead of "In Tegalere," the third of these lines commences "Inregale regens," etc.; and it is noted that in the "Liber Dumblain" the line begins "Indegale," etc.]

[Footnote 156: Buchanan, in his _Rerum Scoticorum Historia_, gives the locality as "ad Almonis amnis ostium." (Lib. vi. c. 81.)]

[Footnote 157: _Scotorum Historiae_, p. 235 of Paris edition of 1574. Bellenden and Stewart, in their translations of Boece's _History_ both place the fight at "Crawmond."]

[Footnote 158: This document, entitled _Nomina Regum Scottorum et Pictorum_ and published by Father Innes in his _Critical Essay_, p. 797, etc., is described by that esteemed and cautious author as a document the very fact of the registration of which among the records and charters of the ancient church of St. Andrews "is a full proof of its being held authentick at the time it was written, that is about A.D. 1251." (P. 607.)]

[Footnote 159: The orthography of the copy of this Chronicle, as given by Innes, is very inaccurate, and the omission of the two initial letters of "_in_ver," not very extraordinary in the word Rathveramoen. Apparently the same word Rathinveramon occurs previously in the same Chronicle, when Donald MacAlpin, the second king of the combined Picts and Scots, is entered as having died "in Raith in Veramont" (p. 801). In another of the old Chronicles published by Innes, this king is said to have died in his palace at "Belachoir" (p. 783). If, as some historians believe, the Lothians were not annexed to Scotland before his death in A.D. 859, by Kenneth the brother of Donald, and did not become a part of the Scottish kingdom till the time of Indulf (about A.D. 954), or even later, then it is probable that the site of King Donald's death in A.D. 863, at Rathinveramon, was on the Almond in Perthshire, within his own territories.]

[Footnote 160: I am only aware of one very marked exception to this general law Malcolm Canmore is known to have been killed near Alnwick, when attacking its castle. Alnwick is situated on the Alne, about five or six miles above the village of Alnmouth, the ancient Twyford, on the Alne, of Bede, on the mount near which St. Cuthbert was installed as a bishop. But in the ancient Chronicle from the Register of St. Andrews, King Malcolm is entered (see Innes, p. 803) as "interfectus in Inneraldan." The error has more likely originated in a want of proper local knowledge on the part of the chronicler than in so unusual a use of the Celtic word "inver;" for, according to all analogies, while the term is applicable to Alnmouth, it is not at all applicable to Alnwick.]

[Footnote 161: _Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum_. (Stevenson's Edit. p. 35.)]

[Footnote 162: _De Bello Gothico_, lib. iv. c. 20. See other authorities in Turner's Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. p. 182.]

[Footnote 163: _Emmii Rerum Friescarum Historia_, p. 41.]

[Footnote 164: _History of England_, vol. i.--Anglo-Saxon Period, pp. 33, 34.]

[Footnote 165: _The Ethnology of the British Islands_, p. 259. At p. 240, Dr. Latham "A native tradition makes Hengist a Frisian." Dr. Bosworth cites (see his _Origin of the English, etc., Language and Nation_, p. 52) Maerlant in his Chronicle as doubtful whether to call Hengist a Frisian or a Saxon.]

[Footnote 166: See his _Origin of the English, German, and Scandinavian Languages_, p. 54. Some modern authorities have thought it philosophical to object to the whole story of Hengist and Horsa, on the alleged ground that these names are "equine" in their original meaning--"henges" and "hors" signifying stallion and horse in the old Saxon tongue. If the principles of historic criticism had no stronger reasons for clearing the story of the first Saxon settlement in Kent of its romantic and apocryphal superfluities, this argument would serve us badly. For some future American historian might, on a similar hypercritical ground, argue against the probability of Columbus, a Genoese, having discovered America, and carried thither (to use the language of his son Ferdinand) "the olive branch and oil of baptism across the ocean,"--of Drake and Hawkins having, in Queen Elizabeth's time, explored the West Indies, and sailed round the southernmost point of America,--of General Wolfe having taken Quebec,--or Lord Lyons being English ambassador to the United States in the eventful year 1860, on the ground that Colombo is actually the name of a dove in Italian, Drake and Hawkins only the appellations of birds, and Wolfe and Lyons the English names for two wild beasts.]

[Footnote 167: See Thorpe's edition of Beowulf and other Anglo-Saxon Poems, p. 219, line 45.]

[Footnote 168: _Monumenta Historica_, p. 623.]

[Footnote 169: _Ib._, p. 659.]

[Footnote 170: _Ib._, p. 544.]

[Footnote 171: _Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum_, lib. i. cap. 15, p. 34 of Mr. Stevenson's edition. In some editions of Bede's _History_ (as in Dr. Giles' Translation, for example) the name of Vitta is carelessly omitted, as a word apparently of no moment. Such a discussion as the present shows how wrong it is to tamper with the texts of such old authors.]

[Footnote 172: See these names in page 414 of Stevenson's edition of the _Historia Ecclesiastica_.]

[Footnote 173: _Monumenta Historica Britt._, preface, p. 82.]

[Footnote 174: "Ethelwerdi Chronicorum," lib. ii. c. 2, in _Monumenta Historica_, p. 505.]

[Footnote 175: _Ibid._ lib. i. p. 502 of _Monumenta Historica_.]

[Footnote 176: The historical personage and leader Woden is represented in all these genealogies as having lived four generations, or from 100 to 150 years earlier than the age of Hengist and Horsa.]

[Footnote 177: See p. 24 of Mr. Stevenson's edition of _Nennii Historia Britonum_, printed for the English Historical Society. In the Gaelic translation of the _Historia Britonum_, known as the Irish Nennius, the name Wetta or Guitta is spelled in various copies as "Guigte" and "Guite." The last form irresistibly suggests the Urbs Guidi of Bede, situated in the Firth of Forth. Might not he have thus written the Keltic or Pictish form of the name of a city or stronghold founded by Vitta or Vecta; and does this afford any clue to the fact, that the waters of the Forth are spoken of as the Sea of Guidi by Angus the Culdee, and as the Mare Fresicum by Nennius, while its shores are the Frisicum Litus of Joceline? In the text I have noted the transformation of the analogous Latin name of the Isle of Wight, "Vecta," into "Guith," by Nennius. The "urbs Guidi" of Bede is described by him as placed in the middle of the Firth of Forth, "in medio sui." Its most probable site is, as I have elsewhere (see _Proceedings of Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, vol. ii. pp. 254, 255) endeavoured to show, Inch Keith; and, phonetically, the term "Keith" is certainly not a great variation from "Guith" or "Guidi." At page 7 of Stevenson's edition of Nennius, the Isle of Wight, the old "Insula Vecta" of the Roman authors, is written "Inis Gueith"--a term too evidently analogous to "Inch Keith" to require any comment.]

[Footnote 178: See Irish Nennius, p. 77; _Saxon Chronicle_, under year 855, etc.]

[Footnote 179: _Northern Antiquities_, Bohn's edition, p. 71. Sigge is generally held as the name of one of the sons of Woden.]

[Footnote 180: _Gest._ I. sec. 5, I. 11.]

[Footnote 181: _Monumenta Historica Britannica_, p. 707.]

[Footnote 182: See his "Chronicon ex Chronicis," in the _Monumenta Historica_, pp. 523 and 627.]

[Footnote 183: See preceding note (1), p. 168. In answer to the vague objection that the alleged leaders were two brothers, Mr. Thorpe observes that the circumstance of two brothers being joint-kings or leaders, bearing, like Hengist and Horsa, alliterative names, is far from unheard of in the annals of the north; and as instances (he adds) may be cited, Ragnar, Inver, Ulba, and two kings in Rumedal--viz. Haerlang and Hrollang.--See his Translation of Lappenberg's _History of the Anglo-Saxons_, vol. i. pp. 78 and 275.]

[Footnote 184: See Mr. Stevenson's Introduction, p. xxv., to the Historical Society's edition of Bede's _Historia Ecclesiastica_; and also Mr. Hardy in the Preface, p. 71, to the _Monumenta Historica Britannica_.]

[Footnote 185: The great importance attached to genealogical descent lasted much longer than the Saxon era itself. Thus the author of the latest Life (1860) of Edward I., when speaking of the birth of that monarch at London in 1239, observes (p. 8), "The kind of feeling which was excited by the birth of an English prince in the English metropolis, and by the king's evident desire to connect the young heir to the throne with his Saxon ancestors, is shown in the _Worcester Chronicle_ of that date. The fact is thus significantly described:--

'On the 14th day of the calends of July, Eleanor, Queen of England gave birth to her eldest son Edward; whose father was Henry; whose father was John; whose father was Henry; whose mother was Matilda the Empress; whose mother was Matilda, Queen of England; whose mother was Margaret, Queen of Scotland; whose father was Edward; whose father was Edmund Ironside; who was the son of Ethelred; who was the son of Edgar; who was the son of Edmund; who was the son of Edward the elder; who was the son of Alfred.'"--(_The Greatest of the Plantagenets_, pp. 8 and 9.)

Here we have eleven genealogical ascents appealed to from Edward to Alfred. The thirteen or fourteen ascents again from Alfred to Cerdic, the first Anglo-Saxon king of Wessex, are as fixed and determined as the eleven from Alfred to Edward. (See them quoted by Florence, Asser, etc.) But the power of reckoning the lineage of Cerdic up through the intervening nine alleged ascents to Woden, was indispensable to form and to maintain Cerdic's claim to royalty, and was probably preserved with as great, if not greater care when written records were so defective and wanting.]

[Footnote 186: _The Saxons in England_, vol. i. p. 11.]

[Footnote 187: See the inscription, etc., in Whittaker's _Manchester_, vol. i. p. 160.]

[Footnote 188: On these Frisian cohorts, and consequently also Frisian colonists, in England, see the learned _Memoir on the Roman Garrison at Manchester_, by my friend Dr. Black. (Manchester, 1849.)]

[Footnote 189: Buckman and Newmarch's work on _Ancient Corinium_, p. 114.]

[Footnote 190: Palgrave's _Anglo-Saxons_, p. 24.]

[Footnote 191: For fuller evidence on this point, see the remarks by Mr. Kemble in his _Saxons in England_, vol. i. p. 13, etc.]

[Footnote 192: _Ammiani Marcellini Historiae_, lib. xxviii. c. 1. The poet Claudian, perhaps with the full liberty of a poet, sings of Theodosius' forces in this war having pursued the Saxons to the very Orkneys:--

----maduerunt Saxone fuso
Orcades.]

[Footnote 193: _Inquiry into the History of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 116. See also Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_, chap. xxv.]

[Footnote 194: _Histor. Eccles._, lib. i. c. 1, Sec. 8.]

[Footnote 195: Bede's _Hist. Eccles._, lib. ii. cap. v. (Oisc, a quo reges Cantuariorum solent Oiscingas cognominare.)]

[Footnote 196: _Ibid._, lib. ii. cap. xv.]

[Footnote 197: _The Saxons in England_, vol. i. p. 341.]

[Footnote 198: In his account of the kings of the Picts, Mr. Pinkerton (_Inquiry into History of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 293) calculates that the sovereign "Wradech Vechla" of the _Chronicon Pictorum_ reigned about A.D. 380. In support of his own philological views, Mr. Pinkerton alters the name of this Pictish king from "Wradech Vechla" to "Wradech _Vechta_." There is not, however, I believe, any real foundation whatever for this last reading, interesting as it might be, in our present inquiry, if true.]

[Footnote 199: _The Saxons in England_, vol. i. p. 149.]

[Footnote 200: Mr. Hardy, in the preface (p. 114, etc.) to the _Monumenta Historica Britannica_, maintains also, at much length, that the advent and reception of the Saxons by Vortigern was in A.D. 428, and not 449. He contests for an earlier Saxon invasion of Britain in A.D. 374. See also Lappenberg in his _History of England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings_, vol. i. pp. 62, 63.]

[Footnote 201: Two miles higher up the river than the Cat-stane, four large monoliths still stand near Newbridge. They are much taller than the Cat-stane, but contain no marks or letters on their surfaces. Three of them are placed around a large barrow.]

[Footnote 202: _History of Edinburgh_, p. 509.]

[Footnote 203: _Transactions of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries_, vol. i. p. 308. Maitland, in his _History of Edinburgh_, p. 307, calls these cairns the "Cat-heaps."]

[Footnote 204: _Caledonia_, vol. i. p. 86. The only references, however, which Mr. Chalmers gives to a "single stone" in Scotland, bearing the name of Cat-stane, all relate to this monument in Kirkliston parish:--"The tallest and most striking ancient monolith in the vicinity of Edinburgh is a massive unhewn flat obelisk, standing about ten feet high, in the parish of Colinton." Maitland (_History of Edinburgh_, p. 507), and Mr. Whyte (_Trans. of Scottish Antiquaries_, vol. i. p. 308) designate this monument the Caiy-stone. "Whether this (says Maitland) be a corruption of the Catstean I know not." The tall monolith is in the neighbourhood of the cairns called the Cat-stanes or Cat-heaps (see preceding note). Professor Walker, in an elaborate Statistical Account of the Parish of Colinton, published in 1808, in his _Essays on Natural History_ describes the Cat-heaps or cairns as having been each found, when removed, to cover a coffin made of _hewn_ stones. In the coffins were found mouldering human bones and fragments of old arms, including two bronze spear-heads. "When the turnpike road which passes near the above cairns was formed, for more than a mile the remains of dead bodies were everywhere thrown up." Most of them had been interred in stone coffins made of coarse slabs. To use the words of Professor Walker, "Not far from the three cairns is the so called 'Caiy-stone' of Maitland and Whyte. It has always, however (he maintains), been known among the people of the country by the name of the Ket-stane." It is of whinstone, and "appears not to have had the chisel, or any inscription upon it." "The craig (he adds) or steep rocky mountain which forms the northern extremity of the Pentland Hills, and makes a conspicuous figure at Edinburgh, hangs over this field of battle. It is called Caer-_Ket_an Craig. This name appears to be derived from the Ket-stane above described, and the fortified camp adjacent, which, in the old British, was termed a Caer." (P. 611.)]

[Footnote 205: See "Annales Cambriae," in the _Monumenta Hist. Britannica_, p. 833.]

[Footnote 206: In Maitland's time (1753), there was a farm-house termed "Catstean," standing near the monument we are describing. And up to the beginning of the present century the property or farm on the opposite side of the Almond, above Caerlowrie, was designated by a name, having apparently the Celtic "battle" noun as a prefix in its composition--viz., Cat-elbock. This fine old Celtic name has latterly been changed for the degenerate and unmeaning term Almond-hill.]

[Footnote 207: _Historia Ecclesiast._, lib. i. c. xii. "Sermone Pictorum Peanfahel, lingua autem Anglorum Penneltun appellatur."]

[Footnote 208: _Historia Britonum_, c. xix. At one time I fancied it possible that the mutilated and enigmatical remains of ancient Welsh poetry furnished us with a name for the Cat-stane older still than that appellation itself. Among the fragments of old Welsh historical poems ascribed to Taliesin, one of the best known is that on the battle of Gwen-Ystrad. In this composition the poet describes, from professedly personal observation, the feats at the above battle of the army of his friend and great patron, Urien, King of Rheged, who was subsequently killed at the siege of Medcaut, or Lindisfarne, about A.D. 572. Villemarque places the battle of Gwen-Ystrad between A.D. 547 and A.D. 560.

The British kingdom of Rheged, over which Urien ruled, is by some authorities considered as the old British or Welsh kingdom of Cumbria, or Cumberland; but, according to others, it must have been situated further northwards. In the poem of the battle of Gwen-Ystrad (see the _Myvyrian Archaeology_, vol. i. p. 53), Urien defeats the enemy--apparently the Saxons or Angles--under Ida, King of Bernicia. In one line near the end of the poem, Taliesin describes Urien as attacking his foes "by the white stone of Galysten:"

"Pan amwyth ai alon yn Llech wen Galysten."

The word "Galysten," when separated into such probable original components as "Gal" and "lysten," is remarkable, from the latter part of the appellation, "lysten," corresponding with the name, "Liston," of the old barony or parish in which the Cat-stane stands; the prefix Kirk (Kirk-liston) being, as is well known, a comparatively modern addition. The word "Gal" is a common term, in compound Keltic words, for "stranger," or "foreigner." In the Gaelic branch of the Keltic, "lioston" signifies, according to Sir James Foulis, "an inclosure on the side of a river." (See Mr. Muckarsie on the origin of the name of Kirkliston, in the _Statistical Account of Scotland_, vol. x. p. 68.) The Highland Society's _Gaelic Dictionary_ gives "liostean" as a lodging, tent, or booth. In the Cymric, "lystyn" signifies, according to Dr. Owen Pughe, "a recess, or lodgment." (See his _Welsh Dictionary_, _sub voce_.) The compound word Gal-lysten would perhaps not be thus overstrained, if it were held as possibly originating in the meaning, "the lodgment, inclosure, or resting-place of the foreigner;" and the line quoted would, under such an idea, not inaptly apply to the grave-stone of such a foreign leader as Vetta. Urien's forces are described in the first line of the poem of the battle of Gwen-Ystrad, as "the men of Cattraeth, who set out with the dawn." Cattraeth is now believed by eminent archaeologists to be a locality situated at the eastern end of Antonine's wall, on the Firth of Forth--Callander, Carriden, or more probably the castle hill at Blackness, which contains various remains of ancient structures. Urien's foes at the battle of Gwen-Ystrad were apparently the Angles or Saxons of Bernicia--this last term of Bernicia, with its capital at Bamborough, including at that time the district of modern Northumberland, and probably also Berwickshire and part of the Lothians. An army marching from Cattraeth or the eastern end of Antonine's Wall, to meet such an army, would, if it took the shortest or coast line, pass, after two or three hours' march, very near the site of the Cat-stane. A ford and a fort are alluded to in the poem. The neighbouring Almond has plenty of fords; and on its banks the name of two forts or "caers" are still left--viz. Caerlowrie (Caer-l-Urien?) and Caer Almond, one directly opposite the Cat-stane, the other three miles below it. But no modern name remains near the Cat-stane to identify the name of "the fair or white strath." "Lenny"--the name of the immediately adjoining barony on the banks of the Almond, or in its "strath" or "dale"--presents insurmountable philological difficulties to its identification with Gwen; the L and G, or GW not being interchangeable. The valley of Strath-Broc (Broxburn)--the seat in the twelfth century of Freskyn of Strath-Broc, and consequently the cradle of the noble house of Sutherland--runs into the valley of the Almond about two miles above the Cat-stane. In this, as in other Welsh and Gaelic names, the word Strath is a prefix to the name of the adjoining river. In the word "Gwen-Ystrad," the word Strath is, on the contrary, in the unusual position of an affix; showing that the appellation is descriptive of the beauty or fairness of the strath which it designates. The valley or dale of the Almond, and the rich tract of fertile country stretching for miles to the south-west of the Cat-stane, certainly well merit such a designation as "fair" or "beautiful" valley--"Gwen-Ystrad;" but we have not the slightest evidence whatever that such a name was ever applied to this tract. In his learned edition of _Les Bardes Bretons, Poemes du vi^e Siecle_, the Viscount Villemarque, in the note which he has appended to Taliesin's poem of the battle of Gwen-Ystrad, suggests (page 412) that this term exists in a modern form under the name of Queen's-strad, or Queen's-ferry--a locality within three miles of the Cat-stane. But it is certain that the name of Queens-ferry, applied to the well-known passage across the Forth, is of the far later date of Queen Margaret, the wife of Malcolm Canmore. Numerous manors and localities in the Lothians and around Kirkliston, end in the Saxon affix "ton," or town--a circumstance rendering it probable that Lis-ton had possibly a similar origin. And further, against the idea of the appellation of "the white stone of Galysten" being applicable to the Cat-stane, is the fact that it is, as I have already stated, a block of greenstone basalt; and the light tint which it presents, when viewed at a distance in strong sunlight--owing to its surface being covered with whitish lichen--is scarcely sufficient to have warranted a poet--indulging in the utmost poetical license--to have sung of it as "the white stone." After all, however, the adjective "wen," or "gwenn," as Villemarque writes it, may signify "fair" or "beautiful" when applied to the stone, just as it probably does when applied to the strath which was the seat of the battle--"Gwenn Ystrad."

Winchburgh, the name of the second largest village in the parish of Kirkliston, and a station on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, is perhaps worthy of note, from its being placed in the same district as the stone of Vetta, the son of Victa, and from the appellation possibly signifying originally, according to Mr. Kemble (our highest authority in such a question), the burgh of Woden, or Wodensburgh. (See his _History of the Anglo-Saxons_, vol. i. p. 346.)]

[Footnote 209: _Vita Agricolae_, xliv. 2.]

[Footnote 210: _History of England_--Anglo-Saxon Period, p. 20.]

[Footnote 211: On the probable great extent of the Teutonic or German element of population in Great Britain as early as about A.D. 400; see Mr. Wright, in his excellent and interesting work _The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon_, p. 385.]

[Footnote 212: _Historia Ecclesiastica_, lib. i. c. 1; or Dr. Giles' _Translation_, in Bohn's edition, p. 5.]

[Footnote 213: Dr. Giles' _Translation_, in Bohn's edition, p. 24.]

[Footnote 214: _Historia Ecclesiastical_, lib. i. c. 15.]

[Footnote 215: Perhaps it is right to point out, as exceptions to this general observation, a very few Greek inscriptions to Astarte, Hercules, Esculapius, etc., left in Britain by the Roman soldiers and colonists.]

[Footnote 216: On the supposed site, etc. of this monument to Horsa, in Kent, see Mr. Colebrook's paper in _Archaeologia_, vol. ii. p. 167; and Halsted's _Kent_, vol. ii. p. 177. In 1631, Weever, in his _Ancient Funeral Monuments_, p. 317, acknowledges that "stormes and time have devoured Horsa's monument." In 1659 Phillpot, when describing the cromlech called Kits Coty House--the alleged tomb of Catigern--speaks of Horsa's tomb as utterly extinguished "by storms and tempests under the conduct of time."]

ON SOME SCOTTISH MAGICAL CHARM-STONES, OR CURING-STONES.

Throughout all past time, credulity and superstition have constantly and strongly competed with the art of medicine. There is no doubt, according to Pliny, that the magical art began in Persia, that it originated in medicine, and that it insinuated itself first amongst mankind under the plausible guise of promoting health.[217] In proof of the antiquity of the belief, this great Roman encyclopaedist cites Eudoxus, Aristotle, and Hermippus, as averring that magical arts were used thousands of years before the time of the Trojan war.

Assuredly, in ancient times, faith in the effects of magical charms, amulets, talismans, etc., seems to have prevailed among all those ancient races of whom history has left any adequate account. In modern times a belief in their efficiency and power is still extensively entertained amongst most of the nations of Asia and Africa. In some European kingdoms, also, as in Turkey, Italy, and Spain, belief in them still exists to a marked extent. In our own country, the magical practices and superstitions of the older and darker ages persist only as forms and varieties, so to speak, of archaeological relics,--for they remain at the present day in comparatively a very sparse and limited degree. They are now chiefly to be found among the uneducated, and in outlying districts of the kingdom. But still, some practices, which primarily sprung up in a belief in magic, are carried on, even by the middle and higher classes of society, as diligently as they were thousands of years ago, and without their magical origin being dreamed of by those who follow them. The coral is often yet suspended as an ornament around the neck of the Scottish child, without the potent and protective magical and medicinal qualities long ago attached to it by Dioscorides and Pliny being thought of by those who place it there. Is not the egg, after being emptied of its edible contents, still, in many hands, as assiduously pierced by the spoon of the eater as if he had weighing upon his mind the strong superstition of the ancient Roman, that--if he omitted to perforate the empty shell--he incurred the risk of becoming spell-bound, etc.? Marriages seem at the present day as much dreaded in the month of May as they were in the days of Ovid, when it was a proverbial saying at Rome that

"Mense malas _Maio_ nubere vulgus ait."

And, in the marriage ceremony itself, the finger-ring still holds among us as prominent a place as it did among the superstitious marriage-rites of the ancient pagan world. Among the endless magical and medical properties that were formerly supposed to be possessed by human saliva, one is almost universally credited by the Scottish schoolboy up to the present hour; for few of them ever assume the temporary character of pugilists without duly spitting into their hands ere they close their fists; as if they retained a full reliance on the magical power of the saliva to increase the strength of the impending blow--if not to avert any feeling of malice produced by it--as was enunciated, eighteen centuries ago, by one of the most laborious and esteemed writers of that age,[218] in a division of his work which he gravely prefaces with the assertion that in this special division he has made it his "object (as he declares) to state no facts but such as are established by nearly uniform testimony."

In a separate chapter (chap. iv.) in his 30th Book, Pliny alludes to the prevalence of magical beliefs and superstitious practices in the ancient Celtic provinces of France and Britain. "The Gaelic provinces," says he, "were pervaded by the magical art, and that even down to a period within memory; for it was the Emperor Tiberius who put down the Druids and all that tribe of wizards and physicians." We know, however, from the ancient history of France posterior to Pliny's time, that the Druids survived as a powerful class in that country for a long time afterwards. Writing towards the end of the first century, Pliny goes on to remark;--"At the present day, struck with fascination, Britannia still cultivates this art, and that with ceremonials so august, that she might almost seem to have been the first to communicate them to the people of Persia." "To such a degree," adds this old Roman philosopher, "are nations throughout the whole world, totally different as they are, and quite unknown to one another, in accord upon _this_ one point."[219]

Some supposed vestiges of a most interesting kind, of very ancient Gallic or Celtic word-charms, have recently been brought before archaeologists by the celebrated German philologist Grimm, and by Pictet of Geneva. Marcellus, the private physician of the Roman Emperor Theodosius, was a Gaul born in Aquitane, and hence, it is believed, was intimately acquainted with the Gaulish or Celtic language of that province. He left a work on quack medicines (_De Medicamentis Empiricis_), written probably near the end of the fourth century. This work contains, amongst other things, a number of word-charms, or superstitious cure-formulas, that were, till lately, regarded--like Cato's word-cure for fractures of the bones--as mere unmeaning gibberish. Joseph Grimm and M. Pictet, however, think that they have found in these word-charms of Marcellus, specimens of the Gaulish or Celtic language several centuries older than any that were previously known to exist--none of the earliest glosses used by Zeuss, in his famous _Grammatica Celtica_, being probably earlier than the eighth or ninth centuries. If the labours of Grimm and Pictet prove successful in this curious field of labour, they will add another proof to the prevalence of magical charms among the Celtic nations of antiquity, and afford us additional confirmation of the ancient prevalence, as described by Pliny, of a belief in the magical art among the Gaelic inhabitants of France and Britain.[220]

The long catalogue of the medical superstitions and magical practices originally pertaining to our Celtic forefathers, was no doubt from time to time increased and swelled out in Britain by the addition of the analogous medical superstitions and practices of the successive Roman[221] and Teutonic [222] invaders and conquerors of our island. A careful analysis would yet perhaps enable the archaeologist to separate some of these classes of magical beliefs from each other; but many of them had, perhaps, a common and long anterior origin. We know further that, in its earlier centuries among us, the teachers of Christianity added greatly to the number of existing medical superstitions, by maintaining the efficacy, for example, of a visit to the cross of King Edwin of Northumberland, for the cure of agues, etc.,--the marvellous alleged recoveries worked by visiting the grave of St. Ninian at Whitehorn, or the cross of St. Mungo in the Cathedral churchyard at Glasgow; the sovereign virtues of the waters of wells used by various anchorets, and dedicated to various saints throughout the country; the curative powers of holy robes, bells, bones, relics, etc.

Numerous forms of medical superstitions, charms, amulets, incantations, etc., derived from the preceding channels, and possibly also from other sources, seem to have been known and practised among our forefathers, and for the cure of almost all varieties of human maladies, whether of the mind or body. Our old Scottish hagiologies, witch trials, ecclesiastical records, etc., abound with notices of them. Nor have some of the oldest and most marked medical superstitions of ancient times been very long obliterated and forgotten. I know, for example, of two localities in the Lowlands, one near Biggar in Lanarkshire, the other near Torphichen in West Lothian, where, within the memory of the present and past generation, living cows have been sacrificed for curative purposes, or under the hope of arresting the progress of the murrain in other members of the flock. In both these instances the cow was sacrificed by being buried alive. The sacrifice of other living animals,[223] as of the cat, cock, mole, etc., for the cure of disease, and especially of fits, epilepsy, and insanity, continues to be occasionally practised in some parts of the Highlands up to the present day. And in the city of Edinburgh itself, every physician knows the fact that, in the chamber of death, usually the face of the mirror is most carefully covered over, and often a plate with salt in it is placed upon the chest of the corpse.

The Museum of the Society contains a few medicinal charms and amulets, principally in the form of amber beads (which were held potent in the cure of blindness), perforated stones, and old distaff whorls, whose original use seems to have been forgotten, and new and magical properties assigned to them. But the most important medicinal relic in the collection is the famous "Barbreck's bone," a slice or tablet of ivory, about seven inches long, four broad, and half-an-inch in thickness. It was long in the possession of the ancient family of Barbreck in Argyleshire, and over the Western Highlands had the reputation of curing all forms and degrees of insanity. It was formerly reckoned so valuable that a bond of L100 was required to be deposited for the loan of it.

But the main object of the present communication is, through the kind permission of Struan Robertson, Lady Lockhart of Lee, and others, to show to the Society two or three of the principal curing-stones of Scotland.

Several of these curing-stones long retained their notoriety, but they have now almost all fallen entirely into disuse, at least for the cure of human diseases. In some districts, however, they are still employed in the treatment of the diseases of domestic animals.

A very ancient example of the use of a "curing-stone" in this country is detailed in what may be regarded as the first or oldest historical work which has been left us in reference to Scotland, namely, in Adamnan's _Life of St. Columba_. This biography of the founder of Iona was probably written in the last years of the seventh century, Adamnan having died in A.D. 705. He was elected to the Abbacy of Iona A.D. 679, and had there the most favourable opportunities of becoming acquainted with all the existing traditions and records regarding St. Columba. About the year 563 of the Christian era, Columba visited Brude, King of the Picts, in his royal fort on the Ness, and found the Pictish sovereign attended by a court or council, and with Brochan as his chief Druid or Magus. Brochan retained an Irish female, and consequently a countrywoman of Columba's, as a slave. The 33d chapter of the second book of Adamnan's work is entitled, "Concerning the Illness with which the Druid (_Magus_) Brochan was visited for refusing to liberate a Female Captive, and his Cure when he restored her to Liberty." The story told by Adamnan, under this head, is as follows:--

_Curing-Stone of St. Columba._

"About the same time the venerable man, from motives of humanity, besought Brochan the Druid to liberate a certain Irish female captive, a request which Brochan harshly and obstinately refused to grant. The Saint then spoke to him as follows:--'Know, O Brochan, know, that if you refuse to set this captive free, as I desire you, you shall die before I return from this province.' Having said this in presence of Brude the king, he departed from the royal palace and proceeded to the river Nesa, from which he took a white pebble, and showing it to his companions, said to them:--'Behold this white pebble, by which God will effect the cure of many diseases.' Having thus spoken, he added, 'Brochan is punished grievously at this moment, for an angel sent from heaven, striking him severely, has broken in pieces the glass cup which he held in his hands, and from which he was in the act of drinking, and he himself is left half dead. Let us await here, for a short time, two of the king's messengers, who have been sent after us in haste, to request us to return quickly and relieve the dying Brochan, who, now that he is thus terribly punished, consents to set his captive free.'

"While the saint was yet speaking, behold, there arrived as he had predicted, two horsemen, who were sent by the king, and who related all that had occurred, according to the prediction of the saint--the breaking of the drinking goblet, the punishment of the Druid, and his willingness to set his captive at liberty. They then added:--'The king and his councillors have sent us to you to request that you would cure his foster father, Brochan, who lies in a dying state.'

"Having heard these words of the messengers, Saint Columba sent two of his companions to the king, with the pebble which he had blessed, and said to them; 'If Brochan shall first promise to free his captive, immerse this little stone in water and let him drink from it, but if he refuse to liberate her, he will that instant die.'

"The two persons sent by the saint proceeded to the palace and announced the words of the holy man to the king and to Brochan, an announcement which filled them with such fear, that he immediately liberated the captive and delivered her to the saint's messengers."

The stone was then immersed in water, and in a wonderful manner, and contrary to the laws of nature, it floated on the water like a nut or an apple, nor could it be submerged. Brochan drank from the stone as it floated on the water, and instantly recovered his perfect health and soundness of body.