[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."]