Note 48 — Chapter III · BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND EARLY YEARS OF WALLACE.

Lord Hailes, in remarking on this anecdote, as told by Buchanan, says, “I suspect, however, that this is nothing more than an abridgement of Blind Harry in classical Latin. It may be remarked, by the way, that this is one of the most specious tales in the book, for it is characteristical.” The value of his Lordship’s “Historical Doubts” are now beginning to be appreciated. There are many tales equally specious, and equally characteristical, to be found in the book, which his natural acuteness would have found no difficulty in discovering, had he laid down the quill of the lawyer, when he took up the pen of the historian. Mr Tytler gives the story, and quotes Wyntown as one of his authorities. This is a mistake; Wyntown is silent on the subject; and I suspect the truth of it must rest on the evidence of the Minstrel, and traditions still current in the country, among which are the following:—“Edward I. thought Dundee of sufficient consequence to be occupied by an English garrison; and the illustrious Wallace (with his companions, John Blair, probably of the Balthayock family, and Sir Niel Campbell of Lochaw) is said by tradition to have received his education at Dundee school, and, in this situation, to have begun his exploits with the death of the son of the English Governor.”—Stat. Account, vol. viii. p. 212, 213.

“There is a very respectable man in Longforgan (in Perthshire), of the name of Smith, a weaver, and the farmer of a few acres of land, who has in his possession a stone which is called Wallace’s Stone. It is what was formerly called in this country a bear-stone, hollow like a large mortar, and was made use of to unhusk the bear or barley, as a preparative for the pot, with a large wooden mell, long before barley-mills were known. Its station was on one side of the door, and covered with a flat stone for a seat when not otherwise employed. Upon this stone Wallace sat on his way from Dundee, when he fled after killing the governor’s son, and was fed with bread and milk by the goodwife of the house, from whom the man who now lives there, and is the proprietor of the stone, is lineally descended; and here, his forbears (ancestors) have lived ever since, in nearly the same station and circumstances, for about five hundred years.”—Stat. Account, xix. 561, 562.