Chapter I · ​—INTRODUCTION. (continued 3)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

¹ Ibid. page 28.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Section VI.

The Roman Period.

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

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

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

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

¹ Mon. Hist. Brit., page 45.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Section VII.

Chief Tribes of the Country from the Fifth Century to the Foundation of the Monarchy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Section VIII.

Introduction of Christianity.

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

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

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

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

¹ Mon. Hist. Brit., pages 175, 176.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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