FOOTNOTES:
[338] Solinus, c. xxii. Bede Hist. lib. i. c. 1. Collectanea Antiqua, C. R. Smith, vol. i. p. 174.
[339] Sinclair's Stat. Acc. vol. i. p. 330.
[340] Ibid. vol. xvi. p. 482.
[341] Ibid. vol. v. p. 392.
[342] Archæol. Scot. vol. iii. p. 49.
[343] New Stat. Acc. vol. xi. p. 147.
[344] Ancient Wiltshire, Plates XII. and XXXIV.
[345] Journal of Archæol. Assoc. vol. ii. p. 234.
[346] Vol. ii. p. 235.
[347] Vide John Sydenham "On the Kimmeridge Coal Money," Archæological Journal, vol. i. p. 347; and Journal of the Archæological Association, vol. i. p. 325, where accurate engravings of the "coal money" are given.
[348] New Statistical Account, vol. iv., Wigtonshire, p. 142.
[349] "Fugat serpentes ita, recreatque vulvæ strangulationes. Deprehendit sonticum morbum, et virginitatem suffitus. Hoc dicuntur uti Magi in ea, quam vocant axinomantiam: et peruri negant, si eventurum sit, quod aliquis optet."—Pliny, lib. xxxvi. cap. 34.
[350] Communication by Mr. Joseph Train to the New Statist. Acc. vol. iv., Kirkcudbrightshire, p. 196.
[351] Ure's Hist. of Rutherglen and Kilbride, p. 219.
[352] Portes, Coloniæ, &c. Append. 18, and Plate III.
[353] Sinclair's Statistical Account, vol. ix. p. 53.
[354] Ure's Rutherglen and Kilbride, p. 217, and Plate I.
[355] Sinclair's Statistical Account, vol. ix. p. 52.
[356] New Statist. Acc. vol. v. p. 454.
[357] Collectanea Antiqua, C. R. Smith, vol. i. p. 174.
[358] On the Tings of Orkney and Shetland. Archæol. Scotica, vol. iii. p. 120.
[359] Boece gives the following quaint description of amber, affording evidence of the mode of its introduction, though sufficiently extravagant in the style of its theorizing:—"Amang the rochis and craggis of thir ilis growis ane maner of electuar and goum, hewit like gold, and sa attractive of nature, that it drawis stra, flox, or hemmis of claithis to it, in the samin maner as dois ane adamont stane. This goume is generat of see froith, quhilk is cassin up be continewal repercussion of craggis againis the see wallis; and throw ithand motioun of the see it growis als teuch as glew, ay mair and mair; quhill, at last, it fallis doun of the crag in the see.... Twa yeir afore the cumin of this buke to licht, arrivit ane gret lomp of this goum in Buchquhane, als mekle as ane hors; and wes brocht hame be the hirdis quhilkis wer kepand thair beistis, to thair housis, and cassin in the fire. And becaus thay fand ane smelland odour thairwith, thay schew to thair maister that it wes ganand for the sens that is made in the kirkis. Thair maister wes ane rud man as thay wer, and tuke bot ane litill part thairof. The maist pairt wes destroyit afore it come to ony wise mannis eris; of quhome may be verifyit the proverb,—'The sow curis na balme.' Als sone as I wes advertist thairof, I maid sic diligence, that ane part of it wes brocht to me at Abirdene." Bellenden's Boece. The Cosmographie, chap. xv.
[360] Ure's Rutherglen, p. 164, Plate I.
[361] Vol iv. Plate XII.
[362] Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, vol. vi. p 270.
[363] Archæol. Journal, vol. vi. p. 57.
[364] Ibid. p. 48.
[365] Archæol. Jour. vol. vi. p. 56.
[366] Sinclair's Stat. Acc. vol. x. p. 402.
[367] Sinclair's Statist. Acc. vol. xvii. p. 238.
[368] Sir R. C. Hoare describes a somewhat similar plated relic, found in a tumulus near Amesbury, along with objects of gold.—Ancient Wilts. vol. i. p. 201, Plate XXV.
[369] This may be assumed possibly as affording some confirmation of a theory suggested to me by an ingenious friend, that these rings were used in infibulation; a practice not unknown to the Romans. Martial thus alludes to it, (lib. ix. epig. 28):—
"Occurrit aliquis inter ista si draucus,
Jam pædagogo liberatus, et cujus
Refibulavit turgidum faber penem."
The subject is treated at great length in "Recherches Philosophiques sur les Américains," &c., par M. de P... London, 1771.—"Pour brider les garçons, on leur mettoit dans le prépuce un anneau d'or ou d'argent, tellement rejoint par les extrémités qu'on ne pouvoit plus l'ouvrir qu'avec une lime; et c'est ce que les Romains nommoient refibulare."—Vol. ii. p. 123. The same Recherches Philosophiques include minute details of several kindred processes under the head, La manière d'infibuler le sexe,—e.g., "Parmi d'autres nations de l'Asie et de l'Afrique, on fait passer par les extrémités des nymphes opposées un anneau, qui dans les filles est tellement enchassé qu'on ne peut le déplacer qu'en le limant," &c.—Ibid. pp. [119]-121.
[370] Vol. vi. p. 56.
[371] Caledonia, vol. i. p. 129.
[372] Archæol. Jour. vol. vi. p. 59.
[373] The skeleton is described by Mr. James Drummond, surgeon, Alloa, in a letter to the Secretary of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries, of date 8th March 1828, as "bearing no marks of the action of fire, but from the position of the bones, the body must have been placed neck and heels together when interred." A third urn was found a few feet from the cist, filled, like the two others, with ashes and half-burnt bones.
[374] New Stat. Acc. vol. v. Buteshire, p. 23.
[375] Archæol. Journal, vol. vi. p. 60. It is only from analogy, and the want of more appropriate terms, that these relics can be called rings, many being less than semicircles. Possibly, however, the term suggested in the text may suffice to designate them by, at least till the establishment of some theory as to their use shall supply a more precise name. The term calicinated fibulæ would be preferable, did it not assume a use still open to challenge.
[376] Bibliotheca Topog. Brit. vol. ii. p. 280. Plate VI. fig. 5.
[377] Vol. iv. p. 217, Plate X.
[378] The drawing is simply marked "a gold collar found at Braidwood Castle, Edinburghshire," but there can be little doubt of its being the same referred to in the text. The additional particulars concerning it have been communicated to me by a lady who had often heard of this discovery in her younger days, as one of the remarkable events of her native place.
[379] New Statist. Acc. vol. vi. p. 57.
[380] New Statist. Acc. vol. xii. p. 1061.
[381] Sinclair's Statist. Acc. vol. xi. p. 24.
[382] Biblio. Topog. Brit. vol. ii. Plate VI. fig. 8.
[383] Ibid. p. 299.
[384] New Statist. Acc. vol. vii. p. 206.
[385] Archæol. Journal, vol. vi. p. 54.
[386] Notes to "Lodbrokar-Quida." Rev. J. Johnstone. Denmark, 1782.
[387] Haco's Expedition, Rev. J. Johnstone, p. 65.
[388] Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland. 8vo. P. 215.
[389] Archæological Journal, vol. ii. p. 379.
[390] Sinclair's Statist. Acc. vol. iv. p. 435.
[391] Nenia Britannica, p. 76. In the Guide to Northern Archæology, p. 54, reference is made to similar discoveries in Denmark; and I am informed by Dr. Ludwig Becker of a skeleton with several penannular bronze rings on the arm bones, found recently in a large tumulus near Mayence.
[392] This interesting inquiry is entered on at large by Mr. Samuel Birch, in two able articles on the Torc of the Celts. Archæological Journal, vol. ii. p. 360, and vol. iii. p. 27.
[393] Antiquities of Richborough, Reculver, and Lymne, p. 85.
[394] Archæologia Scotica, vol. ii. p. 462.
CHAPTER VII.
SEPULCHRES.
The tombs of the Bronze Period appear to differ, in various important respects, from those which are clearly assignable to the Primeval Period. Some of their peculiar features have already been noticed, in describing the circumstances under which sepulchral pottery and their relics have been met with; but others equally characteristic of the first era of development and progress remain to be described. To this epoch, as has been already observed, it seems probable that we must assign the introduction of the practice of cremation, while the huge cromlechs and chambered barrows and cairns, appear to have been abandoned along with the simpler rites of primitive inhumation, for the smaller cist and cinerary urn. To this period also we can have little hesitation in ascribing the earliest attempts at sculpture or inscription which are met with on primitive sepulchral memorials. The two most remarkable examples of sculptured monolithic structures hitherto explored are the celebrated chambered cairn of Newgrange, in the county of Meath, and that on the small island of Gavr' Innis in Brittany. These gigantic and complicated works appear indeed to pertain to the transition between the Primeval and Archaic Periods, and partake at once of the earliest cyclopean characteristics and the later ornamental decorations.
An abridged extract of the account furnished by Mr. J. W. Lukis of the remarkable structure of Gavr' Innis will best illustrate the peculiar features of such decorated sepulchral chambers. Gavr' Innis is a small island, about a quarter of a mile in length, situated in the department du Morbihan, Brittany. It is elevated somewhat above the neighbouring islands, and with its tumulus, which still covers the cromlech, forms one of the most conspicuous objects of the inland Archipelago. The tumulus is about thirty feet high, and three hundred feet in circumference. The cromlech beneath forms a large central chamber, with a passage, constructed like it of huge masses of granite, leading out to the south side of the mound.
"Being furnished," says Mr. Lukis, "with candles, I entered the cromlech Gavr' Innis by a small opening at the south end, which is between three and four feet wide, by about the same in height. Having reached the third and fourth props, my attention was at once arrested by finding them covered with engraved lines, forming patterns resembling the tattooing of the New Zealander. On proceeding farther into the interior the height increased, rendering the passage to the end more easy; and I found nearly the whole of the props covered with similarly engraved lines. Here there is much to excite admiration at the regularity and beauty of so extraordinary a place; and on turning to a prop on the western side, the imagination is farther exercised to perceive the purpose or use of three circular holes, sunk into the face of the stone, each about six inches deep, and the same in diameter: they communicate with each other, and form a sort of trough within the stone. It is divided in front by two raised parts resembling in form the handles to a jar."[395]
Coilsfield Stone.
Other cromlechs in Brittany are similarly decorated; and Mr. Lukis arrives at the conclusion that in some of them the stones must have been engraved prior to their erection, from the ornaments extending round the sides which are now covered by adjoining stones. The sculptured decorations at Newgrange are no less remarkable, and the same observation has been made in regard to them, that the carvings must have been executed before the stones upon which they appear had been placed in their present positions. We shall not probably err in assigning as contemporaneous works with these rare and most primitive examples of sculptured sepulchral chambers, the rude cists occasionally found decorated with similar devices, though otherwise entirely unhewn. The annexed view of one of these incised slabs is engraved from a drawing presented to the Royal Society of Edinburgh by Colonel Hugh Montgomery of Shielmorly, in 1785, and subsequently transferred to the Society of Antiquaries. It formed the cover of a cist, discovered in digging a gravel-pit at Coilsfield, in Ayrshire, and underneath it was found an urn filled with incinerated bones. The dimensions of the stone were about five feet in length by two and a half feet in breadth. The original drawing includes the representation of the portion of the urn shewn here, which it will be seen presents only the usual characteristics of primitive sepulchral pottery. A subsequent discovery of cinerary urns at the same spot has been assumed to authenticate one of the many dubious incidents recorded by our earlier chroniclers in relation to a no less celebrated hero than "Old King Coil." Near Coilsfield House is a large tumulus, crowned with two huge blocks of granite, which local tradition affirmed to mark the place of sepulture of the redoubted hero, of whom Boece records,—"King Coyll, unwarly kepit be his nobilis, was slane, in memory wherof the place quhare he was slane wes namit efter Coyll; quhilk regioun remanis yit under the same name, or litill different thairfra, callit now Kyle."[396] Certain zealous local antiquaries having resolved to put tradition to the test, the tumulus was opened in 1837, and found to inclose a cist covered by a circular stone about three feet in diameter, beneath which four plain urns were disposed, the largest of which measured nearly eight inches in height. The author of a recent topographical work on the district of Kyle has gravely assumed this discovery as giving "to the traditionary evidence, and to the statements of early Scottish historians in regard to Coil, except with respect to the date, a degree of probability higher than they formerly possessed!"[397] What more might not the antiquaries of Kyle have been able to establish had they known of the older discovery on the same spot, and of the mysterious symbols traced on the sepulchral stone!
Annan Street Stone.
Another cist, decorated with concentric circles in a manner nearly similar to the Coilsfield stone, was exposed a few years since in constructing the road which leads from South Queensferry through the Craigiehall estate. It still remains, nearly perfect, in the high bank on the side of the road, the end of the cist only having been removed, and the covering slab left in its place. It contained bones and ashes, without any urn. In Mr. J. Walker Ord's "History and Antiquities of Cleveland," an interesting account is given of the opening of some tumuli on Bernaldby Moor, in 1843, in one of which—a bell-shaped barrow—was found a remarkably fine cinerary urn sixteen and a half inches high, covered with an unhewn slab carved with rude devices similar in style to those described above. Of the same class also is another slab figured here, the drawing of which was made by George Scott, the friend of Mungo Park, who accompanied him to Africa and died there. It was forwarded to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland by Sir Walter Scott, in 1828, who described the original as a rough sandstone, about six feet long by perhaps two and a half broad, which was raised by the plough at a place called Annan Street, upon the farm of Wheathope. The drawing is designated, probably by the original draftsman, "a Druid stone found at Annan Street, figured with the sun and moon." Little doubt can be entertained that it had formed the cover of a cist, though few probably will now be inclined to attempt a solution of the enigmatic devices rudely traced on its surface. The spot where it was found is about half a mile from the church of Yarrow, and close by there are two large stones, about 120 yards apart, which are believed to mark the scene of the memorable struggle that has given "The dowie houms of Yarrow" so touching a place in the beautiful legendary poetry of Scotland. Thus does the human mind delight to give a local habitation to the mythic and traditional characters and incidents that take hold on the fancy, whether it be the old mythological smith Wayland, associated with the cromlech of Berkshire; the fabulous King Coil, and the sepulchral barrow of Ayrshire; or The Flower of Yarrow, the creation of some nameless Scottish minstrel, whose pathetic ballad will live as long as our language endures.
The rude attempts at sculpture figured here are certainly as artless, and to us as meaningless, as the chance traces of wind and tide on the deserted sea-beach. Doubtless they had a meaning and an object once, and were not produced without the expenditure both of time and labour by the primitive artist, provided almost for the first time with metallic tools. To us they are simply of value as probably indicating the infantile efforts of the old British sculptor, and the rudiments of the art to which we owe such gorgeous piles as the Cathedral of Salisbury, and such sculptures as those of Wells and York. Even as the parent delights to trace in the prattle of his child the promises of future years, the archæologist may be pardoned if he is sometimes tempted to linger too fondly on those infantile efforts of the human race until he sees in them the germ of future arts, the first attempts at symbolic prefigurements, and the rudiments of those representative signs from which have sprung letters and all that followed in their train.
The most interesting and characteristic features, however, which the tombs of the Bronze Period disclose, are the weapons and implements deposited alongside of the deceased, or inclosed with his ashes in the cinerary urn. Much variety is traceable in the design as well as in the mode of disposing of these enduring tokens of reverence and affection. But we have already examined them with sufficient minuteness, and have found a distinctive uniformity traceable throughout the whole; marking with no doubtful features the products of an epoch in which we discern the germ of all future progress, and the dawn of that civilisation the full development of which we are now privileged to enjoy.