92. View of Clava Mounds. From a drawing by Mr. Innes.
Meagre as this information is, it is sufficient to show that Clava does not mark a battle-field. Carefully-constructed chambers with horizontally-vaulted roofs are not such monuments as soldiers erect in haste over the graves of their fallen chiefs. It evidently is a cemetery; and, with the knowledge we have acquired from the examination of those in Ireland, there cannot be much hesitation in ascribing it to that dynasty which was represented by King Brude, when St. Columba, in the sixth century, visited him in his "Munitio," on the banks of the Ness.[308] If King Brude were really converted to Christianity by Columba, it is by no means improbable that the small square enclosure at the west end of the "heugh," which is still used as the burying-place of Pagan, or at least unbaptized babies, marked the spot where he and his successors were laid after the race had been weaned from the more noble burial-rites of their forefathers.
It would be extremely interesting to follow out this inquiry further, if the materials existed for so doing; as few problems are more perplexed, and at the same time, of their kind, more important, than the origin of the Picts, and their relations with the Irish and the Gaels. Language will not help us here: we know too little of that spoken by the Picts; but these monuments certainly would, if any one would take the trouble to investigate the question by a careful comparison of all those existing in Scotland and Ireland.
93. Stone at Coilsfield.
In the south of Scotland, for instance, we find such a stone as this at Coilsfield, on the Ayr,[309] which, taking the difference of drawing into account, is identical with that represented in woodcut No. 71. There is the same circle, the same uncertain, wavy line, and generally the same character. Another was found at Annan-street, in Roxburghshire, and is so similar in pattern and drawing that if placed in the chamber in the tumuli of New Grange, or Dowth, no one would suspect that it was not in the place it was originally designed for.[310] But no sculptures of that class have yet, at least, been brought to light in Pictland, or, in other words, north of the Forth, on the east side of Scotland.
94. Front of Stone at Aberlemmo, with Cross.