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.
FOOTNOTES:
[395] Journal of the Archæological Association, vol. iii. p. 272.
[396] Bellenden's Boece, book i. chap. ix.
[397] Land of Burns, vol. i. p 82.