The archæology and prehistoric annals of Scotland

by Sir Daniel Wilson

The inscription on the brooch is traced in large Runic characters, of which an exact fac-simile is introduced in the frontispiece, and differs essentially from any readings hitherto given of it by Danish antiquaries. Professor Magnusen's version, furnished by the late Mr. Donald Gregory, then Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, was probably only a copy of that made by Mr. Repp, though he reads the second name ᚮᛍᚠᚱᛁᛐᚭ, and contrives to elicit a vast deal more significance from the brief legend than its former translator dreamt of. He renders the first part—MALFRIÞA A DALK ÞIS; and translates it, Malfritha is the owner of this brooch. In this Malfritha he ingeniously discovers the Norwegian Queen Malford, a Russian princess who lived about A.D. 1130, while he finds in the Osfrido of the latter part of his version, Astrith the wife of King Svenir. A passage, moreover, in the Saga of King Haco, wherein the monarch complains of having been despoiled in infancy of all his inheritance save a brooch and a ring, completed the coveted cycle of historical identification, and here accordingly we have the brooch of King Haco, and an undoubted memorial of the Battle of Largs! A glance at the fac-simile of the inscription will shew how much imagination had to do even with the literal elements of this unparalleled discovery. In adapting the first name to his historical romance, Professor Magnusen reads ᚮ as F, not only without any authority, but even while recognising the regular ᚠ, or Runic F, in the second name—a needless liberty as will appear. The word ᚦᛁᛍ is no less a creation of the fancy. The mark which appears to have been construed into the terminating circle of the ᛍ, and to have given some show of probability to the others, being only the head of one of the silver rivets, which chances there to protrude in the middle of a line.

Meanwhile let us glance at the safer guidance which pure archæological evidence supplies. In addition to the inscription, I have introduced in the drawing, portions of the ornamental borders running along the outer and inner edges of the brooch. The Irish antiquary especially will recognise in these the familiar interlaced patterns to be found on nearly every native ecclesiastical and personal ornament pertaining to the early Christian period prior to the first appearance of the Northern Vikings, and with these the entire design and ornamentation correspond. But for the inscription, in fact, no one would have dreamt of assigning to the brooch a foreign origin; yet it does not seem to have ever occurred to the Scottish antiquaries to whom it was submitted, that the inscription might also be native, and equally Celtic with the workmanship. It will be seen that a rude chevron pattern is engraved on the back of the brooch, cut in the same style as the inscription, evidently the work of very different, and no doubt later hands, than those of the original jeweller. The whole reasoning, both of Scottish and Danish antiquaries in relation to this interesting relic, has heretofore proceeded on the assumption that a Runic inscription must have a direct Scandinavian origin: a conclusion by no means necessarily resulting from the use of Runes in Scotland at the date assigned to this one, after alliances and intermarriages had long existed between the Scandinavian and Celtic races of Scotland.

The Runic monuments of the Isle of Man present some remarkable features, manifestly pointing them out as the product of a Scandinavian colony in close alliance with a native Celtic population, and possessed both of a language and style of art resulting from the intercourse of these diverse races. The Manx Runic alphabet appears also to have some literal peculiarities altogether singular, though probably once common to the Hebrides and Northern Isles, and found also, as might have been anticipated, on the Hunterston brooch. To these features of the Manx alphabet, my attention was called by Professor P. A. Munch of Christiania, during the visit of that distinguished Northern scholar to this country in 1849; by whom, indeed, they were for the first time detected, when inspecting a series of casts of the Manx inscriptions in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries. In these ᚮ is sometimes used as B, so that the first name on the brooch reads Malbritha. From the incidents already narrated relative to the Scandinavian acquirement of possessions on the Scottish mainland, both by conquest and marriage, it cannot be doubted that, in so far as the Celtic race had any literary acquirements, they must have been familiarized both with the Northern language and Runes. It need not, therefore, surprise us to find in the owner of the Hunterston brooch not a Norwegian queen but a Scottish chief of the same name as the Celtic Maormor, Melbrigda Tönn, slain by Sigurd, the Orkney jarl, when he invaded the north of Scotland A.D. 894. The name, indeed, is familiar to the student of early Scottish history, and its first syllable is one of the commonest Celtic prefixes, as in the Mail Pataric on the Iona tomb, and even in the royal name of Malcolm, Maol Columb, the servant of Columba, as Maol Brigda signifies the servant of St. Bridget. In all cases it is a male prefix, the Gaelic maol meaning bald as well as subordinate, and being undoubtedly employed in its latter acceptation with reference to the tonsure. It is accordingly frequently met with in the names of ecclesiastics, as in the Pictish chronicle, A.D. 965, "Maelbrigd episcopus pausavit," and again repeatedly in an early Irish MS. copy of the Gospels, preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum,—n, 1802; as, for example, at the end of the Gospel of St. John, the colophon, "Or. do Maelbrigte h-Ua Maeluanaig, qui scripsit hunc librum."

Here, therefore, we have a probable key to the language of the whole inscription, nor can it be regarded as an extravagant idea that a Celt should write his native language in an alphabet already familiar to him. The characters on the brooch, it will be seen, include various Binderuner or compound Runes, which add to the difficulty of translation. Making allowance for these, the following version has this merit at least, compared with previous ones, that it does not select merely such letters as will conform to a preconceived theory, but takes the whole in natural order. In the latter part of the inscription the second letter is a compound Rune, consisting of ᛅᚭ, or perhaps of ᛁᛅᚭ, the next of ᛚᛉ, and the fourth of ᛆᚭ—a construction entirely in accordance with the usual mode of interpreting the Binderuner, which were in common use at the very period of the most intimate Celtic and Scandinavian intercourse. The whole will thus read:

ᛘᛆᛚᚮᚱᛁᚦᛆ᛬ᛆ᛬ᛐᛆᛁᛘᛁᚼᛂᚼ᛬ᛁ᛬ᛐᛅᚭᛚ᛬ᛘᛆᚭᛚᚠᚱᛁᛐᛁ

The additional marks are mostly irregular lines, with no distinctive character, and executed with so little care, that it is not improbable they have been introduced merely to occupy the remaining space with a uniform texture. What is decipherable reads in good Scottish Celtic: Malbritha a daimiheh i dæol Maolfridi; i.e., Malbritha his friend in recompense to Maolfridi: a is the possessive pronoun his; daimheach, a friend or relative; i or h-i, the old Celtic preposition in; and dìol, a reward for service done. It must be borne in remembrance that the spelling of the Scottish Gaelic is entirely modern. It is the sound therefore that is chiefly to be looked to, but the variations even in the spelling are not important. No Scandinavian scholar can examine the fac-simile of the inscription, and question the fact that the concluding portion actually contains the masculine name which Professor Magnusen was at such needless pains to try and educe from that of Malbritha. The chief value, however, to the Scottish antiquary of the reading now given, arises from no identification of these old Celtic friends, but from its establishing the fact—in itself so probable—that they did actually employ the Scoto-Scandinavian Runes in writing their own native language.

The annexed woodcut represents an exceedingly beautiful Scottish brooch, the size of the original, now in the collection of John Bell, Esq. of Dungannon. Like the Hunterston brooch, it is of silver, set with amber, and with the pattern wrought in gold. The resemblance of the two, both in style of ornament and in some of the details, can hardly fail to be admitted. This very fine specimen was found in the immediate vicinity of the celebrated mounds of Dunipace, Stirlingshire, the subject of antiquarian speculation from the days of Buchanan to our own. Another very fine large silver brooch, jewelled and plated with gold, formerly in the celebrated collection of Major Sirr, and now in that of C. K. Sharpe, Esq., has the acus exactly corresponding in its form and peculiar construction to that of the Hunterston brooch, while its other details are such as Scottish and Irish antiquaries are familiar with on the native gold and silver work of Celtic Christian art prior to the eleventh century. In point of workmanship and style of art, therefore, we have no reason to ascribe to our Runic brooch a foreign origin. Other evidence equally exposes the fallacy of assuming a necessary connexion between the discovery of Runes on our western coast and the fatal expedition of King Haco.

Directly opposite to the Ayrshire coast, and within sight of the Bay of Largs, a small island protects the entrance to Lamlash Bay, in the Isle of Arran, the well-known anchorage where Haco mustered his shattered fleet after his overthrow. In the Norwegian account of the expedition, after the narration of the fatal storm and conflict, it is stated, "The king sailed past Kumbrey (Cumbray) to Melansay, where he lay some nights."[560] This Melans ey, or isle, there can be little doubt is Holy Island, in the Bay of Lamlash, which contains the cave assigned by immemorial tradition as the residence of St. Molio or St. Maoliosa, a disciple of Columba, and a favourite Celtic saint. The island corresponds in geological structure to the southern district of Arran, presenting along the shore the common red sandstone strata, overflowed by a great mass of claystone and claystone porphyry, which towers above it in rugged and picturesque cliffs, fringed by the dwarf oak and birch, to a height of about a thousand feet. The cave of St. Molio is little more than a waterworn recess in the sandstone rock at an elevation of about thirty feet from the present level of the sea. On the shore below, a circular well is pointed out as St. Molio's Bath, and a large block of sandstone cut perfectly flat on the top, and surrounded with a series of artificial recesses or seats, bears the name of the Saint's Chair. Such relics are by no means rare in Scotland. They appear to have been singularly characteristic of Celtic hagiology. The Bath of St. Cuthbert was once a favourite resort in Strathtay; that of St. Woloc exists in Strathdeveron; and that of St. Fillan remains in the strath of Perthshire which still bears his name. St. Kentigern also had once his "bath," "bed," and "chair," near the Molendinar Burn. The Stone Chair of St. Marnan is still at Aberchirder; that of St. Fillan was recently preserved at the Mill of Killin; while another of these singular Celtic relics, placed at a commanding point, near Achtereachan, Glencoe, where a bend of the glen enables it to command both views, bears the name of Cathair Malvina, or the Chair of Malvina, one of Ossian's heroines.