The first indication of a slight advancement in the constructive skill of the primitive architect is discernible in the strengthening of his domestic inclosure with stone. This is not infrequently accompanied with small circular or oblong field inclosures, as if indicating the dawn of civilisation, manifested in the protection of personal property, and the rudiments of a pastoral life, in the folding of sheep and cattle. Still greater social progress would seem to be indicated in those examples, also occasionally to be met with in various districts, where a commanding site appears to have been chosen for the location; and traces still remain of an earthen rampart inclosing the whole, as on the Kaimes Hill, in the parish of Ratho, Mid-Lothian. Such, perhaps, may be the remains of a British camp, or of a temporary retreat in time of war.
With this class also may be grouped the "Picts' kilns," on which Chalmers, Train, Sir Walter Scott, and other antiquaries, have expended much conjecture and useless learning. These are of frequent occurrence in Wigton and Kircudbright shires, as well as in parts of the neighbouring counties. They consist of elliptical or pear-shaped inclosures, measuring generally about sixteen feet in length and seven or eight feet in breadth. Externally the walls appear to be of earth, sometimes standing nearly three feet high. On removing the surface they are found to be constructed internally of small stones, frequently bearing marks of fire. They are popularly believed to be ancient breweries reared by the Picts for the manufacture of a mysterious beverage called heather ale. Sir Walter Scott suggests, with not much greater probability, that they are primitive lime kilns. They are said by Mr. Train to be invariably constructed on the south side of a hill, close to the margin of a brook, and with the door or narrow passage facing the stream. Future excavations on their sites may perhaps furnish more conclusive evidence of their original purpose.
Greater art is apparent in the relics of another class of ancient Scottish dwellings occasionally met with in different parts of the country. In the Black Moss, already referred to, on the banks of Etive, Argyleshire, at various points where some advance has been made in recovering the waste for agricultural purposes, the progress of cultivation has uncovered rough oval pavings of stone, bearing marks of fire, and frequently covered with charred ashes. These are generally found to measure about six feet in greatest diameter, and are sometimes surrounded with the remains of pointed hazel stakes or posts, the relics, doubtless, of the upright beams with which the walls of the ancient fabric was framed. Julius Cæsar describes the dwellings of the Britons as similar to those of the Gauls;[92] and these we learn, from the accounts both of Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, were constructed of wood, of a circular form, and with lofty tapering roofs of straw. Such apparently were the structures, the remains of which are now brought to light within the limits of the Dalriadic possessions. These ancient Caledonian hearths, now quenched for so many centuries, are discovered beneath an accumulation of from eight to ten feet of moss, under which lies a stratum of vegetable mould about a foot deep, resting upon an alluvial bed of gravel and sand; the original soil upon which the large sepulchral cairns of the same district have been reared.
A discovery made at Dalgenross, near Comrie, in 1823, though described in a communication to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland as an ancient tomb, manifestly furnishes another example of the same class of primitive dwellings. At Comrie, as in twenty other equally probable localities, antiquaries of the district have pronounced some imperfect and half-obliterated earth-works to be the remains of a Roman camp, and the scene of Agricola's famous victory of Mons Grampius! The writer, learning that workmen were trenching this interesting spot, remarks,—"I hastened to where the men were at work, and found that they had come upon a circle of flat stones set on edge, and at the bottom a paving of large flag-stones. The cavity was filled with a kind of black earth, pieces of charred wood, and also some fragments of iron, but so completely defaced with rust that it is impossible to say to what purpose they have been applied." On pursuing the investigation further, pieces of charcoal and burned wood were found, along with charred wheat, which might possibly suggest its having been a granary; but its general characteristics much more nearly assimilate it to a native dwelling, to which, it may be, the torch of the Roman legionary applied the brand that reduced it to a blackened ruin.
Among the relics of primitive domestic architecture brought to light in later times, no class is more remarkable than the weems, or subterranean dwellings which have been discovered in different parts of Scotland. Of this class are two structures discovered under ground in the parish of Tealing, Forfarshire. One of them consisted of several apartments formed with large flat stones without any cement; and in it were found wood-ashes, several fragments of large earthen vessels, and an ancient stone hand-mill, or querne. The other was a single vault constructed in the same manner, measuring internally about four feet both in height and width, and in which were found a broad earthen vessel, and a stone celt or hatchet.[93] In another opened in the parish of Monzie, Perthshire, a stone celt and bronze sword were found, both of which are preserved at Monzie House. Chalmers supplies a curious list of similar subterranean dwellings discovered at various times in Forfar, Perth, Aberdeen, Ross, Sutherland, and Inverness shires, and in the Orkney Islands.[94] The like structures are noted by Martin, among the antiquities of the islands of Walay, Erisca, and Skye;[95] and by Pennant also in the latter island. They are described by Martin as "little stone-houses, built under ground, called earth houses, which served to hide a few people and their goods in time of war."
The general name applied in Scotland to these subterranean habitations is Weems, from the Gaelic word uamha, a cave; and as this name is in use in the low countries, where nearly all traces of the Celtic dialect have been lost as a living language, probably since the era of the "Saxon Conquest," it may be accepted as no insignificant evidence of their Celtic origin or use. In Aberdeenshire, where they have been found in greater number than in any other single district, they are more generally known, as in the Hebrides, by the name of eirde (i.e., earth) houses.
An interesting account of a large group of weems discovered in Aberdeenshire, is given by Professor Stuart in the Archæologia Scotica,[96] and since then many more have been brought to light in the same district. Several of these opened of late years in Strathdon are described with great minuteness in the Statistical Account of that parish.[97] On a bleak moor in the adjoining parish, not far from the old castle of Kildrummie—which, from many large fossil trees dug up in it, appears to have once been an extensive forest—the largest assemblage of these singular habitations occurs which has yet been discovered in Scotland. Others have been found about six miles further up the country, at Glenkindrie, at Buchan, and near the source of the Don, one of the wildest districts of the Highlands. They are indeed scarcely less common than the sepulchral cairn. My object, however, is not so much to accumulate numerous examples, as to select a few characteristic types of each class of Scottish antiquities; though these weems appear to possess peculiar claims to minute description, from their very frequent occurrence. In general, no external indication affords the slightest clue to their discovery. To the common observer, the dry level heath or moor under which they lie presents no appearance of having ever been disturbed by the hand of man; and he may traverse the waste until every natural feature has become familiar to his eye, without suspecting that underneath his very feet lie the dwellings and domestic utensils of remote antiquity.
The Aberdeenshire weems are constructed of huge masses of granite, frequently above six feet in length, and though by no means uniform either in internal shape or dimensions, a general style of construction prevails throughout the whole. Some of them have been found upwards of thirty feet long, and from eight to nine feet wide. The walls are made to converge towards the top, and the whole is roofed in by means of the primitive substitute for the arch which characterizes the cyclopean structures of infant Greece, and the vast temples and palaces of Mexico and Yucatan. The huge stones overlap each other in succession, until the intervening space is sufficiently reduced to admit of the vault being completed by a single block extending from side to side. They have not infrequently smaller chambers attached to them, generally approached by passages not above three feet in height; and it affords a curious evidence of the want of efficient tools in the builders of these subterranean structures, that where these side apartments are only separated from the main chamber by the thickness of the wall, the stones, though placed flush with the walls of the latter, project irregularly into the small cells, giving them a singularly unshapely and ragged appearance. Similar structures, but of smaller dimensions, have been discovered in Lanarkshire, at Cartland Craigs, in the neighbourhood of Stonebyres, and at a place called Cairney Castle. In these last were found quernes, deers' horns, and bones. In one uncovered in the parish of Auchterhouse, Forfarshire, a brass ring was discovered; and both there, and in another in the same parish, were ashes, bones, and quernes.[98] The Rev. Thomas Constable furnishes a very interesting description of one near Lundie House, in the latter county, which was minutely surveyed by the eminent antiquary, Lord Hailes. Its contents were of the usual description, including several quernes about fourteen inches in diameter.[99] So also, in a minute account of similar structures in Caithness and Sutherland, furnished to Pennant by the parish minister of Reay, the writer remarks:—"We found in them nothing but hand-mills, or what the Highlanders call quernes, which were only eighteen inches in diameter, and great heaps of deers' bones and horns, as they (the Picts) lived much more by hunting than any other means."[100] The discovery, indeed, of the primitive hand-mill in these ancient dwellings is so frequent as to be worthy of special notice, and might seem to indicate that their original destination had been for store-houses or granaries, did not the constant occurrence of the bones of domestic animals, or of those most prized in the chase, and frequently in considerable quantities, leave no room for doubt that they must have been occupied as places of habitation. They agree very nearly with the description furnished by Tacitus of the winter dwellings of the Germans, whom he represents as digging caves in the earth, in which they lay up their grain, and whither they retire in the winter, or on the advance of an enemy to plunder the open country.[101] The entrance to such of these subterranean dwellings as have been found sufficiently perfect to afford indications of their original character, appears to have generally been by a slanting doorway between two long, upright stones, through which the occupant must have slid into his dark abode. Occasionally a small aperture has been found at the further end, apparently to give vent to the fire, the charcoal ashes of which lie extinguished on the long-deserted floor. In some a passage of considerable length has formed the vestibule; but so far as now appears, a solitary aperture served most frequently alike for doorway, chimney, ventilator, and even window, in so far as any gleam of daylight could penetrate into the darkened vault. One is forcibly reminded, while groping in these aboriginal retreats, of Elia's realisations of the strange social state to which they pertain, in his quaint rhapsody on Candle-light, "our peculiar and household planet! Wanting it, what savage unsocial nights must our ancestors have spent, wintering in caves and unilluminated fastnesses! They must have lain about and grumbled at one another in the dark. What repartees could have passed, when you must have felt about for a smile, and handled a neighbour's cheek to be sure that he understood it! This accounts for the seriousness of the elder poetry. It has a sombre cast, derived from the tradition of these un-lanterned nights!" The grave humorist goes on to picture a supper scene in these unlighted halls, rich with truthful imaginings, mingled with his curious but thoughtful jests:—
"Things that were born, when none but the still night,
And his dumb candle, saw his pinching throes."
In truth, these dwellings, constructed with such laborious ingenuity in every district of Scotland, seem to throw a strange light upon that dim and remote era to which they belong, giving us some insight into the domestic habits and social comforts of a period heretofore dark as their own unillumined vaults.