The archæology and prehistoric annals of Scotland

by Sir Daniel Wilson

The interest which attaches to the determination of the extent and probable date of the first intercourse of the Britons with traders from the far east, has led to the anticipation of some points not strictly belonging to the present section of our inquiry. This question of the existence of a native coinage, or of the substitution of a foreign metallic currency for the rude process of barter, at a period prior to the introduction of Roman customs by the legionaries of the first and second centuries, well merits the careful study it is now receiving, since no other evidence could furnish equally satisfactory proof of early progress in social civilisation. It cannot admit of doubt, however, that long before even the Greek or Phœnician trader had taught the Cornish miner this ingenious substitute for a direct exchange of commodities, he had learned to fuse and work the rich veins of ore with which his native soil abounded, and to fashion them into a variety of personal ornaments as well as of weapons and implements. The Phœnician sought his tin in order to mix it with the copper which he already possessed, and thereby to produce bronze weapons combining the ductility of copper with that indispensable hardness which could alone fit them to supersede the older implements of stone. How early this interchange first took place, it appears now altogether vain to inquire. The evidence already adduced, however, is at least sufficient to justify us in assigning to it a very remote period, while the more abundant and far more useful metal, iron, was little known even to the oldest nations along the Mediterranean coasts. Worsaae remarks, "There are geological reasons for believing that the Bronze Period must have prevailed in Denmark five or six hundred years before the birth of Christ."[239] Denmark, however, had all its metal to import, while the earliest historic allusion to England represents her exporting her abundant metallic ores, and bartering them with the southern merchant for the productions of his superior skill. The metallic riches of England have not escaped the attention of the intelligent Danish archæologist:—"It is highly probable," he remarks, "that the ancient bronze, formed of copper and tin, was diffused from one spot over the whole of Europe; which spot may be supposed to be England, because, not to mention the quantity of copper which that country produces, its rich tin mines have been known from the earliest historic periods to the nations of the south, while in the other parts of Europe there occur only very few and doubtful remains of far less important tin mines which we are justified in believing to have been worked at that time."[240]

When we consider that copper is not only found in a state requiring little smelting to render it fit for manufacture, but that it is even discovered at times so pure that we may conceive of its occasional substitution for stone implements, before the art of smelting had become known, we can feel no hesitation in assuming, a priori, that it was the precursor of iron as a material for the construction of weapons and tools. Iron, on the contrary, bears, in its natural state, little resemblance to a metal, and is smelted by so difficult and tedious a process that, even after its superiority had become known, the older metal would probably be preferred by the natives of a thinly peopled country, where the benefits of mutual cooperation and the division of labour still remained among the unsolved problems of their political economy. The tools and weapons of the ancient Mexicans we know were of copper, and we are not without evidence that even the Egyptians were far advanced in their early developed civilisation before iron had superseded the older copper tools. The architectural monuments of Mexico and Yucatan show how much might be accomplished with such imperfect implements. Both in the magnificent work of the French savans, and in the more accurate delineations of M. Rosellini, various Egyptian paintings are shewn, in which the implements of the sculptors are evidently of bronze or copper, and workmen are seen cutting blocks of granite and hewing out colossal statues with yellow tools. Numerous bronze weapons, implements, and personal ornaments found in the catacombs, attest the use of this metal by the Egyptians at a comparatively late period. Implements of copper are also among the relics found in some of the ancient and long abandoned mines discovered in Asia. The celebrated tables in the copper mines of Wady Maghara, near Sinai, record the conquest of that part of Asia by Suphis, the builder of the great pyramid, and prove that these mines had been wrought prior to the early date of his reign. Dr. Layard also refers to copper mines still existing in the mountains within the confines of Assyria, worked at a very remote period, probably by the Assyrians, and used not only to supply the material for ornaments, but also for weapons and tools.[241] But there is not wanting abundant direct evidence to prove that Asia had her Bronze Period as well as Europe and Africa. Dr. Prichard remarks, "Silver and golden ornaments of rude workmanship, though in abundant quantity, are found in the Siberian tombs. The art of fabricating ornaments of the precious metals seems to have preceded by many ages the use of iron in the northern regions of Asia."[242] A very interesting account is given in the Archæologia of a tumulus opened in the neighbourhood of Asterabad, on the south-eastern shores of the Caspian Sea, in 1841. It contained several vessels and two small trumpets, all of pure gold; spears, pikes, forks, and other weapons, including a well-shaped hammer and hatchet of copper, but no traces of iron.[243] The descriptions of Homer point out the era of the Iliad and the Odyssey as a bronze period; and Hesiod, as well as later writers, intimate clearly the use of bronze by the Greeks before they had learned to smelt or work the iron ore. The golden age of Saturn, and the succeeding silver, brazen, and iron ages, by which the Greek Sagas figure the gradual decline of mankind from a state of primeval purity and happiness, are not to be regarded as mere poetical images. "In the brazen age," says Schlegel, in his Philosophy of History, "crime and disorder reached their height; violence was the characteristic of the rude and gigantic Titans. Their arms were of copper, and their implements and utensils of brass or bronze. Even in their edifices copper was employed; for as the Greek poet says, 'black iron was not then known;' a circumstance which must be considered as strictly historical, and as characteristic of the primitive nations."[244]

We have seen, in so far as the imperfect data already referred to afford trustworthy indications of the physical characteristics of the primitive colonists of Britain, that the race of the later era differed greatly from their elder and probably aboriginal precursors of the primeval period. We must depend not only on the united observations of British archæologists for adding to these ethnological data, but also on Continental research for supplying the necessary elements of comparison by which we may hope to trace out the origin of the Brachy-kephalic race of Scotland, to whom it seems probable that the introduction of the primitive metallurgic arts must be ascribed; while it may be that we shall yet be able clearly to associate the full development of these, prior to the working of iron, with the intrusion of the Celtæ upon the elder Allophylian British races.

Whencesoever the first knowledge of the metallurgic arts was derived, it introduced into the British Isles the elements of a change scarcely less momentous than those which later ages trace to letters, the magnet, the printing-press, or these latest applications of the metals—the railway and the electric telegraph. The native Briton was no longer confined to his little clearing on the coast, nor compelled with ingenious toil to fashion the shapeless flint and stone into the weapons and implements that supplied his simple wants. The forests rang with the axe and the wedge; the low grounds were gradually cleared of their primeval forests; and the fruits of patient industry were substituted, in part at least, for the spoils of the chase. Still the change was wrought, as might be anticipated, only by very slow degrees. The weapons and implements would in many localities long precede the knowledge of the arts by which they were formed. The old generation would die out, and be buried with the stone war-hatchet and spear, while the younger race were learning to despise such imperfect arms. Necessity also, arising from their costliness and scarcity, would long confine the majority to the primitive and inefficient tools and weapons of their fathers. Even after the flint lance had been entirely superseded by the bronze sword and spear, the missile weapons would still be made of the old material, and the large stone hammer would be retained in use as too bulky an object to be constructed of the more costly metal. It is probable, indeed, that stone implements were never entirely abandoned throughout the whole Bronze Period. No large bronze hammers have ever been found in Britain, while those of stone frequently occur along with metallic remains; and the larger hammers and axes, chiefly of granite, are among the most abundant of Scottish primitive relics. So recently as the month of October 1849, an ancient working of great extent was broken into at the Llandudno Copper Mines, at Ormes Head, in North Wales. In this were found a great number of stone hammers or mauls of various sizes, weighing from two to forty pounds, supposed to have been used in crushing the ore or detaching it from the rock. There also lay beside them a number of bones, and the portion of a bronze tool; affording altogether one of the most interesting discoveries yet made illustrative of the arts of the British Bronze Period.[245] Traces of ancient mining operations have also been found in Scotland. Pennant describes trenches in the Island of Jura by which the veins both of lead and copper have been wrought in very early times, and by instruments unknown to the modern miner.[246]

Abundant evidence is found in accordance with these indications, proving the existence of a long transition-period, during which metallic tools and arms were only very partially introduced, and were manifestly esteemed as rare and precious possessions. To this transition-period we should probably assign the formation of the smaller and most carefully wrought varieties of the stone hammer, with which we may presume the ingenious worker in the newly mastered metals to have wrought, and fashioned into shape, many of the rude but massive gold ornaments found in the tumuli. From the number of these relics of the precious metals which have been discovered, we are irresistibly led to the conclusion that gold must have been much more abundant at that remote era than it has been within the period of authentic history. Nor is it difficult to account for such a state of things. Though usually found in very small quantities, gold is well known as one of the most widely diffused of all the metals; and the clay slate which frequently forms the depository of gold, silver, and copper, exists in great abundance throughout the Highlands. In the Leadhills of Scotland considerable quantities of gold have been procured at no very distant period, while numerous allusions suffice to shew its greater abundance in former times.[247] In the twelfth century the Abbey of Dunfermline received a grant from David I. of the tithe of all the gold produced by the surrounding districts of Fife and Forthrev;[248] and even in the sixteenth century the Laird of Merchiston is said to have wrought gold in the Pentland Hills.[249] In the remoter era, however, to which we now refer, when the rude Caledonian was learning, for the first time, to fashion his weapons and tools of bronze, and to substitute the golden torc and armilla for the necklace of perforated shells or stone and amber beads, we are justified in assuming from analogy that in many of the channels of the Scottish mountain streams,—amid the strata of which the ore has been found,—not only the gold dust, but pure masses of native gold would be occasionally discovered, and wrought with no better tools than the stone hammer and anvil into the personal ornaments of distinguished leaders or priests. Strabo, in referring to the great mineral wealth of Spain, which made it to the ancients what America became to the Spaniards long after their native mineral treasures were exhausted, remarks,—"In no country are gold, silver, copper, and iron, so abundant or of such fine quality; even the rivers and mountain streams bring down gold in their beds, which is found in their sands." Yet such a description is now as little applicable to Spain as to Scotland. But more recent and conclusive evidence exists. Much sensation was excited in 1795 by the discovery of gold dust in the bed of the brook Ballinasloge, a feeder of the Avonmore river, about seven miles west from Arklow, county Wicklow. The stream is formed there at the junction of three ravines; and in this spot John Lloyd, Esq., F.R.S., a correspondent of Sir Joseph Banks,[250] describes upwards of three hundred women, besides men and children, all engaged at one time in searching for the precious metal:—a scene not difficult to parallel in our own day. The searchers, however, were abundantly rewarded for their labour. The gold was found in masses varying from a few grains to five ounces in weight, and one piece, weighing twenty-two ounces, was reserved as a present to His Majesty. A later correspondent,[251] in a communication to the Royal Society, calculates that 800 ounces of gold were collected in the short space of six weeks, at the end of which time the gatherers were dispersed by a body of militia, and the gold area held for behoof of Government. "The gold," says Mr. Mills, "is of a bright yellow colour, perfectly malleable; the specific gravity of an apparently clean piece 19,000. A specimen, assayed here in the moist way, produced from 24 grains 22-58/101 grains of pure gold, and 1-45/101 of silver. Some of the gold is intimately blended with, and adherent to quartz; some, it is said, was found united to the fine grained iron-stone, but the major part was entirely free from the matrix; every piece more or less rounded on the edges, of various weights, forms, and sizes."[252] Specimens were afterwards assayed by the Royal Mint Master at the Tower of London. One piece contained, in 24 carats, 21-6/8 of fine gold, 1⅞ of fine silver, and ⅝ of alloy, which seemed to be copper tinged with a little iron.[253]

Such an example may be reasonably received as supplying one satisfactory clue to the sources of the gold which we find to have been so abundant in early times; though we shall still, perhaps, consistently account for the introduction of some portion of it indirectly by foreign barter, and chiefly in the shape of the ring-money hereafter referred to. But when the fact is borne in remembrance that articles of silver are rarely, if ever, found in connexion with relics of the Bronze Period, it must be acknowledged as most consistent with the geological and mineralogical characteristics of auriferous and argentiferous deposits to look to native sources for the supply of gold. While silver is found only in large quantities by mining, gold has invariably been discovered in largest quantities in the superficial detritus, and accumulated in circumscribed areas. Whenever, therefore, we are enabled to trace the supply of gold to a foreign, as, for example, to a Phœnician source, we can hardly fail to find accompanying relics of silver; and accordingly, in the succeeding, or Iron Period, the gold becomes of rare occurrence, and the silver abundant. One other argument should not be altogether overlooked. The great purity of very many of the gold ornaments found in the tumuli is such as may perhaps add to the probability of its native origin. This well-known fact has frequently supplied an additional inducement to transfer to the crucible many of the rarest and most valuable relics of this period. Others found alloyed with silver are in no fixed or uniform proportions, but rather in accordance with the accidental mixtures likely to occur in the operations of the primitive miner and metallurgist. But this, though diminishing their bullion value, has not sufficed to save such national heirlooms from destruction. After reposing in the safe muniment chambers of their original owners, with but a foot of earth above them, while ancient races have become extinct and new colonists have risen to mighty nations above their forgotten graves, these treasures have only been restored to light to be immediately destroyed. The barbarity of such proceedings has hardly yet been fully exposed. It is the destruction of national records in the meanest spirit of cupidity, which no wealth could restore, and for which not even the poor excuse can be found that satisfied the fanatic Caliph Omar when he converted the treasures of the Alexandrian Library into fuel for the city baths.

Remote as is the period when the novel arts of the metallurgist broke in upon the simple and unsophisticated habits of the British aborigines, some traces of the memory of this mighty change still linger amid the popular traditions of England. The use which Sir Walter Scott has made of the Berkshire legend of Wayland Smith has sufficed to confer a fictitious interest on, perhaps without exception, the most remarkable of all the mythic traditions common to the nations of northern Europe, and which may be unhesitatingly received as the traditionary memorial of the advent of the Bronze Period among the Teutonic races. True, indeed, in the only definite form in which it is now recoverable from the early and medieval literature of Europe, it is associated with the later age of iron rather than with that of bronze; but little importance can be attached to this. The legend is manifestly of an older date even than the Edda, that venerable collection of the sacred writings of the north. We see in it the hero-worship of the fierce Norsemen deifying their Scandinavian Vulcan, and assigning to him a superhuman origin as an evidence of their estimate of the divine gift he is supposed to have bestowed. But the mythic legend finds its prototype in the Greek Dædalus, if not in the Mosaic Tubal-Cain. It is incorporated into nearly all the older European tongues with singular uniformity of idea. In the Icelandic the name of the renowned northern metallurgist is Vælund and Vaulundr; in old high German, Wiolant, Wielant; in Anglo-Saxon, Wêland; in old English, Weland and Velond; and in the modern popular dialect, Wayland. In the Latin of the middle ages it becomes Guielandus; and in old French, Galans and Galant. It is probable that Spain, Italy, and the East above all, had analogous traditions, some of which at least may yet be recovered.[254] According to a singular, and seemingly arbitrary caprice of the medieval Germanic traditions, the forge of Weland is supposed to be erected in the Caucasus; and Michel remarks, as a proof that there has been a common origin of these legends of the east and west relating to skilful workers in iron, that some of the traditions still preserved on the banks of the Euphrates present the same traits recorded by the poets of the middle ages on the banks of the Rhine.[255] But Humboldt has justly remarked that "the characteristic features of nations, like the internal construction of plants spread over the surface of the globe, were the impressions of a primitive type." The Aztecks,—to whom we have already referred as a remarkable example of considerable civilisation, and the extensive practice of many useful and ornamental arts, among a people destitute of iron and very partially furnished with metals,—had their mythic metallurgist as well as the older races of Europe and Asia. Quetzalcoath, whose reign was the golden age of the people of Anahuac, was the Weland of the Aztecks, worshipped among them with strange and bloody rites. Their traditions told that he had dwelt among them twenty years, and had taught them to cast metals, ordered fasts, and regulated the intercalations of the Tolteck year.[256] Prominent as the place is which the mythic legend of the smith-god occupied in the popular creed of the middle ages throughout the greater part of Europe, the tradition of a gifted worker in metals is doubtless of eastern origin, and far more fitly impersonates and deifies the restoration of the metallurgic arts in the primitive Bronze Period than the mere transition from bronze to iron, important as the latter change undoubtedly was.

The remarkable analogy of the mythic legends of the North with the ancient Greek fable of Dædalus, has not escaped the notice of modern critics, and MM. Depping and Michel remark:—"We do not hesitate to believe that it is the history of this Greek artist, altered and disfigured, adapted to the manners and creeds of the people of the north of Europe, which has given rise to the romance of Weland." The resemblance, however, is scarcely less manifest, in many respects, to the lame smith-god Ἡφαιστος, or Vulcan; and the widely-diffused mythic fable is far too complete and unique to have been transferred directly from the Greek to the Teutonic mythology, where scarce another trace of similar correspondence is discernible. Jupiter, Mars, Hercules, Venus, Orpheus, all find their counterparts indeed, but with scarce a shadow of resemblance to Greek prototypes, in the wild Scandinavian and old German pantheon, which may reasonably excite our wonder, if we assume a Greek origin for the Vœlundar Quida contained in the Edda. In the simplest form in which it is still recoverable, it is obviously overlaid with spurious additions of a later age; and when it gets into the monkish chronicles and romances of chivalry compiled in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the wild faith of the Norsemen is outdone by the wilder fictions of the Trouveres, and nearly all the symbolic spirit of the original disappears. Some of these even assign precise periods as the era of the northern smith. Several of the French romances mention Galand as the maker of Charlemagne's famous sword Durendal, while others describe armour forged by him and weapons inscribed with his name. But the most curious notice of this kind occurs in an English manuscript written about the time of Edward I. It contains a description of the sword of Gauvain, one of the most celebrated knights of Arthur's "Round Table," made by Galant, and having the following lines inscribed in canello gladii:—

"Jeo su forth trenchant e dure;
Galaan me fyth par mult grant cure;
Catorse anz [out] Jhesu Cristh,
Quant Galaan me trempa e fyth;"

i.e., "I am very sharp and hard; Galaan made me with very great care; fourteen years old was Jesus Christ when Galaan tempered and made me." Other romances furnish with swords of Galant's workmanship both Julius Cæsar and Alexander the Great, and by inheritance from the latter, Ptolemy, Judas Maccabæus, and the Emperor Vespasian.[257] Such spurious inventions, however, lack all the value of the original symbolic legend. We read indeed in the romance of Fierabras d'Mixandre, of three famous swords made by Galans and his two brothers; of one of which it is related,—