It is the most puzzling of the peculiarity of these perplexing buildings, that they have tiers of galleries running round them within the thickness of the wall. To form the roofs of these tiny serpentine chambers, large slabs have been necessary, but, in some marvellous manner, they have been obtained without being wrought; for, on the largest, it is vain to look for the mark of a chisel, or even artificial squaring or smoothing. It would seem, at least in such of them as we have seen, that the thinnest large slabs of schist had been collected in the mountains, and brought probably from great distances to fulfil the object of the builder.
It seems to have been ever taken for granted that these round towers must have been fortresses, and the only remaining question seemed to be—by what people, nation, or language were they so used? Was it by the Phœnicians? A great antiquary showed that in Tyre and Sidon there must have been edifices precisely of the same character, though no vestige of them now remains. Did they belong to the Caledonians of the days of Tacitus, or to the Atacotti, or to the Dalriads, or to the Albanich, or to the Siol Torquil, or the Fion Gall, or the Dubh Gall? Or, were they erected especially by some individual Aulaf or Maccus, or Sigurd, or Thorfin, or Godred M‘Sitric, or Diarmid M‘Maelnambo—all gentlemen having their own peculiar claims on the architectural merit? It occurred to us one day to ask internally the question, whether they were fortresses or strongholds at all? It arose as we looked down from the broken edge of the galleried wall of one of those towers in solitary Glen-Elg Beg. It stands, a hoar ruin on the edge of a precipice, where a torrent takes a sudden turn; and nothing could be better conceived for the landscape ideal of the remains of some robber stronghold of the middle ages, than the remnant of circular masonry rising flush from the edge of the precipice. But it was precisely the force with which these apparent conditions of a fortified character were conveyed, that showed the utter want of them in the others scattered throughout the valley. What could they have defended? Whom could they have resisted?
Primitive fortresses are places where considerable armies or large numbers of people go for protection from besieging enemies. Now, though the outside circle of these burghs is considerable, yet, from the thickness of the galleried wall, they only contain an inner area of from twenty to thirty feet—the size of a moderate dining-room. And, while the numbers they could have held were thus few, they possessed no means like the medieval castles for assault, and could have been easily pulled to pieces by an enemy. Nor, if they were places of strength, can it be easily conceived why there should be a whole cluster of them in a place like Glen Beg, and no others in the neighbouring districts.
The notion, indeed, of their being strongholds, seems to have been grasped at once by their striking resemblance in structure and dimensions to the Norman flanking round towers. But the Norman towers were only outworks, to aid in defence of the central keep, and could have been of small service as detached forts. There are many things which have a warlike resemblance to this part of a feudal castle;—a windmill, as Don Quixote’s chivalrous eye at once told him, possesses the character very decidedly—so does a modern blast-furnace. The columbarium lingering on the grounds of some old mansion is often mistaken for a tower; and the prototype of the columbarium, the Roman tomb, eminently anticipated the form of the Norman tower. Of one of these Byron says,—
“There is a stern old tower of other days,
Firm as a fortress with its fence of stone;
Such as an army’s baffled strength delays,
Standing with half its battlements alone.”
One of these tombs is the nucleus of the castle of St Angelo, others were incrusted into the fortified mansions of the quarrelsome Colonna—so like were they, though built as the quiet mansions of the dead, to the towers of feudal fortresses.
Shall we venture a theory about these Highland round towers? We have not yet found one to our own satisfaction; but the reader, if he likes, may take the following, which we guarantee to be of the average quality of such theories. It is well known that, when the Scots under Kenneth M‘Alpine conquered the Picts, they saved from death just two inhabitants of that devoted race, a father and son; their disinterested object in this clemency was, to find out how the Picts got their beer. It seems that they possessed a precious and much-coveted secret, in the means of brewing heather-ale. The Scots offered to spare the lives of the captives, if they would reveal the secret. The father promised to do so if they would, in the first place, comply with his request,—a very odd one for a father to make in such circumstances—to put to death his son. They did so; and then the father uttered a loud yell of triumph—the secret of the beer would be for ever hidden in his bloody grave. He could not trust to the firmness of his son; he could entirely rely on his own, and he was ready to bear all tortures rather than make the revelation. Now, why not suppose that these mysterious buildings were just breweries of heather-ale, and that, in the various galleries, decreasing as they ascend until they become mere pigeon-holes, the brewsts of the different years were binned for the use of hospitable dinner-giving Picts? No one can disprove the theory, and this is more than can be said for many another.