SCOTTISH GAEL; Celtic Manners as preserved among the Highlanders: Being an historical and descriptive account of the inhabitants, antiquities, and national preculiarities of Scotland; more particularly of the northern, or gaelic parts of the country, where the singular habits if the aboriginal Celts are most tenaciously retained. BY JAMES LOGAN, FELLOW or THK SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIANS OF SCOTLAND "The most interesting and important of all history is the history of man." WAKTOH FIFTH AMERICAN EDITION. HARTFORD: S ANDRUS AND SON. $50 TO HIS MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY, WILLIAM IV., KING OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND SIRE, IT is with the deepest gratitude for so distinguished an honor, that I presume to lay these Researches at Your Majesty's feet. The Work relates to a people who have greatly contributed to raise the renown of Your Majesty's arms to the pre-eminence they have attained. The history and character of that people, therefore, deserve the attention of every Patriot; and your subjects, Sire, feel a just pride in being able to call your Majesty a PATRIOT KING That Your Majesty's reign may be long and happy, must be the ardent wish of every Briton; and I can say for my countrymen, in particular, that none are more devotedly attached to Your Majesty's Person and Family; and that no portion of Your Majesty's Subjects would more cheerfully venture their lives for the honor and defence of their beloved Sovereign, and for the support of the Constitution under which they enjoy so many blessings. For myself, I rejoice in being so highly favored as to be graciously permitted this public oppor- tunity of expressing the profound respect with which I am, SIRE, YOUR MAJESTY'S Most devoted and most humble Subject and Servant, JAMES LOGAN. of L HiGHland Chiefs, (copper-plate) Frontispiece. 8. Ensign of Scotland, (Vignette) Tide-page. 3. Bas Ttftlief from Trajan's Column Page 19 4 An Ancient Briton .... 39 5. A curious inscribed Obelisk - 62 6. A remarkable Cromleach .... 63 7. Various Stone and Metal ImplemeNts - 72 8 to 12. Figures illustrating the various ancient modes of dressing the Hair 38, 73, 84, 85,101 13. Tinwald, in the Isle of Man - - 102 14. The Bassoflnverury - - - - 146 15. Stone Circle at Tyrebachar - 150 16. A Gallic Female and Celtiberian - - 151 17. Fragment of a Gallic Mercury - 152 18. Bonnets and Purses, (copper-plate) - 177 19. A Silver ornamented Brooch - - 180 20. Small Antique ditto - - - - 184 21. Target, Helmet, and various Weapons 185 22. Helmets of different forms - - - 187 23. Highland Targets, (copper-plate) - 190 24. Shields of various Celtic Auxiliaries in the Roman service, (copper-plate) - 195 25. Clubs used in war by the old Britons - 202 26. Stone Weapons, (copper-plate) - - 203 27. 28. Lochaber Axes - 204 29. Spears and other Weapons - - - 207 30. Ancient British Sword 2u8 31. Two-handed, and Broad Sword - - 213 32. An ancient Dirk, and Sheath with Knife and Fork 33. A Curious Belt .... Pagt 21 34. A Highlaud Pistol .... 238 35. Plan of a Caledonian Fortress - - 244 36. Trophy, composed of Highland Arms and Dress 253 37. View of Dun-Troddan inGlenelg - 254 38. Section of Mousa and Dun-Dornghil - 263 39. Do. showing the Galleries 263 40. View of Dun-Dornghil in Strathmore - 269 41. Bas Relief of a Gallic Boar Hunt 270 42. Horns of the Moose Deer 284 43. Highlander employed at the Cascrom 285 44. Agricultural Implements - - - 315 45. Domestic Utensils ... - 316 46. Snuff Horn and its Appendages - - 360 47. An Ancient Biorlin ... - 361 48, 49. British Coins - - - - 368, 369 50. Funeral Urn and other Vessels - - 370 51. Figures of two Druids .... 381 52 to 55. Specimens of Music - - - 413 56. The Royal Arms of Scotland, (copper-plate) 57. Reeds of the Bagpipe 58. Harp of aueen Mary 59. Stonehenge restored 60. Plan of the Temple at Classerness in Lewis 489 61. Obelisk, with Hieroglyphic Sculptures 490 62. Mystical Figure - 497 63 Illuminated Capital, from a Gaelic MS. 500 64. Tartan of H. R. H. the Duke of Sussex, (copper-plate) CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. OBJECT OF THE PRESENT WORK AND ACCOUNT OF ITS FORMATION, WITH SOME NOTICE OF ANCIENT HISTORICAL ANNALS, &C. - 7 CHAPTER I. OF THE CELTIC RACE, COMPOSING THE VARIOUS NATIONS THAT FORMERLY INHABITED EUROPE ------ 19 CHAPTER II. BRITAIN THF. ORIGIN OF ITS ANCIENT INHABITANTS HISTORI- CALLY DEDUCED --------39 CHAPTER III. APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY EXTENT AND PRODUCTIONS OF THE ABORIGINAL FORESTS - - - - - ' 69 CHAPTER IV. CELTIC POPULATION PERSONS AND DISPOSITIONS OF THE CELTS i THEIR MILITARY EDUCATION AND INSTITUTIONS ANEC- DOTES OF THEIR BRAVERY AND HEROISM EXPLOITS OF THE ANCIENT CALEDONIANS AND PRESENT SCOTS 73 CHAPTER V. CUSTOMS IN WAR AND MILITARY TACTICS - - - 103 CHAPTER VI. ON THE DRESS OF THE ANCIENT CELTS, AND COSTUME OF THE PRESENT GAEL -.-_--.- lj 6 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. r*** OF THE ARMS AND MILITARY ACCOUTREMENTS OP THE CELTS - 185 CHAPTER VIII OF THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE CELTS ----- 254 CHAPTER IX. OF ANIMALS, AND THE MANNER OF HUNTING - 270 CHAPTER X. OF THE PASTORAL STATE AND OF AGRICULTURE - - 285 CHAPTER XI. Or THE FOOD OF THE CELTS THEIR COOKERY, LIQUORS, MEDICI- NAL KNOWLEDGE, HEALTH, AND LONGEVITY - 316 CHAPTER XII. OF THE SHIPPING, COMMERCE, MONEY, AND MANUFACTURES OF THE CELTS -------- 361 CHAPTER XIII. POETRY AND MUSIC - - - - - - - -381 CHAPTER XIV. RELIGION, MARRIAGE CEREMONIES, AND FUNERAL RITES - - 446 CHAPTER XV. OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF LETTERS AMONG THE CELTS 490 APPENDIX. TABLE OF CLAN TARTANS ----- - 5QJ INDEX --.-------- 509 INTRODUCTION. OBJECT OF THE PRESENT WORK, AND ACCOUNT OF ITS FOR MAT10N, WITH SOME NOTICE OF ANCIENT HISTORICAL AN1NALS, &c. THE Scots' Highlanders are the unmixed descendants of the Celts, who were the aboriginal inhabitants of Europe, and the first known colo- nists of Britain. Slowly following the progress of refinement, and assirn Hating with their neighbors, it may soon be matter of unavailing regret, that their language, their singular manners, and peculiar customs, will have become extinct and unknown, save in the traditions of the people or the partial records of the historian. This race, which for so many ages preserved inviolate its Celtic prin- ciples and original habits, has already yielded to the powerful advance of modern civilisation, and has apparently lost more of its distinctive fea- tures within the last century, than during all the previous lapse of time, from its first settlement in Britain. Tenaciously retaining their prim- itive language, social institutions, and established usages, and inhabiting a romantic and picturesque country, in which they so long preserved their independence, the Gael and their territories have become the ob- jects of much curiosity, and the prominent place which they occupy in the national annals, heightens the interest which Scotland has so much excited. After the union of the two kingdoms there was, indeed, a long period of indifference towards this country, and of consequent ignorance of its moral and political state, but emerging from this situation of apparent insignificance, it was destined to attract peculiar regard, and every thing relating to it became an object of the liveliest attention. Various caus- es contributed to effect this change. The rebellions of 1715 and 1745 forced on government the necessity of paying more attention to this part of the kingdom, more particularly to the Highlands, where the conse- quences of the battle of Culloden proved that, even at that late period, the Gael were deemed unworthy of regard, as members of the empire, no laws being thought applicable to them on the suppression of the rebel- lion, but those which were given by a brigade.* It was soon, however, * Culloden Papers. 8 INTRODUCTION. perceived, that from the mountains of Scotland could be drawn An inex liaustible supply of the best soldiers in Europe, and government quickly availed Itself of a resource so invaluable. Those who represented the exiled chiefs from the period of the forfeiture of their estates, until the act of grace restored their lands, and permitted them to return to their country, with that hereditary authority, which could not, while the spirit of clanship animated the people, be dissolved or impaired, many of them, without any other income than what was supplied by the benevolence of the clan, were able to raise numerous battalions, with whom they glori- ously fought in support of that constitution which a principle of honor, mistaken loyalty, and the intrigues of France, had so lately led them to endeavor to subvert. The most interesting part of the Scots' nation is the Highlanders, the descendants of the aboriginal Celts, who signalized themselves by a de- termined and effectual resistance, to the utmost efforts of the Romans, who had subdued the inhabitants of the Southern provinces. The nature of their country, wild and mountainous, protected by natural bulwarks, within which, fear and prudence would equally prevent intrusion, and which opposing a barrier to free communication with other parts, served to preserve them for so many ages as a distinct and independent people. Their simple patriarchal mariners and government did not lead to much intercourse with strangers, and, except cattle, there was little produce of their country, the disposal of which would have brought them into contact with others. Their habiU led to no wants which could not be supplied within themselves. The sea, and numerous lakes and rivers, afforded an abundance of fish, the woods and mountains a variety of fowl and venison, and those who attempted agriculture found the valleys highly productive. Thus secluded, their traditions and songs celebra ted the exploits of their own nation, and the locality of description fostered the spirit of independence, the lofty notions of their own un- conquered race, and jealous pride of ancestry, so remarkable in the Highlanders. Hence they tenaciously preserved their primitive institu- tions, their costume, language, poetry, music, &.c., and remained for many ages little known to the 'rest of the kingdom. The more Southern Scots were, indeed, aware of their existence. The troops and hosts of hardy warriors that often swelled the armies of the king, and were some- times brought down in hostility to his authority, apprized their country- men that they were a considerable people. The fierce and overwhelm- ing forays that necessity or revenge impelled them to make on the plains, informed their Lowland neighbors, in a more unpleasant way, of their vicinity to powerful tribes of different habits, and living under peculiar laws. The civil wars which they had at different times maintained on behalf of the Stewarts, kept alive the recollection of their existence, but it was not until after the remarkable events of 1745-6, that the Northern part of Britain became an object of serious attention to the ministry, and of much curiosity to all. This interest, at first chiefly arising from po INTRODUCTION. 9 litical causes, and the situation of the country, was not at that time well calculated to produce a favorable or unprejudiced view. The High- landers were even at this period deemed little better than savages. The moderation and orderly conduct of the army of Prince Charles during its success, and the bravery and humanity displayed throughout the affair, that might have vindicated their character from such injustice, were forgotten in the stigma of audacious rebellion. The consequent abolition of the system of government so conducive to their indepen- dence, brought them under more particular notice and observation. The suppression of heritable jurisdictions, the previous formation of the mili- tary roads, and acts for disarming the people and discharging the servi- ces of watching, warding, hosting, and hunting, opened the Highlands to the investigation of the curious, and broke down the chief obstacle to the mixture of the inhabitants in other society the safeguard against the intrusion of strangers, and the great protection for their primitive simplicity of character. The Gael, who had before this time been so little known, even to many of the more Southern Lowlanders, leaving their native hills, dif- fused a more intimate knowledge of themselves and their country, and by their abilities displayed in the various situations of life, have shown themselves equal to the natives of any portion of the kingdom, and worthy of the respectable station which they have acquired in society. With the loss of much of their distinctive character, they have had but too many opportunities of showing that their military ardor and prowess are yet unimpaired. All Europe has admired the achievements of the Scots' troops, and in the late war they " covered themselves with glory." The history and antiquities of so singular a people opened a copious source of speculation and literary discussion, and the subject could not fail to be generally interesting. The publication of several works gave a stimulus to research, and excited the critical acumen of many writers. The proud and high-minded Highlanders repelled with indignation the slights they received, and the attacks that were so unceremoniously made upon almost every thing which they valued as national. Unfortu- nately, an acrimonious spirit in which some writers indulged begat an animosity but ill suited to calm inquiry. Abuse and recrimination took the place of serious investigation. The elucidation of historical truth was either altogether put aside, or made subservient to the defeat of an opponent, by turning his cause into ridicule; and thus both parties have sacrificed much of the weight that would otherwise have attached to their arguments. While facts were obscured or perverted, error and fiction accumulated, and impartial judgment and unbiassed decision were thereby prevented. Those works were more fitted for the perusal of the antiquary than the amusement of the general reader; but a pow- erful stimulus to the curiosity concerning Scotland has been given by the writings of Sir Walter Scott, one of the most illustrious of her s- whose works have indeed produced a new era in literature. Caled 2 IQ INTRODUCTION. has offered an ample field for the creations of poetry and romance and by interweaving historical personages and events with the details of fic- titious narrative, the gifted author has, in his combinations, preserved with much fidelity the truth of nature, and the people, thus portrayed by the magic pencil of genius, are presented under that view which most strikingly displays their national character. Whilst those and other volumes almost equally fascinating, illustrate Scotish life and history, exhibit the influence of peculiar institutions, and delineate the manners of the inhabitants, they are the most amusing compositions of the age, and by the varied beauties of their recitals, have charmed civilized soci- ety throughout the globe. The sublime and pathetic remains of Ossian and other bards display the ancient Gael in the most imposing colors, and draw forth our admiration by the dignity of their style, and the grandeur of their imagery. Ramsay, Burns, and other poets, embellish rural life, and raise our ideas of the talents and intelligence of the Scot- ish peasantry, but " the wizard of the north " has environed his subject with a halo of romantic glory, brightening the page of history, and rous- ing an enthusiastic attention to all that relates to this part of the island. In thus, however, expressing what all must feel, it is necessary to observe that novels of this class are not to be received as genuine history; they are not meant for the communication of strict truth, and the remark is only excited by noticing the authority which has been conceded to this class of composition. Highly as their authors, especially the writer above mentioned, are to be admired, and deeply versed as they undoubt- edly are, in all departments of Scotish history, they are, nevertheless, obliged to sacrifice truth for the sake of effect, for which, at the same time, they are not to be censured. Sir Walter, in his various publica- tions, has brought into view many of the ancient customs of the Scots, several of which have long been peculiar to the Highlanders; and the notes to his poetical works, and the recet\t illustrations of his prose writ- ings, contain the history and description of many curious observances, as well as authentic details of interesting transactions. The present volumes, by elucidating in the sober language of history those manners so beautifully blended with fiction by the novelists, and those circum- stances which are introduced with so much effect, and so materially add to the interest with which their works are read, afford some claim to the consideration of the public. The numerous volumes extant on Scotish history and antiquities may appear to render the present undertaking superfluous, but no publication on the same extensive plan has yet appeared. In a general history par- ticular information cannot be given, and should not be expected topo- graphical works are partial tours and essays are superficial and con- troversial writings, of which the Northern part of the island has been a fertile source, are still less popular, and are often less satisfactory in every respect than the others. Dr. Mac Pherson, in his "Dissertations," had a similar view to that INTRODUCTION. 11 which led to the production of this work; but his labors are limited, and he chiefly compares the Gaelic customs with those of the Germans My endeavor has been to illustrate, with impartiality, the manners of the Celtic race, to trace the language, the religion, form of government, and peculiar usages of the Scots to their origin; to show their identity with those of the aborigines of Britain, and their resemblance to those of the remaining branches of the Celtic race, and thence to prove their own descent, and the derivation of the singular manners which so long distinguished them, and to which they yet fondly cling. That all these emanated from the primitive inhabitants of Europe, 1 trust will be satis- factorily shown. It is justly observed by Dr. Henry, of the Gauls and Britons, that "whatever is said of the persons, manners, and customs of the one, may be applied to the other with little variation and few- exceptions." I am aware that some of the subjects on which I have ventured to write have been bones of contention between the learned; I have no wish to increase the list of disputants, and should not have obtruded my opinions, opposed, as they sometimes are, to those of others, if I could have withheld them with justice to my design. My reasoning may not always be satisfactory, but I hope it is not intemperate, and can aver that it is the result of long consideration and careful investigation. Most of the Scots' writers have unfortunately used their pens under feelings of heat and indignation, either as the prejudiced but zealous champions of Celtic, Gothic, Irish, or Saxon colonization, the strenuous advocates and pertinacious opponents of royal and noble genealogies, or the redoubted vindicators and assailants of national independence and ancient glory; yet, whatever warmth may be displayed by individuals, the researches of many in different departments have brought forward and preserved much matter, both curious and important. Numerous local historians, poets, and tourists, have recorded interesting facts, and many literary societies have elucidated national history by their own labors, and by their exertions to promote all kinds of research. Of these, and all other accessible sources of information, I have availed mysejf; in doing which, and in making personal investigations and inspections of existing remains in both countries, I have spent some years of unwearied labor, and I have been enabled to accomplish this undertaking, if not in a manner so complete as I could wish, yet in a style which may evince my desire to be as correct and satisfactory as possible. * The labor attending the research necessary for the proper execution of a work of so comprehensive a nature as this, can only be appreciated by those who have been engaged in a similar pursuit. The variety of authorities which I have consulted is indicated by the quotations and * Many drawings of Scotish antiquities and accompanying observations have been honored by the notice of different Societies, who have, in several cases, published them in the volumes of their Transactions, the fidelity of the sketches having been acknowledged by members who had themselves seen the objects. j2 INTRODUCTION. references, but numerous works were necessarily perused without ob- taining any thing to repay the trouble. The Celtic race were scarcely less celebrated for their acquirements in arts than for proficiency in military tactics. The studies of all lauda- ble sciences, says Marcellinus, flourished highly in Gaul, being strictly cultivated by the sacred order of Eubages, Bards, and Druids. The former, searching into nature's highest altitude, endeavored to explain its operations; and the Druids, of a more refined imagination, were ad- dicted wholly to questions of deep and hidden matters. The Celts, as will be seen throughout the present work, were by no means barbarous, in the common acceptation of the word, but were the inventors of nu- merous useful and ingenious contrivances, for which surrounding nations were indebted to them. "I am tired," says a learned writer on the language of this people, " of always hearing the Romans quoted, when the commencement of our civilisation is spoken of; while nothing is said of our obligations to the Celts. It was not the Latins, it was the Gauls who were our first instructers."* Some of the ancients had the candor to make the same confession. Aristotle declared that philosophy- was derived by the Greeks from the Gauls, and not imparted to them. So far is it from true that the Celtae were "totally unable to raise themselves in the scale of society," as the author of the "Enquiry" boldly asserts, that numerous individuals obtained high and well deserved honors in the Roman empire. The race was, in fact, remarkable for superiority of mental endowments, which is proved by the list of cele- brated individuals of Celtic origin. Spain alone produced Seneca, Lu- can, Collumella, Martial, Quintillian, Sec. whilst the Egyptians and other people, subjected by the Romans, furnished none of any note. The Gauls were truly " of sharp wit and apt to learn," and they were even excelled by the Britons,! the knowledge of whose priesthood was so profound, that the youth of the continent came hither to study and com- plete their education, by a course of no less than twenty years' proba- tion. This learning was not confined to the Southern tribes, but equally pervaded those of the North. Coil, surnamed Sylvius Bonus, maintain- ed a poetical correspondence with Ausonius. Celestias, Pelagius, St. Patrick, and others, who flourished in the fourth and fifth centuries, were Scotsmen, not to mention those who are believed to have lived about the period of the Roman invasion, and even before that event, if we can credit Bale, Leland, Dempster, &.c. In the reign of Charlemagne the Scots were renowned on the conti- nent, their learning and probity recommending them to situations of trust and honor. Hericus, in his Life of St Caesar, dedicated to this prince, says, the whole Scotish nation, almost " despising the dangers of the sea, resort to our country with a numerous train of philosophers." The professors of Paris and Padua were then Scotsmen, and Charles's pre- * Julius Liechtlen. t Tacitus' Life of Agricola, c. xxi INTRODUCTION. 13 ccptor, Aleuin, is also believed to have b- en one. Paulus speaking of Charlemagne, says he bestowed the honors and magistra- cies of the nation especially upon the Scots, whom he greatly esteemed for their fidelity and valor; and Eginhart writes, that the kings of Scot- land were much devoted to him, which their letters to him, then extant, confirmed.* Whether he sent to King Achadh, or Achaius, requesting the assistance of learned men, as some affirm, it may be immaterial to inquire, but that a friendship subsisted between the two nations is cer- tain; and Charles himself, in a mandate concerning the Scots' church of Horiaugia, speaks of them as having obtained the particular favor and protection of the kings of France before his reign. The Scots were indeed most zealous and indefatigable missionaries, and taught the Christian religion to several nations, founding many churches and reli- gious houses in Germany, France, and Italy itself, distinguishing thtem- selves by their piety, and a strict adherence to the primitive rites from which the Church of Rome had departed. Lest I should be classed with those vain and prejudiced Scotsmen, who are represented as maintaining what is called the national honor, against all reason and historical facts, fable and conjecture being thought the only support for their assertions, it may be well to adduce some proofs, in order to show that Scotland must have possessed very ancient documents, and men well qualified, as well as solicitous, to frame and preserve such records. The violent heat nay, rage, with which many Scots antiquaries have vindicated the former glories of their country, has often subjected them to reproach and ridicule, and has unfortunately detracted from the merit of their works. It is generally believed that the Druids committed nothing to writing, and that, in fact, their profession forbade the use of letters; but while this is true, as far as respects their mythology and religious rites, there :s every reason to believe that they composed books or tracts on other subjects. The bards, who were the professors and conservators of his- tory, appear to have been under no restraint in committing their partic- ular knowledge to writing ; and it is reported that collections of the Brehon laws of high antiquity, and in their peculiar law language, still exist. At li, or lona, the chief seat of the Druidical order in Scotland, Columba is said to have burned a heap of their books; and in Ireland, St. Patrick was no less severe, committing, according to the Leccan records, no less than 180 tracts to the flames. The assertion so often repeated in the Ossianic controversy, that no Gaelic MSS. were in ex- istence, was generally believed until the investigations of the Highland Society proved its falsity. If the reader consult the last Chapter of this work, he will be satisfied that the Scots had the use of letters in the most early ages; but as it seems here necessary, to show what reliance may be placed on the statements which are subsequently introduced, and * Vita et Gestae Karoli Magni, p. 138, ed. Francofurti. j4 INTRODUCTION. to vindicate the authenticity of several of the authorities which it haa been necessary to quote, some account of the early state of literature in the British Isles shall be given. The bards occasionally wrote in the first ages of Christianity, but we are told they did not make it a practice to commit their poems to liteiary record before the fifth century, and the distractions which so long af- flicted the country occasioned the loss, either by destruction or removal, of most of their productions; and hence Gildas, who wrot| in the middle of the sixth century, for want of those " records left by his own country- men, which were either destroyed by the enemy at home, or carried by exiles into other parts," was obliged to apply for the most part to foreign writers. Nennius, who flourished in 858, tells us he compiled his his- tory " from the Roman annals, the chronicles of the holy fathers, and the writings of the SCOTS and English ; also from the traditions of the elders, which, by many learned men and librarians, had been reduced to writing, but either from frequent deaths, or the devastations of war, were then left in a decayed and confused condition." The remains of British history were collected by Walter Calenius, Archdeacon of Oxford, and were finally translated, interpolated, and published by Geoffry of Monmouth. The author of the Life of Ninian, Bishop of Galloway, says he made use of a book, " De vita et miraculis ejus, barbaria Scriptus;" and the Chronicon Rhythmicum, a Scotish record, was copied from " Chronica Scripta." The ancient tract enti- tled "De situ Albania," quotes British histories and chronicles, and acts and annals of the Scots and Picts. The original register of St. Andrews also quoted Pictish books; yetPinkerton maintains that those people did not know the use of letters, his proof being that all their churchmen and men of learning were either Welsh or Scots. It is sufficient evidence that the Picts were not thus illiterate, could nothing else be advanced, than that Nechtan, one of their kings, wrote to Ceolfrid, Abbot of Wear- mouth, in 715, and translated his long letter into the Pictish language; and he was accustomed, we are told, to peruse and /meditate on the Scriptures. A fragment of Strathclyde Gaelic, which Lhuyd found, and pronounced of the sixth century, shows that the people of that district were equally educated with their neighbors. Adomnan's Life of Colum- ba was first written in Gaelic, as were most of the books known to have been preserved at lona, several of which, in 1525, were removed to Aberdeen, but others were seen torn up for snuff paper at Inverary. The existence of the historian Veremundus, who has been placed in the list of fabulous authorities by most writers, is ably vindicated in a work by Mr. Tytler. That he and others composed tracts on the national history is certain, if quotations from their writings, and allusions to them by early chroniclers is a valid proof. To find historians, therefore, who wrote 1200 or 1400 years ago referring to old records in the same terms now applied to their own works, surely proves the antiquity of writing. To what extent the ancient documents thus referred to may have been, INTRODUCTION. 16 cannot now be ascertained. John Fordun, in the middle of the 14th century, mentions old chronicles and historical annals which he had consulted It is, indeed, apparent that he transcribed from authentic materials, and the only desideratum is to know their extent and antiquity. The general belief has always been that our ancient records were de- stroyed by Edward I. of England, but some late writers have opposed this opinion, denying the existence of such documents, and alleging that all those he carried away were returned after they had been ex- amined for the purpose of supporting that king's pretended claim to the supremacy of Scotland. Chalmers says, "he did not destroy those documents, but is answerable for all the derangement and loss they sus- tained;" but his intentions respecting the Scotish crown, and conduct towards the country, justify a strong suspicion that no record inimical to his object was by any means likely to be preserved or restored. Sir George Mac Kenzie has observed that Edward assuredly did not return all the documents he had carried off, giving an instance in the release granted by Richard I. to William, which Rymer has published. The destruction of national archives by the ravages of war and civil dissensions has been lamentable. The Reformation was peculiarly fatal to those preserved in religious houses. Duplicates of the renunciation by Ed- ward III. of all claim to the sovereignty of Scotland, were deposited in each of the cathedrals, and of those only the one kept at Glasgow was saved. The picturesque and singular dress of the Highlanders has been an object of particular remark. To those who seem to have assailed the antiquity of every thing peculiar to this people, more from sentiments of individual aversion than from a spirit of candor or love of truth, it has offered a prominent mark for the display of anti-Celtic feeling. The garb is, in the following pages, described and illustrated in all its varie- ties, as now and formerly worn; and while the arguments of those who assert its recent adoption are overthrown, the constant use of the Brea- can-feile and Feile-beag will be proved from documents of unquestionable authenticity. It will be shown that the ambiguous terms in which this unique and graceful costume has been spoken of, cannot be applied to any other habit, and that the writers were at a loss to describe a dress so different from all others, and so difficult to be comprehended by those who only saw it at a distance, and were ignorant of its arrangement. This will appear the less strange when so few in the present day, after it has become in some degree familiar even to the inhabitants of" Cock- aigne," understand its proper composition; and this not excepting many of the natives of Scotland itself. While, however, some authors have written in ignorance, many have done so from a feeling of prejudice and silly jealousy of the Scotish mountaineers; but it will be proved that this primitive costume, so well suited to the warrior, so well adapted for the avocations of the hunter and shepherd, has not only been the invariable dress of the Highlanders from time immemorial, but is to be derived from the most remote antiquity; and that neither their clothing, arms, language 16 INTRODUCTION. poetry, nor music, has been adopted from any nation whatever, but received from the primaeval people whence they sprang. Their country and pursuits rendering the belted plaid and kilt the most convenient ap- parel, they were not likely to lay it aside for any other. It is still less orobable, that had the Trius been worn before the adoption of the Feile- beag, the inhabitants of a cold climate would have denuded themselves of so essential a part of the dress of all other nations. Nor would a people so strongly attached to their primitive customs, and opposed tc change, have become so partial to a dress introduced by strangers. All who ever settled in the Highlands, as far as we can ascertain, conformed to the manners of their adopted country. I trust that I shall be found to have fulfilled all that was promised in the Prospectus. If any part has been treated superficially, it is the "genealogical dissertations," a subject to which incidental allusions only could be made in such a work. The materials I have, however, collected, are abundant and interesting, and will enable me, should such an undertaking meet with encouragement, to elucidate Clan History in a novel and interesting manner. The ignorance of heralds and genealo- gists has wofully mystified family antiquities; but my plan is not to de rive families from the individual whose name is first found in a charter, or other document, as the laborious author of "Caledonia" has done, imagining he had settled their origin by this proof, as if persons of cer- tain names, or even tribes, did not exist before the formation of certain parchment documents ! I would, for instance, submit whether the Grants, a clan of equal antiquity with the Mac Alpins, who are tradition- ally considered to be coeval with their native hills, did not more proba- bly take their name from the well-known district in Strathspey, called Griantachd, the country of Grannus, or the sun, than from a certain person called Le Grand. The clan Chattan do indeed say that they are sprung from, or were connected with, the Cattans of the continent; but the Gordons, the Frasers, the Menzies, and the Ruthvens, have no tradition of their descent from the Gorduni, the Frisii, the Menapii, or the Rutheni, of Gaul, although the similarity of names seems of itself to infer a common origin. I have endeavored to relieve the tedium of the antiquarian and de- scriptive parts with anecdotes, many of them original, illustrative of the different subjects, and I hope my selections may be thought judicious. I have, however, forborne to infuse humor into my recitals, notwith- standing it might have enlivened the drier parts of the narration. The variety of matters which are discussed at length, or briefly allud- ed to in these volumes, will be seen from the Index, in preparing which I have bestowed much care, confident that to no work could it be more necessary. He who, for want of this useful appendage, has been com- pelled to go over a book in search of something, which perhaps after his trouble he may not find, will be able to appreciate this part of the work. The reader will find the Index a faithful assistant to almost every subject INTRODUCTION. 17 The gracious permission to dedicate this work to his present Most Excellent Majesty, is a renewal of the distinguished honor intended me by iiis lamented predecessor. The Highland Society of London, ever ready to promote objects ol national importance, promptly declared their resolution to encourage my design. In addition to what has been said on some subjects, the few farther observations which follow may not be inappropriate. In page 97 are some remarks on the population of the Highlands and Isles. The whole population of Scotland will be ascertained by the census of May, 1831. It having appeared to me desirable to obtain an accurate statement of the numbers of the Highlanders, dividing them into clans or districts, I had the honor of corresponding with Sir John Sinclair and others, who entered into my views on the subject. Con- vinced that a census taken in this manner would be of national utility, in putting government in possession of the real strength of each clan, and thus enabling it to determine what regiments could, in case of emergency, be raised in certain parts, and recruited from the same dis- trict, 1 took the liberty of communicating my sentiments to Mr. Rick- man, who was charged with the execution of the Population Acts of 1801, 1811, and 1831. My object was not deemed capable of being accomplished ; but the following letter from a gentleman long in the army, and on the recruiting service, will, perhaps, show that its adoption might have been attended with advantage. ' " With respect to taking the census by clans in the Highlands of Scotland, 1 think it would be of importance in many points of view, but particularly with respect to military levies and national defence. When a regiment is raised from one clan, the men consider themselves as much at home, wherever they serve, as though they had not left their native valley. The youth enlist into such regi- ment with alacrity, and the more it distinguishes itself, and the harder its services, the more eager will they be to gain a name among their kindred. Had the 71st, 72nd, 73rd, 74th, and 75th regiments been the clan regiments of the Mac Don- alds, the Mac Intoshes, the Grants, the Mac Phersons, &c. the government had never found it necessary to change their dress, and wrap their thighs in a blan- ket, as the few Highlanders we had then in the 75th emphatically called breeches of white coarse cloth. I conceive, that although heritable jurisdictions have very properly been abolished, it would be advantageous to government to keep up among the Gael as much of the spirit of clanship as possible. If they have sacrificed so much to mistaken loyalty, what may not be expected from their devotedness to a better cause, if in the course of events it should require their support. In short, if the clan system had been more fully adopted during last war, i have no doubt there would have been at Waterloo/ for every High- lander who fought there, at least two. and his Grace of Wellington can best tell what would have been their value on such an occasion. The plan alluded to would put the government in possession of the number of each clan, and in the case of raising local forces, or troops for general service, they would fix upon those chins whose numbers would enable them to complete their levies in the shortest time. Upon this point it would create a useful feeling among the chiefs, of retaining the tenantry upon their estates, for he that has nothing but sheep on his grounds could never expect a colonelcy. 3 18 INTRODUCTION. I have been a great part of my life a diligent observer of the character and manners of the Highlanders, and I have uniformly found, that preserving them in a body is the only means of preserving their character from degenerating. The reason of this is clear; if a man commit an unworthy action while serving abroad, his friends at home are sure to be informed of it, and he looks upon himself as a banished man, who must never revisit his native land. I am, dear Sir, yours sincerely, To Mr. James Logan. DONAJLD MAC PHERSON." In support of the opinions here stated, it may be observed, that at Waterloo, of 454 Scotsmen in the 42nd regiment, their were only 17 men of the name of Campbell, and not one Gordon. The former join their friends in the 79th and 91st. The latter serve in their own clan corps, where also the Mac Phersons chiefly enrol themselves. In like manner the Macrtes, Munroes, Rosses, &c. join the Mac Kenzies in the 78th, and the Mac Kays go into the Sutherland regiment; this, how- ever, is no proof of the indifference of individuals to the feelings of clan- ship; they only, when entering ths army, select the regiment where they can associate with those who are from the same parts of the country. The inference is, that were Highlanders able to serve in a battalion of their own clan, they would enter the service with more alacrity. In stating that the sword which belonged to Gordon, of Bucky, is believed to be the oldest specimen of the basket hilt, I had not seen a weapon which has been an heir loom in the family of Sir Charles Forbes, of New, and Edinglassie, in Aberdeenshire. This curious sword is very broad, but not of great length, and bears an inscription, " The Cuttie of New. Alex* Forbes, 1513." If the cliabh, or basket, is an original part, it appears to be the most early specimen. The names of the letters given in the Gaelic Alphabet, are chiefly from the Dictionary published under the sanction of the Highland Socie- ty, and I have stated that the Irish idiom has been adopted. It is to be regretted that the learned gentlemen employed in this great work did not give the native appellations of the letters, several of which diffei from those in the sister dialect. The compilers had not the same object in view which I have in speaking of the Tree system in the above place, but some more attention to the letters, the materials of which their whole work is composed, might have ^een more satisfactory. The sub- ject of Letters and Language, discussed in the Introduction and last chapter, deserves a more extended dissertation than the present design could admit of. " There is room," says Gibbon, " for a very interest- ing work, to lay open the connexion between the language and mari- ne IB of nations " CHAPTER I. OF THE CELTIC RACE, COMPOSING THE VARIOUS NATIONS THAT FORMERLY INHABITED EUROPE. EUROPE, in the most early ages, was inhabited by one race of men, whose antiquity is enveloped in inscrutable darkness. From the first memorial of their existence, they are distinguished by the name of CELT.E, but the origin of this remarkable people was utterly unknown to themselves. They had no idea of having ever occupied any other country than that in which they found themselves; and the Druids, the depositaries of their traditional knowledge, maintained that they were aborigines.* This belief was not singular, nor more extraordinary than That of many other nations, equally ignorant and credulous, but more polished and refined. The Celtre, on the authority of their priests, do clared themselves descended from the god Dis, a being identified with the Pluto of Greek and Roman mythology,! but more probably meant for the Earth. This derivation cannot be admitted: the inhabitants of the west must have proceeded from Asia, the parent country of all mankind, at a period which neither historical research nor popular tradition has been able to approach. All history, both sacred and profane, proves this quarter of the globe to have been the original seat of mankind. * Ammianus Marcellinus, on the authority of Timogenes. t Caesar, de Bello Gallico, lib. vi. c. 17. The Germans derived their origin from Tuisto, apparently the same being as the Celtic Dis or Tis. Tacitus, de Mor Germanorum 20 THE CELTS In migrating from the east, the human race successively occupied Greece and Italy, and extended themselves from the Euxine to the Atlantic. As t-cir numbers increased, they gradually took possession of the whole country from the Mediterranean to the Baltic, and a scanty population sought the means of subsistence, among the less inviting wastes, from thence to the Frozen Sea. Europe and Celtica were indeed synony- mous:* the sole inhabitants, from the Pillars of Hercules to Archangel, and from the banks of the Euxine to the German Ocean, being Celts, however distinguished by particular names, applied at various times to different tribes and independent communities. The appellation Celtse, which this primitive people acknowledged as their only proper name,| and which at first they received from others, in subsequent times under- went several changes. The ancient Greeks used this term in speaking of them, but it afterwards became transformed into Calatae and Galatse,J and the Roman Galli was itself latterly adopted by some Greek writers.^ Numerous etymologies have been offered for the solution of this word. In all its va'riations it may, with probability, be traced through the Greek KelToi to some corresponding term in the Celtic language that no longer exists. It would be a waste of time to enumerate all the conjectures which have been given, and the result would be unsatisfactory. From various circumstances one people may become distinguished from another; but if inquirers were to reflect, that original names cannot arise from national manners, and that it is more natural for nations to become de- nominated from the country they inhabit, than that it should receive a name from its possessors, it would serve to check many romantic and fanciful conceits. An appellation so very ancient, and so extensively bestowed, must have arisen from something independent of country, and appropriate to a numerous race. To derive the term Celtae from " Hills," or " Woods," or " Waters," or from western or northern position, when the people so designated oc- cupied all parts of an extensive continent, and filled its islands, is mani- festly absurd. How much more likely it is to have arisen from peculiar personal appearance, the first and natural origin of names. It has been supposed that the Greeks applied the term to denote the milky whiteness of the skin; but in this point the difference between the two people seems insufficient to give rise to a designation, which the Celts retained as their own proper name. A striking and a permanent dissimilarity has always existed between the European and the Ethiopian, both in com- plexion and personal conformation. Amid conjectures so various, may we not suppose, that in the infancy of mankind, if I can so speak, per- * Ortellius, " Geographia vetus." t Caesar, ut sup. JPausnnias, who wrote about 165, says they were but lately denominated Gauls, for they had always called themselves Celtse. Descriptio Grseciae, lib. i. c. 3. The term Gauls seems to have been at first applied to those who had obtained a settlement in Asia, and were long known as Galatians. $ Appian first uses it in the beginning of the second century. THE CELTS 21 haps before they had visited Europe, a name arose expressive of the fair complexion of the white man, compared with the sable negro.* From the primitive language of those who first peopled the country, the Greek Galactoi has been undoubtedly derived, and was afterwards given as the origin of the term, when the most ancient Celtic had become unknown. The practice of distinguishing individuals by personal appearance and qualifications, is still retained by the Scots Highlanders, the Irish, and the Welsh; and, in support of the etymology I have above given, it is worthy of observation, that " Gaelic " has been, by good antiquaries, translated the language of white men. Gealta signifies whitened, ana comes from Geal, white.f The similarity of this word to the term Celtae is striking; from it, in all probability, came the Roman Callus. As the Celtae moved westward, either from choice or the pressure of an increasing population in the east, they carried with them a simple language and mode of life; arid as they met with no inhabitants in the land they took possession of, their primitive manners could at first suffer no farther change than what the difference of country and climate would naturally produce. It may be inferred, with probability, that they con- tinued for a considerable time less warlike than nations who obtain a settlement by force of arms, and must of necessity protect their acqui- sition by similar means. The disconnexion of their tribes, a striking characteristic of the race, had an apparent tendency to enfeeble the Celts, and seems to have prevented the formation of any great empire, as among other nations; but the peace in which they lived was favorable to population. Their mode of life, while it cherished a love of freedom, was highly conducive to bodily strength and hardihood; and the princi- ple of division, which separated the people into so many distinct and independent tribes, did not prevent them from Uniting in enterprises, by which their power was often felt in various parts of the world. They in- vaded Asia, they overspread Thrace, and enriched themselves with the plunder of the temples of Greece. In the reign of Tarquin the elder, nearly six centuries before the incarnation, J a numerous body of Celtae, both horse and foot, accompanied by multitudes of women and children, left their native seats in search of new settlements. One part of this army followed Belovesus, and surmounting the Alps, which, till then, it was believed, had never been crossed, established themselves near the * So the native Americans call themselves the red men, in contradistinction to the whites. t Gaelic Dictionaries. The Pictish Chronicle says, the Albani, who had their name from their while hair, were the people from whom both Scots and Picts were derived. Those who deduced Celtse from flaxen or reddish colored hair, gave a plausible ely- mon : C was often used for G, and seems to have been the most ancient letter Hence we find the Galatians were also called Calatians ; Gallicia was anciently Call* cia, &o 1 About 570 Bossuet, Histoire Universelle, vol. i. p. 33. Ed. 1706. 22 THE CELTS. river Po; while the other division, conducted by his brother, Sigovesus passed into Germany, where these emigrants settled, in the vicinity of the Hyrcinian, now the Black Forest.* The numeous armies which the Celtae at times sent abroad, filled with alarm the most warlike and civilized nations of Europe. Their irresistible inroads, and the terror of their name, procured peaceful settlements, and even the payment of heavy annual tribute from powerful states. An army of Gauls, unJ:; the command of Brennus, went into Italy against the Hetrusci, 390 years before the advent of Christ. The Romans thought proper to in- terfere in the quarrel, and killed one of the Gallic princes; upon which their army, marching to Rome, defeated the troops who opposed them, laid the city in ashes, and finally received one thousand pounds weight of gold to purchase their retreat, and save the capital from inevitable destruction. Camillas was fortunately able to repulse them, as they lingered in the country, unapprehensive of attack; but they were not deterred by defeat from renewing their overwhelming and destructive invasions."!" About 270, A. C., in three great divisions, they made inroads on Pannonia, Thrace, Macedonia, and Illyria. Those who entered Mace- donia routed the army by which they were opposed, and slew Ptolemy the king. Passing into Asia, they filled the inhabitants with terror and dismay, and received from the suffering Bythinians a free settlement in the country, where they were afterwards known as the Galatians, or Gallo-Greeks. The other divisions were less fortunate; but they retreat- ed only to invade Greece with redoubled fury, and a more numerous armament. J The Celta3, notwithstanding the frequent demonstrations of their war- like powers, were, for a long period, but little known to the more polish- ed nations of Europe, who were able to transmit authentic information concerning so singular a people. Their history and their religion were preserved among themselves; but their rigid adherence to traditional poetry, as the sole vehicle of record, has left posterity in much igno- rance concerning the state of the Celtic nations in early ages. Their ferocious invasions too, however they might excite curiosity, were not calculated to induce a personal visit to their territories, or a quiet inves- tigation of their manners and antiquities. When there was, therefore, scarcely any communication with the north and west parts of the conti- nent, it was impossible to acquire accurate information respecting these parts of Europe, or the inhabitants; hence the obscure and contradictory intimations we find concerning both. A people who are spread over a vast continent, cannot long remain an entire nation. Boundaries, marked out by nature, will divide the in- * Livius, Historia Romana. lib. v. c. 34, 35. Appian, of the Gallic War, c. 1. t Plutarch, in vita Camilli. Strabo, iv. p. 195, v. p. 213. t Pausanias, x. 19. THE HYPERBOREI. 23 habitants into separate communities, and local situation will procure an appropriate name, and create a difference in manners. In the lapse of time the dissimilarity is increased, and when, from an obvious and inher- ent principle, every community aspires to an independent existence, the most powerful will acquire and retain an ascendency over the others, w'ho, ultimately, become confederates, and are classed as branches or subdivisions of a uumerou? association. Thus arises a variety of na- tions or tribes that long continue to be regulated by similar laws and customs, and retain their original language, but eventually alter their dialect, and lose the remembrance of a common origin. The Celts, who were the sole inhabitants of Europe in the infancy of time, were at last formed into a number of divisions, distinguished by peculiar names, but retaining, with their national affini , the general appellation of Celtae. The apparent diversity of the ancient people of Europe, arising, as it should seem, from the confused and indefinite ideas that existed respect- ing the regions of the north and west, has been a prolific source for polemical discussion, and has afforded ample matter for *he disquisitions of those who have applied themselves to investigate the origin of nations. An ignorance, so favourable to the indulgence of fancy, has given op- portunity for the introduction of ficticious narration. The Greeks were extremely credulous, and it is often very difficult to understand what people were meant in their dark and traditional relations. The HYPERBOREI, or those who lived beyond the north wind, appear the most singular of the people of antiquity. So dark are the intima- tions that are handed down concerning them, that we are inclined to consider the whole as the fables or allegories of an obscure theology. According to some historians, si credimus, as Pliny very considerately adds, they dwelt beyond the Riphaean mountains, which were always covered with snow, and from whence the north wind arose: a latitude by no means suitable to the descriptions given by others, of the genial cli- mate, the fruitful soil, and the happy lives of the inhabitants.* The sit- uation of the SauromatsB, with whom the Hyperborei have been identi- fied, does not better justify the appellation. Strabo speaks of the Hy- perborei as those people, whose geographical position could scarcely give propriety to the name. Diodorus Siculus, on the authority of Heca- taeus, a very ancient historian, who wrote, as Herodotus informs us, a volume on the Hyperborei, describes them as inhabiting an island oppo- site to Gaul, and as large as Sicily; but he does not appear to give much credit to the relation, j" These islanders had of long and ancient time a particular esteem for the Greeks, arising from certain religious connexions, to be hereafter noticed. This description appears applica- ble to Britain, if there were not, as Bryant conjectures, a mysterious * Herodotus, lib. iv. Pliny. Hist. Nat.iv. 12. Pomp. Mela, i. 1, &c. Strabo, i. p. 61 * Diod. Sic. li. 3. 24 THE CIMBRI. ignifiration in the name. It was certainly suited to vague and unintel- ligible ideas respecting some remote people. When Rome was taken by the Gauls under Brennus, it was reported in the east that his troops were an army of Hyperborei.* These conflicting accounts prove how little was really known of those who dwelt beyond the snowy regions and the north wind. The CIMMERII, who are placed by Homer "at old Ocean's utmost bounds," and are otherwise believed to have lived in Italy, near the lake Avernus, | inhabited the country in the vicinity of the Cimmerian Bos- phorus, to which, either this people, or an ancient city gave name. J Eusebius mentions an incursion of the Cimmerii into Greece, 1076 years before Christ. Subsequently, they made inroads on Ionia and Lydia, and took the city of Sardes. ^ About 600 years before the Christian era they were driven into Asia by the Scyths, where they are all supposed to have perished. They sometimes were called Trerones, from one of their tribes, the Treres, who bordered on Macedonia; || a considerable distance, certainly, from the position which the Cimmerians are gener- ally supposed to have occupied. Although the Cimmerii would appear, from the above account, to have been extinct nearly 2500 years, Dio- nysius Periegetes and Pliny speak of some of them as still remaining in their original situation; and Plutarch says, that the greater and more warlike part took up their residence "in the remotest regions upon the northern ocean. "IF It was a prevalent opinion, that they were the same people as the CIMBRI, who inhabited Jutland, Holstein, &c. in Denmark, formerly denominated the Cimbrica Chersonesus, and who introduced themselves to the notice of the Romans 113 years A. C.** Diodorus, from the resemblance which the two people bore to each *Heraclides of Pontus, de anima, quoted by Ritson. Plutarch, in Vita Camilli ibid. t Strabo, v. p. 244. t Strabo, xi. p. 494. Mela. James Gronovius says, the city itself received its name from the Cimmerians, p. 137, ed. 1697. The Bosphorus is now known as the Straits of Caffa. Strabo. Callisthenes, apud Gronsvium in Animad. ed. 1739, &c. |j Strabo, i. p. 61. Pliny, iv. 10. IT In Bello Cimbrico. Pliny, vi. 12. **The name of these people has received different etymological solutions. It is said to arise from the Greek Kimeros, mist or darkness, the origin of the Latin Cirnmerius. Beloe, on Herodotus. Sheringharn, and Bryan 1 , in his analysis of Ancient Mythology, iii. 498, coincide in this derivation. Others have deduced Cimbri from a word which signifies robbers in German to this day. Festus, Plutarch, &c. Kimper or Kimber, a warrior, is also given as the origin. Whittakei, alluding to the name, which the Welch still retain, calls Cymri and Gael, equally the general designations of the Ce.loe, being the hereditary name of the Gauls, from Gomer, the son of Japhet. an opinion that is embraced by others, and seems founded on the conjecture of Josephus, Antiq 1.6. It is an origin of the " grand generic term," much easier admitted than that they ' were produced from the elements of their own proper soil and climate." O'Conner. Clelland, Voc. p. 202, says the appellation comes from the ancient Celtic Kym, a mountain. We find the island of Cimbrei, now Cumray, the kingdom of Cumbria THE CIMBRI. 25 other in warlike renown, says the Cirnbrians were believed by many to be descended from the ancient Cimmerians, and Possidonius thinks the former were the original people, who, extending their arms eastward, gave their name to the Bosphorus, an opinion in which Strabo seems to acquiesce.* The memorials of the ancient Cimmerii, who were so great and powerful, appear to have been chiefly records of their military en- terprises. Those people, who afterwards were found on the shores of the Baltic, although bearing a name so much alike, excited little notice until they burst on the astonished nations, and threatened the subversion of the Roman empire. It was then natural to inquire what they were, and whence they came, and it was not strange that the warlike Cirnbri should be derived from the anciently renowned Cimmerii. Such a de- scent, notwithstanding the distance between their respective situations,"}" is not impossible; but a similarity of name is not a decisive proof of na- tional identity: it demonstrates the existence at some period of a univer- sal language. In the want of certain information, and from the ambi- guity of the ancient historians, much diversity of opinion has arisen concerning these people. Some authors positively affirm, that the Cim- brians must have been Celts; and others, with equal pertinacity, assert that they were Germans; and both parties are provided with authorities in vindication of their belief. The expressions of several ancient writ- ers, perhaps, leave it doubtful which nation they understood the Cimbri to be most nearly related to; but others are sufficiently explicit. Plu- tarch says, that by their gray eyes and large statur;e, they were thought by some to be Germans, dwelling on the north sea;J and Pomponius Mela says, the Cimbri and Teutones are situated in the Codan bay, "beyond the Hermiones and the last of Germany. " Pliny, || Strabo, Velleius Paterculus, Tacitus, and others agree in calling them Germans. On the other hand, Cicero, Sallust, Dio, Sextus Rufus, Sec. uniformly denominate them Celts or Gauls. Valerius Maxirnus, speaking of their invasion of Italy, says, Sertorius qualified himself for a spy, by assum- ing the Gallic habit, and learning that language. IT Florus, on the same subject, says, the Cimbri, Theutoni, and Tigurini, came from the most remote parts of Gaul:** out of the hidden parts of the ocean, as Ammi- anus expresses it.|t Diodorus states, that it was the opinion of many, that the Celts were themselves descended of the ancient Cimmerii, who, by a corrupt pronunciation, were then called Cimbri. JJ The Gauls who overran all Asia, he also says, were denominated Cimmerii, and in his &c. In the Commentaries of Csesar we also find Cimber a proper name. The Bretons are said to assume the name Cumero. * Lib. vii. p. 293. t Nearly 1400 miles. t In vita Camilli. De orbis situ, lii. c. 3. || Lib. iv. c. 14. IT Vita Sertorii. Caesar says, the Aduatici, a tribe of Belgic Gauls, were Cimbri, lib li. c. 29. Dio. Cassius repeats this, lib. xxxix. 4, and Appian says the Nervii, a most powerful Belgian nation, were descended of the Cimbri and Teutones, lib. vi. 2. See the opinions of various authors in Ritson's Memoirs of the Celts. ** Lib. iii. 3. Strabo, ii. p. 102 ft Lib. xxxi. 6. it Lib. v. 2. 4 26 THE SCYTHS. account of the Lusitanians, he calls them the most valiant of all toe Cimbri. " Celtic sive Galli quos Cimbros vocant," are the striking words of Appian.* Some have reconciled these different and contradictory passages by the consideration, that several tribes of Gauls joined in the expedition to Italy. If, however, the two people had been entirely disiinct, the dis- similarity would most probably have been noticed; but the manners of the Cimbri, as they were displayed to the Romans, do not appear to have differed materially from those of the other inhabitants of Gaul. The terror inspired by the overwhelming invasion, through which their name first became known, 113 years before the Christian era, seems to have prevented a calm survey of visitors so alarming and so unexpected. An army of these people, so numerous, that, marching without inter- mission, six days elapsed before it had wholly passed, burst from the Alps like an irresistible torrent; t resolved not to stop until the city of Rome had been razed to its foundations. After several successful bat- tles, this vast multitude were indeed finally routed, with incredible car- nage ;"( but the giagnitude of the enterprise, and the desperate valor of the troops, made the strongest impression. The Cimbri remained long after this in their ancient seats, and ob- tained the friendship of the Romans, but never regained their former military renown. The history of the people denominated SCYTHS, who, from their vari- ous achievements, appear to have been a numerous and powerful race, is involved in singular obscurity. It has excited much interest, but the labors of those who have investigated the subject, notwithstanding their care in the pursuit, have riot produced a very satisfactory result. Great learning, assisted by ingenious conjecture, has been exerted to ascertain whether the Celtoe or the ScythjE are the most ancient people. The lat- ter appear in a period the most remote, and they are mentioned with so much ambiguity, that it seems impossible to unravel the intricacy of their history. They are represented as conquering Asia 3660 years before the epoch of redemption, and effecting 1 various other important revolutions in succeeding ages, until the seventh century before our era, when they ap- pear in Medea, whither they had pursued the Cimmerians. J They are sup- posed by many to have been those who are now called Tartars, and by some they are identified with the Celtae. Bryant, observing that there were Scyths in Asia and Africa, as well as in Europe, thinks the name was giv- en to mixed and wandering tribes in different parts of the world ;^ in which opinion Gibbon concurs, calling it " a vague but familiar appellation. "|j Strabo says, that, as Homer has intimated, all nations were originally called Scythae or Nomades; and afterwards, in the countries of the west, *In Illyricis, c. 2. t See Plutarch's account of the Cimbrian war t Herodotus, iv. i . Analysis of Ancient Mythology, y Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. \ . THE GOTHS. 27 they began to acquire the appellations of Celtce, Celto Scythos, and Iberi; but all the nations had at first one name.* The Scythians were certainly not recent settlers among the Aborigi- nes; for, like the Celta3, they had no idea of having ever possessed oth- er lands, but believed themselves more ancient than the Egyptians, who called themselves the most ancient of men.t The term SKYGMS, a word, that has, like others, received an abundant share of different ety- mologies, was probably first used among the Greeks by ^Eschylus, 625 years anterior to the Christian era.J Amongst the Persians, Sacae was a general name for all Scythians ; but in Europe, it seems to have been limited to the most celebrated nation amongst these people. || The Greeks long retained the name of ScythaB,1T which they applied to those nations known to the Romans, at first as GET^E or Getians, latterly as GOTHS. Zosimus and other late Greek writers, always denominate those Scythians, who were called Getes by the Romans; and Dexippus, who wrote in the third century, entitles his history of their wars with the empire, Scythica.** When Darius made his famous expedition against the European ' Scythse, 514 years before Christ, he found the Getse a warlike people, situated on the western shores of the Euxine, and having subdued them, he went in pursuit of the Scyths, who studiously avoided a collision with his forces. One hundred and eighty years afterwards, Alexander led his troops on a similar expedition, and found the same inhabitants. || From these invasions, the Greeks appear to have acquired their first knowledge of the Scythic nations. Pliny says, these people inhabited from the mouth of the Danube, in- land, and that their tribes acquired various names, the ancient denomi- nation being retained by those only who lived in the most remote and unknown parts. JJ Priscus, Theophanes, and others, speak of this peo- *Lib. i. p. 33. Falconer, in his edition, i. p. 48, remarks on ]\ r u/uadf happiness in a future state, &c. &c. &c. ^ Except the Cynetse. Herodotus, iv. c. 3. 30 THE BELGIANS AND GERMANS. tion when Caesar commenced the Gallic war, fifty-seven years befoie that era. At this time they appeared in three great divisions: the Cel- tae, the Belgae, and the Aquitani; distinct from each other, and sepa- rated from the Germans by the river Rhine. * We have here a proof of the gradual formation of several nations, from one numerous and wide-spread race; for the more ancient historians were ignorant of these divisions, and the terms, even at the above period, seem to have been applied more as local distinctions of the same race, than indications of different people. Diodorus relates, what he tells us few knew any thing about, that " the Celtoe inhabited the inland parts about the Alps, and on this side the Pyrennean mountains, called Celtica; and those who were below this part, southward to the ocean, and the mountain Hyrcinus, and all as far as Scythia, were called Gauls; but the Romans called all the in- habitants by one and the same name of Gauls. "| Ca3sar, who describes the three nations as differing from each other in customs, language, and laws, at the same time says, that the whole people continued to denomi- nate themselves Celtae, which term was also sometimes used by the Ro- mans with the more familiar appellation of Galli, as other writers also notice. J Amrnianus Marcellinus, who lived 438 years later than Caesar, thinks it rather a matter of conjecture than of fact, that Gaul was inhabited by three sorts of people, and he as a soldier, had often come in contact with their troops, and had served in Gaul and Germany, along with numer- ous bodies of Celtic auxiliaries. An examination of the ancient historians and geographers, will show the positions of the three nations, and wherein they differed from each other, and from the people who dwelt around them. From the Garonne to the Seine and Marne was the possession of the CELTJE, who retained their ancient and appropriate name, as they did also that of their country, which was called Celtica. From the S^ine to the Rhine were the territories of the BELGJE, who were the most celebrated nation of Gaul. This people believed themselves descended of the GER- MANNI, from whom they were only separated by the Rhine; but in those ancient times, when the Germans are said to have sent this colony across the river to settle in Belgica, were they not themselves Celtae, with whom they retained the common tradition of being indigenous?^ Dio Nicaeus says, that, in the most ancient times, the inhabitants of both sides of the Rhine called themselves by the same name, Celts; and he himself calls the Belgians, Celtics. |j Josephus calls the German legion, * Caesar de Bello Gallico, i. 1 Lib. v. c. 2. t De Bello Gallico. Pliny, iv. Tacitus de Moribus Germanorum. Like the Celts, they also affected a celestial crigin. In their old poems they celebrated Tuisto, a god sprung from the earth, and ais son, Mannus, as their first parents. (j Quoted in Ritson'a Memoirs of the Celts. THE BELGIANS AND GERMANS. 31 which formed Caligula's body guard, the Celtic; and Ortellius, who cites many authorities, says the unanimous opinion of all historians is, that those called Gauls and Germans were Celts.* Strabo found the two people closely, resembled each other in manners and personal ap- pearance, from which he conceived that the Germans had been rightly named the brethren of the Gauls. His etymology may be wrong, "f but the term was certainly imposed by the Romans, and never acknowledg- ed by themselves. J Suidas, in like manner, affirms that the Celts were also called Germans, but Schoepflin understands him to mean otherwise. Many Gallic nations were settled on the German side of the Rhine, and one of the most considerable was that of the Helvetii, who are de- scribed by Caesar as in no respect different from the other inhabitants ;|| at the same time he says, they were not entirely similar to the Celts.lT This is inconsistent with what he has elsewhere observed of these colo- nies,** and perhaps implies no greater variation than what is observable between the remote districts of all countries; for throughout his Com- mentaries, it does not appear that the difference between the Celtic na- ions was very material. Tacitus, finding so many Gauls in Germany, endeavors to account for part of them, by saying they were vagabonds, who, being reduced by poverty to the necessity of leaving their own country, settled on the waste lands that appeared to belong to no certain proprietor. Caesar says, these Gaulish emigrants established themselves in the most fruitful places; but even had these tracts been entirely un- occupied, bands of robbers, however desperate they may have become, would have had some difficulty in taking forcible possession of them. The Germans looked sharply after their waste lands, and were by no means inclined to let strangers occupy even the most desert places. The poor Ansibarians, one of their own tribes, after an unsuccessful revolt, were not permitted to settle any where among them, but were exposed to all the Roman vengeance for asserting their liberty, and wandered about until they were utterly exterminated. |f The probability is, that the Gallic colonies obtained peaceable settlements from the claims of nation- al affinity; and it may be proof of a good understanding between the two people, if it goes not farther, that several German tribes made common cause with the Belgio armies in the Gallic war. Tacitus has himself, in another place, acknowledged the close resemblance of the nations in- habiting both sides of the Rhine; and the tradition that the Belgians were n colony of Germans, may have arisen from some faint recollection of the progress of the ancient Celtae to the west of Europe. It has been much disputed whether the Germans are of Scythic or Sar- * Geographia, sub Europa. He also speaks of" Celtica sive Germanica." See also Sheringham, de Anglorum gentis origine. t Lib. iv. p. 195, vii. p. 290. t Mr. Groatheed, in Archaelogia, xvi. Clarke says the word signifies swordsmen or warriors " Vindicise Celticse." j| Kfllo Gnllico, vi. c. 22. IT Ibid. vi. c. 19. *lhid vi. c. 10. 1 t Tacitus, Anuals 32 THE AQUITAN1 GAULS AND IBERIANS. matian origin. It is scarcely necessary to add much on a subject which has been treated with a greater degree of attention than it perhaps mer- its.* Pomponius Mela says, the Sarrnatae and the Germanni were the same people, and Pliny affirms that they were anciently Scyths: the name Scythae, says he, is changed into that of Sarmatians and Germans.f Pausanias remarks the nomadic state in which the Sauromatee lived, J and in which they bore so strong a resemblanpe to the Scythians, of whom, according to Procopius, they were but a tribe. Some of the Sar- matas appear, from Pliny, to have been in Pannonia, and Diodorua brings them from Medea; but they may, with some propriety, be said to have perambulated rather than inhabited a country. The extent of Germania in later times seems not to have been very well ascertained. It was called Lochlin^ or Lychlin, by the British tribes; a name that repeatedly occurs in the works of the bards, and was extended to Scandinavia. A Gaelic MS., of the ninth or tenth century, describes Gaul and Lochlin as one and the same country, only divided by the Rhine. || The AQUITANI, the third division of the Celtae, were situated between the river Garonne and the Pyrennean mountains, and they called their country Aremorica.11" The most considerable difference between the Gauls was found in the inhabitants of this district, who resembled the Iberians more than the other Celts.** This personal resemblance of the two nations may have arisen from their vicinity to each other, and a different complexion from the northern Gauls appears to have been the effect of a warmer climate; but a bettei reason for the similarity may be found in the authorities already quoted, as well as in others, where it appears that the Iberians were themselves originally Celtae, who, crossing the Pyrennees, acquired the name of Gel- tiberi, or rather Celtse-Iberi; the inhabitants of both sides of these moun- tains living in amity and friendship, intermarrying, and wearing the same dress, the Celts inhabiting the accessible parts of the mountain itself. |f Ephorus, according to Strabo, extends Gaul to the city of Cadiz. The Gauls, after having remained in the west and north of Europe until they had become very numerous, sent back their redundant popu- lation to seek for new settlements in the countries which were peopled by the first Celtic migrations, but where all recollection of their common origin was apparently lost, and h.^ny colonies were established in vari- ous places. * See the works of Dr. and James Macpherson, Pinkerton, and many others. t Lib. iv. c. 12. In lib. ii. c. 13, he expressly says, European Scythia comprehended Germany. t Lib. i. c. 21. Macpherson's Introduction. || Report of the Committee of the Highland Society on the Poems of Ossian, Ap- pendix, p. 309. Lychlyn, i. e. the lake of standing water, is the Welsh name for the Biiltie. II Caesar, de B. G. vii. c. 32. Pliny, iv. c. 17. ** Strabo, iv. p. 176. tt Diod. Sic. v. c. 2. Strabo, Hi. p. 162. Appian, in Ibericis, lib. vi. c. 2. " Gallorura Celtsfi miscentes nomen Iberis." Lucan, iv. 9 ANCIENT LANGUAGES. 33 Italy itself was originally peopled by the Celtic, in their progressive Advances to the extremities of the west. The Umbrians, " an exceed- ing great and ancient people," were the first known inhabitants, and were certainly Gauls,* and the progenitors of the Sabines, whom Cicero calls the flower of Italy. Like the Aquitani about the Pyrennees, the Celts dwelt on each side of the Alps. Near them were the Turinois, Agoniens, and many other natnus of the same race."f" The Ligurians, Hetruscans, Venetians, In.-subiians, &c. were undoubtedly Celts; but many Gallic colonies at different periods settled in Italy, where a nation- al relationship, in all probability, assisted them in obtaining favorable possessions. The territories of this people were called by the Romans Cisalpine Gaul; and when they had been subdued, and had obtained the privileges of Roman citizens, the province was distinguished by the name of Gall i a Togata. The apparent variety of LANGUAGES among the ancient inhabitants of Europe, is advanced as a strong argument in proof of a diversity of races. The Celts were the sole people who, after their migrations, set- tled in the west and north of Europe, and spreading themselves over a large continent, they became separated into cantons or nations, that ac- quired or assumed distinctive appellations. As the learned Dr. Murray observes, "each horde soon multiplied into various nations, regulated by similar customs, and loosely connected by language." Various cir- cumstances operating on their common speech, gave rise to peculiar pronunciation or dialect. J The change of old, the substitution of new words, and other causes affecting articulation, produce, in time, great difference between the speech of distant places in an extensive country; but among nations of identic origin, there must long continue a close affinity of language. That the Celtic and Gothic are derived from the same source is evinced by many works of profound learning, and if a resemblance or connexion between them is still to be traced, the similar- ity must have been much more perceptible 2000 years ago. Thucydides says, that before Homer's time, there was no distinction known between the Greeks and those called Barbarians; that the whole inhabitants closely resembled each other in customs, manners, and language, and lived in a good understanding with each other. The language of the Greeks and Thracians was anciently as much alike as their religion; and Orpheus, Musaeus, with several other poets, celebrated as Greeks, were certainly Thracians. (^ Ovid says that the Getic language, although much altered, still retained evident marks of its Grecian original. Wachter shows that the Celto-Scyths, being the * Servius, in Eneid, Solinus. Tzetzes on Lycophron, Pezron, &c. Pliny tells us the Tuscans won 300 cities from them, and amera, according to Cato, was founded %4 years before the war with Perseus. t Polybius, &c. \ M. Bullet, Memoir sur la langue Celtique, i. c. 4, says the difference of climate will alter a language. Orpheus is represented as a native of Thessaly, but this country was originally part of Thrace. Strabo. 5 34 ANCIENT LANGUAGES. most ancient Germans, and the progenitors of the Goths, Saxons, and other nations, " their tongue, although from the mutations of ages now very much altered," must have originally been the Celtic language.* The Anglo-Saxon itself, derived from the Ingevones, " is the maritime daughter of Celtica, and the first born, from her nativity neither entire y similar, nor altogether unlike." j* SchilterJ and Gebelin also prove this family connexion. "These vastly learned authors demonstrate, without intending it, that the Celtic and Teutonic languages had a com- mon origin. "|| The similarity of the Greek and Teutonic has often been observed. This fact first struck Camderi, Stephens, and Scaliger; but " Salmasius, Francis Junius, and Meric Casaubon, first inferred that the Greek and Gothic languages, which were so similar in many re- spects, must have come from a common parent; "IT and this evidence of speaking the same tongue, may be acknowledged as one of the surest proofs of original descent.** The Latin, which is composed, according to Dr. Smith, "\^ of the Greek and ancient languages of Italy, affords a less striking resemblance to the Gothic. The dialects of Italy were derived from the Celtic, but from the late formation of the Latin the affinity is less obvious: yet Quintillian observes, that among the words derived from other languages, those from the Gallic were most numerous, and gives several instances.JJ The grammatical construction of the old Latin was exactly similar to the Cellic. Thus, pennai, aulai, for pennse, aulae, in the genitive, is exactly the fionnai, malai, of the Gaelic. In like manner the ablative was formed by the addition ofd: pucnandod, preedad, now pugnando, pra3da, precisely resembling the cogadh, creachadh, of the Gaelic, in which it is to be observed that the final d is not sounded; and this quiescence in the old Latin is the apparent reason of its ultimate omission. If the various languages which ancient authors speak of, were radical- ly different, the number of nations and of races will be wonderfully increased. Mithridates, king of Pontus, is said to have learned twenty- two languages, that he might be able to converse with all his subjects, and Timosthenes says, that in a town of Colchis, three hundred nations, * Glossarium Germannicum, Prefatio, c. xxviii. t Ibid. Lingua Anglo Saxonica, cum sit ab Ingevonibus orta, filia est Celtics mari- tima et primogenita, natalibus suis nee omnino similis, nee omnino dissimilis, c. xli. I Thesaurus Ant. Teutonicum. Monde, primitif, ix. 41 , 51. || Caledonia,!, p. 12. If Ibid. ** Clarke, on Coins, p. 77. The similarity of weights and measures offers to this in- telligent writer an additional evidence of identic origin. A Mr. Kuithan recently published a work, to shaw that not only were the Greek and German languages alike, but that the people were originally the same. Cluverius thinks the German is the purest relic of the Celtic. ft On the formation of language. tt Festus calls a Gallic chariot, Petoritum. Pedwar, Welch, is four, Rheda. wheel. Tnia is noticed by Cluver, Dr. Murray, &c. Caterva, a legion ; Cad ; Gaelic, an army, Turva, multitude, &e. & Report on the poems of Ossian, Appendix, p. 2G3. ANCIENT LANGUAGES. 35 each of a different language, met to traffic;* but these accounts arc or variance with the express testimony which we find, of the close affinity of the languages anciently spoken in Europe. We ought, in most cases, to understand dialect only, an inference that is justified by the writers themselves. Strabo, who gives the Alani, an inconsiderable people, twenty-six languages, tells us the Getae and Daci, both very powerful nations, or rather the same people, had but one speech;! and represents the Gauls, whose three divisions, according to Ca3sar, had peculiar and distinct languages, as differing little from each other in manners, and still less in speech. J St. Jerome says, the Galatians, who were un- doubtedly Celts, besides the Greek, spoke the same language as the Treviri, a people of, or bordering on, Belgic-Gaul.^ Herodotus says the Scythic nations resembled each other in their manners generally, but had particular dialects, and that the Sauromatae used the Scythic speech. || If this language had been radically different from that spoken in Western Europe, some traces of it would certainly have remained, but no specimen can be produced. The Gothic tongue undoubtedly sprang from the Celtic. Tacitus informs us, that in his time the Gothini spoke the Gallic language, and the Cimbri and ^Estii used the British speech. 11 That it was Celtic, is beyond dispute. Reinerus Reineccius, an author of credit, who is quoted by Camden, affirms that both Gauls and Cirnbri used the same speech;** which, indeed, appears from those authors who speak of the people as of the same race. The Scythians, who were attacked by Darius, either spoke Gothic, or it cannot be admitted that either they or their descendants ever came into Europe. In this part of the world the Celtae first arrived, tc and supplied a language; then, in the course of thousands of years, came different tribes of the same people, the language of each radically the same as the first, but from the lapse of time somewhat changed. ""j"j" Nations that are favorably situated for commercial pursuits suffer a change in their language sooner than those who are inland and removed from intercourse with strangers. When manufactures and arts begin to excite the attention of mankind, there arise new ideas, and a necessity for new expressions. When the productions of one country become objects of desire to the inhabitants of others, the wants which are re- ciprocally supplied by the exchange of commodities increase with the facility of gratification; and hence, as the arts of civil life begin to be encouraged, new words are required, and language undergoes a gradual and inevitable alteration. Thus the speech of a people who are in a state of progressive improvement becomes much changed in process o/ * As quoted in Lewis's History of Britain, fol. 1729. When Diod. Sic. says of Han- nibal's troops, that they differed as much in their humors as they did in their lan- guages, are we to understand him literally ? t Lib. viii. * | Lib. iv. Comment, on Galatians, ii. |j Lib. iv. 117. T[ De moribus Germanorum. *" CaiiKion, Hinging, Lewis, &c. ft Higgins's " Celtic Drjids," p &L. 36 ANCIENT LANGUAGES. time. Polybius writes, that the Latin was then so different, from what i<. had been in the time of Lucius Junius Brutus and Marcus Valerius, who were consuls when the first treaty between the Romans and Carthagini- ans was made, that little of that document could be then understood.* But when a nation, on the contrary, is stationary in civilisation, the lan- guage necessarily remains the same. The Romans were always studious to introduce their language into all countries which were brought under their dominion ; f but they would have been less successful in producing any change among the Gauls, had they not been able, at the same time, to establish a considerable commercial intercourse. These nations found a stimulus to their natu- ral ingenuity, and a gratification to their avarice, of which they are said to have had a good share, by the advantages of a friendly inter- course and profitable trade with the luxurious Romans; and their par- ^ality to the wines of Italy had, no doubt, a tendency to soften their cmtraeleristic dislike to innovation. It is equally customary, even in these days, to call peculiar dialects by the name of languages, as it is to generalize various dialects under one denomination. The Gaelic of Scotland, the Welch, the Irish, and the Manx, are considerably different from each other, and yet they are but dialects of the same speech, and the term Briton is common to the whole inhabitants of the island; yet the English, the Scots, and the Welch are distinct people, and they all use the English language, (ex- cept in the Gaelic parts;) but the dialects are, in some cases, so differ- ent, that they scarcely appear the same, and are, indeed, sometimes cal- led different languages. J The Yorkshire, and the west country dialects, have no great resem- blance to that of Middlesex; nor is the speech of the people in the north like that used by the inhabitants of the southern provinces of Scotland. Thus do we find a primaeval race, arriving in Europe at some unknown and remote period, and filling with inhabitants a vast extent of territory Different divisions of these aborigines acquired distinct names with ap- propriate possessions, and, in the lapse of ages, became dissimilar in manners, in colloquial idiom, and pronunciation. A due consideration of these apparently natural and certain effects of separation, may prevent much unsatisfactory argument, that bewilders and perplexes the mind, in the vain attempt to find distinct and various races of men, where all must have had a common origin. The Barbarians appeared to the early Greeks and Romans, who knew little of them, under different lights, and Lib. iii. t " So sensible were the Romans of the influence of language over national man- ners, that it was their most serious care to extend, with the progress of their arms, the use of the Latin tongue." Gibbon. t" The Scotch is not to be considered a provincial dialect, it is the language of a whole country, the common speech of the whole nation in early life." Edinburgh Review, vol. xiii. p. 259. FEROCITY OF THE CUMBRIANS. 37 were viewed as consisting of many nations: when they came under more particular observation in later times, there had arisen differences suffi- cient to justify a national appellation. There is, it must be confessed, a gloom around the early history of the Celts, which neither the writings of antiquity, nor the deepest inves- tigations of modern ages, are able entirely to penetrate. The faint light by which the Hyperborei, the Cimbri, the Scythae, and the Celtae are presented to our view, is clouded by fable, and obscured by the conjectures of credulity. The polished Greeks and Romans des- pised and contemned all who were without the pale of their own domin- ion. It was only when they wished to subjugate those barbarians, or were exposed to their furious inroads, that they deigned to notice them. Then, the savage manners, and strange appearance of these nations made a strong, and perhaps unjust, impression on those who were more civilized.* The desperate exploits of the enemy were related by those who witnessed them, with all the exaggeration which fear could suggest; and the wonderful recitals were, it may be safely presumed, often height- ened by a desire to exalt the bravery and resolution of soldiers who had ventured to contend with such terrific assailants. The tremendous ar- mies of the Cimbri and Teutones filled the Romans with the utmost ter- ror and dismay, and people from whom they had so narrowly escaped utter destruction, were represented as almost supernatural. " No man,' says Plutarch, "knew what they were, or from whence they came. They were of immense stature, with horrid countenances, speaking a language scarcely human. They advanced with a host that trod down, or swept all before them, and their bowlings and horrid bellowings were like those of wild beasts, "j Such expressions betray the trepidation of the Romans, increased by the boldness of an enemy, that, passing the Alps as if by miracle, presented themselves in the plains of Italy, and, marching towards Rome, threatened the speedy destruction of the em- pire. Yet it must be confessed, that there was abundant caase for ter- ror, after making allowance for considerable overcharge in the picture. The Cimbrians, it is further said by Plutarch, like the giants of old, * When the first alarm had subsided, their numerous hosts were often defeated by very inferior numbers. Their great strength, and native valor gave waj to the strict discipline and military tact of the Greeks and Romans. t Plutarch, of the Cimbrian war. Polyasnus. Mil. Strat. viii. 10. 38 FEROCITY OF THE CUMBRIANS. tore up hills and massy rocks, and pulled up trees by the roots, to fill a river which they had to pass. Their women, too, who would rush into the thickest battle, and with their naked arms pull away the shields of the enemy, cutting them down with a sword or battle-axe, were not the least frightful part in the scene. Before such opponents, it is little cause of wonder that the Roman soldiers should not evince their accustomed bravery. It was with difficulty any man could be kept to his duty, and, as the panic increased, they began to desert their colors, and at last gave way in precipitate retreat. CHAPTER II. BRITAIN THE ORIGIN OF ITS ANCIENT INHABITANTS HISTORICALLY DEDUCED. VARIOUS suppositions have been formed respecting the period when BRITAIN first became the residence of human beings. The fact cannot be ascertained, and it is not important to be known. That this island remained for many ages unoccupied by mankind, and perhaps undiscov- ered, while other parts of the world were teeming with population, is a reasonable belief. Tradition itself seems unable to reach a period so remote, yet it is alluded to in the works of the Welsh bards. The Phoenicians, who were celebrated as maritime adventurers, are supposed to have been the discoverers of Britain, and to have traded hither in the most early ages. It may not have been impossible for these people to establish a commercial intercourse with Britain " perhaps a thousand years before our era,"* but there appears to be no sufficient proof of the existence of so early a communication; and the Cassiterides, or Isles of Tin, for which metal they are said to have chiefly resorted, seem erroneously to be considered the Scillies ofF the Cornish coast. "No one writer of any Antiquity," says Ritson, "ever mentions that the Phoenicians traded to Cornwall for Tin." It is maintained, that they were well acquainted with Britain; but it is also confessed, that subse- quent Historians and Geographers appear ignorant of this ancient cor- respondence. Dio says, the early Greeks and Romans did not so much a^ know there was such an island,"]" and to account for these ineonsis- * Wbittaker, Pinkerton, &c. M'Phersou and others suppose an earlier colonization. Carte fixes it 450, A. C. I Aristotle, who flourished 350 years before Christ, speaks of it both as Albium and Brettania. Buclianuan, &c. 40 BRITAIN. tencies, it has been ingeniously conjectured that the trade was given up, and the way to the island lost for a considerable time. It has been asserted, that, at the period of this supposed intercourse, no part of the world produced Tin but the islands of Britain. Pliny mentions this metal as plentiful in Lusitania and Gallicia. Diodorus at.d Possidonius say that much tin was found in different parts of Spain; and Aristotle calls it Celtic, as a distinction from that of India. It was pro- cured in great quantities from the islands which Pliny describes as lying in the ocean over against Celtiberia, and which from this production re- ceived the name Cassiterides. Ptolemy places them under " the situa- tion of Tarraconia; " and Mela* says the islands, which for abundance of lead were so called, lay in the parts of the Celtici, a people of Spain. Strabo also places them opposite to Celtiberia. They appear to have been the Azores or Western Islands, anciently the Hesperides, a term descriptive of their geographical situation; for that the Scillies were the isles of Tin, certainly appears doubtful. These islands are in number upwards of one hundred and forty, but of the others there are but nine or ten. The expression of Strabo, who says, in his second book, that Britain and these islands are without the pillars of Hercules, does not prove nor imply that they were near to each other.'}" They are, on the contrary, mentioned as perfectly distinct; J and the opinion of the single insula Silura of Solinus,^ being the Cassiterides of the ancients, perhaps originated with Richard of Cirencester, who applies the appellation to the Scillies. || A recent visitor says he ''could discover no traces of mines or minerals, whether ancient or modern, in them." IT The historian of' Cornwall confesses that the ancient workings which he believes he discovered, were "neither deep, nor many, nor large," and adopts the supposition of Ortellius, that the Cassiterides must have included Corn- wall and Devonshire. Mictis is supposed to be the Isle of Wight, where lead was also pro- cured; but Pliny informs us, on the authority of TimaBus, that it lay six days' sail from Britain.** Mictis was not therefore thelctis of Diodorus, which lay so near to the English coast that it could, at low tide, be ap- proached by land. Hither, therefore, he says the Britons conveyed the tin which they dug, from whence it was transported to Gaul.ff It appears, then, that Herodotus does not call these islands Cassiter- ides; but it is certain that Britain was known to both Greeks and Ro- mans, some ages before it became an object of conquest to the latter people, and it may have been visited by adventurers in much more ancient timesij J Little, however, can be elicited concerning the earliest histoiy * Lib. iii. c. 6. t Lib ii. p. 129. t Pliny, Diod. &c. C. 22. || He calls them Sygdiles. Borlaso- says the proper name is Sylleh. II Cambell, in his ed. of Ossian. ** Lib. iv. 16. tt Lib. v 2. JtThe author of Arjjonautica, who lived, it is believed, in the time of Pisistratus, about 570, A. C. speaks of Britain, or perhaps Ireland, under the name lernis. From Plutarch, de defect, orac. the Elysium of the ancients appears to have be?n in the north- rn part of the island. Homer says, Ulysses, in his passage to the shades, touched ITS DISCOVERY. 41 of European nations, from the dark and mysterious intimations of anti- quity, the fai'nt light of which is unable to guide us clearly through the wild dreams and fictions of ignorance, and credulity. If an enterprising navigator, at some distant period, had caught a sight of Britain or Ire- land, the Orkneys, or the Shetland isles; the obscure and marvellous re- citals of poets, and the inexplicable narrations and allegories of theology, would be conceived to have some allusion to the newly found, or long lost land; and the ingenuity of succeeding ages, when farther discove- ries were made, readily applies the ambiguous descriptions of antiquity to places of which but an imperfect knowledge has been obtained. The conflicting and indefinite accounts are, consequently, reconciled and ap- plied, as credulity or caprice may suggest. The description of that island, which the Hyperborei are said to have inhabited, can suit no other than Britain. The island lay opposite to Gaul, and was as large as Sicily. The people used their own proper language, worshipped in groves and circular temples, played on the harp, and led the most happy lives. They had a great esteem for the Greeks, with whom, from the most distant ages, they had maintained a correspondence arising from certain religious connexions, in consequence of which, it is said, some of that nation visited this sequestered land, leaving many presents to the gods, and Greek inscriptions to commem- orate their mission.* Pytheas of Massilia, who lived before Aristotle, is said to have first discovered Britain, and Thule or Thyle, concerning which there is much uncertainty. This island is represented as some days' sail northwards from Britain, and should hence appear to be Shetland. | Agricola's fleet, we are told, saw Thule as they circumnavigated the island. J Mela de- scribes it as opposite to the Belgian coast, a position in which Richard of Cirencester agrees, but strangely adds, that it lay beyond the Ork- neys. Alfred, in his Saxon version of Orosius, says it lay northwest of Ireland, and was known by few. That island has itself been taken for Thule, and the term has been applied to the Western Islands of Scot- land. Some have also contended that the name was given to the northern parts of that country. ^ That Thule, in any of these situations, could at Caledonia, to which Tacitus, in Germania, alludes. Pinkerton. Solinus says that an altar, inscribed with Greek characters, was to be seen in the north, which proved this, c. 22. The second Brennus, who led the Gauls into Greece, when Delphos was rifled, is thought by some writers to have been a Briton ; and Lemon, in the preface to his English etymology, p. xxiii. 5, seriously relates this as the cause of the ultimate invasion of this island. Joseph de Gorionides, " de Hannibale," says that general con- quered the Britons, iii. 15, ap. Higgins, p. SO. But there were nations so called on the Continent. * Diodorus, who relates this from Hecatseus, a very ancient author, whose veracity, it must be observed, he seems to doubt. t So d' Anville understands it. Strabo calls it six days' sail from Britain ; Solinus five days and nights from Orkney. t Vita Agricolas. Essay concerning the Thule of the ancients, Edinburgh, 1G93 6 42 BRITAIN. have been "large and copious in continual apples," as Solinus repre- sents, is incredible. Saxo calls Iceland, Thylen, while Procopius ap- plies the term Thule to Scandinavia.* Perhaps the name was given to the land which was believed the farthest towards the north, and trans- ferred to the islands successively discovered. It has been, indeed, conjectured that there were formerly some isles between the continent and Scotland that have been long since lost. The Saxonum Insulae of Pliny are believed to have disappeared, in consequence of some natural convulsion, and the fact of Heligoland having been several ages ago re- duced to half its size, is adduced in support of this hypothesis."]" The Welsh poems record the formation of Anglesea and many other islands by a dreadful inundation, and the island Plada, which seems at no dis- tant period to have been disjoined from Arran, carries in its name a proof of this disruption. Bladh, is a part, and Bladham, I break. The singular phenomena produced by the refraction and reflection of light on fogs arising from the sea, lakes, or morasses, are well known. Appearances of this kind have deceived experienced navigators, who confidently believed they saw islands in the distant ocean, and it is by no means improbable that ancient mariners may have had their senses so imposed on. The illusion is sometimes so complete that you may behold, with the most perfect resemblance to nature, picturesque land- scapes, towns, castles, &.C., and that some such appearance gave rise to the idea of a happy and fruitful country, the abode of the blessed, can scarcely be doubted. This "fairy land" was situated in the western ocean, and was familiar to the inhabitants of these islands, being denom- inated Flathinis and Hybrasil by the Scots and Irish. J One of these phenomena was seen, it is said, in the Atlantic, in the ninth century; and so convinced were seamen of the existence of one or more fertile and romantic islands, remote from all other land, that they have actually, it appears, been placed on rnaps.^ Had so singular an appearance been noticed in ancient times, it might, in some degree, account for the wonderful stories concerning the British islands, and the confusion respecting the Thule of antiquity. At what period Britain became inhabited, and from what particular district of the continent the first colonists arrived, are equally unknown and open to conjecture. While some writers believe it probable that the first inhabitants arrived a thousand years before Christ, others suppose a much earlier migration hither. Parties from the coast of Gaul may * Pinkerton's Enquiry, i. t Ibid. i. 204. J The Saxon Cockaigne seems to have been the same island which 'was also known to the French and Spaniards by other names. See " the Western Wonder, or O'Brazeel, an Enchanted Island," 4to. 1G74. This singular effect of mirage on the sands of the coasts in the western isles is no- ticed in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal for Dec. 1827. The Highlanders call it Dun na feadhre.'igh, fairy castles. Some remarkable appearances of this kind were seen near Yough-Il, in Ireland, in 1796, 1797, 1801, &c. ORIGIN OF THE INHABITANTS. 43 have occasionally visited the island for the purpose of hunting, before permanent settlements were formed; and, even after colonies had estab- lished themselves, a long time must have been required to people the whole island. Brettania is first mentioned by Aristotle, and Brittia is the term gen- erally used by the ancients. It appears to be the second name, and is derived by Whittaker from the Welsh, Brython, divided; the Gaelic Bieac, striped or chequered, Brezonec, the appellation of Arrnorica, the name Brigantes, Allo-Broges, &c., being all related. Mac Pherson derives the name from Braid, extensive, In, land, Clarke from Braitoin, top of the waves; and the etymology of another writer is equally simple, but less probable: Stackhouse gives Bre, a hill, Ton, a dwelling; Bre- theim, in ancient Celtic and German, is said, by Wolfgang, to signify a residence; but Borlase asserts that no British word begins with B as a radical. The Britons, like the continental Celts, were ignorant of their origin, and believed themselves indigenous, a proof that they could not have recently arrived. Diodorus considered them as natives of the soil; but Tacitus, more correct, was of opinion that the first inhabitants came from the opposite coasts of the Continent. Caesar represents the inhab- itants of the maritime parts as adventurers from Gaul, and those of -the interior only as aborigines, according to their own tradition. The Cum- ri, whom the Welsh Triads make the first colonists, are otherwise be- lieved to have been the second, and of a different race. That they were not, may appear from what has already been said;* and whether they proceeded from Aquitain, as some conjecture, from Tacitus, | or from Belgic Gaul, the only essential difference between these nations and the Celts consisted in name and local position. The aboriginal inhabitants of Britain must have been Celtic, for that race anciently possessed the whole of continental Europe. These Cumri could not have been a very large colony, or have occupied much greater extent of territory than Wales, for the appellation was not applied to other Britons. Accord- ing to the best Welsh Antiquaries, they came in on the Guydhel, as they term the primitive inhabitants, whose name proves their derivation from the great race who peopled the western world. The period when the Cumri arrived is unknown. If the term was "the hereditary name of the Gauls," and "the common appellation of all the tribes of Britain,*' it is in vain to look for a colony bearing it as a proper and peculiar name. When the island was gradually filling with inhabitants from the redundant population of Gaul, various successive arrivals undoubtedly * " No Cimbri ever landed here, except Gauls, so called. Those who broke into Greece appear to have been called Galli, Celtae, Cimmerii, and Cirnbri." Gen. Hist. of the Britons, p. 47. " No one has any right to it (Britain) but the Cumri, for they first took possession, and before that time there were no persons living in it." Ancient Welsh Laws. Hu Cadarn brought hither the first Cumri. t Who perceived a likeness between the Silures and Iberians. 44 CELTIC AND BELGIC BRITONS. took place. The Triads mention the Lloegrwys, who came from Gwasgvvn or Gascony, as the next settlers, from whom the Welsh de- nominate the English Lloegr; but in less doubtful history, the Belgse appeal to have succeeded the Cumri, who had been so long in the isl- and that they were considered, as they have styled themselves, the an- cient Britons. The Belgians are said to have arrived here three centuries and a half before the epoch of Christianity, and that about this period there existed a connexion between the two countries, is very probable. Divitiacus, king of the Suessiones, a Belgic tribe, who was alive in Caesar's time, had a certain sovereignty in Britain,* which he visited, enlarging his dominions by the subjection of great part of the southern districts of England. When Julius Caesar meditated his descent, there subsisted a consider- able intercourse between Britain and the continent, by means of which he sought information respecting the country and its inhabitants; but it does not appear that he obtained very accurate knowledge of either. The merchants who traded with the natives were the parties to whom he chiefly addressed himself; but their personal knowledge of the island did not, probably, extend to any considerable distance from the ports to which they resorted, and the natives, we may believe, were not disposed to be verv communicative. When the Romans landed in Britain they found the maritime parts on the south possessed by the Belgae, who were neither a race distinct from the Celtre, nor did they speak a language "altogether different." A better climate, and a degree of commercial intercourse, produced a me- lioration of condition; but we have no reason to believe that these ad- vantages had very materially increased the difference between the southern and inland tribes at the period now under review. Diodorus simply remarks that those who inhabited the promontory of Balerium, (Cornwall,) were more civilized and courteous to strangers than the rest of the p >pulation, by reason of their intercourse with foreign merchants. The Britons, like the Gauls their progenitors, bore a general resemblance in language, religion, manners, and customs, the strong and indubitable proofs of a common origin. The local appellations throughout the ter- ritories .which they inhabited decidedly evince that "the British Belgae were of Celtic lineage." A Gothic colonization is, nevertheless, said to have taken pkce when the Belgse established themselves on this side the channel. | It has been shown that this people were but a division of the Gauls, and not to be confounded with the nations of Getia. Three hundred and thirty-four years before our era, the Scyths were not in western Europe, but remained on the shores of the Euxine, and the Gothic migrations from the east began about two hundred years after- wards. The Goths first came into notice as a fierce and powerful peo- ple in A. T). 250, before which time they were little known to the Ro- * Bello Gal. ii. c. 4. t Pinkerton. THE BELGIANS NOT GOTHS. 45 mans, and their empire on the Danube was not formed until A. D. 32S Previous to the descent of Caesar, these nations were still about the Euxine, at which time Britain had been fully peopled by the Celhe; and the silence of history attests that no important migration of the Goths had hitherto taken place. It becomes, therefore, certain that the first inhabitants of Britain were alike Celts, resembling those on the opposite coasts of Gaul, for, on the arrival of the Romans, the language, the religion, and customs of both countries were similar.* Had there, on the contrary, arrived a people, different in their manners, and so entirely distinct from the Celts, that "no tongues could be more different," some remains of that tongue would surely have existed to prove the event. The prevalence of their language seems to demonstrate that the Goths at some time came into the north and west of Europe; but had they moved in a considerable body, or settled otherwise than by a quiet and amicable migration,' some authen- tic memorial of the circumstance must have remained. The Gothic tribes do not appear to have left their native seats earlier than perhaps a cent ury^ before the time of Caesar, when Britain was stored with a Celtic population. At this time, the aboriginal race of Gauls were fast yield- ing to the impressions of civilisation alterations in their language had taken place the unmixed Celts were gradually confined to the west of Europe, and those to the eastward were becoming Gothicised. The Triads bring several other colonies hither at different times the Brython from Lhydaw or Bretagne being the next in order of time to the Lloegrwys, and both were of Cumraeg origin. It is impossible to ascertain the periods when these tribes established themselves in Britain, but it is certain that the various Colonists were all equally Celtic and similar to the natives of Gaul. Such were the inhabitants whom Ccesar found fifty-five years before the epoch of Christianity, and the population was still Celtic when the Romans finally left the island five hundred years afterwards.']" The Belgre, who possessed the whole south coast of England from Kent to Cornwall, resembled the inhabitants of the continent more strongly than those tribes who lived in the interior, and who were thought by them- selves, and believed by others, to have been e terra nati, or indigenous. Every succeeding colony obtaining a peaceable settlement, or, estab- lishing itself by force of arms, remained in the vicinity of those parts where it first landed; and the former inhabitants falling back, became confined to the interior. The most ancient residents of Britain were thus gradually forced to the west and north by successive arrivals from Gaul, and finally rested in Scotland, in Ireland, and in the mountainous regions of Wales. When the Romans penetrated northwards to SCOTLAND, they' found * Caesar, Tacitus, &c. t " At the Roman abdication in 446, there was only one race of men in Scotland.' Caledonia 46 ETYMOLOGY OF CALEDONIA. (he people of the same Celtic race as those of the south, but much more rude and uncivilized, being, in every probability, the remains of the ab- origines, who were forced northwards b^ successive arrivals from the Continent. It is a strong proof in favor of this hypothesis, that the an- cient Scots always retained the name of ALBANICH, inhabitants of A ban, or Albion, the first appellation by which Britain was known, and that their descendants, the present Highlanders, invariably continue its use. Another argument of some weight is found in the fact that there exist in Wales certain words, used not only as local names but in common dis- course, which are only referable to the Gaelic of Scotland; and a cur- rent tradition is also found among the Welsh, that the Scots or Irish an- ciently inhabited their country. The Welsh call both these people Guydhel, or Guidhil, the appellation by which they distinguish the abo- riginal inhabitants to whom the Cumri succeeded; and this word, the dh being quiescent, is evidently the same as Gael, the term by which the native Scots have been always known, and which is certainty derived from the ancient general name of the whole Celtic race.* It was not until the successful campaign of Agricola that the Romans discovered the Scottish tribes, or obtained a knowledge of their country. The Imperial troops advanced sufficiently far to arouse the natives to a sense of their danger to a general confederation to a sanguinary and protracted, but successful, struggle for their independence. The most powerful tribe at that time, in the northern division of the island, was the Caledonian, which had the leading of the war, and, according to the accustomed polity of the Celts, gave name to the whole association. Lucanf is the first who mentions this people, whom he places in Kent. Tacitus, the elegant historian of Agricola's life, is the first who shows the situation of the Caledonians of Scotland. If the etymon which identifies this word with Guydhel or Gael, is just, the name may possibly have been applied to different tribes; but Lucan is believed to be in error, and has apparently misled Richard of Cirencester, who places Caledonian woods in Kent and Lincolnshire. Mr. Whittaker, adducing Florus, who also speaks of the Caledonian woods in Kent, Sussex, &.C., says, from Guidhil, a wood, came Gaeldoch, woodlandish, applied to those who inhabit "the precincts of an extensive forest," a term of which the Romans made Caledonia. This is ingeni ous, but it does not appear that " Caledon" hence " became the nation al appellation for all woods of the Galli in Britain. "J Buchannan's etymology is Caldcn, Gaelic, a hazel tree, and hence the name of the wood from which the country was called Caledonia; but this great author * The Welsh do not denominate either nation Cumri. The Irish language is less similar to ancient or modern Welsh than it is to the Gaelic of Scotland. Dr. M'Pher- son. The Irish, however, from Vallancey, Coll. Reb. x. lib. iv., seem not inclined to admit that they are Gauls. I Pharsalia, iii. v. 67-8. t Hist. Manch. 415, Hist, of the Britons, and authorities. Another Antiquary of some celebrity maintains that no region was called Caledonia but the northern. Fitik- erton. GAEL ALBANICH AND SIRINACH. 47 is corrected by Dr. M'Pherson, who observes that Caultin, and not Galden, is a hazel. The Highlanders have always been known as Gael, and their native country they have always termed Gaeldoch, the land of the Gael. 4 The G has usually the sound of C, which brings it nearer to the primitive Celt, from which it is unquestionably derived; and whether it signifies the fair men,f the hardy or strong men,J the borderers,^ the men of the woods, [j the fugitives, 1T the hill-dwellers, &.c. &.c. &.c. there appears no room to doubt that the Celtic Gael was the root of the Latin Caledonii. The Caledonians who led the united Gael to battle at the Grampians, possessed a great extent of territory. It comprised all the country from the friths of Forth and Clyde to the hills of Balnagowan in Ross. This powerful nation continued to inhabit the same province;** but other tribes came afterwards into notice, and, from the honor of conduct- ing different campaigns, alternately appear in the annals of their country, and engross the praise that various clans were entitled to share. The CALEDONIANS, the PICTS, the SCOTS, and the MEATS successively stood forth to contend for their national liberty, or conduct inroads on the ter- ritories of their enemies, and hence the whole country appears to have been divided among a few powerful nations; but from the Tweed to Caithness, there were no less than twenty-one different tribes of Celtae; and when the Romans abandoned the island, Scotland was occupied solely by this primeval race. This division of Britain had not, however, at this epoch, received that appellation by which it has been since known. The term was imposed by others, but has never been recognised by the native inhabitants, in whose language the original name of the country has been always retain- ed. They disown the name of Scots, they disclaim foreign extraction, they acknowledge themselves Albanich, inhabitants of Albion, an ap- pellation which to this day is given them by the Irish, who receive and appropriate, with justice, the designation Gael Eirinach, Irish Celts. ft Every probability is in favor of the opinion that the first colonies from Gaul were settled in Britain. The world might have rested satis- fied with the rational belief that Ireland, appearing, ever since it came under the notice of the Historian, in a state of civilisation, much inferior to its sister island, could not have been peopled by a more refined or polished race than the Celts; but Phoenician records, and other indubi- *M-Pherson in Ossian. Dr. M'Pherson's Dissertations, &c. The word is Gaid- healtachd, in Gaelic orthography. t Cluverius, Germ. Ant. i. 14 } Kaled, British, hard, Kaledion, a hardy, rough people. Camden. Pasumont de I'oririne des mots Celte et Gaul, 1765. says Celt is robur. Cilydion. British, Borderers. Lhuyd. |j Buchannan and Whittaker. *, Cyliad, profugam. Buxhorn, in Ant. Brit. ** Dio speaks of them, about 239, as the only nation beyond the walls, in the vicini- ty of which dwelt the Meats, who were only inferior to the Caledonians in power. Lib. Ixxvi. c. 12. ft Caledonia. Critical Diss. &c 43 THE SCOTS. table proofs of Milesian and Heremonian dynasties of glorious splendor, impart very different ideas of its ancient condition. It does not appear to rne that the honor of both countries is so deeply implicated in the simple fact of earliest inhabitation. If the people who first took possession of Ireland passed over from Scotland, they are yet to be ranked with the most ancient, and therefore the most noble Celts, as Galgacus called the Caledonians, who had indignantly retired, to protect their independence in the extremity of the land; for, in conse- quence of successive invasions from the Continent, the Irish were, prob- ably, at first compelled to cross the channel. The Highlanders are justly proud of being descended of the unconquered tribes; but, honor- able as this is, others may think that little credit is to be derived from having left their native seats and allowed themselves to be confined to the mountains. The SCOTS are first mentioned towards the end of the third century, by Porphyry. They are noticed by Ammianus Marcellinus in 360; are spoken of by Claudian about 390, and are generally supposed to have been first settled in Ireland. As the northern part of Britain did nrtt an- ciently bear the name of Scotland, but was certainly called Hibernia, an inveterate, and apparently interminable war, between the Scots and Irish Antiquaries has long subsisted, and the disputants have advanced so much in defence of their respective systems, that any farther investi gation of the subject is peculiarly uninviting. It appears from Strabo,* Pomponius Mela,| Ptolemy ,J &c. that the northern division of Britain was considered as a separate island, a belief that long continued, and has proved a copious source of national controversy. The early accounts of Hibernia are suitable to Scotland, but cannot with any propriety be applied to Ireland: at the same time, that island was not unknown, as is apparent from Ca3sar, Diodorus, and others. It has been attempted to restrict the first writer's description to the Scotish Hibernia, but apparently without reason. The ancients had certainly a very inaccurate knowledge of these islands, and great con- fusion arose upon the full discovery that Britain was an entire island, from which Ireland, situated towards the west, was perfectly distinct. When this had become well known, whatever had been said concerning Hibernia, or North Britain as an island, was naturally appropriated to Ire- land, to which alone it appeared applicable, the more so, from the simi- larity of the native word Iern,|| or according to the Greek form Juverna, * Lib ii. iv. v. &c. t De orbis situ t Syntaxis, ii. 6. See Goodall, in prefat. ad Fordun, i. ii. iii. &c* || It was called lern, lernis, and Iris by the most ancient writers, and does not ap- pear to have been called Hibernia before the time of Caesar. The former is evidently the original word, which, according to Bochart, is Phoenician, and implies the farthest land. This agrees with the Gaelic lar-in, western island, and it is known that these two languages were anciently much alike. Lemon, in his Etymology, says from Ibh, west, comes Iber, Iberia, &c. applied to those countries situated towards the setting sun, or in the direction of that luminary, when it is eve. INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN. 49 to the appellation Hiberma, which appears to have been bestowed on Scotland from its wintry climate, for Strabo describes it as " north of Britain, and the boundary of the habitable part of the globe, where the savage inhabitants could scarcely live for cold. " lie also says its dis- tance from Gaul is upwards of 603 miles, an error that he could hard- ly have committed if his Hibernia was Ireland, for it is not 10D miles from the continent. It is evident that Ptolemy had once the same idea concerning these islands which he was able latterly to correct. In Scot- l^rid, a noted station of the Romans called Hierna,* and locally situated in Strath Erne, added to the misunderstanding, that was yet farther in- creased by the erection of the walls, which being drawn across the country from sea to sea, as the boundaries of the provinciated and un- subdued Britons, kept alive the idea of two islands; the first division being called Britannia Romana, and the other Britannia Barbaria. Gildas, who calls the first "the Island," and "the Roman Island," terms the Scots and Picts " transmarini;" which Bede, who also speaks of " the Island " and " Britannica," as the southern part explains: " I have called them foreign nations," says he, " not because they live be- yond Britain, but because they are remote from that part possessed by the Britons; two gulfs intervening, though they do not unite, "j" and thus he continues to speak as if there were two islands, when it was well known there was but one. Foreign writers, who only consulted the an- cient authors, propagated the error from their own ignorance, and those in subsequent times, who were better informed, have been consequently astonished to read of the island of Scotland. Fordun, Buchannan, and various other historians, have remarked that the term Britannia was applied to the Roman part only, for the Picts and Caledonians are not denominated Britons, but are called their enemies. J Those enemies lived in " the barbarous island," an appel- lation, which it may be presumed the Irish Antiquaries will with little reluctance allow the Scots to appropriate to their own country, which was that part not subject to the Romans, the inhabitants of which were reckoned " foreign nations," or those beyond the province. From a supposition that the Friths on the west and east coasts intersected the country, the idea of two islands first arose. It was the enterprising Agricola who ascertained that "the tide of both seas stretched an im- mense way to the interior, but were prevented from joining by a narrow neck of land." Abraham Peritsol repeatedly mentions the island Scotland, believing., as Hide his translator remarks, that the Tweed made two separate islands. $; In the British Museum is a map, originally constructed in 1479, which represents Scotland as completely insulated from the aestua- ries of the Forth and Clyde ; and it is so represented in the cosrnogra- * Nojv Stragcth. Roy's Military Antiquities, p. 128. Hist. Eccles. J Lumenms, Panegyr. ad Constant, xvi. Ilinpra Mundi, c. 7 & 12. 7 60 THE SCOTS IN BRITAIN, phy of Peter Apianus, published at Antwerp in 1545, although " expur- gated " from error. Richard of Cirencester, better informed respecting this part of the kingdom, but still impressed with a belief : n two islands, separates the country at the chain of lakes where the utoat Canul now is, carrying the Varar quite through from sea to sea, and placing the Caledonians in the farther division, that they might remain, as the an- cients described them, in a distinct island.* The name Hibernia was therefore originally applied to North Britain, and subsequently transferred to Ireland, or restricted to it, when th| former country began to be called by its proper name, Albany, although it continued at the same time occasionally to receive the former appel- lation. In the Roman Marty rology, Saint Bean, who died in 1015, is styled " Episcopus Abredonise in Hybernia;" and this prelate was most assuredly a Scotsman, for it cannot affect the question that the Bishop's seat was first established at Mortlach, and subsequently removed to Aberdeen. In the age of Alfred, the northern parts of Britain were called Ireland by mariners, j and the Highlanders were termed Hybernenses even in 1180. From this mutation of names, the Scandinavian writers are sup- posed by Pinkerton to have confounded Scotland with Ireland. That the Scots were the primaeval people of the island, and not recent settlers, does not seem to admit of dispute, and the appellation by which they were known must have originated with others, for it has never been acknowledged by those who are the remains of the ancient inhabitants. Albanach and Clan n' Alban are the terms, as has been observed, which they appropriate, and derive from the original name of the whole island, but which afterwards became restricted to a part only, and is now con- fined to the district of Braidalban.J The Descriptio Albanire informs us that the region which was corrupt- ly called Scotia, formerly bore the name of Albania, Argyle being part of it; and the Bishops of St. Andrews, it is known, were formerly styled Bishops of Albany. About the end of the sixth century the term Scotia begun to supersede the ancient appellation, but the inhabitants continued to use Albany in their own language, and in Latin. In the work of Hegesippus on the destruction of Jerusalem, which Sir George Mac- kenzie thinks is of the time of Hadrian, about 127, but JJm F Grono- vius asserts to be of the age of Theodosius, 395, Jt sephus tells the Jews that the mountains of Scotland tremble at the Roman name, which seems to be the first time the word is used. Bede states that Aidan and his successors, Bishops of lona, who preached the Gospel to the Northumbrians, came from Scotland, in which country that island was certainly then as it is now. Alcuin and *See the engraved maps in Henry's Hist, of Britain, Pinkerton's Enquiry, &c. t Barrington's Orosius, in Caledonia, i. 338. | The Albani of the Romans inhabited Braidalban, the west parts of Perth, and east parts of Argyleshire. AND IN IRELAND. M Eginhart, who wrote in the end of the eighth century, use this name, but tht: Irish apply all these passages to their own country; and Pinker- ton, with his usual confidence, maintains that " there is not one authori- ty for the name of Scotland hefore the eleventh century." Usher made a similar assertion, contending that Prosper and others, who distinguish the country of the Scots from Britain, speak of Ireland. Palladius, who was ordained hy Pope Coelestine as the first Bishop of the Scots, is said by the Irish to have been sent to them. This mission- ary came into Scotland and was buried at Fordun in the Merns,* where Paldy fair is still held, and where his shrine continued an object of pil- grimage till the Reformation. The " reges Scottorum," with whom Charlemagne corresponded,! are asserted to have been kings of Ireland; and those who admit the authenticity of the celebrated League, affirm that it was made with the Irish reguli, for which I believe no authentic proof has ever been produced. Two or three Scots Kings lived in the long reign of Charles; and if these are not the princes from whom he received letters, which of the Irish regalities did he honor by his alliance? The annals of that country do not appear to recognise any such corres- pondence, but successive treaties between Scotland and France, alluding to leagues ratified in the most distant times, ^ and the Scotish guard which remained until a recent period, prove the ancient connexion of the two countries; nay, Sir George Mackenzie says the original league, formed in 791, was discovered in an old register at Paris. Scoti and Albani were anciently synonymous, and Scoti and Hiberni were indiscriminately used; but that this last term was exclusively ap- plied to the Irish is certainly false. When Ammianus speaks of the Romans defeating the Scots in lerne, must we not understand Caledonia, with the inhabitants of which the Romans fought, but had neither their wars with the Irish, nor ever invaded their country. We must in the same way explain the passage in Gorionides where the Romans are said to have reduced the Hiberni to subjection. IT Gildas, in relating the devastation of Romanized Britain by the Scots and Picts, uses an expression which, however translated, does not fix the residence of these nations in Ireland. " Revertuntur ergo impu- dentes grassatores Hyberni domum," is usually rendered, "the impu- dent Hybernian robbers therefore return home;" and this home, if it is proved that Scotland formerly received the appellation, must have been the "icy Hibernia," whence they had advanced. But if the passage should be, as Gale, Bertram, and others, read from ancient MSS., "ad * Brev. Abredonensis. t Eginhart, vita et gestse Karoli magni, p. 138, ed. Francofurti. t Irish Histories. Chalmers, in Caledonia, i. 463, &c. &^ Letter of the Scots Nobility to the King of France in 1308, &*. (I See an article in the Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland H Lib. vi. 17 52 THE SCOTS hibornas domos," to their winter habitations, it is a more satisfactory proof that the Scots who invaded the province were not Irish. Henry of Huntingdon says, that Ceesar sent his' legions "in Hiberni- am, !) but as this cannot mean Ireland, where neither that commander nor his troops ever were, hiberna, winter quarters, is substituted by An- tiquaries as the proper word. So the " hibernique Getae " of Proper- tius, instead of alluding to the people of Ireland, is believed merely to characterize the Getians as living in a wintry latitude. If Bede uses Hiberni and Scoti for Irish only, how can it be reconciled with his ex- planation of " transmarini? " The name of Scots was common to the Irish Gael as well as to those of Albany ;* and this general application of the term has greatly per- plexed the ancient history of Scotland, "the confusion which it has introduced is eternal and irremediable." It seems, however, certain that Ireland received its first population from Albion. Diodorus says, Iris was inhabited by Britons; and Richard of Cirencester informs us that the Scots of that island were those who were forced, on the arrival of the Belgs, to leave their native country. Most of these emigrants, it is probable, passed over from Scotland, where the two islands ap- proximate so closely; and of which the similarity in dialect, and some other circumstances, according to Sir William Petty ,f are evidence. An intimate connexion has existed from the most remote times be- tween the people of both countries, who were related by intermarriages, and whose language arid customs were, for ages, perfectly alike; but the intercourse which has always continued between the adjacent parts of Scotland and Ireland, affords no proof that Albany received its in- habitants from "the western land." The Irish extract of the Scots is, notwithstanding, very keenly con- tended for by many able writers, and the arguments are chiefly founded on the ambiguous use of the term Hiberni, and the History of the King- dom of Dalriada, or that of the Scots before the seat of government was transferred from Argyle to the Low Country. Bede tells us the Scots arrived from Ireland in that part of the West Highlands now call- ed Argyle, where they settled under Reuda or Riada, and were from him denominated Dalreudini, being the first Scots who ever were in Britain. This is the venerable ecclesiastic's account, in which he is not corroborated by any authorities equally respectable. Tighearnach, the Ulster Annals, Flan of Bute, and other ancient historians and doc- uments, are silent respecting this expedition. The district where the colony established itself was denominated Ergadia, or Argathel, a word apparently derived from lar Gael, the western Colts. The Irish call the inhabitants simply the Gael of the hills, or high country, which they designate as Ard na n' Gaodhal, the heights of the Gaedhelians, and have never applied to these people their own appellation Eirinach. which * Gir. Cambrensi:?. t Political Anatomy of Ireland. nn j OF DALR1ADA OR ARGYLE. 53 Dr M'Pherson has well remarked no Highlander has ever yet called himself. The Scots are represented by Eumenius and Sidonius Appollitiaris as ne of the nations with whom Csesar contended. Alfred, in his version of Orosius, says, Severus often fought with Picts and Scots; and Fabius Ethelwerd says, that Claudius was opposed by these nations, a sufficient proof of their antiquity in this country. The Irish were called both Scoti and Gaidheli; but the Scots of Ireland are distinguished from those of Britain, who were otherwise denominated Hiberni, a term that was also common to the people of Ulster. Andrew, Bishop of Caithness, from whom Cambrensis had his information, told him that the people of Argyle were called Hybernenses, and their country Arregathel " quasi margo Scottorum seu Hybernensium."* Bede calls this part of the country "the province of the Northern Scots," from which it may ap- pear that these people wero to be found elsewhere. Orosius calls the inhabitants of Anglesea, Scots, which Buchannan notices. All the Irish were not Scoti, but the Dalriads are so called by Bede, Adamnan, and others; and Giraldus Cambrensis informs us it was applied as a special name. From other authorities, we find that these people were also known as Albanach. The first arrival of the Scots in Argyle is said to have taken place in 258; | but it is more generally believed to have happened later. We find that, about 210, a settlement was formed by the Picts in the North of Ireland, which Bede considers as their original seat; and in this part of the island there was a little kingdom called Dalriada, which comprised the present county of Antrim and some neighboring districts, and is al- lowed to have been subject to the British Scots until it was at last an- nexed to the kingdom of Ulster. It is acknowledged that Caledonii, Picti, Albani, and Scoti were synonymous appellations, or nearly so. It is not, therefore, very evident that " in the time of Bede only the Dalriads were properly Scots;" it is still less apparent that they were Irish. The Picts of Ireland, and it should seem of Scotland also, were termed Crutheni, or Cruithnich, a word implying corn, or wheat eaters, in allusion to their practice of ag- riculture. The former were established in a little principality, between which and the kingdom in Scotland there was kept up a friendly inter- course. O'Conner says that the connexions between the Crutheni of Scotland and Cairbre Riada being renewed, he obtained a settlement among them. Bede says the Dalriads took possession partly through force, partly through favor. The Albanic Duan intimates that it was by " a high hand," that they established themselves, but other authori- ties inform us that thev were invited over. From the name of the leader of the first colony, the territories where it settled are said to have acquired the name Dal-Riada, the tribe of * Descriptio Albaniae i Pinkerlon's Enquiry. 54 TFIE SCOTS. Riada, an etymology that does not very well agree with the idionvof the Gaelic language, and that otherwise is objectionable. We find it in the ancient annals written Dalaroidh, &,c. Loarn, the name of one of the kinglets into which Argyle was divided by Fergus Mac Eire, is said to have been derived from that of his broth- er; but it appears under the form of Lora or Lori, which otherwise oc- curs as an ancient local name. It is evident from both Scots and Irish records, that those who were known as Dalriads, and had been long settled in Argyle, were driven to Ireland on some occasion, about 440 or 446; and this circumstance, coinciding with the supposed entire expulsion of the Scots, has increased the confusion in this part of our history, and strengthened the belief in the Irish extract of the Scots nation. That the Scots were utterty expelled from North Britain, as repre- sented, is certainly untrue. The Roman Historians, and the national Chronicles, instead of showing that the Picts and Scots were at vari- ance, or that the one nation had been expatriated, prove that they con- tinued faithful allies, acting in confederation against the Romans and provinciated Britons, during the period of this pretended banishment. And here again appears a proof that the Dalriads were not the only Scots in Britain. Those, however, who sent them out of the country were obliged to bring them back at some period; and, if the national annals are allowed to be authentic, the return and accession of Fergus to the throne took place in the year 403; but those who have critically investi- gated Scots' history reject this epoch, and contend that this prince and his brother Loarn returned from Ireland an hundred years later, and reigned jointly, until the death of the latter left Fergus sole king of the province. The Scots appear neither as exiles nor a subjugated people, during the period when they are said to have been in banishment. When Vor- tigern invited the Saxons to assist him with their forces, it was chiefly to protect him from the Scots, * but the Dalriadae were certainly at first an insignificant community, although they afterwards became of moie note, and, by their connexion with the Pictish royal family, they finally perpetuated the race of their own princes in the line of Scots' Kings. The Highlanders call Achaius, or Achadh, who reigned more than fifty years before the subversion of the Pictish kingdom, the king of Albany. f Numerous etymologies have been given of the name Scot, which is thus seen to have been borne by the inhabitants of both countries Its similarity to that of the Scythge is striking, and has determined many to derive the Scots direct from Scythia. It is rather probable that those people, so remote from each other, bore a name which was expressive in the primitive language of Europe, but was somewhat varied in the primitive dialects. Florus writes to Hadrian, who was in Caledonia, *Nenuius. t Stewart's Sketches of the Highlanders. be ! Wi THE ATT1COTS. 55 that he would not wish to suiTer Scythic frosts; and Nennius uses both Scythae and Scotti indifferently :* Porphyry also, in some old editions, has Scithica gentes. The name of the numerous people on the continent who were known Skythoe, has heen, with the appearance of certainty, deduced from the Nomadic state in which they lived, and the similarity of this appellation to the Scuite of the Seanachies is apparent. In the extensive regions which the former people inhabited, pasturage was the sole occupation. There were no towns; but the people moved about continually with their cattle, having no settled residence. He- lodotus says, " they do not cultivate the ground, but lead a pastoral life;" nay, some of them, he declares, were destitute even of tents, dwelling in summer "each man under his own tree."* He afterwards observes, that the Callipidae, one of their nations, did raise corn, but it was not to eat, but sell. Strabo considers Scythoe and Nomades synonymous terms."f In the time of Ammianus Marcellinus, they remained in the same va- grant state of existence, when the Scots of these islands had become well known. " Some few of the Scyths," says this author, " feed on corn and fruits, but all in general wander over the wilds. Their wives, their children, their furniture and houses, if they can be so termed, are on wagons, covered with bark, and they remove them at their pleasure, whithersoever they think fit." The Scots, in like manner, are character- ized bv the same Ammianus, as wandering up and down, without any fixed place of abode; and the description is agreeable to the account that Nicacus gives of them. Hence the propriety of the name Scuite, "the wandering nation," by which the Seanachies distinguish those Gaedhelians who had no fixed residence, for they made use of both ap- pellations. J The original word in Ossian is Scuta, which literally signi- fies, " restless wanderer. " That these people were not a particular tribe or nation, is evinced from the expression " Scoticoe gentes;" and they ranged about at times with the ATTICOTS, || or Attascots, as some read, who appear from the annals of Ireland to have been also in that country, and who are suppos- ed to have been the Dalriads. The name of Scot was apparently given to that part of the population * Lib. ii. t " Gentes uno prius nomine omnes vel Scylhae vel Nomades (ut ab Homero) ap- pellabantur." i. 48. Falconer's ed. Chrerilus, celebrating Alexander's expedition, characterizes the Sacae as "fond of pastoral life." Bryant's Analysis of Ancient My- thology, iii. 547. t Ogygia. Carthon. || Porphyry, whose observation gives no reason to believe they were considered a re- cent nation in the third century. "The Attacots," says Marcellinus, "a warlike bana, and the Scots, wandering up and down, committed great depredations." xxvii. c. 7. The name seems derived from Attich, inhabitants, c ^ed, of the woods. Tliose who live in the woods are at this day called, by the Highlai aers, dwellers of the woods. - Dr. M Pherson. 56 M^EATS of both Scotland and Ireland, which remained pastoral and unsettled, and was not a term of reproach, as some conceive, but an honorable ap- pellation. It was only those who possessed numerous flocks, and were able to traverse the country without restraint, who deserved it. Their riches gave them influence, and Scoti and reguli were synonymous.* The Scots of both countries are distinguished by Nennius, for they were certainly peculiar to neither. Ulster was the proper country of the Irish- Scots; between whom, and those of the West of Scotland, there long continued so intimate a connexion, that the people may be said to have anciently been the same; but the terms Scoti and Hiberni appear rather confounded than synonymous. The transfer of name from a supposed island to a real one, and the misapplication of passages relating to these different countries, have been productive of much confusion and obscurity. A great part of the population of Scotland and Ireland continued for many ages to move about for the pasturage of their flocks. In the latter country, the practice was remarkable even until recent times. Spenser informs us, it was a general occupation for the inhabitants to traverse the country, " driving their cattle continually with them, and feeding only on their milk and white meates."| In allusion to this custom, Gil- das observes, that Britain abounded with hills that were very convenient for the alternate pasture of flocks and herds. The Scots have been, and, from the nature of their country, a great proportion of the inhabit- ants must continue a pastoral people; but their wanderings have long ceased to extend farther than from the homesteading in the glen, to the shealings in the mountains, during the months of summer. The MEAT.E were those who lived within the Walls, and their name was expressive of their local situation, being derived from Moi, plain, and Aitich, inhabitants, J although within the Roman pale they were scarcely subdued; and it was only about 368, that this part of the island was formed into the province of Valentia. The Meatre were of the same Celtic race as the other nations; and the Walenses, or people of Gallo- way, are their remains. They are supposed, by General Roy, to have become known as PICTS, a name which appears to have been of wide application, and first occurs in an oration of the panegyrist Eurnenius, to Constantius, on his victory over Alectus, in 298, and they are not spoken of as a recent people, but as having, like the Scots, been in the island before the arrival of Caesar. It was, indeed, an established tradition in Bede's time, that the Picts were the original inhabitants of Scotland; and, agreeably to this opinion, it is said that Pictland was afterwards corruptly called Scotia. The same Eumenius terms all the extra provincials Picts, and plainly shows that they were the same people as the Caledonians. When the * P^de. See also Innes's Grit. Essay. t View of Ireland, 1596. tMae Pherson, in Ossian. Whittaker says from maean, middle, or moi, plain. In- nes translates it Midland Britons. The ancient province of Meath, in Ireland, seeuia to have received its name from the same cause. CALEDONIANS AND PICTS. 57 Ernperor Constantius came into Britain, he proceeded to repel the " Cal- edonii ot alii Picti." Giraldus Cambrensis says that some assigned a period of 1070 years foi the dura. ion of the Pictish kingdom, which, reckoning from its sub- version in 841, will carry it to the year 229 before the Christian era. Herodian calls the Caledonians Picti;* and Ammianus says they were divided into two nations, the Deu Caledonii and Vecturiones, names which appear appropriate to their different situations. An dua or tua, north, Chaeldoch or Ghaeldoch, Caledonian, an appellation some west Highlanders, as Dr. Mac Pherson avers, continued to give to the people of Ross and Sutherland. A part of Drumalban is still called Drurn-Uachter, and Uachturich, which has the same signification as Highlanders, is supposed, with the appearance of probability, to be the origin of Vecturiones, which has otherwise been written Venricones,t and, perhaps, Venicontes.J In the time of Geoffrey of Monmouth it appears the Scots were call- ed Picts generally. A passage in an ancient poem by Ossian, or some other bard, shows that the Caledonians did not reject the term. " Alas! that it was not in the land of Picts, of the bloody and fierce Fingaliaiu that thou didst fall." It is believed that this name was applied to all the inhabitants of the North. ^ The similarity of interments in the Highlands and Lowlands, affords a proof of the identity of the ancient inhabitants, who were un- doubtedly Celts. Indeed, Innes is of opinion that the Caledonians were but a part of the Pictish nation, || which was subdued by Kenneth Mac Alpin, and is supposed to have been then utterly exterminated. On the contrary, however, this prince was styled, as his successors long continued to be, King of the Picts. IT He was, in fact, one of their own monarchs, and had a legitimate claim to the throne, being the son of Urguist, daughter of Hungus, King of the Picts, who was married to Achaius, King of the Scots.** Nennius declares that the Picts remained in his days; and the Bard of Malcolm the Third gives no intimation of their pretended extirpation. Their chief seat, about the year 875, was Galloway, a district which re- mained to a late period in a state of comparative independence, govern- ed by its native princes, and regulated by its peculiar customs. j"j" The last mention of the inhabitants of this province by the ancient name, is in 1138, when they fought at the battle of the Standard. Rich- * D'Anville says they are not to be distinguished from each other. t Mac Pherson's Critical Dissertations. Another very plausible etymology of Deu Caledonii is from dubh, black. It is said the Irish called the west Highlanders " Duffe Alibawn." Maule's Hist, of the Picts. Buchannan thinks Deu Caledonii ought to be Dun Caledones. See also Grant's Thoughts on the Gael. t Ptolemy, lib. xxvii. c. 7. Whittaker. || Critical Essay. U Tighearnach. Caradoc of Llancarvon, &c. ** See P'nkerton's Enquiry. it The princes are styled Reguli bv Fordun. sub. an. 1159, &c In 1308, " Gal wide was not parcel of the crown." MS. in Brit. Mus. 8 53 DIFFERENCE IN MANNERS AND LANGUAGE. ard of Hexham says the Picts of David's army were vulgarly called GALLEWEIENSES. Gallovid, says Buchannan, in old Scots, is a Gaul; and what the Scots call Gallowithia, the Welsh pronounce Wallowithia So Talliesen calls the Principality, Wallia, and the Saxons called the inhabitants Bryt vvealas, which they latinized Gauli.* The inhabitants were also called what, in fact, they were, Scoti,t and this division of Scotland was anciently of much greater extent than it is now. It com- prehended all the tract of land from the Solway Frith to the Clyde. From charters of David I., the town of Irwine, with Kyle, Cunningham, Renfrew, &.c. constituted part of this extensive district; and hence Gal- loway was able to offer so much as two thousand marks, with five hund- red cows, and as many hogs yearly, for the King of England's protec- tion, when, in 1174, they attempted to assert their independence on the Scots' crown. J Nor were the Picts confined to Galloway, but about the beginning of the twelfth century inhabited Lothian. } The conjectures of etymologists are often as unsatisfactory as they are numerous. Investigations of this kind are both useful and instruct- ive when judiciously pursued, but they are often absurd or frivolous. The impropriety of deriving this word from the Latin Picti, painted, has been often noticed. .These people could not be solely entitled to the ap- pellation, when the other tribes equally practised the custom of staining their bodies. It is easy to perceive that the nature of the country inhabited by the Picts, must have in time produced a difference between them and the Caledonians, although both of the same race. There were natural boundaries by which the two nations were separated, and which must for some months in the year have precluded all intercourse. It is not, therefore, singular, that people originally the same, should become dis- tinguished from each other, and acquire peculiar names. The nature of their territories must have produced a change in national manners, and rendered their avocations different. A native of the flat country of Moray or Buchan was not likely to be expert in those pursuits that were the favorite recreations of the people of the high countries of Mar or Badenoch; nor could a Highlander easily accommodate himself to'a residence on the plain. It is the opinion of General Roy, that the Picts and Caledonians were the same people, who acquired different names from their local situation. j| The LANGUAGE, from the same causes, must undergo a change, which in process of time will become very perceptible. It has already been shown that the languages of Gaul were but different dialects of the same speech; it appears equally certain that those of Britain were at one time the same. When we find the Gaelic, as used. in Scotland and Ireland, * Whittaker, Dr. Mac Pherson, &.c. Walsh, in German, is the name for a Gaul t Isodorus, Origines, ix. 2. J Guthrie, &c. Alexander Nechnmus, quoted by Goodall, in pref. ut sup H Military \ntiquities, p. 129. GAELIC THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE. 59 the Welsh, the Cornish, which is but lately lost, and the Manx, all variations of the Celtic, spoken in the British islands, we can readily admit the observation of Bede, that the language of the Picts differed from that of the Britons of Wales, and the Scots of Ireland, without giving up our belief in their national identity. Camden shows that the British and Pictish tongues were alike,* and the different languages of Bede could only have been dialects, a conclusion to which Buchannan came, for this reason chiefly, that none of these nations appeared to have required an interpreter. It is asserted that the original Celts were expelled from the low coun- try of Scotland upwards of 2000 years ago, by a people who spoke a dif- ferent language, and who are said to have been of Cumraeg extract ;| if so, there ought to be some remains of their speech ; but the local names in the east and south of Scotland are not Welsh-, but Scotish Gaelic, and are "far too numerous to be the relics of a language, which has been expelled from those parts of the country for 2000 years.", It has been attempted to prove that the Picts were Goths from Scan- dinavia, by whom the Saxon language was introduced, and fixed along the south and east coasts, and to support this system the public have been favored with etymologies " altogether imaginary and ill founded. "J Those who maintain the opinion and cite the languages of Bede, ought not to forget that he expressly says the Pictish was different from the Saxon; but the whole argument founded on the Saxon language of the low country, I apprehend, is overthrown by the fact, that in Galloway, the last sovereignty of the Picts, the native tongue which continued to be spoken in the time of Queen Mary, was Gaelic, for which Buchannan, being conversant with that language, is an unexceptionable authority. Pinkerton himself acknowledges that it was spoken until lately in Carrick. The dreary forests, the sterile and forbidding wastes of Scandinavia, so far from having been the officina gentium,, whence nations were sent forth to overspread and people Europe, and from which fecund store- house is said to have issued, that Gothic colony from which the Picts were descended, must have remained desert and unoccupied by mankind until comparatively recent times. Adarn of Bremen, who wrote in the eleventh century, says, that even in his time, the shores only of Denmark were inhabited, the interior being an impenetrable forest ;|j and Gibbon asserts that Scandinavia, twenty centuries ago, must in all the low parts have been covered by the sea: the high lands only rising above the water, like islands. TC That Scotland, in the time of the Romans, and long after, was inhab- ited by Caledonians and Picts, as it has been since by Highlanders and Lowlanders, is perfectly clear; that both were of Celtic origin seems ab- solutely certain. Differences existed between the inhabitants of certain * Dr. Mac Pherson. t Pinkerton. t Dr. Murray's remarks on the history and language of the Pehts in Trans, of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. ii. part 1. Lib. i. 11. || Diss. on the Scyths, p. 23. II c. be. 60 INTRODUCTION OF THE GOTHIC LANGUAGE. districts, either arising from local position and peculiar circumstances, or produced by the intermixture of colonies subsequently arriving. The parts possessed by the Picts were better adapted for agriculture and commerce than the rugged wilds of Caledonia; and it is from their set- tled lives and attention to manufactures, that the Highland traditions represent them as an ingenious, rather than a warlike people. An early change, therefore, took place among the inhabitants of the low country, for those pursuits invariably lead to mutations in language and manners; and the observation of a learned gentleman respecting the Gaelic is per- fectly just, "Rocks, seas, and deserts, ignorance, sterility, and want of commerce, are its best preservatives."* It has been shown that the language of the eastern Celts on the con- tinent, became first corrupted by the Gothic, which was itself derived from the primitive Celtic.f " The most ancient remains of the German or Teutonic approach very near to the Mcesa Gothic, "J and the Anglo Saxon was immediately derived from the old Saxon of Germany. The Gothic was long established among the Northern nations, and in England, before it was introduced into Scotland or Ireland;. and in those early ages, it was so pure that the people of remote countries found no difficulty in understanding each other. In the time of Ethelred, 979, an Englishman could converse with a Scandinavian, and could not, from his tongue, know him to be a foreigner.|| The inhabitants of the south and east of Scotland, advancing into a state of civilisation, in consequence of an intercourse with England and other parts, were prepared, and, as it were, forced, gradually, to admit the Saxon language; but the vernacular tongue of the Picts continued to predominate. In the reign of Malcolm-Cean-more, towards the end of the eleventh century, none of the clergy could understand the Saxon without an interpreter. Improvements in commerce and agriculture induced the settlement of strangers; the progress of refinement occasioned the introduction of many new terms, and paved the way for fixing, in the lowlands, the Saxon language, to which several circumstances greatly conduced. In 547, Ida, king of Northumberland, with an army of Anglo Saxons, took possession of the lower part of Roxburgh, and seized Lothian, a term which there is reason to believe was then applied to the south as well as north side of the Tweed. This invasion is, however, not likely to have made that alteration in the language!! which is supposed, even although the invaders had settled in the conquered provinces, for they must, as it is admitted the colonies from Germany and Scandinavia did, have eventually merged in the Celtic tribes. Oswy, King of the Nor- danhyrnbri, or people of Northumberland, about 650, reduced the * " Nt xt to valuable books and permanent records." Dr. M'Pherson. t See p. 25 | Jamieson's observations on Dr. Murray's remarks, ut sup. De Murr's Conspectus Biblioth. Glot. Univers. ap. Jamieson, ut sup. 11 Gunlaug saga. Heimskringla, ap. Jamieson. H Border Antiquities. ITS LATE RECEPTION IN SOME PARTS. 61 Scots and Picts, who -lived between the Tweed and Forth, and exacted tribute from them until 685, when the Picts recovered their possessions During this period, the Saxon language, it is believed, first began to be used in the south; but on the Norman invasion, the Royal family of .England, the principal nobility, with their attendants and others, who would not submit to the conquerors, took refuge in Scotland; and Malcolm murried the princess Margaret, sister to Edgar Atheling, and harrassed the borders with fire and sword. So many refugees on this occasion accepted the protection of the Scotish King, that Simeon of Durham tells us the kingdom was " stocked with English men and maid servants, so that, to this day, there is not a farm house, or even a cottage, where they are not to be found."* On the death of the Con- queror, and defeat of the rebellion against his successors, many Normans also retired to Scotland, and Malcolm, with much policy, settled them chiefly on the borders of his kingdom, and in the towns on the east coast that were exposed to the frequent invasions of the Danes. " The towns and boroughs of Scotland," says William of Newburgh, " are known to be inhabited by the English;" but when an opportunity offered, he adds, "the Scots, from an innate hatred towards them, which they dissembled from a fear of offending the king, destroyed all whom they found." The Celts were averse to live in towns and submit to sedentary occupa- tions, or apply themselves to commercial pursuits; hence the Saxons, Normans, Flemings, and others, were generally the inhabitants of the Boroughs, and advantageously pursued those trades which the natives had little inclination to acquire. f Through their means, chiefly, the Saxon was propagated, for it had become the language most generally understood in Europe. It was, as it were, the court language during the reign of Malcolm, and the influence, which this must have had even in those days, is easily conceived. Besides, all our kings, from Mal- colm-Cean-more to Alexander II., lived some time in England, learned the language and married English princesses. To those who maintain that the Gothic was the language of the Picts, or who assert that the limits of the two languages have always continued the same, or nearly so, it is to be mentioned that, so late as the reign of Q:ieen Mary, the Gaelic was spoken in the Gariach, Aberdeenshire, where it is now entirely unknown, and was even taught in the schools of Aberdeen. In Ireland, the nobility and gentry continued to use this language until the time of Elizabeth, or James the First. J The Saxon has continued to gain ground in both countries, and must inevitably, at no very distant period, wholly supplant the Gaelic. It is not the Saxon language alone that has excited the investigation of antiquaries; the Dalriads are said to have brought over their native tongue, which, according to some writers, they disseminated all over * Lib. ii. c. 34. t See all ancient Charters, and other documents. t Highland Society's ed. of Ossian. About 1019, the use of the Irish language, in deeds, was discontinued. Trans, of Ir. Acad. 62 THE SCOTS AN UNMIXED RACE. Scotland, a proof not only that the Scots' Monarchy was derived from Ireland, but that the people spoke a different language. Chalmers, who allows the Gaelic of North Britain to be the purest, believes he has proved the introduction of the Irish dialect, by citing a charter which refers to " Inverin qui fuit Aberin." This is any thing but satisfactory; he means to show that the Irish Inbhear supplanted the Scotish Abar or Aber. Inver, here used with in, an island or country, signifies the land which lies between the confluence of two rivers, and Aber, which seems to be the original word, is generally applied in the same sense. Aber, however, properly denotes marsh and boggy ground, but as this place lay on the east coast, it had been probably drained by the industrious Picts, and could no longer, with propriety, be called Aber-in. Abar is a compound word, from Ab, an obsolete Gaelic term for water, which, as may be seen in many names still existing, became softened into Av. Bar, is a heap, a height, or point. Now the Caledonians generally chose marshes as the sites of their entrenchments, and many Highlanders I have found yet understand by abar, a work, as of an earthen mound, a trench, &c. If, however, the language of the Eirinich differed from that of the Scotish Gael, which it is said to have supplanted, no tradition or valid proof remains to attest it; and if the Dalriads brought over their lan- guage, they did so effectually, for they have left no Invers behind them. At the Roman abdication of Britain, in 446, there was only one race of men in Scotland, the sixteen tribes north of Antonine's wall, and the five between the praetentures, who were in some degree civilized by the Romans.* The Caledonians and Picts were, therefore, from all that is related by the ancients, from the investigations of modern writers, and from the undeniable identity of language, two divisions of one and the same Cel- tic people; and I see no objection to our believing, with Innes, that the Picts were " the first known people of the North," although it is not so apparent that they were, as he says, "the second in order of time." * Caledonia. CHAPTER III. APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY EXTENT AND PRODUCTIONS OF THE ABORIGINAL FORESTS. THE Western side of Britain is mountainous, the east and south parts are champaign. These different characters are striking, and have long marked the territories of the ancient inhabitants and those who are min- gled with later colonists. The same, in some degree, is the case with Ireland. It will not be here attempted to account for the alluvial discoveries made throughout these islands, or hazard an explanation of various re- markable appearances. Whether the flood of Noah, or any other deluge or convulsion, has produced the difference between the former and pres- ent face of the earth, is not easy to be ascertained, but a singular change has certainly taken place.* Traditions, indeed, do exist, that the Scil- lies, and many other islands, were formerly connected with the mainland; but the fact appears as unsusceptible of positive proof, as the shock that is presumed to have rent Britain from the continent. Throughout the Western Isles, the Orkneys, and even in Shetland, the discovery of large trees that are dug from the mosses or bogs, has led to an opinion, that the woods must have existed at a time when these islands were dissevered from Britain, either by the workings of the ocean, or a sudden disruption; and without some such hypothesis, "it is not easy to comprehend, how trees could grow on these spots, of which the extent is so small, and under circumstances in which heath will scarcely now attain its full growth. "t Remains of woods have often been per- See Brogniart's Works, &c. t M'Culloch's Description of the Western Islands, ii. p. 268. 64 FORMER APPEARANCE OF BRITAIN. ceived at a distance from me snores. Tins ....u-rwfiments of the ocean were very remarkably proved, by the discovery of a thick forest in the bay of Pulvash, in Man, where the trees were exposed after a violent storrn. Those dug up on land, show that the woods of that island have been at a subsequent period overthrown by a north-east wind. At Ni- wegal, near St. David's, in Wales, Gir. Carnbrensis says, a furious tem- pest which blew away the sands on the beach, opened to view a forest, and on the trunks of many of the trees the mark of the axe was visible. If the Triads can be received as authority, they attest the formation of Anglesea, and many other islands on the western coast, by the bursting of the lake Llion, and allude to a period when the Orkneys were but few in number. At the period of the Roman invasion, from which we must date all certain information respecting Britain, the face of the country was very different from what it has since appeared. The small tracts which had been cleared of wood, in the vicinity of the towns or strongholds, and the very limited patches of ground appropriated to raise a portion of corn, were insufficient to materially affect the general appearance of nature throughout the island. We do not possess so satisfactory data respecting the country, or in- habitants of Scotland, as illustrate the ancient state of South Britain; for the partial knowledge which the Romans and others obtained, re- specting the regions of Caledonia, did not enable them to transmit much information concerning this distant boundary of the empire. A better climate, a less rugged country, and some commercial advan- tages, produced a certain territorial improvement, and consequent me- lioration in the state of the Southern tribes. A greater attention to agriculture, in a latitude more favorable to the operations of husbandry, constituted the chief difference between the maritime nations of South Britain, and the aborigines of the interior, who retained their primitive rudeness, and occupied districts where the face of nature was less changed by the labors of human industry. Where the dense forests spread in natural wildness, and undisturbed luxuriance; where lakes and morasses are undrained, the land unculti- vated, and surrounded by vast seas; a clouded sky and a moist climate are the natural effects, and are very unpleasantly felt by those who have lived under the azure sky, and genial climate of Italy. The frequent and heavy showers that fall on the Western coasts are most remarkable, and occasioned a facetious gentleman who had resided several weeks in the country, during which he never experienced a dry day, to ask a person whom he met some years afterwards on the continent, " whether it had yet ceased to rain in Scotland?" These sudden showers bring down the mountain floods with a velocity that often occasions the loss of flocks, and sometimes of human life. The Roman historians in general speak of Britain as extremely un- OF SCOTLAND. 65 pleasant, "damp with continual showers, ard overcast with clouds,"* but Caesar describes the climate as milder than that of Gaul. Scotland is represented as of a most forbidding aspect, deluged with incessant rains, and clouded with exhalations from unwholesome fens; surrounded by seas that raged with tremendous fury, and forcing their billows to the centre of the country, foamed among the inland mountains."]" The numerous lochs, or arms of the sea, with which the Northern part of the island is indented, give some propriety to this description; but we must regard these accounts as given by a people, who had an imperfect knowledge of a country, in which they never made any permanent settlement, and who exaggerated the details to magnify their military exploits; yet the scenery of Caledonia was too romantic and singular to escape observation. Its grandeur struck the ancients with won- der, and has always been the admiration of the lovers of the romantic picturesque. The Grampians, that appear an impenetrable barrier, have long been considered the line of separation between the well known divisions of Highlands and Lowlands; but there are other remarkable features that have excited particular notice. The Muir of Rannach, a district in Perthshire, extending from the hills of Glen Lyon to Ben Nevis, is a flat desert plain, about twenty miles square, surrounded by the highest mountains in Scotland. So well secured by nature is this district, that it was wholly inaccessible to the civil power, until after the events of 1745. Part of Assynt, and Edderachyllis in Sutherland, forming a tract of about twenty-four miles by eight or ten, is no less remarkable. Although in a very mountainous country, it is comparatively plain, but rugged and broken in a most extraordinary manner, and may be described, as if hundreds of great mountains had been split and scattered about by some violent convulsion of nature. J In certain parts of the Highlands the mountains have the singular appearance of being composed of loose blocks of stone, resembling an immense cairn. Some of the woods also are not unworthy of observation, where the fir is seen growing on the side of precipices, where no soil can apparently exist. In the fissures of the rock, this hardy tree fixes its roots, where it seems impossible either to take hold, or derive the requisite nourishment; yet the remains of ancient forests are seen in these situations, and owe their preservation to the inaccessible heights on which they are placed. The mountain of Ben Lair, in Ross, affords a remarkable example, and the rugged hills of Mar, in Aberdeenshire, display many similar appearances. Britain is described by the ancients, as " horrida sylvis." The name of Caledonia, if a plausible etymology before stated is deemed con- clusive, proves the former wooded state of the country, which is more -strongly attested by the remains dug from numerous mosses, and various * Vita Agricolse, c. xiii. t Ibid. $ Roy's Mil. Ant. p. 59. Page 46 9 66 ANCIENT FORESTS OF SCOTLAND, local names derived from woods that have now disappeared. Scotland has so long been denuded of its ancient forests, that their existence has been doubted, when a thousand proofs from vestigia met with in almost every district evince the fallacy of such a supposition. It is true the Sylva Caledonia has disappeared, except the remains that are seen in Rannach, in Mar, in Abernethy, and Laggan, in which last place it still retains the appropriate name of Coilmore, or the great wood, and in part of Ross; but although some of these tracts are still more than thirty miles in length, they are but a small proportion of a wood, which once covered the whole central highlands. Many forests that no longer remain, or are reduced to a stunted copse wood, are mentioned in ancient records. From these we ascertain the existence of woods that formerly . covered heaths, which beyond all memory of man have presented the most bleak and barren aspect.* The forests that were around Stirling, Forfar, Inverness, Elgin, Banff, Ab- erdeen, and Kintore, that overspread Buchan, Crimond, Cabrach, &c. &c., are often noticed in ancient deeds. The great wood of Drumselch was in the vicinity of Edinburgh, and Etterick forest has long given name to a SherifTdom. Nor was South Britain much less encumbered with woods; from Kent to Somerset, was one continued forest, and a dense wood extended over the present counties of Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, Rutland, and part of Northampton.! Ireland was overrun with woods; and the first employment of the colonists is said to have been clearing the land, and making room for themselves; and those who were distinguished by their activity in so laudable a work are cele- brated in the national histories.^ In that country three distinct growths of timber, under three distinct strata of moss, are discovered.^ In the time of Carnbrensis, it appears to have been still full of thick woods, some of which, at a later period, exceeded twenty miles in length. |j The British woods appear to have contained nearly all the varieties of trees to be found in Gaul. Tacitus says that the island did not pro- duce the vine and the olive, 11 but Cresar excepts the fir and beech also, ** and his authority, that these were not to be found in Britain, would almost repress scepticism. The beech is believed to have been unknown before the Romans had established themselves; but from its British or Celtic names, Faighe or Faghe, the latin Fagus, is apparently derived. That the fir must have grown plentifully in the aboriginal woods, there is abundant proof: fir cones are dug up from great depths, as well as the * See the Chartularies. Rymer's Foedera. Chalmer's Caledonia, &c. t See Whittaker's Hist, of Manchester, and authorities. J Leabhar Gabhala. Keating'a MSS. Ogygia, &c. &c. Report of the Commissioners on the Bogs of Ireland. || Derrick's Image of Ireland, 1581. H Vit. Agric. c. xii. ** " Praeter Fagum atque Abietem," not Ficum, as some read. VRODUCED THE YEW, THE OAK, 67 ''-rr-ks of the trees on which they grew; and the bogs m wnich dre found, being- in some cases traversed by Roman roads, were certainly formed before the arrival of that people. The remains of this hardy tree are found in great quantity on each side of these roads; to make which, they were cut down, and have even been employed in their construction.* But Caesar has been vindicated by a very intelligent writer, in the Transactions of the Highland Society of Scotland, who maintains that it was the pitch tree, the pinus abies of Linnceus, which Caesar speaks of, and by no means the Scots fir, which is really a pine.f The Celtic names of this tree bear no analogy to the Latin word, from which they could not therefore be derived, affording a proof that the fir was indigenous. In the Gaelic, the fir and the pine are called Gius, or Giumhus, and in the Irish idiom the terra Finniduydh is also used. The fir was the natural production of this country, and formerly grew spon- taneously in Scotland, and the Northern parts of England. The ancient forests of JSorth Britain appear to have consisted chiefly of this tree, and it has been but recently lost in some parts. It is now generally repre- sented by the Highland or planted fir, in the opinion of the late Mr, Farquharson, a good authority on this subject, his estate of Invercauld comprising many thousand acres covered with this tree, the remains of the Caledonian forest. It is a ^curious fact, that the native fir is much deteriorated by transplantation, and that, to preserve its quality, nature should be followed, and the seed sown where the tree is to grow. Some of this natural wood formed the roof of Kilchurn castle, in Argyleshire; and when taken down, after it had stood above three hundred years, it was found as fresh and full of sap, as newly imported/Memel.J The great woods of Glenrnore and Abernethy, the property of the Duke of Gordon and the Laird of Grant, are reckoned the oldest and best in quality of any in Scotland. The yew, in Gaelic, lubhar, or luthar, grew in the woods of Britain, where the names of many places are presumptive proof that it is indi- genous. The oak, called Darach by the Highlanders, has been held in almost universal estimation, and besides its importance in religion, it must have been valued as affording a coarse food to the primitive barbarians. The respect with which the Druids regarded it, is well known; even the Ro- mans retained that veneration, which they derived from their remote an- cestors. Pliny attests that mast trees were always held in the highest repute by that people. It is said that the oak was confined to the south of Perthshire, the fir being the tree which prevailed northwards of that division; but oaks must have formerly grown plentifully all over Scotland, and even in the Hebrides, * Whittaker, ut sup. t Dr. Walker on Peat, Trans, ii. p. 7. The picea, or pitch tree, the Gauls termed nades. Pliny, xvi. 40. t Smith's View of the Agriculture of Argyle, p. 156. Lib. xvi. c. 3 . 68 THE ELM, THE BIRCH, THE POPLAR, there being scarcely a district where the remains of the trees are not to be found. The extensive moss of Flanders, in Stirlingshire, was once the site of a considerable forest of this wood, over which the soil has ac- cumulated to a depth of twenty feet. A rivulet that bounds this tract on the north east, has exposed on its banks, trees of very large dimen- sions.* Its usefulness for strength and durability preserved the esti- mation which this tree acquired from its sacred character. The Tri- ads inform us, the birch, the oak, and the buckthorn, were not to be cut down without permission of the lord of the country. The oak most fre- quently appears in Scotish grants, for the erection or repair of buildings, the wooden work of all public and private edifices of consequence, being composed of it. In the reign of Edward the First are many donations of oak trees, which, in his assumed character of lord paramount of Scotland, he bestowed to repair the damage occasioned by his cruel wars. Long- morgan, now a barren heath near Elgin, was then covered with "the monarch of the wood," and at the head of Loch Etive are still to be seen some of these trees, whose trunks measure from twenty to twenty-five feet in circumference, although growing in a thin, arid, rocky soil. The elm is said, by the historian of Manchester, to have been introduced by the Romans, but it rather appears to have been indigenous; and from its Celtic name Leamhan, the Latin Ulmus is probably derived. In the form of Ailm, so closely resembling its English name, it is the first let- ter of the Gaelic alphabet. The broad-leaved sort is a native of Scot- land; but from a belief that the bark is a useful application for burns, it is now seldom seen of a large size."]" The birch, Beithe, in Gaelic, is reckoned a native, and its name is given to the letter B. The Romans are said to have introduced the poplar, the plane, the box, &c. Malcolm Laing, in his attempt to refute the poems of Ossian, asserts that the first was not anciently known in Scotland. It is certainly found all over the Highlands, and grows in places inaccessible to human footsteps, and from its name, Crithean, de- rived from Crith, a shaking or trembling, so unlike the latin Populus, it may be reasonably considered as a native production. The same may be said of the ash, Uinseann having no resemblance to Fraxinus, and so of others, as the holly, Cuileann, 8tc. In the lower parts of Caithness, a county that does not seem ever to have contained much wood, the vegetable remains usually dug up, are willow, hazel, and alder, or aller. The first was, most likely, a natural product The Celtic willow was small and tender, J and both Gauls and Britons were celebrated for the manufacture of wicker or basket work. Its name in the Highlands, Seileach, is not very different from the Latin Salix, or the French Saule. The second was also, there is no doubt, a native of Britain; from its Gaelic name Caltuin, little resembling the Roman * Stat. Account of Doune, vol. xx. p. 19. t Smith's View of the Agric. of Argyle, &c. t Pliny, xvi. 37. APPLE, CHERRY, AND VINE TREES. G!> Corylus, Buchannan thought the term Caledonia arose. From the third. Fearn, the names of many places in Scotland are certainly derived. The juniper, found in almost all countries, could not have anciently been un- known in this. In the Celtic tongue it is called Aitin. Apple trees, if not indigenous in Britain, were very early imported by the colonies from Gaul, where they bore excellent fruit.* The Hsedui of Somerset are supposed to have been particularly attentive to their cul- ture; and Avalonia, the ancient name of Glastonbury, called Awlallach, or .the Orchard, m Welch, f is derived from the British Aval, an apple, which is likewise the origin of Avalana, the name of a place in the north of England, and Avalon in France. It would appear from a passage in Ossian, that this fruit was well known to the Caledonians, but it is not credible that Thule should abound in apple trees, as Solinus writes, in the third century, if by the appella- tion is to be understood the Orkney or Shetland Islands. This term is, however, applied by many to the north east part of Scotland, and the county of Moray has long been celebrated for its mild climate and fruit- ful soil. Buchannan says it surpassed all the other counties of Scotland in its excellent fruit trees, and although not now so famous on this ac- count, it still retains much of its ancient celebrity. It may be reasona- bly presumed, that those trees which the natural woods of Britain did not contain, were brought from the continent by the early colonists. L. Lucullus was the first who brought cherries from Pontus, about seventy- two years before Christ; and twenty -six years afterwards they were car- ried to Britain. J Geen trees abound in some parts of Banffshire, where they are said to be of natural growth. The vine was cultivated by the Gauls, who possessed several peculiar sorts, || at a very early period; but before the arrival of the Romans, it seems to have been unknown in Britain. Although there were numerous tineyards in England, even until lately, the early inhabitants do not ap- pear to have valued this fruit, and the Scots were precluded by their climate from rearing it. The eleventh letter, M, is called Muin, a word that is indeed translated, a vine, but is, properly, a bramble, or thorn. H The Northern latitude of Scotland does not allow the production of many fruits, to be found in more favored countries, yet the climate is not inimical to their cultivation. The remains of aged woods are found in various places much nearer the sea, and on more arid and exposed situations, than where they can now be reared, but the difficulty seems to arise, at present, from the want of shelter for the young plantations; the Highland valleys are represented as peculiarly congenial to the raising and perfection of fruit trees. Mr. Leitch, a gardener, who writes in 1793, from Richmond, in Surrey, declares that wood strawberries, black- * Ibid. xv. 20. Whittaker. t Roberts, Whittaker, &c. t PHny, xv. 25. Agricultural Report. J! Pliny, lib. xiv. 23 IT Armstrong's Gaelic Dictionary 70 DESTRUCTION OF THE ANCIENT FORESTS. berries,* &c. &c. ripen more early in these valleys, than in the mildest parts of the Low Country, and assures the nobility and gentry, that "there are vast numbers of tracts in the West Highlands, that would ripen apples and pears better than any in the Low Countries of the kingdom." " These Highland glens," he maintains, " are the very places adapted by nature to raise orchards in."f At Dunrobin, in Suth- erland, apricot, peach, and other fruit trees thrive well. Walnuts have ripened at Skibo; and at Morvich, in the same county, are many very old pear trees, that still bear good crops, of excellent quality. J We learn that David the First, about 1140, used to employ his leisure time in cultivating a garden, and in grafting and training trees. The monks, who always paid particular attention to the good things of this life, while preparing themselves for the enjoyment of the next, had usually a good garden stocked with fruit trees attached to their monasteries, and their peaceful life enabled them to cultivate their grounds with much success. So early as the ninth century, the clergy of lona had prosperous orchards, which were destroyed by the barbarous Norwegian invaders. |j Ireland presents many instances of the horticultural spirit of these societies; but in that country their labors were assisted by a fine climate and fruitful land. Caledonia never enjoyed the advantages of a fertile soil; but as the late much respected Sir Alexander MacDonald, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, said on a public occasion, "its harvest is inferior to none in the rich produce of a manly race, and the fruits of talents, genius, and heroic virtue. "IT The British forests have disappeared from various causes. In the progressive advance of civilisation, and perhaps from the increase of population, considerable tracts must have been from time to time clear- ed for the purposes of pasturage, and for the raising of corn, which the country produced abundantly.** Sir H. Davy's opinion is, that the trees on the outside of the woods, which, from a free exposure to the sun and air, were much stronger than those in the interior, being first cut down, the rest from exposure to the wind were overthrown, and hence occa- sioned the formation of the bogs; but to the Roman operations in this island may be attributed the destruction of great part of its woods. It was a settled maxim with that people to construct roads, and thereby lay open all countries which they attempted to conquer, or that had been brought under their subjection; and in eradicating the British woods they had an additional and weighty argument for its expediency the shelter which they afforded to the natives, and the facilities they * The blackberries in the Highlands are much superior to those found in the hedge* of England. t Smith's View of the Agric. of Argyle. | Agric. Report for Sutherland. Fordun's Scotichronicon, lib. v c. 59. || Smith, in Stat. Account, x, p. 543. fl Observations on the Highlands. 1814. ** Vit. Agri. xii DESTRUCTION OF THE FORESTS. 71 gave for the exercise of that desultory and destructive mode of attack, for which the people were so celebrated. The trunks of the trees which they felled, were found useful in the construction of their Iters, where they were carried across soft and boggy ground, and they are often found to have formed the ground work of these ways, by the sides of which the logs they did not require are often discovered. So early as the age of Agricola, the industry of the Romans in clear- ing the country of its woods was well known, and was bitterly complained of by the native**, who were themselves compelled to the work.* From this policy, wise indeed, but almost as inefficient as the erection of their vast ramparts, the aboriginal woods of Caledonia suffered material en- croachments The Emperor Severus, in his progress northwards, was particularly active in demolishing the forests which protected the ene- mies of Rome, and labored with such diligence in clearing them away, that it is believed he lost a considerable number of his troops from the fatigue occasioned thereby. Numerous remains are found, which, as they lie in his line of march, and as both roots and trunks remain on the ground, and evince that the trees could not have been cut down for sake of the land, are clearly referable to this expedition. In tiie moss of Logan, in the parish of Kippen, a road was discovered twelve feet wide, and formed by the trunks of trees regularly laid across each other; and north of the river Forth, in the moss of Kincardine, a road, apparently a continuation of the same line, has also been discover- ed, of a similar width and construction."!" Many extensive bogs in Perthshire are found to have originated from the labors of the Romans in denuding the country of its primaeval woods. The clay surface underneath the moss, which bore the ancient forest, is found to be thickly strewed with the trunks of huge trees lying in all di- rections, beside their roots, which still remain firmly fixed in their orig- inal positions, exhibiting visible marks of the axe by which they fell.J The forests of Caledonia, that escaped destruction from the Romans, suffered from the English armies in subsequent ages. Partly actuated by a similar policy, and partly from the spirit of rancor attendant on civil and predatory warfare, the troops of King Edward were accustomed to set fire to the woods. In Fife, they were destroyed, to deprive robbers of the shelter they afforded; and those in the north that belonged to the Cumins, were burned on the defeat of their faction by King Robert Bruce. ^ In Dumfries, most of the woods appear from their remains to have been consumed by fire, and in Caithness they all appear to have shared tho same fate.|| It is believed, in the Western Islands, that the forests were set fire to by the Norwegians when leaving these possessions. IF Indeed, a general tradition prevails throughout the country, that the woods were * Vit. Agri. xxxi. f Stat. Account, xviii. J Stat. Account, xxi. 154. Aberdeenshire Agric. Rep. \| Caithness Agric. Rep. II Buchannan's Western Isles, p. 24. 72 DESTRUCTION OF THE FORESTS. burnt in an extremely hot summer; and this is recorded in the Welch Triads, as the third calamity which befel Britain. In Sutherland, they have also been destroyed by conflagration; and, according to a tradition, it was occasioned by a witch, or magician, from Denmark, which may probably allude to some descent of the eastern marauders, who frequently paid unwelcome visits to that part of the country. The trunk of a fir tree, dug up in the higher part of Kildonari, measured seventy-two feet in length, and was of proportional thickness. The appearance of the root, encrusted with charcoal, proved by what means it had been levelled with the earth.* It is probable, that conflagrations occasionally took place in the most remote times. From the wandering and unsettled life of mankind, the woods were in danger from the fires of the houseless natives. Ossian compares the sons of Erin after a defeat, to "a grove through which the flarne had rushed, hurried on by the winds of the stormy night, &.c." The preservation of the ancient forests was scarcely considered of na- tional importance; and the acts of the Scots' parliament that were at last promulgated for planting trees, seem to have had little effect. So late as the commencement of last century, an extensive fir wood in Ar- gyle was considered of so little value, that an Irish company is said to have purchased it for a sum amounting to no more than a plack, or one- third of a penny per tree.j" The increase of sheep is thought to be a chief reason of the decay of the ancient forests. Trees do not now grow without the protection of fences, and it is a fact that the pasture has suffered materially where the woods have been destroyed. From these various causes, in many dis- tricts the landscape is destitute of this --aluable and pleading ornament. * Sutherland A.gric. Rep t Smith's View of Agric. of CHAPTER IV. CELTIC POPULATION. PERSONS AND DISPOSITIONS OF THE CELTS. THEIR MILITARY EDUCATION AND INSTITUTIONS. AN- ECDOTES OF THEIR BRAVERY AND HE ROJSM. EXPLOITS OF THE ANCIENT CALEDONIANS AND PRESENT* SCOTS. MANY writers of distinguished reputation have maintained, that the inhabitants of the north of Europe were much more numerous formerly than they are now, the cold of these regions being thought more favora- ble to generation and conducive to robust old age, than the warm and enervating climates of the south. There appears considerable force in this argument, which is supported by the numerous armies which we find those people successively pouring forth; but the inquiries of modern philosophers into the causes affecting population tend to an opposite con- clusion. It seems impossible to make any accurate estimate of the numbers of ancient nations, for "the innumerable swarms that issued, or seemed to issue, from the great storehouse of nations, were multi- plied by the fears of the vanquished and by the credulity of succeeding ages. "* It is also to be borne in mind, that, on emergencies, every man able to carry arms was called into the field, and on all occasions, where military glory was to be earned or national liberty and independence as- serted, the Gauls were strikingly impatient for the combat. The precarious supply of food in those rude ages, is advanced as an argument of some weight against the probability of there being anciently so dense a population as we might be led to suppose; but there was then an abundance of game to supply the want of extensive cultivation, and numerous herds of domestic cattle afforded a plentiful subsistence to the wandering tribes. The sumptuous repasts, and variety of flesh meats, among the Gauls were subjects of remark, even to the luxurious Romans, | for they had 'the fountains of domestic felicity within themselves, and sent out plen- * Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. t Diodorus Sic. &c 10 74 POPULATION OF ANC1LNT EUROPE. tiful streams of happiness over almost all th3 world."* Whether the Celtae were more or less numerous than has been represented, the mrans of subsistence were abundant in Gaul; and if the Britons led a less pleasant life than the tribes on the continent, they will not be found, on examination, to have been so low in the scale of civilisation as many are disposed to believe. The Celtic nations have been always strongly attached to their primitive mode of life, and averse to the ad- nt'ssion of any change, even of obvious advantage, especially if they conceived it had the least tendency to effeminate their bodies or lessen the temerity and contempt of death, on which they valued themselves; but they were not certainly either " unable to raise themselves in the scale of society, or incapable of industry or civilisation.""]" Their vari- ous attainments, and progress in arts and sciences, will be elucidated in the respective sections, where it will be seen that from these "radical savages,"| tne Greeks and Romans learned many useful and ingenious arts. The Celts were neither "a feeble people,""!" nor was their population scanty. Pausanias says, that Thrace alone was more populous than Gaul,J and Herodotus had affirmed, that the Thracians were the most numerous people, save the Indians alone. The ancient historians repre- sent the Celtic migrations as occasioned by an excess of population. We learn from Caesar, that the Helvetians mad-? war from this cause; and both he and Diodorus say, that the population of Britain was innumera- ble. Tacitus informs us, that Anglesea was particularly powerful in the number of its inhabitants. |j From marks of cultivation on the moun- tains, and that have been discovered at some depth underground, it is believed that Ireland also was formerly well inhabited,^ but this is doubt- ful. Similar indications are observed in Scotland, and the Romans deemed a single legion sufficient for the subjugation of that island. " Who among you," says Titus to the Jews, " hath not heard of the great number of the Germans."** It was the chief pride of these na- tions to be surrounded by a numerous company of relations. To res- train generation and increase of children, or to kill new born infants, crimes of common occurrence amongst more civilized nations, were by these people "reckoned an abominable sin.""j"f The more numerous one's children and relations were, the more he was reverenced and es- teemed; among the Scandinavians, however, it was lawful to expose in- fants, until the eleventh century, a practice little calculated to make this Country "the great storehouse of nations." Without asserting that Europe was more populous 2000 years ago than it is in these days, which, indeed, does not appear likely, it can be * Josephus, Jewish Wars, H. c. 16. 4. t Pinkerton. t Lib. 1.9 Beiio Gall. v. 10. !J Annals, xiv. II Molyneux, ap. Luckombe, &c. '* Josephus in the Jewish Wars. tt Gordon's Translation of Tacitus, de Mor. Germ. CELTIC ARMIES. 75 confidently maintained, that the inhabitants were not thinly spi ead along the valleys or dispersed among the mountains. Dense forests, it must be allowed, overspread great tracts of country, but a sufficient space was left uncovered, in which numerous tribes lived in all the comfort of bar- barous enjoyment. In the works of the ancients may be found statements of the numbers of the Celtic armies at particular times. The various legions of auxiliaries which appear in the Notitia Imperii, prove that, by the Roman conquest, neither Gaul nor Germany were depopulated, notwithstanding the long and sanguinary struggles which the natives made for their independence. When JBrennus invaded Greece, he carried with him 140,000 target- eers, 10,000 horse, 2030 carriages, many merchants, and a great mul- titude of other followers, all of whom perished:* yet he led an army of 152, 000 to a second invasion, and 61,000 horsemen, j JEmilius routed the Gauls and Celtae, killing 40,030, and ravaged their country, after they had, with an army of 200,000 men, twice defeated the Romans. J The Cimbri invaded Italy, with a body of 3, or, according to some, 500, OJO men, besides women and children. ) When the Helvetii endeavored to establish themselves in Gaul, they had 192,000 men in arms, the whole number that set out on the expedi- tion, according to a census found in their camp, amounting to 368,000.jj The Suevi, a single German nation, was divided into 100 cantons, and could bring 200,000 men into the field. 11 The Boii, according to Pliny, on the authority of Cato, had 1 12 tribes: in Spain he* enumerates 360 cities. Buchannan, who cites Strabo, says, 300,000 of the Celtae bore arms. Cfesar reduced under the Roman obe- dience 400 nations and 800 cities the whole number in Gaul.** Jose- phus gives them 315 nations and 1200 cities. |"f When CaBsar was preparing to attack the Belgse, he applied to the Rhemi, a friendly people, for information concerning the military power of that division of the Celtae. The Rhemi, being allied cc by kindred and affinity, knew how great a multitude was promised," and gave him the following list. The Bellovaci were the most powerful of the Belgic confederates, and could bring into the field 103,000 fighting men; on the present occasion they offered but 60,000. The Suessiones were their neighbors, and had formerly been the leading tribe; they now offered 50,003. The Nervii also promised 50,000; the Attrebates 15,003; the Ambiani 10,000; the Morini 25,000; the Menapii 9300; the Caletes 10,000; the Velocas- ges and Veromandui 10,000; the Adnatici 29,000; the Condrusi, Ebu rones, Cseraesi, Posnani, who were called by one name, Germans, 40,000, making an army of 308,000 picked men. Fragment. Diod. xxii. 1 Pausanias, x. 19. I Frag. Diod. xxv. Plutarch, &c. Chatfield's View of the Middle Ages. || Bello Gall. t Bello Gall. ** Appian, in the Celtic Wars. Plutarch, -tt Jewish Wars, ii. 1C. 3. 76 CELTIC ARMIES. At the same time another convocation of the Gauls was held, at which it was resolved to raise a fresh army; but they restricted theii force to such a number as might be easily regulated, and find the means of subsistence with facility. They accordingly made the following lev- ies. The jEduans arid their clients, the Segusiaris, the Arnbivarets, the Aulerci, the Brannovices, and the Brannovii, 35,000. The Arverni also 35,000; the Eleutheri, Cadurci, Gabali, Velauni, Senones, Sequani, Bituriges, Xantones, Rutheni, and Carnutes, 12,000; the Bellovaci 10,000; the Lemovices 10,000; the Pictones, including the Turones, Parisii, and Eleutheri Suessiones, 32,000; the Ambiani, Mediornatrici, Petrocorii, Nervii, Morini, and Nitiobriges, 35,000; the Aulerci-Ceno- manni 5000; the Atrebates 4000; the Bellocassi, Lexovii, Aulerci-Ebu- rovices 9000; the Raurici and Boii 30,000. From the states on the ocean, who, by their custom, are called Armories, viz. the Curiosolites, Rhe- dones, Caletes, Osisimii, Lemovices, Veneti, and Unelli, each 6000.* Of these, 240,000 foot and 8000 horse were immediately mustered, and the number, we are told, was afterwards increased. In the ten years' war which Caesar maintained in Gaul, where he first attacked the Helvetii and Tiguriae, defeating their army of 200, 000, j there were slain more than a million of men, and as many were taken prisoners. J In those unsettled times, the population fluctuated according to the events of the frequent wars. It appears from Strabo, that before Caesar's time the Belgas had but 30,000 fighting men. The Nervii, in their desperate contentions, were reduced from 60,000 to 500. |J The army of Bondiuca or Boadicea, after the destruction of London, amounted to 230,000.11 From the ruins of houses throughout the Highlands of Scotland, Gene- ral Stewart thinks the country must have been formerly very populous. The same has been conjectured of the Lowlands, it must be confessed, with- out satisfactory proof; yet the Scots and Picts must have been numerous, for they suffered greatly in mutual slaughters; and, about the beginning of the fourth century, they had to contend with 40,000 Roman troops, besides their auxiliaries. Alexander II., according to Matthew Paris, was able to raise an army of 1000 horse and 100,000 foot. The Celtic muster rolls are exactly similar to those of the Clans of Scotland. The following list of the numbers that were to be raised for King James, in 1704, may not be uninteresting. Mac Donalds 1800 Mac Phersons . . 700 Mac Kenzies of Seaforth 1200 Mac Leods 700 Erasers 1000 * Bello Gal. vii. 69. 70. t Appian in Bello Celt. t Ritson's Mem. of the Celts. Lib. iv. || Bel. Gal. ii. 3 1) Henry, Hist, of Britain MILITARY FORCE OF THE CLANS. 77 Roses of Kilravock Rosses of Balnagowan Duke of Gordon Grant of Balindalish Steuart of Appin Farquharsons Chisholms Mac Dulothes Perth's Highlanders 9700 Horse of Inverness and Morayshires . . . . 1000 General Wade gives the following statement of the Highland forces in 1715, who were engaged in the rebellion: The Islands and Clans of the late Lord Seaforth . . . . 3000 Mac Donalds of Slate . . 1000 Mac Donalds of Glengarry 800 Mac Donalds of Moiaart v. . . . . 800 Mac Donalds of Keppoch 220 Lochiel Camerons . . . . 800 Tho Mac Leods, in all 1000 Duke of Gordon's followers 1000 Stewarts of Appin 400 Robertsons of Struan 800 Mac Intoshes and Farquharsons 800 Mac Ewens in the Isle of Sky 150 The Chisholms of Strathglass 150 The Mac Phersons 220 11,140 which agrees with the number given by Rae The following clans, he adds, for the most part, join- ed the rebellion of 1715, without their superiors: TheAtholmen 2000 The Braidalban men 10003,000 14,140 The under-written clans belonged to superiors, then believed to be well affected to his Majesty: The Duke of Argyle 4000 Lord Sutherland and Strathnaver 1000 Lord Lovat's Frasers . . . . 800 The Grants 800 The Rosses and Munroes 700 Forbes of Culloden 200 Rose of Kilravock 300 Sir Archibald Campbell of Clunes 200 8000 78 PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF THE CELTS. It would appear that the number which the disaffected could bring into the field in the last rebellion, was 12,030,* and the others, it is believed, could bring nearly as many. The song called the Chevalier's Muster Roll, contains an enumer'ation of the various chiefs and tribes who were to take the field, and was well calculated to keep up the spirits of the party, by the prospect of numer- ous reinforcements. The following verse is a specimen. " The Laird o' Mac Intosh is cumin', Mac Gregor an' Mac Donald's cumin', The Mac Kenzies an' Mac Pherson's cumin', A' the wild Mac Ra's are cumin', Little wat ye fa's cumin', Donald Gun an' a's cumin," &c. The patriarchal state of society in the Highlands of Scotland, where a whole tribe labored and lived in common, was calculated to increase the population very rapidly. A farm was often subdivided among chil- dren, grandchildren, and other relations, until it became quite inade- quate for the comfortable support of all. The evil was fortunately counteracted by the military spirit which led the young Gael to seek their fortunes in military service, either at home or abroad. The population of the Highlands and Isles is now estimated at about 400,000. It is sometimes stated at 200,000; but if there are 80,000 families who speak Gaelic,! ana " if ^k ls tne average number of individ- uals in a family, J the exact amount will be 420,000. In the Gartmore MSS., which give a low estimate of the population, it is stated, that in 1747, nearly 52,000 able men from the age of eighteen to fifty-six could be raised. The STRONG and ROBUST BODIES of the Celtae, their comeliness and great strength, have been remarked by all ancient authors who have had occasion to notice them. These qualifications must have been produced by a sufficient supply of food, by their temperance, and by the freedom and activity of their lives: hunting, pasturage, agriculture, and athletic amusements, being almost their sole occupations, when not engaged rn warfare. Both Celts and Germans were remarkably tall. They surpassed all other men in stature; and the largest, who were called Barenses, inhabited the extreme and most cold parts. The lowest of the Ger- mans were taller than the tallest Romans. Hieronymus says, Gaul al- ways abounded in great and strong men,|| who were wont to ridicule other people on their diminutive size. IT The Senones were particularly remarkable, being terrible for their astonishing bigness and vast arms. The Insubres are described as more than human.** The Britons appear * Stuart Papers, ii. p. 117. t " The Scotsman " of 12th January, 18f,28. t Dr Mac Culloch. Pausanias, i. 35, x. 20 || Ap. Schoepflin's Alsatia Illustrata, i. 67. fl Homines tantul stature. ** Floras, i. 13, ii. 4. THEIR STATURE AND STRENGTH. 79 to have exceeded even the Gauls in height. Tacitus remarks the large limbs of the Caledonians; and some prisoners that Caesar carried to Rome, were exhibited as curiosities for their prodigious size. Strabo indeed says, that he had seen British young men at Rome, who stood half-a-foot above the tallest men; but such giants were not perhaps usually met with, for he confesses that they were not particularly well- proportioned The Celts were, Jiowever, generally admired for their fine figures, as we learn from Jrolybius, Arrian, and others. Tacitus notices the advantage which this height gave the enemy on occasion of crossing a river: while the Romans were in risk of being swept away, the Germans could keep themselves easily above water.* These people were celebrated for their strength, their stature, and their huge sinewy bodies,! the Romans being certainly of inferior size compared with the barbarians. From returns made to the French government, it appears that the stature of the people has suffered a decrease during the late wars; and an ingenious train of argument has been deduced to show, that while war has a tendency to lessen the size of mankind in refined nations, it has a directly contrary effect among tribes of rude barbarians. These people take the field en masse, but in civilized countries, the full sized and able bodied men in the community are sent to fight for the general safety: the army when reduced being filled up by successive levies of the most robust individuals; hence the best men are sacrificed, while the unhealthy and diminutive escape. Among primitive nations the combatants encounter hand to hand, where the advantage being evident- ly on the side of the strong, they will survive, while the weak inevitably perish. This reasoning is specious, but it is not altogether satisfactory. Afe we to consider this as the sole cause of the variation of stature in the human race? So remarkable a difference between the personal ap- pearance of the Celtae and other nations, could not have been produced by warfare alone. J A tall man is not always strong, or able to undergo much fatigue, and even if his strength is proportionate to his size, it does not always render him able effectually to contend with the activity and hardihood of one who may be much inferior in stature. Amongst the Celtic nations, military glory was that to which they most ardently aspired, and of their warlike prowess they were excessive- ly vain. To distinguish themselves by deeds of valor and heroism, it was necessary to possess strength of body, and train themselves by a life of activity and enterprise. The peculiar state of society in which they lived, was admirably calculated to promote military qualifications, and preserve the advantage which nature had bestowed on the race, who were so well formed and healthy. Their simple institutions were emi- nently conducive to the spirit of liberty with which they were animated, * Annals, v. t Josephus Jew. Wars, ii. vi. and vii. t An article on this subject appeared in the " Scotsman," xii. p. 899. 80 THEIR STATURE AND STRENGTH. and by which their physical strength was assisted; and as they could only hope for distinction from proofs of valor and fortitude, they did not degenerate as nations who become commercial, or are enervated by a warm climate. As the Celts tenaciously retained their primitive man- ners, their personal appearance was not altered, but continued to attract the notice of surrounding nations. Slow and late were the youth to marry, and when they did, it was requisite that both parties should have the same sprightly dispositions, and the same stature. They were espoused in the prime of life, and the robustness of the parents was inherited by the children.* The regard which the Highlanders have always paid to the personal appearance and manly qualities of their children, 'has been often re- marked. Next to beauty in a female, her health and person is always considered. "A puny delicate girl hardly ever gets a husband in the Highlands, because she neither can be the mother of a vigorous proge- ny, nor do her part, in providing for them." Tall as the Celtae generally were, the princes and chief men usually exceeded the common people, both in stature and strength; for beauty and stateliness of person were generally characteristic of nobility in ear- ly society, and naturally proceeded from the constitution of a rude com- munity, where superior strength and warlike accomplishments are the only recommendations in a chief or leader, and as they intermarry with families enjoying similar advantages, the race does not degenerate. Like the nobil- ity of later times, the principal families in a tribe must have been exempt- ed, in a great measure, unless during war, from those labors and privations which the lower orders endure. In the infancy of society there is little chance of degenerating from luxury; we consequently find, that most of the Celtic heroes were above the common standard. Numerous disco%- eries in ancient sepulchres prove the gigantic size and strong conforma- tion of individuals. "j" Teutabochus, king of the Teutoni, who invaded Italy, with the Cim- brians, being taken prisoner, was conspicuous above the trophies, from his extraordinary tallness. He was also of astonishing strength and agility, being able among other feats, to vault over six horses. J The old kings of Caledonia are described as very superior in stature and strength. Trenmhor, like Fingal, was tall and mighty, and all tradition proves the value in which these qualifications were held. Among the Gael, symmetry of form and bodily strength were accounted so indispen- sable, that as anxious- attention was paid to preserve and improve the breed of children, as ever was bestowed, in more refined ages, on less noble animals; but this object was attained more through the healthful- ness and temperance of the parents, than from any particular care in the * Tacitus de mor. Germ., who elsewhere notices their huge stature. t Montfaucon gives an account of an interment where the skulls were found to be much thicker than in mankind at the present day. See also the discoveries of Sir Richard Hoare, &c. &c. &c. t Florus iii. 3. MODES OF REARING CHILDREN. 01 education of the children, for the son of the chief had no more attention paid him than was bestowed on his foster-brother. The Germans made no distinction between the lord's son and the slave; they were both reared naked, and nourished with the milk of their own mothers. The wet nurses in the Isles were not allowed to drink ale, from a be- lief that the milk was thereby deteriorated. The Irish children, as soon as bom, were wrapped in a blanket, and so continued until they could walk.* The Highlanders bathe their children every morning and evening in cold, or, sometimes, in warm water: and they did so for themselves when they grew up."|" The cold water rendered them less susceptible of the piercing blasts to which they were exposed. It is customary with those who wear the kilt, to wash their limbs at least every morning, and when one assumes this dress only occasionally, some recommend, as a pre- ventive from catching cold, that the legs should be anointed with whis- key. The Gaelic youth of the better sort were not accommodated with bonnets, shoes, or stockings, even in the rigor of winter, until they were eight or ten years old, and upwards. The Celts were not only tall, but were well formed. Amongst the Highlanders, it has been remarked, that there are hardly any crooked or deformed people, except from accident, and some have asserted that they never saw a naturally misshapen person in the Highlands. The people of Scotland have, generally, an aversion to persons who have any natural defect, believing them unlucky, and marked out for misfortune ;J a prejudice that, if not occasioned, may be strengthened by the rare- ness of these objects. The common Highlanders, from hard, and often scanty fare, are usu- ally inferior in stature to the chief and better sort. This was more perceptible formerly; but although few have attained the gigantic size of "Big Sam," a native of Sutherland, who was porter to the Prince of Wales, they are by no means diminutive. They are well formed, ex- tremely hardy and active. Their erect and easy gait is striking; and an English resident among them, a hundred years ago, remarked that the common people walked "nimbly and upright, and had a kind of stateli- ness in their poverty."^ The Irish were noticed, two centuries since, as being "of good proportion and comely stature;" || but the personal appearance is so much affected by the supply of food, and manner of life, that, like the Scots, they have not, latterly, been so remarkable for their size.lT Tyrconnel, at the revolution, raised several regiments, e\ery * Campion. t Martin. Memoirs of Donald Macleod. Children among the Goths were dipped in a stream or lake soon after their birth. Pinkerton. J This seems to arise from a belief that the fairies have something to do with them. See one of Kelly's proverbs. Birt. || Barnaby Riche. fi Luckmbe says, on the authority of a military officer, that Irish recruits were, ia genera), shorter than those of England. 82 HARDINESS OF THE HIGHLANDERS. man of which was six feet high.* It was accounted handsome by the Irish ladies, to be tall, round, and fat,| but they were also " big and lazy," being suffered from their youth "to grow at will." The ancient Britons, we are told, excelled both in strength and swiftness. J The Celts were undoubtedly very strong, but they were extremely oppressed by the heat of a warm climate, and suffered much from thirst; fur they were able to endure a degree of cold that would chill other troops, but were languid and feeble under the rays of an Italian sun. ^ The hardy manner in which the Celts brought up their youth, contri- buted, in a very material degree, to produce their strong and robust frames, and enabled them, through life, to contend with all sorts of fatigue, and surmount difficulties, which others would have sunk under. The Cimbri exposed themselves naked to showers of snow, and amused themselves by sliding down the frozen Alps on their shields. The in- difference of the Highlanders to cold, is evinced by their scanty clothing. A less equivocal proof was formerly afforded, in the fact that they fre- quently slept in the open air, during the severity of winter. Burt, who wrote in 1725, relates, that he has seen the places which they occupied, and which were known by being free from the snow that deeply covered the ground, except where the heat of their bodies had melted it. The anecdote which the same writer applies to Keppoch, and others, to a chief of the Camerons, shows how highly they valued themselves on their hardihood. The chief is represented as giving great offence to his clan, by forming the snow into a pillow before he lay down, a plain indication that he was beginning to degenerate. The Highlanders were so accustomed to sleep in the open air, that the want of shelter was of little consequence to them. It was usual be- fore they lay down, to dip their plaids in water, by which the cloth was less pervious to the wind, and the heat oftheir bodies produced a warmth, which the woollen, if dry, could not afford. An old man informed me, that a favorite place of repose was under a cover of thick over-hanging heath. The Highlanders in 1745 could scarcely be prevailed on to use tents. It is not long since those who frequented Lawrence fair, St- Sair's, and other markets in the Garioch of Aberdeenshire, gave up the practice of sleeping in the open fields. The horses being on these oc- casions left to shift for themselves, the inhabitants no longer have their crop spoiled, by their " upthrough neighbors," with whom they had often bloody contentions, in consequence of these unceremonious visits. Strabo and Polybius notice that the Celts and Iberi always slept on the ground, .even in their houses, a custom which the Scots and Irish retained. If the Highlanders went into other countries, they preferred wrapping themselves in their own plaids, to making use of the beds of the people among whom they came, apprehensive that such indulgence would tend to impair their natural hardiness. * Dairy m pie's Mem. of Great Britain f Campion. t Herodian, iii. 47. Floras, ii. 4. Plutarch, in vita Crassi. Appian, Parthick's. Livy. THE HAIR OF THE CELTS. 83 The HAIR of the Celtic race was naturally fair or inclined to red, and they took great pains to deepen the color. The children, from their birth, were for the most part white or gray headed, but as they grew up the hair became like that of their fathers.* Among the Britons it was also yellow, but it was less so than that of the Gauls. f The Welsh call- ed the Irish, Wyddil coch, red-haired. J In an old poem we find a he- ro's " body like the white chalk, his hair like the flowing gold;" and an old Cornish song extols a pretty rnaid for her white face and yellow hair.^ Flowing locks of this color were praised as most graceful and becoming, by the bards who addressed the sun as " the golden-haired." This was admired in the Celtic youth of former times, and "the yellow-haired laddie " and "lassie w' the lint whiteJocks," continue favorites with their descendants in the present day. The red-haired Spaniard is noticed by Silius,|| the Getae plaited their yellow locks, and the Albani glistened with shining hair. IF The Budini, who were a Getic nation, had also the red hair and blue eyes,** whicl characterized the whole Celtic race. They wore their hair long and flowing, from which Gaul received the appellation Comata, or, as Pliny more strongly expresses it, Capillata.tt They turned it backwards from the forehead to the crown, and thence to their \ery necks, that their faces might be fully seen. From this manner of wearing it they look, says Diodorus, like Pans and Satyrs. The Caledonians were distinguished by "their golden hair flowing over their stately shoulders."^ The long hair of the Britons was turn- ed back on the top of the head, and fell down in a bushy wreath behind.^ Bondiuca, or Boadicea's hair reached below the middle of her back. Long hair was a mark of freedom among many nations, slaves being obliged to cut it close. In France it was long regarded as indicative of nobility. [HI In the old laws of Scotland is a curious intimation, " Quhen ane frie man to the end he may have the mantenance of one greit and potent man, randers himselfe to be his bondman in his court, be the haire of his foreheid," &c. This is surely derived from a more ancient era than that of the regulated feudal system. The act proceeds to say, that if the man should afterwards withdraw, when brought back, and the sur- render of his liberty proved, " his maister may take him be the nose, and reduce him to his former slaverie."1I^F Lycurgus was accustomed to say, that long hair added grace to hand- some men, and made those who were ugly more terrific. The long * Diod. Sic. Amm. Mar. xv. 10. Tacitus. Claudian in Rufinum, iii. t Lucan. Strabo. Caesar. J Roberts. Pryce's Archseologia. || Lib. xvi. v. 471. fi Isodore, xix. 23. ** Herodotus. tt Lib. iv. c. 17. tt "Am follt oir mu an gu aillean ardo Whittaker's Hist, of Manchester. |||| Gregory of Tours. Till Quoniam Attachiamenta, Ivi. Dr. Jamieson has remarked a vestige of this sin gular custom in the amusement of " Tappie tousie," still practised among the Scot* children. Etymol. Diet. 84 MODE OF WEARING THE HAIR shaggy hair of the Gauls imparted a terrible appearance as they rageo about in the field of battle.* The Suevi had a mode of wearing their hair, which was imitated by some of the other Germans, but among these the practice was confined to the youth. It was twisted in a peculiar way, and bound up in a knot, and so fond were the Suevians of this ornament, that even when gray haired, they continued to raise it back in a stern and imposing manner, but with some it was only tied at the top of the head. The princes paid more attention to this arrangement of their hair than the common peo- ple, carefully disposing it when going to war, in order to increase their height, and terrify their enemies. | Each tribe had perhaps a peculiar fashion of wearing their hair.J The head which appears at the end of the first chapter, is from a shield of the Brisigavian auxiliaries, and the one here shown is from an antique discovered in Holland.^ The two figures which form the vignette to this chapter are from an an- cient sculpture, and illustrate the peculiar mode of dressing the hair, which Martial calls the " Auris Batavorum;"|| and the one at the end represents a figufre in Montfaucon, of unknown antiquity. The Catti, who were hardy, robust, and of stern countenance, let their beards and hair grow to a length rarely to be seen amongst other nations. This practice was usually in consequence of a vow, that they should not cut the hair of their heads or beards until they had slain one of their enemies. When they had been fortunately able to do this, they made bare their face over the gory body, and said that now they had acquitted themselves of the debt contracted by their birth, and rendered themselves worthy of their country and their parents. IT Thus when Civilis who headed an extensive revolt of the Germans, had routed the Roman legions, we are told that " he cut off his long locks, lank and red."** But many of the Catti presented this terrible aspect when white with age, abating nothing of the grimness and horror of their countenances even in peace. These sturdy veterans always occupied the front of the army, and made the first assault. IF They were indeed a peculiar band, for, avoiding the trouble of any domestic charge, and * Amm. Mar. xvi. 10. t Tacitus, de mor. Germ. t" Crinibus in modum tortis venere Sicambri." Martial, ap. Wolfgang, Petri Serverii, Tab. Ant. Batavicarum. || Caniegetier's Diss. de Brittenburgo, &c. 1734. H Tacitus, de mor. Germ. ** Tacitus Annal. MODE OF WEARING THE HAIR. 85 possessing no house, they wandered about " sorning " on the other members of the community, on whom they appear to have thought they had a good claim for subsistence as long as they lived. The Britons and inhabitants of Ireland wore their hair long, and al- lowed their beards to grow only on the upper lip. Even until a later period, the Irish strictly adhered to this ancient practice, which was at last abolished by Act of Parliament, a statute being passed, ordaining none to wear their beards in that manner.* " A thicke curled bush of haire hanging downe over their eyes, and monstrously disguising them," was termed "glibes." By cutting off these "writhed glibbes," or let- ting them fall down on the face, a person was not easily recognised. It was surely in consequence of this custom, that Gildas says the Picts " covered their villatious countenances with hair,"y and that the Irish were stigmatized as "shag-haired villains." Sometimes it would appear, that for their safety they denuded themselves of their hair, but necessity alone compelled the adoption of such a measure, for it was otherwise reckoned " notable villainy to crop the glibbes in front. "J Cluverius ob- serves that the Irish were the last of the Celtic race who retained the custom of wearing the hair in the ancient manner.^ The Scots .High- landers, about a century ago, wore it fastened in the peculiar way which is here shown, and which is a later instance of the ancient mode of hair dressing. They are yet fond of wearing their hair long; and many are to be seen who continue to tie it behind, in the same manner as represented in the Frontispiece. This fashion of tying the hair was called clubbing, a term evidently derived from the Gaelic, and more particularly applied to the form used by the women, and not yet laid aside in the north of Scot- land, where it is turned up in a knot before and behind. The practice of encouraging the growth of the hair on the upper lip only, was not without occasional exception. Diodorus says, that while some shaved their beards, others did so but in part, which last method was invariably adopted by people of rank. These allowed the musta- chios to grow to such a length, that they fell down over their mouths, and in eating, part of the meat occasionally got entangled in the hair; and when they were drinking, the liquor would run "through the mus- tachios, as through a sieve. "|j * Spenser's View of Ireland, p. 32. t Chap. 15. 2. t Campion. It was so worn in remote parts, in the seventeenth century. Riche. Indeed, in the end of last century, the Irish sailors continued to plait or dress their hai- in a peculiar manner. || Diod. Sic. 86 BEAUTY OF THE CELTIC FEMALES. Both Gauls and Germans often washed their heads, and, to beautify the hair and increase its brightness, they used a preparation of tallow, and ashes of certain vegetables,* into which some coloring matter was probably put. We thus see that the Gauls were the inventors of soap, and by its frequent use, in which the men indulged more than the women their hair became as hard and strong as a horse's mane.f In the time of Valens, the Roman troops coming suddenly on the German army, which lay in a valley, beheld some of them washing and bathing in the river, others busy in coloring the hairs of their head, and making it shine like gold.J The care with which these nations cherished their hair was remarka- ble. A striking instance of their solicitude respecting it, is afforded by a young warrior who was condemned to be beheaded. His last and most earnest request was, that it might not be stained with his blood, or ex- posed, after his death, to the rude touch of a slave. ^ In some instances, ringlets of auburn hair have been found in the tombs of the early x Britons.|| The COMPLEXIONS of the Celts were fair and succulent, IF apparently from their northern climate, but attributed to their being always clothed except in battle,** and to their long indulgence in bed during peace. From whatever cause, their bodies were remarkably white, compared with other nations.^ That the genuine descendants of this race are distinguished like their ancestors, by a dusky, sallow, sunburnt hue, has been asserted by those who have shown more anxiety to maintain a system, than to investigate truth; but it is unquestionable that the " Candida corpora " and " coeru- lei oculi," always characterized the Celtae. There is nothing more clearly expressed by those ancient authors who have described the peo- ple; and these features must have been striking, to be so particularly noticed. The Gauls, the Germans, and the Britons were alike distin- guished by their fair hair and blue eyes, and the Goths of later ages dif- fered little from their Celtic progenitors. Their EYES were blue and large, but when enraged they darted fury, and, having naturally a stern look, it is said to have then been awful. Their aspect must have been remarkable. Ammianus Marcellinus, himself a veteran soldier, who had often fought with these fierce nations, confesses, that in the cast of their eyes there was something terrible. JJ The women were very beautiful,^ and were as tall and courageous as the men. mi The beauty of Claudia Rufina, a British lady,1Tl[ is celebrated * Pliny, xxviii, 12. t Diod. Sic. | Amm. Mar. xxvii. 1. Henry's Hist, of Britain. || Douglas's Nennia Britannica. IT Diod. Sic. " Clear." White." Amm. Mar. xv. 10 ** Livy, xxxviii. 21. It Isodorus, xix. 23. U Amm. Mar. xv. 10, xvi. 10. Tac. de mor. Germ. Athenseus observes " Celtse pulcherrimas haberit uxores," xiii 8. J||| Diodorus. 1T1T Robert's early History of the Cymri VOICE AND MANNER OF SPEAKING. 87 by Martial. Ammianus seems to represent the females as stronger than their husbands, but he probably means in domestic warfare only.* They paid much attention to their persons, especially in Aquitain, where you could not see a woman, however poor, in foul and ragged clothes, as in other places. | Small eyebrows were considered very beautiful among the ancient Caledonians, and some females received their names from this handsome feature. Caol-mhal signifies a woman with small eyebrows. The he- roes of Morven were not insensible to the power of female eyes. Dar- thula was so called from the beauty of her's; and a common phrase in the Highlands to this day, when extolling the beauty of a woman, is to say, she is lovely as Darthula.J The TEETH of the Celtae were sound and of a beautiful whiteness. This is observable in all their interments, where they are found to retain the enamel when every other part has gone to decay. Sir Richard Hoare, who has probably seen more of their sepulchral remains than any other person, has invariably found the teeth well preserved.^} The VOICE of the Celts was loud and terrible; and although they spoke little, even their ordinary words were dreadful. |J The voice of the Cimbri differed from all other men, and their language was scarcely hu- man: they filled the air with howlings and bellowings, like wild beasts. 1F Pliny, alluding to their defeat by Marius, says, the disaster made them yell again;** and the horrid din and clamor which they made the night before the battle, resounded through the woods and mountains, and struck the Roman soldiers with great terror. From some accounts, the Celtic nations appear more than human It is to be presumed, that the terror they inspired, occasioned many exaggerated representations of their personal appearance; but there is a sufficient uniformity in the descriptions, to show that they were a very singular people. They had a terrible aspect, an awful and loud voice; their stern looks were sufficient to intimidate most people, and their bare appearance, when irritated, struck the beholder with terror and dismay. The " loud and sonorous voice " of the ancient Celts was inherited by the Caledonians, and was esteemed a qualification of some importance. When Fingal raised his voice, " Cromla answered around, the sons of the desert stood still, and the fishes of the troubled sea moved to the depths." Columba, when performing service in his church of lona, is said to have been heard at the distance of a mile and a half. The Celtic nations spoke very little, and their language was dark and figurative :"j"f their manner of talking was solemn and mysterious, the or- dinary words of most of them, as well when they were at peace, as when they were irritated, being dreadful and full of menace. jj They \\ere * xv. 10. i Amm. Mar. xv. c. 12. | M'Pherson in Ossian, &c. See his interesting work on ancient Wiltshire. || Amm. Mar. xv. 10. Livy, 7J. If Plutarch in Bello Cimbrico. ** xxvi. 4. tt Diod. Sic. tt Amm. Mar. xv. 10. 88 PRONENESS TO WARFARE. hyperbolical in their own praise, and spoke contemptuously of all others. "My pointed spear, my sharp sword, my glittering shield," said an old Celtic hero, "are my wealth and riches; with them I plough, with them I sow, and with them I make my wine: whoever dare not resist my pointed spear, my sharp sword, and my glittering shield, prostrates him- self before, and adores me as his lord and his king."* The celebrated Macdonald, of Barisdale, in the last century, had a high opinion of his own merits, although he was considered by others as a very licentious freebooter. On the silver ornaments of his sword belt, he displayed his vanity in a classical address to that weapon."]" "The insolency of the Gauls appears to have been notorious. "J They were "most grievously provoking;" but if they " were apt to menace others, "'it was probably most observable towards those who were laboring to subdue them, for most nations are inclined, on such occasions, to utter their defiance in no very pleasing expressions. When Alexander attacked the Scyths, they threw out the most opprobrious and railing language, after their barbarous manner.^ The Celts were also extremely irascible, being naturally passionate, || managing their affairs more by rage and fury than by reason. IF The Germans were accustomed to fall upon their enemies, without much con- sideration, as it appeared, of what they were about; for they did not reason, but went rashly into danger without just hopes.** The Gauls were so liable to sudden excitation, that, in the very midst of eating, they would rise in a heat, and, without regard to their lives, fall to it with their swords. As they were hurried into war by an irresistible impa- tience, proceeding from a simplicity of feeling that prevented reflection, the same sincerity led them soon to relent and be appeased. Their first heat being spent, they often became disheartened. U or rather appeared so, and relinquished the prosecution of a war as suddenly as they had engaged in it. An enterprise was abandoned, when the heat in which they took arms had abated. However creditable this might have been to their subsequent reasoning, it subjected them to a charge of incon- sistency, and threw a shade on their military fame. Hannibal, in his march through Italy, prevented the Gauls in his army from deserting, by placing his cavalry in the rear,"j"j~ but he certainly gave them the se- verest part of the service, for they suffered more than any others of his army. They were much given to brawls, and exceedingly insolent; and the women were particularly famous in this sort of wrangling, of which we * Athenaeus, xv. c. 14. See the parabolical speech of the Druid Sithama, in " the fill of Tura." Smith's Gallic Ant. p. 318. t " Haec tibi erunt artes, pacis componere mores; Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos." t Polybius iii. See Tac. de mor. i. 66, and throughout his works. Diodorus. || Josephus, Ant. xix. 1. 15. Seneca de Ira. iii. 3. IT Polybius. ** Josephus, Ant. xix. 1. 15. Ibid. Jew. Wars, vii. 4. 2. ti Polybius, iii. THEIR MILITARY EXPLOITS. 89 have a lively description from the pen of honest Marcellinus. " If any of them," says he, " be set a brawling, having the snrew, his wife, (who is commonly the stronger, by far, of the two, and of a sallow complex- ion,) to take his part, a whole band of strangers is not able to match him; especially when, setting out her big neck, with swollen veins, she falls a grating her teeth and levelling her snow-white arms, of a mighty large size, once begins to lay about her with fists and heels together, like the bolts and darts discharged with violence from a military engine."* The Celta3, as may be readily believed, from their fiery dispositions, were prone to war. Their propensity to fight led them into hostilities on very slight occasions, and impelled them to undertake the most dangerous ex- peditions. Athenseus says, they would wage war for meat and drink; but, surely, the want of either was a powerful stimulus. The whole race was warlike and fierce, and ready to fight with the greatest ardor, in open contention, without malignity, and with the utmost strength and courage, but accompanied with a rashness and temerity not very compatible with military discipline,"!" and that often brought disasters which their daring and undaunted bravery could not avert. At the same time, this hot tem- per enabled them to surmount obstacles and achieve exploits that they were perhaps inadequate to accomplish, if unirnpassioned. It was equal- ly true of them as of the Scots' Highlanders, who, when kept passive, were observed to "lose their ardor." The military prowess of the Celts was proverbial. Tacitus says, the Germans thought it more honorable to live by their sword than the labor of any occupation. " The Gauls," he remarks, "were prompted to fight, by liberty, the Germans, by the allurements of spoil; the Batavians, by glory. "J " The Celts carried their rights on the points of their swords, and said all things belonged to the brave who had courage to seize them."^ These restless warriors repeatedly invaded Italy with terrible devas- tation. In this country, peopled in the most early ages by the Celtae, many of the ancient nations continued to preserve their original manners when the Roman empire was in its zenith, and they long retained the martial spirit inherent in the race. Those nations of Gauls which dwelt in Italy, in the beginning, not only held the country, but acquired the alliance of most of their neighbors, who were terrified at their fury.JJ The Gauls under Brennus, chief of the Senones, having for some cause attacked the Tyrrhenians, the Romans sent ambassadors to learn the reason of the war, who, arriving when the two armies were ready to engage, very inconsiderately joined the latter people, and killed one of their princes. After the battle, the Gauls sent to Rome to demand that the ambassador should be condemned as one who without cause had done them this injury, and thereby given just provocation for war. The * Lib. xv. c. 10. t Strabo, iv. p. 195. Polybius, &c. t Annals iv. He elsewhere says, the Gauls had become rich and un warlike. The German wars raged with most fury when he wrote. Livy, v. 35. |] Polybius, ii. 12 90 THEIR MILITARY EXPLOITS. justice of the request was at once admitted by the senate, who orderec the offender to be given up; but the influence of his friends prevailed with the people, who insisted on the decree being reversed. The Gauls were greatly enraged when they learned this decision, and increasing their army to seventy thousand they marched straight to Rome. They were met at Alia, ten miles from the city, by the Roman troops, who were speedily driven from the heights where they had posted themselves, in disorder to the plain, and routed with dreadful slaughter. The victors, according to their custom, spent the first day after the battle in cutting ofFthe heads of the slain; but on the fourth, they ad- vanced to the walls of Rome, broke down the gates, and laid the whole city in ashes, except a few houses on Mount Palatine. They were frustrated in their attempts on the capitol by the well known alarm that was given by the sacred geese, but were only induced to abandon their design on payment of one thousand pounds of gold, with which they re- tired, after having occupied Rome seven months. So far, indeed, the Celts had done pretty well; biit on their march homewards, they attack- ed Veascus, partly to revenge the assistance which the inhabitants had afforded their enemies, and partly to augment their booty by the sack of the place. The Romans having pursued them under the leading of Camillus, totally overthrew them, and recovered their gold and most of the other plunder.* It was only after this repulse of Brennus, that the Romans appear to have taken courage to attack the Italian Celts. "f In the time of Asdrubal, the Gauls descended into Italy with fifty thousand foot, and twenty thousand cars and horsemen. The Romans, at this time, thought it impossible long to hold their country, unless they had subdued these nations; J and, before their final subjection, they were so terrible to the Romans, that, when the Gauls appeared, old age did not excuse any from the war: even the priests, who were exempted from military duty on all other occasions, being obliged to take the field when these formidable enemies were to be opposed,^ and they solemnly cursed all who took money from the treasury, except for the Gallic wars. In the account of the Cimbrian invasion, we have a striking picture of these ferocious nations. The magnitude of the armament filled all Italy with the greatest alarm, and the extraordinary strength and hardi- hood of these people impressed the Romans with the utmost terror. When they beheld the Cimbri, of immense stature and horrid counte- nances, exposing themselves naked to showers of snow, climbing to the mountain tops, and sliding down the frozen precipices on their shields, for mere amusement, and tearing up the neighboring hills to form a pas- sage across a river, &c., the Roman veterans began to desert their col- ors, and at last fled.|| Yet by the excellent generalship of Marius, and the military discipline of the Roman army, they were eventually defeat- ed in two battles, with incredible slaughter. Plutarch tells us, the lands * Diod. Sic. xii. t Polybius, i f Ibid. ii. Appian, Civ. Wars, ii. || Polyaenus, viii. 10. Plutarch de Bello Cimbrico. THEIR MILITARY RENOWN. 91 of the Massilians were amply manured by the slain, wbose bones were so numerous, as afterwards to be used in enclosing the vineyards; the few who escaped the disaster retiring to the mountains around Verona and Vincenza, where their descendants still exist. Before they entered Italy, they had been opposed in their march through Gaul by the Ro- mans, who lost sixty thousand men in the attempt.* From the first mention of the Cimbri, the Romans had been two hundred and ten years in conquering Germany, where they lost five armies. f Titus, to dissuade the Jews from a war with the Romans, represented to them the madness of contending with those, by whom the strong Germans, who, wherever they went, performed marvellous exploits, had been overcome. J " Who is there among you that hath not heard of the great number of the Ger- mans? You have yourselves seen them to be strong and tall: " these "who have minds greater than their bodies, and a soul that despises death, and who are in rage more fierce than wild beasts."^ The Gauls, he continues, became tributary to the Romans, not be- cause they were of " effeminate minds, or ignoble, for they bore a war of eighty years, for their liberty."^ These nations, indeed, fought so desperately, that their fame was spread abroad both far and wide, and it was an object with many powerful States, to retain bodies of them in their service, at much expense. Being held in this estimation, and re- collecting the daring exploits of their ancestors, it was no wonder that they became so proud of themselves as to despise all other people. || Polybius declares, that "never until this day were greater wars than the Gallic, either for obstinacy of courage, or the resolution of the combat- ants; the greatness of armies, or the slaughter of men. "IF " These are they," says another, "who took Rome; these robbed the temple at Delphos; these laid a great part of Europe and Asia under tribute, and took possession of some of the countries they had subdued: mixing with the Greeks, they were called Gallo-Grecians. They often routed and cut up many great armies of Romans. "|| The Gauls who had escaped from Delphos, after they had vanquished the Thracians, settled about Byzantium, and built the royal city Tyle. The Byzantines saved themselves from plunder by paying tribute to the Gallic king, Comontoire, sometimes thirty thousand, sometimes fifty thousand, and at other times one hundred thousand crowns. Finally, they were forced to give eighty thousand crowns yearly, until the time of Clyare, when the Celts were extirpated by the Thracians.** When any of the Eastern States wished to raise an army for some desperate undertaking, they recruited in Gaul; and when a faithful body- guard was wanted, the Celtne were engaged at any price. The Cartha- ginians, especially, had always numerous bodies of these troops in their armies, which were chiefly furnished by Gaul and Spain.|| Mithrada- * Diod. Sic. Fragment, xxxvi. t Tacitus. t Josephus Jew! Wan vi. 6, 2. Ibid. ii. 16, 4. || Diod. Sic. v. 2. fl Lib. ii. ** Polybius, iv. ft Diod. &c. t)2 THEIR MILITARY EDUCATION. tes, king of Pontns, boasted that he had in his army those Gauls who had always frightened the Romans.* Dionysius, the tyrant, engaged two thousand Gauls and Celtiberians to assist the Lacedemonians, and gave them five months' pay in advance. The Greeks, who had a suffi- ciently high opinion of their own abilities, in order to try the valor of their new allies, drew them out against the Boeotians and their confedo rates, whom they very speedily overthrew. During the time they serv- ed, we are told they were of great use, and purchased much renown. | Apollodorus, king of Cassandria in Macedonia, armed and engaged with large rewards a life-guard of these men.J Perseus of Macedonia bargained for 20,000 of them; and Herod, king of the Jews, received, as his body-guard, 400 who had served Cleopatra in the same capaci- ty. The Celtic legion, who were the guards of Caligula, hearing of his assassination, instantly drew their swords, and marched to the thea- tre, determined in their rage to put every soul to the sword. || The Gauls were among the ancients, what the Swiss have been in modern ages. The whole education of the Gauls was intended to qualify them for the profession of war. They never permitted their children to appear before them in public, until they were able to bear arms;1T and to pre- vent their young men from becoming fat, they were kept at work, and were obliged to wear a girdle, to determine their just size, which if they exceeded, they were fined.** Among the Germans, no one was allowed to bear arms until the com- munity had attested his ability to use them. If found worthy, he was dignified by one of the rulers, or his father, in the midst of a public as- sembly, with a shield and javeline, and from thenceforward he became a member of the commonwealth. There was but one sort of public diversion among these people, and it shows in a strong light the estimation in which military prowess was neld. The young men flung themselves naked amongst sharp swords and darts, where they fearlessly danced amid the loud applauses of the spectators: a performance which they executed with much grace, but not for hire. To please their admiring countrymen was their sole and highest reward. ft The Scotish tribes in Ireland, we are told, trained up their youth to martial exercises from their seventh year, and they were honorably re- warded according to their proficiency. JJ The Scots Highlanders prac- tisec the same custom; and as the military character of the Britons * Justin, xxxvii. t Diod. Sic. xv. 8. t Diod. Sic. Josephus Jew. Wars, i. 20, 3. || Josephus Jew. Ant. xix. i. 15. IT Bello Gall ** Strabo, iv. p. 199. ft Tacitus de mor. Germ. }} Harl. MS. 5280 contains an account of the renowned Irish Militia, with their course of probation, and exercises, written before the 10th century, by Gillo Tancou- lourd Mac Tuathal, in the reign of Cormac Mac Airt. Astle has noticed this curious work. MILITARY ENTHUSIASM. 93 closely resembled that of the continental Celts, they had also a puhiic investment of their youth with arms. The remains of this custo^n existed in the Highlands and Jsles almost within memory of man. The princi- pal persons in a clan were obliged to give public proof of their valor and dexterity in the use of their arms, before assuming any command. The first meat which an Irish infant anciently received, was put into its mouth on the point of a sword by the mother, with many imprecations and prayers, that he might not die otherwise than with honor in battle.* Giraldus Cambrensis notices a custom, which prevailed in some parts even in the sixteenth century: the right arm was left unchristened, so that it might be able to give a sure and deadly blow."}" The chief himself was not acknowledged until he had thus proved his right. J With so careful an attention to military education, is it surpris- ing that the nation should be warlike? To the Caledonians, the Britons of the south said, the Gods themselves were not equal. Herodian de- scribes them as insatiably fond of slaughter; and so little have their pug- nacious habits been changed by time, that for nearly eighteen centuries, they have lived in almost continual war, either amongst themselves or with others. From the most early ages, the Scots were extolled for their valor. "Ilz sont asses hardi et chevaleraux de leur personnes," as an old French writer says. And they still nobly support the charac- ter which their ancestors acquired, as fierce and unyielding warriors. No age among the Gauls was exempt from the wars, from the youth capable of bearing arms to the hoary head; nor was it necessary to urge any to take the field, for all went with the utmost cheerfulness; and it is a remarkable and sanguinary proof of the martial spirit of these stern warriors, that the unfortunate individual who arrived last at their assem- blies, was publicly put to death. No obstacles could deter them from the prosecution of a war, for, when they had once resolved to take up arms, they were determined to encounter the most numerous and fearful disasters. || The Gauls who engaged with Hannibal, declared themselves ready to undergo any danger with him: unfortunately, the campaign turned out none of the easiest, IT for these daring and hardy auxiliaries. This forwardness to put themselves on arduous expeditions and readi- ness to undertake difficult operations, has distinguished the Celts in all ages. At the siege of Roxburgh, in 1322, the Highlanders were order- ed to climb a precipice on which the English were posted, which they very soon accomplished, putting the enemy to immediate flight.** We *Solinus. t Campion. This reservation could only have been made, from retainhg the prim- itive mode of performing baptism by immersion. t Dr. Macpherson, &c. Berlin's Description des royaulmes d'Angleterre etd'Ecosse. Paris, 1558, ed. Lon- don, 1775. " Ilz sont hardis et vcrtueux comme lions ;" he elsewhere repeats. || Amm. Mar. xv. 10. II Polybius. The Gauls always suffered most ** Lord Haile's Annals. 94 THE CELTS SUPERIOR TO THE ROMANS. also find that Donald of the Isles came to one of the sieges of Roxburgh, with a great body of men, " armed in Highland fashion, with habergioris, bows and axes," anxiously desiring leave to march into England before the army, " to take upon them the first press and dint of the battle."* The Romans had no inclination to admit that they were ever defeated yet, in the various details which are preserved concerning the Gallic wars, they acknowledge enough to prove, that, although their military discipline gave them a decided advantage, they never met with a more determined resistance; and, although ultimately successful, many battles * were certainly extremely unfavorable, if not dishonorable, to the Roman arms. The testimony which the conquerors of the world have borne tc the intrepid bravery and undaunted resolution of the Celta?, is highly to be esteemed, for the admission of an enemy may be safely received, when discreditable to himself. Tacitus admits that the Roman arms were tarnished by the brave Ger- mans; and Sallust, in Cataline, says the Gauls were superior in military prowess to his countrymen.f The Batavi, Matiarii, and Lancearii, Gallic and German auxiliaries, stood their ground in that battle where the emperor Valens fell, when all the Romans fled.J The great Caesar himself, on many occasions, speaks in terms of admiration of the valor and heroism of these nations. The Nervii, he says, overcame difficul- ties, which, though seemingly insurmountable, appeared yet as nothing to men of their resolution and magnanimity. In a certain battle, the slain were so numerous as to form a pile, from which the survivors, as from a rampart, continued to hurl their javelins on the enemy, and dis- puted the field with so much perseverance, that in the sanguinary con- flict their name was almost extinguished. On many other occasions, we find whole bodies were slaughtered to a man, rather than yield. The Gallic foot at Telamon, Polybius says, fell on the spot where they had placed themselves. Their contempt of death was very remarkable. Aristotle says " they fear neither earthquakes nor inundations." This fearless disposition led them to behave as if they were insane, for, according to some writers, they would not retire from their houses if they were falling about their ears, and would rush into the water as if they were able, with sword in hand, to beat back the encroaching waves. However much of this may be 'true, they certainly fought with a desperation and fury almost incred- ible. At Thermopylae, they rushed on the Greeks with a ferocity re- sembling that of wild beasts; "their rage, while life remained, suffer- ing no abatement, though they were wounded by the battle-axe, cut down with the sword, or pierced with darts and arrows." Some of these Gauls tore the lacerating darts from their bodies, and discharged them back on the Greeks, or, as they lay wounded on the ground, pierced with them those who stood near them. * Pitscottie's Chronicles, p. 102, 8vo. 1 C. 53. t Aram. Mar. xxxi. Pausanias, x. c. 21. ANECDOTES OF HIGHLAND BRAVERY. 95 At the battle of Falkirk, in 1745, the cavalry had rushed on tho reb- els, broken their ranks, and were trampling them under the horses' foet. "The Highlanders, stretched on the ground, thrust their dirks into the bellies of the horses. Some seized the riders by their clothes, dragged them down and stabbed them; several, again, used their pistols; but few had sufficient space to handle their swords." The cavalry were eventually repulsed, the Highlanders pursuing them and running as fast as the horses could gallop.* No man, says Caesar, speaking of a battle which lasted from one o'clock in the afternoon until evening, saw the back of an enemy; and, even when compelled to give way, the Gauls rallied at their carriages, and renewed the fight with greater obstinacy, until the night was far spent. "j" In another engagement with the Romans, the first ranks of the Gallic troops were swept off by the javelins of the enemy, and their army attacked both in front and rear, yet not a man offered to fly, but stood and fought until every soul was cut off.J Amongst many instances of personal bravery and heroism, it is related by the same accomplished writer, who was an eye witness of the trans- action, that, at the siege of Avaricum, a Gaul planted himself before the gate and in the face of the whole Roman army, continued to cast balls of burning pitch and tallow, in order to set fire to the towers which the enemy had raised, until he was shot dead by an arrow. The danger of such a position did not prevent its being instantly occupied by another Gaul, who was almost as quickly brought down. His nearest compan- ion, undismayed at death, stepping over the bodies of his brave com- rades, resumed the perilous duty and shared their fate. Still a fourth warrior placed himself with alacrity in the fatal spot, and he too fell a speedy sacrifice to his temerity; yet until the conflict ceased, the place was not abandoned.^ In the disordered retread at Culloden, an English cavalry officer ad- vanced in front of his regiment, to catch one of the flying Highlanders who had come rather close to the line. The fellow quickly brought him down with his broadsword, and having despatched him, he deliberately stopped to take his watch, in front of a whole squadron of the enemy. || In that disastrous battle, the heroism of Gillies Mac Bane was most eminently displayed, and worthy of a better fate. This gentleman was major of the regiment of clan Macintosh; and when the Argyle militia broke down the park wall which enabled them to attack the Highlanders in flank, the brave Gillies stationed himself at the gap, and, as the ene- my entered, they severely suffered from the irresistible strokes of his claymore. As John Breac Mac Donald, who stood beside him, ex- pressed it, " he mowed them down like dockins." At last, finding him- * Chevalier Johnstone's Memoirs, p. 92. On this occasion, Macdonald of Clauran- nald was with difficulty rescued from under a dead horse that had fallen on him. t Bello Gall i. 20. t Bello Gall. vii. 5G. Bello Gall vii. 12 !| Chev. Johnstone. 9f5 GILLIES MACBANE. self opposed singly to a whole troop, he set his back to the wall and de- fended himself with the fierceness of desperation, keeping the enemy long at bay, and killing an almost incredible number. Some officers, admiring his valor, endeavored to save his life, but poor Gillies feli where he had slain thirteen of his foes. According to som,e accounts, the number was much greater. A descendant of this brave man, who has lost a leg, resides at Chelsea, and is remarkable for his fine stature and proportion. The following verses are said to be from the pen of Lord Byron: GILLIES MACBANE. The clouds may pour down on Culloden's red plain, But the waters shall flow o'er its crimson in vain ; For their drops shall seem few to the tears for the slain But mine are for thee, my brave Gillies Macbane ! Though thy cause was the cause of the injured and brave , Though thy death was the hero's, and glorious thy grave ; With thy dead foes around thee, piled high on the plain, My sad heart bleeds o'er thee, my Gillies Macbane ! How the horse and the horseman thy single hand slew ! But what could the mightiest single arm do ? A hundred like thee might the battle regain ; ^ But cold are thy hand and heart, Gillies Macbane! With thy back to the wall, and thy breast to the targe, Full flashed thy claymore in the face of their charge ; The blood of their boldest that barren turf stain ; But alas ! thine is reddest there, Gillies Macbane! Hewn down, but still battling, thou sunk'st on the ground, Thy plaid was one gore, and thy breast was one wound ; i Thirteen of thy foes by thy right hand lay slain ; Oh ! would they were thousands for Gillies Macbane ! Oh ! loud, and long heard, shall thy coronach be ; And high o'er the heather thy cairn we shall see ; And deep in all bosoms thy name shall remain, But deepest in mine, dearest Gillies Macbane ' And daily the eyes of thy brave Boy before Shall thy plaid be unfolded ; unsheathed thy claymore; And the white rose shall bloom on his bonnet again, Should he prove the true son of my Gillies Macbane ! As it was equally shameful for a general to desert his troops, as for them to abandon their commander, he shared the same fate as his follow- ers; and it is related that no prince ever survived the loss of his crown. Correus, the chief of the Bellovaci, though his army was put to the rout, would neither quit the field nor accept of quarter, but continued to fight with undaunted courage, wounding many of the victorious Romans, who were < EXPLOITS OF THE TWO CELTIC LEGIONS. 97 were at last obliged to despatch him with their javelins.* " Some,' says another, " before all their blood was shed, rose up ere they died, to do some more service. Others, when both knees were tired, bowing the left leg, would rest themselves by thus reclining, yet ready to give a fresh assault, which is a token of obstinacy and stiff resolution, in the highest degree, "t At the siege of Amida, the two legions Magnentiae, raised in Gaul in the time of Constantius and Julius, immortalized themselves. They were composed of valiant men, both active and nimble, excellent for fighting on even ground, but unfit for besieging, for they would not lend a hand to help any man at the engines, or in raising bulwarks, but fool hardily would sally forth and fight, courageously indeed, but they often returned many fewer than when they went out. When the city gates were at last closed, and they could not by any entreaty be allowed to make their usual sorties, they gnashed their teeth like wild beasts for vexation. At length, throwing off all restraint, they threatened death to the tribunes if they should offer to oppose their resolution of breaking out of the city, to attack the besieging Persians, and forthwith began to hack and hew down the gates with their swords, being exceedingly afraid lest the place should be taken before they had got to the open field, there to perform exploits that were worthy of Gauls. With great difficulty they were induced to wait for a short time, until they could march out, and attack the advanced posts with some appearance of success. They therefore sallied out on a certain night by a postern gate, armed with axes and swords, praying for success to the Heavenly power, but proceeding with the utmost caution, holding their breath until they reached the outwatches, who were instantly des- patched ; when the whole body ran furiously toward the carnp, designing to surprise the king. But the enemy being alarmed, and speedily standing to their_arms, the Gauls made a halt, and most valiantly, with wondrous strength, slashed and cut down with their swords, all that stood in their way. The whole host pouring around them, the Gauls thought it pru- dent to retreat, and yet not one of them turned his back, but they retired gradually within the rampart, sustaining the overwhelming assault until they at last got into the city at day-break, with the loss of four hundred slain and many wounded, having thus very nearly surprised and killed, not Rhesus and the Thracians before Troy, but the king of the Persians, guarded by a hundred thousand armed men. The leaders of these Gauls, as most valiant heroes, t were greatly honored by the Emperor, who commanded statues of them, in their arms, to be set up at Edessa, a place of much resort. This is from the pen of Ammianus Marcelli- nus,J who served in the same campaign, and who, in a subsequent book, gives us another anecdote of these heroic warriors. After the death of Julian, the Gauls were pitched on as the most expert swimmers, to cross the Tigris. Whether this was to encourage the rest of the army to at- tempt the passage, from their success, or, as it would otherwise appear, to * Bello Gal. viii. 16. Pansa. t Amm. Mar. t Lib. six. c. ft 13 98 THE BRITISH TRIBES. deter those who thought the plan of attack advisable, by showing, from the fate of the auxiliaries, the desperate nature of the measure, is doubtful, but the Gauls were let out of the place at night, and, sooner than any one could have imagined, they reached the further bank, and trod undei foot, and cut in pieces, those Persians who opposed them.* When the ambassadors of the Celts, who lived near the Ionian bay, met Alexander in the city of the Getae, with offers of friendship and proposals for a league, that great monarch took an opportunity of asking these people, what they were most afraid of, believing that the dread of incurring his displeasure and suffering from his vengeance, must have been the strongest feelings at the time. The Celts replied with charac- teristic simplicity and indifference, that they were afraid of nothing more than that the sky should fall on their heads! They were admitted by the conqueror amongst the number of his friends, and dismissed with a remark, that the Celts were a very arrogant people."]" The Nervii openly declared their resolution of neither sending am- bassadors to Caesar, nor accepting his peace on any terms .J The obstinate and persevering resistance, and the daring attacks of the Celtae, more particularly the British tribes, could not fail to make a strong impression on the Romans. None of the race were more ardent in the cause of liberty than the Britons; and before they had to contend for their own freedom, they were in the practice of assisting their friends on the continent with considerable bodies of troops, during their des- perate contentions with the Romans, which is the chief cause assigned for Cassar's invasion. Tacitus avers that the natives surpassed the Gauls in bravery and love of freedom, and declares that Caesar " by a prosper- ous battle only struck the natives with terror, that he was the discov- erer, not the conqueror of the island." The fortitude and unshaken perseverance of the Britons, their vigi- lance and enterprise in their endeavors to preserve their independence, are amply evinced throughout the long and sanguinary struggle. Noth- ing but the superior arms and discipline of the Romans, assisted by the introduction of arts, the enervating baits of pleasure, and charms of vice, enabled them to provinciate and keep possession of the southern parts of the island. Their tremendous power could not but have been long known to the Britons, through the Gauls, who had themselves experi- enced it, at the cost of upwards of a million of men, slain in the field, yet the appearance of those mighty conquerors on the shores of Albion did not dispirit the warlike inhabitants. Caesar, on his first descent, was evidently defeated. He procured from his country a thanks offering of twenty days, but the only proofs of his conquest were two hostages, received from cities perhaps not quite removed from Roman influence. In his second attempt, the natives were *Ibid. xxv. c. 9. t Arian i. 4. Ed. Amstel. 1668, p. 11. Strabo. t Bella Gall Lucan, with whom Tysilio, an ancient Welsh Bard, coincides. Robert's early Hist, of the Cumri. CALEDONIANS. 99 more resolutely determined to resist his amis, and the bloody conflict that ensued on his landing, is almost admitted to have ended in his de feat. After his death, Britain was scarcely considered as a Roman ac- quisition, and it was reserved for succeeding commanders, by sacrifices of blood and maxims of deep policy, to break the spirit, and sap the vir- tues of a rude and patriotic people. The island became better known after the Romans had established themselves, and its intercourse with the continent had consequently in- creased, while Gaul, finally reduced to subjection, was but a province of the mighty empire. Several of the tribes also began to find the advan- tage of the alliance and protection of their conquerors, dissensions were fomented in favor of the Romans, and disunion facilitated the com- plete subjugation of South Britain.* 1 Fierce and daring by nature, the inhabitants were subdued to quies- cence with that refined policy, which, by the fascinations of luxury, gilds while it rivets the chains of slavery, and brings the enervated wearer to submit, without regret, to wear a yoke, which still preserves an appear- ance of independence. In the pleasures of Roman society and civilisa- tion, the tributary Briton forgot his subjection; but a numerous part of the population sternly refused all advantages, as unworthy of comparison with the enjoyment of liberty. The free and unconquered tribes, by the incessant annoyance they gave to the legions, made Britain a most troublesome and precarious acquisition. Although often coerced, the high-spirited Celts were never broken-hearted. The Caledonians, al- though amazed at the vast armies and fleets led against them, were not daunted, but made extensive preparation for the defence of their coun- try, and that with so much ardor and assiduity, that Tacitus, in relating the expedition of Agricola, astonished at the greatness of their exertions, insinuates that it was very much magnified by fame. Not only did they stand on the defensive, but immediately began to storm the Roman forts and castles, and, by the boldness of their proceedings, struck Agri- cola's army with terror. When repulsed in an attack which they made on the ninth legion, they nevertheless " abated nothing from their feroci- ty; they ascribed their failure to the chance of war, and not to their in- feriority, and boldly continued to keep the field." Defeat seems on this, as on other occasions, to have roused the Celts to greater exertions The youth, and even the old men poured to the army from all quarters, and, undismayed by former losses, they posted themselves with firm de- termination to stand for their country and their liberties, at the foot of the Grampians. There they were indeed defeated, but they did not submit to the victors. They rallied their forces in the woods, and checked the pursuit. The Romans were obliged to retire southwards, the Caledonians followed them, retook the districts which had been over- * The Chamavii and Angrivarii vanquished the Bructeri in a pitched battle, wherein the latter lost sixty thousand men, " to the joy and recreation of the Romans," exclaim* Tacitus, in the enthusiasm of Amor Patriae. 100 PERSEVERING EFFORTS OF THE CELTS run, demolished the fortifications that had been recently erected, and again saw their country freed from the presence of their enemies, and burning with revenge, they passed the walls and ravaged the northern provinces. Hadrian, Severus, and other emperors, visited Britain for the express purpose of subduing the refractory tribes, and securing the northern frontier, but their powerful armies and vigorous operations failed in sub- duing the stubborn natives. Neither the formation of military roads, by which they were enabled to conduct armies with facility into the reces- ses of the country, nor the establishment of numerous stations and forts of great strength, produced this desirable result. Nor did the high- minded Caledonians value the offer of citizenship, which they could have freely embraced; but notwithstanding the repeated losses, and severe chastisements which their temerity brought on them, they obstinately preferred a life of freedom, to an existence branded with the mark of subjection. The continued efforts of the Welsh to preserve their independence, were worthy of a branch of the great Celtic race. Gir. Cambrensis says, that Henry II. informed the Emperor Emanuel, that they were BO warlike, it was easier to tame wild beasts, than daunt their courage. The determined opposition which the Scots ever made to the attempts of the English Kings, to reduce them to subjection, is a proof of the high value they set on national independence, and the steadiness with which they continued to protect it. Although the country was repeat- edly overrun by the armies of-England, the national archives and rega- lia carried off, they valiantly contended under the illustrious Wallace and Bruce, until they had finally achieved their complete emancipation. "It is not glory," say the Scots nobility, in their letter to Pope John, in 1320, concerning their wrongs, "it is not riches, neither is it honor, but it is liberty alone that we fight and contend for, which no honest man will lose but with his life." The long and persevering exertions of the Scots, in the cause of the Stewarts, is no less worthy of remark. The misfortunes of the gallant Montrose, and no less worthy Dundee, and the severe punishments which their frequent rebellions brought on them, did not detach them from the interest of the expatriated family. After the accession of the Prince of Orange, the Highlanders became more submissive; but one of Dundee's unfortunate officers says that " nothing but King James' special command" could have put a period to the war at that time. The Clans, however, took the field in 1715, were in arms in 1719, and were still ready to vindicate their supposed liberties in 1745, when the final struggle of the Celtic race for their independence took place. On this last occasion, the privations they suffered did not impair their ardor. Their cheerfulness never forsook them, even when they were in want of almost every necessary, were surrounded with difficulties, and had to undergo extreme fatigue. On their retreat from England, HARDIHOOD OF THE GAEL. 101 although they had performed with astonishing celerity a long march in u bad season, as soon as they had forded the Eske, which reached as high as the neck, and were in Scotland, the pipers struck up their favorite strath-speys, and most of the army began to dance. When the Highlanders rendezvoused at Ruthven after the battle at Culloden, instead of being depressed at their loss, they scarcely consid- ered it a defeat, but were burning with impatience for revenge. '' I was delighted," says the Chevalier Johnstone, " to see their gaiety." Civilis, a celebrated German leader, attacked the Roman army four times in one day, and instances are found of the Gauls maintaining des- perate battles for several successive days, such was the persevering ob- stinacy of these nations. Dundee's troops in many of their marches, which were always made with wonderful expedition, had neither bread, salt, nor any sort of liquor except water, and that during several weeks, yet they never complained. The Highlanders were well known to be "a people, that can endure all the hardships of war, being bred to all manner of cunning in relation thereto."* Sir J. Dalrymple, in his Memoirs of Great Britain, ii. p. 53, thus speaks of them. " The lightness arid looseness of their dress, the habit they had of going always on foot, and never on horseback, their love of long journeys, but above all, that patience of hunger and every kind of hardship, which carried their bodies forward, even after their spirits were exhausted, made them exceed all other European nations in speed and perseverance of march. Montrose's marches were sometimes sixty miles a day, without food or halting, over mountains, along rocks, and through morasses, &c." ft It is not easy," says Home, " to conceive how they really did live, and how they endured the want of those things which other people rail the conveniences and even the necessaries of life." When the Highland companies were raised in the service of govern- ment, it was soon observed that they became less hardy than their coun- trymen who lived in their wonted state of rudeness and freedom. * Scotia Indiculum, 1682. CHAPTER V. CUSTOMS IN WAR AND MILITARY TACTICS. WHEN the Celtre had determined to engage in a war, the various states in confederation assembled in arms, to deliberate on the mode of conducting the campaign, and to arrange the plan of operation, and this meeting was reckoned the commencement of hostilities. No measures were necessary to compel the attendance, at this convention, of any who were able to carry arms, which was nearly the whole population, "every age being most meet for war." Both the old men and the youth took the field with the utmost promptitude and enthusiasm, the only anxiety being to arrive first at the place of meeting. When Caractacus went to battle, "none would stay at home; they followed him freely, and main- tained themselves at their own expense."* No Gaul was ever known to cut off his thumb, as was done by others, to prevent his going to the wars, a practice for which the parties received the appellation Murcos. There is an instance of a Welsh prince going to war at the earlv age of ten years; and in the Scots' rebellions, mere boys are celebrated for a display of bravery that would have done honor to veteran soldiers. The Germans seem to have been less punctual in their meetings; the second, and sometimes the third, day elapsed before all had assembled, an evil that apparently arose from the liberty they enjoyed, in not being compelled to attend otherwise than from inclination. Like the Gauls, they transacted nothing without being armed. They sat down where they chose, without any distinction of persons; and when all had as- sembled, the priests enjoined silence. The king was first heard, and all others according to precedence in age or nobility, in warlike renown or in eloquence. If a proposition displeased the assembly, it was re- Triad, 79. ap. Robert's early Hist, of the Cvinri. METHOD OF CONVOKING ASSEMBLIES. 103 jected by a slight murmur; if pleasing, it was received by the brand- ishing of javelins and by the rattling of their arms, which was the most honorable expression of assent.* It was customary, when a chief had stated his determination to lead an expedition, that those who approved of it, rose up before the assembly, and pledged themselves to follow him; and to break such an engagement was to lose their honor, which they could never afterwards regain."]" JVo affair of moment could be decided without this general assembly of the people. The Belgse held a council to advise on the means of opposing Caesar, and on his advance other great assemblages took place. It was a hazardous attempt for the Celtic chiefs to engage in war without the sanction of their people, notwithstanding the strength of the clannish attachment, and power of the nobility. An expedition into Italy being undertaken in this irregular manner, a mutiny ensued, when Gallus and Etas, two of their kings, lost their lives in the tumult. J Lord Murray raised one thousand men on his father and Lord Lovat's estates, under an assurance that they were to serve Jarnes, but, in fact, to use them in the service of King William. Having discovered this, while Murray was reviewing them, they suddenly broke from their ranks, ran to an adjoining brook, and, filling their bonnets with water, drank to King James's health, and marched off, with pipes playing, to join Lord Dundee. ^ The public assemblies were convoked, and an army raised with aston- ishing expedition. Information was speedily conveyed throughout the provinces of Gaul; for, when an event was learned by one state, it was immediately imparted to the others, a system eminently beneficial during war, and for which their swiftness of foot was well adapted. An action that took place near Genabum, at sun rise, was known at Arverui, by nine o'clock at night, a distance of 160 miles! This telegraphic rapid- ity has a parallel only in the methods by which the Celtic nations of Britain roused the various tribes to arms, while the ancient system re- mained entire. Fire was a ready and effectual method of arousing the inhabitants of a district, and the practice continued among the High- landers until recent times. The crest of the Mackenzies is Tullach ard, with "the warning flame" on its summit, being the beacon whence the clan was apprised of danger; but the most remarkable practice was by the Croish or Cran-taraidh, the cross or beam of gathering of the High- landers. When the chief was aware of the approach of an enemy, he immediately, with his own sword, killed a goat, and dipping in the blood the ends of a cross of wood, that had been half burned, gave it, with the name of the place of meeting, to one of the clan, who carried it with the utmost celerity to the next dwelling, or put it in the hands of some one he met who ran forward in the same manner, until, in a few hours, the *Tac. de mor. Germ. He elsewhere says it was also customary with them to beat the ground with their feet. t Bello Gall, t Poljbius, lib. ii. Dalrymple's Mem. part ii. b. i. p. 45. 104 METHODS OF RAISING ARMIES whole clan, from the most remote situations, were collected in arms at the place appointed. In delivering the Cran-taraidh, the place of meet ing, which was generally some well known spot peculiar to each clan, was the only word that was spoken, the symbol itself was familiar: it threatened fire and sword to those of the tribe who did not instantly re- pair to the standard of the chief. The last time this singular custom was practised, was during the rebellion of 1745, when some disaffected person sent it through Braidalban, when it is said to have passed over thirty-six miles in three hours. The Northern nations had a similar instrument, one end of which was burnt, and to the other was fastened a cord, to denote that those who disobeyed the summons should be hanged. It appears to have been sometimes hung on a ship's mast, which corresponds to the custom among the ancient Gael of suspending a shield sprinkled with blood, in like manner, when requesting assistance.* It was also usual to convey intelligence, by one or more persons as- cending an eminence, and there raising a loud shout, which being heard at a distance by others, was repeated to those who were farther distant, and in this manner information was transmitted with surprising expedi- tion. This practice was continued among the Irish and Welsh until late times, and was called the Hubub. In Wales " when any thing happens, a person goes to an eminence and there cries the Houboub; those who hear it do the same, and the country is speedily in arms.""] Bub, in Gaelic, is a yell. The Piobrach, among the Highlanders, did not supersede the use of the Cran-taraidh. Although this species of pipe music is strictly appro- priated to war, and was played when the forces were rising, yet it is evident the notes of that instrument, loud as they are, could not answer the purpose effectually. Among the old Caledonians, to send an arrow to any party was a signal of war. A symbol by whicti they conveyed a wish for immediate conflict was a spear having some burning matter at- tached to it.J The war cries were also used for gathering the respective clans, and will be hereafter noticed. Ammianus notices the facility with which the Germans could renew their armies. Some of these nations had moreover a regular system of recruiting, for he tells us that every village sent one hundred men, and hence arose the name amongst them, of" those of the hundred band."' It was not unusual to engage tribes who were otherwise uninterested in the war, to serve as mercenaries, but it was more generally the case that these auxiliaries assisted their friends "for the like service when, they required it."jj The Arverni hired upwards of one hundred thou- sand Germans in their wars with the JEduans.lT The Irish and Scots * Oiaus Magnus. M'Pherson in Osaian. Fosbrooke's Encyc. of Ant. I Edmond's Transl. of Caesar's Commentaries, p. 154, &c. t Ossian. Lib. xvii. || Amm. Mar. xv. 10. H Bello Gall. i. 33. In Cassar's time, Gaul was divided into these two factions. RESPONSIBILITY OF THEIR LEADERS 105 reciprocally assisted each other. Thus, Tyione, in 1536, sent troops to Angus MacConnal of the Isles, on condition of receiving a like return; and many traditional stories are current in the Highlands, of chiefs hav- ing lent their men to their neighbors, for stated periods of service. At the great assemblies of the Gauls, it was decided to what chief the supreme command should be given, and whoever was thus appointed, his nation took the lead, and gave name to the whole confederation, and the election was the free choice of the meeting. The Bellovaci, aware of their superiority in numbers and renown, asked the command of the Belgic forces that were about to take the field against Cassar; but Gal- ba, son of the famous Divitiac, who had raised the Suessiones to so great power, was unanimously voted the command, from a sense of his justice and prudence. There was usually a single leader appointed to conduct the war; but, latterly, two or more were sometimes vested with equal authority.* It is likely these elections sometimes occasioned dis- putes. Trenmhor, the Caledonian king, to reconcile the chiefs who were contending for the honor of leading the attack, bade them take the command by turns. Among these tribes we learn that the different chiefs, standing apart, struck their shields, to determine who should have the honor of leading the war. The bards, who here seem to have come in place of the Druids, attending in a proper situation "marked the sounds," and the owner of that which they found to ring loudest, obtained the appointment. "f The practice among the ancient Irish is thus represented. Before entering on an expedition, the Ard Riah, or provincial chief, summoned all the people, who met on the raths in arms, and as many as chose to engage in the enterprise selected a leader, on condition of a mutual division of the spoil, and, as may be supposed, their choice generally fell on the Ard Riah. He then com- municated the decision to subordinate Riahs, and they to the Aireach, who informed the lower officers in the Rath, until all were apprised of the intended war. The equal division of the spoil was strictly observed. It is related of Clovis, that having requested on one occasion a certain vase, was answered that he should receive nothing but what by lot he had a right to, and indignantly struck the vessel to pieces with his axe. On the election of a commander, he was carried about, seated on a shield, carried on men's shoulders. Brinno, a Caninefatian, being chosen, was thus borne in procession, according to the ancient custom. J A council of officers, or subordinate commanders, was appointed to these Generals, who are poetically styled " rulers of the war " by the Caledonian bards, and, although, as commanders in chief, they were in- vested with a supreme power, yet they were so controlled by the popu- lar constitution of their tribes, that they dared not abuse their authority. They were, in fact, accountable to the people for their conduct, and, not- withstanding the ties of consanguinity, by which the chief was linked to his followers, he was sometimes impeached, and even put to death. We * Amm Mar. xvi. 10. t Catholda. t Tacitus 14 106 PECULIAR OATHS. find the Gallic leaders, after the loss of a battle, of a town, or suffering any other disaster, very anxious to vindicate themselves to their constit- uents from the charge of mismanagement. The Burgundian King, who, by a general name, was called Hendinos, was deposed, if a war under his direction turned out unsuccessful.* If the troops had sufficient power to control the chief, he had gener- ally the prudence to yield to their desires. The German soldiers, on occasion of a battle with the Romans, obliged their leaders to alight from their horses and fight in the ranks with their men, that they might have no advantage over them, or, in case of defeat, might be able to make their escape. The Princes instantly complied with the wish of their troops, and, charging at their head, cut their way to the main body of the ene- my.f The Gallic Princes are always found in the field of battle, and usually where the fight was hottest. It was, however, a singular custom among the Caledonian chiefs to retire a little distance, and not join in the com- bat, unless on pressing occasions, when their immediate presence was necessary to inspirit and rally their troops. "When mighty danger rose, then was the hour of the king to conquer in the field." J It was customary 'for the Celtas to confirm their decisions by oath, and their most sacred obligation was swearing before or under their stand- ards, but several other forms of asseveration are preserved. The In- subrians swore they would not unloose their belts until they had sacked Rome. On another occasion, the Gauls, who had taken up arms, unan- imously emitted a prayer, that the Gods might never more suffer them to return to their homes, if they failed in prosecuting the war with due ardor, and that they might be no more acknowledged by their wives, their children, or their relations. || The Germans sealed a truce, with a form of oath according to their own fashion. IT When Caractacus re- ceived the command of the Silures, they all took a most solemn vow " never to yield to arms, or wounds, or aught save death."** The Cale- donians under Galgacus confirmed their engagements with sacrifices and the immolation of victims ;"|"f and from the work of an ancient Bard we find that swearing by the sun was the most solemn oath of these moun- taineers. It is related of Manos, in an ancient poem, that having sworn on his shield, and broken his oath, he was universally despised. 1 The Gaelic chiefs also, as a bond of indissoluble friendship, sometimes drank a few drops of each others' blood; and to violate this sacred pledge was infamy through life. The Irish had a similar custom, but accom- panied with many superstitious observances. They went to a church, where they were carried on each other's back a few paces in a circular form, kissing the relics, &c.; then each drawing a little of his blood, it * Amni. Mar. xviii. 12. t Ibid. xvi. 10. J Ossian. Bello Gall. vii. 2. || Bello Gall. vii. 29. IT Amm. Mar. xvii. 1. ** Tacitus, Annal. xii. ft Tacitus. tt Smith's Gallic Ant Martin's West. Islands, p. 107. THE CHIEF'S BODY GUARD. 107 was mutually drank.* In the worship of Hertha, the Northern nations swore fast brotherhood by cutting a long strip of green sod, leaving one end attached to the earth, when the other being raised on the top of a spear, they passed under it, wounding themselves and mixing the blood and earth together. The ceremony was completed by fal ; ng on their knees, and solemnly pledging themselves to inviolable friendship. | The common form of swearing among the Highlanders was upon a drawn dirk, which they usually kissed. Martin tells us it was reckoned a great indignity to assert any thing by the hand of a father; but if to this, one were to add that of a grandfather, the answer to be expected was a knock down blow. Each clan appears to have formed an oath for itself. The name of the chief seems to have bt en in this respect highly vene- rated, and many do not appear to have thought swearing on the Gospels more binding. It is related of a Highlander, that readily offering to kiss the bible, the prosecutor shrewdly suspecting the reason, tendered the clan oath, which the witness absolutely refused to take. When a High- lander took an oath on the sacred volume, he did not kiss it, which in- deed is not the practice in Scotland, but held up his hand, and said to this purpose: " By God himself, and as I shall answer to God at the great day, I shall speak the truth: if I do not, may I never thrive while I live; may I go to hell and be damned when I die; may my land bear neither grass nor corn; may my wife and bairns never prosper; may my cows, calves, sheep, and lambs, all perish, &c."J The Irish, before an attack, swore on their swords, with which they made a cross, and, mut- tering charms, stuck their points in the ground. In 1578, nineteen of the Earl of Desmond's followers forswore God if they spared life, land, or goods, in enabling him to resist the lord-deputy. || To swear by the hand of their chief, was a most solemn oath. If found to have made a false asseveration, and such a case is not impossible, the landlord, we are told, made them pay soundly for it. O'Neil's peculiar oath was by Bachull Murry, or St. Murran's staff, which is said to be still preserved "By the blessed stone!" is an expression of the present Irish. To swear on the black stones, was a solemn oath of the West Islanders. The Celtic chiefs took great pride in being surrounded by a numerous band of choice troops as guards. These were his own relations and clients, who were devoted to his service, and were the finest men of the tribe. The body guards of Brennus, as they stood around him at Del- phos, were remarked as the tallest men of all his army. IT The Germans were no less emulous in the number and appearance of their followers than the Gauls. It was their pride to be surrounded by a company of chosen young men for ornament and glory in peace, security and de- * Gir. Camb. ap. Campion. > The Scythians, to bind their contracts, pricked them- selves in the arm, and drank each others' blood. Herodotus. t Dr. Hibbert. f Birt. The Irish thought the bigger the book was, the greater the oath. Spenser. || Desiderata curiosa Hibernica. If Pausanias, x. 23. 103 THE CATHARN OR KERN. fence in war. In battle, it was a shame for the Prince to be surpassed in feats of prowess, and scandalous for his followers not to equal their chief; and it was lasting infamy for them to return from the conflict when their leader was slain.* Such a body was the Soldurii of the Gauls, " sworn friends," who never survived their commander. Adcan- tuan of Aquitain had six hundred of these followers. The Luchdtachk of the Highlanders was an exactly similar body in organization and devotion to their chief, and it was composed of young men of the best families in the clan, who were expressly educated for the service. They were anciently armed with darts and dirks, and their special duty was to attend the person of their chief. Their favorite amusement was wrestling, at which they were most expert; and when the chiefs were visiting each other, it was usual for their followers to begin this exercise, which they did with great emulation, often, when not prevented, resorting to downright fighting. This company was usually selected by the heir, or Tanist, who was himself obliged to de- monstrate his right to command them, and his claim to the chieftainship, by giving a specimen of his valor. It was, therefore, customary for him to lead them on some desperate foray, from which they were expected to bring home a prey of cattle or other spoil, or die in the attempt. After this exploit, if successful, the fame of the young chief and his associates was fully established. These companies were called Catharn, a word signifying fighting bands, otherwise pronounced Cearnachs and Kerns. As it must have been the ambition of all the young men to enrol them- selves in the Catharn, they were most likely in some cases numerous; but, except in actual war, the chief carried no more attendants with him than those who composed his regular retinue, or tail; an establishment by no means scanty, for it comprised ten or more persons, besides sever- al others, who found some pretext or other for their presence. A company of soldiers like the Catharn required to be kept in action, and as the tribe could not be always at war, they undertook expeditions to revenge old injuries, and procure booty, or exalt their military fame; but the favorite recreation with these warriors was to make a foray on the Lowland plains, and enrich themselves by a valuable creach. Hence the name of Cearnach was reckoned honorable, and was applicable to those chiefs who distinguished themselves; as Rob Roy 3PGregor, Mac Donald of Barisdale, Gilderoy, and others, have done. These men were far from thinking so meanly of themselves as their Lowland countrymen did, who had often too much reason to dread the visits of "the Catrin." The Lusitanian young men associated in bodies in the mountains, which they occupied as if it were formed by nature solelv for themselves, and from whence they made incursions into Spain and amassed great riches by their robberies; and, although the Romans checked, they were unable to put an end to these inroads. * Tacitus de mor. Germ. MODE OF DRAWING UP ARMIES 109 The following character may compare with Mac Gregor or Wallace himself, and is a curious specimen of an ancient Celtic Cearnaeh. The account is extracted from the preserved fragments of the lost books ol Diodorus the Sicilian. Viriathus of Lusitania, a captain of those rob- bers, was of incredible sobriety and vigilance. He was just and exact in dividing the spoil, and rewarding those who had behaved themselves valiantly in battle; and in its distribution he never took a greater share to himself than what was assigned to others; nor did he ever convert to his own use any of the public moneys, and therefore his men never shrunk from any undertaking, however hazardous, when he commanded and led them on. In his leagues and treaties he was exactly faithful to his word, and always spoke plainly and sincerely what he intended. When, at his marriage, many gold and silver cups, and all sorts of rich carpets, were set forth to grace the solemnity, he held all on the point of his lance, not with admiration, but rather with scorn and contempt. When he had spoken for a considerable time with much wisdom and prudence, he concluded with many apposite and forcible expressions, particularly with this very remarkable one ***** By this saying, he meant to show that it was the greatest imprudence to trust in the uncertain gifts of Fortune, since all those riches, so much esteemed by his father-in-law, were liable to be carried off by some one, on his spear's point. He far- ther added, that his father-in-law ought rather to thank him, who was lord of all, for taking nothing of him. Viriathus, therefore, neither washed nor sat down, although entreated to do so, nor did he partake of the rich dishes of meat, with which the table was plentifully spread, but took and distributed some bread and flesh among those that came along with him. After he had little more than tasted the meal himself, he order- ed his bride to be brought to him, and having sacrificed in manner of the Celtiberians, he mounted her on horseback, and straightway carried her away to the mountains; for he accounted sobriety and temperance the greatest riches, and the liberty of his country, gained by valor, the sur- est possession. For eleven years he commanded the Lusitani, \vh<>, after his death, were broken and dispersed. He was buried with great pomp and state. Two hundred gladiators were matched singly with as many more, and fought duels at his sepulchre, in honor of a man who was so remarkably valiant and just. ""j" The Gauls are said to have sat down when they were drawn up in order of battle. J The passage is thought by some to be corrupted; by others, it is explained as meaning that the troops rested on their fas- cines or baggage, of which they always carried a great quantity, arrang- ing the wagons around the camp as a sort of entrenchment, behind which they made a most obstinate defence when hard pressed. The fascines were sometimes set on fire, and an army effected its retreat under cover of the dense smoke. * This part is unfortunately lost. t Diodorus Sic. Fragmenta Valesii, lib. xx. 93, IX), and 108. | Bello Gall. viii. 110 RIGHT OF CLANS TO CERTAIN POSITIONS. The Germans pitched down their standards immediately on halting or taking up a position.* It does not appear in what order the Celtic ar- mies marched. When the Caledonians passed through the territories of a friendly tribe, they reversed their spears, carrying the points he- hind. Both Gauls and Germans were invariably drawn up in different batti- lia, the disposal of which appears to have been so well determined from ancient times, that the chief in command dared scarcely venture to make any variation. Each tribe fought under the immediate direction of its own chieftain, and was, if possible, assigned that position, which, ac- cording to order and precedence, had been long settled. Vercingetorix, a celebrated Gallic chief, " disposed his army according to their seve- ral districts."! In the British army, under the renowned Caradoc, or Caractacus, whose fame had excited a universal desire in Italy to be- hold so noble a warrior, we find "the troops of the several countries stood in front of their fortifications; " and when the unfortunate Bondiu- ca fought her last disastrous battle, the warriors stood in separate bands. A common mode of drawing up a British army, in the fifth century, was in nine divisions, three of which were in front, three in the centre, and three in the rear.J The right of certain situations in a field of battle was accounted a point of extreme importance among the Celts. At the battle of the Standard, 1 138, the Picts contended for their right to lead the van of the Scots' army, and their claim was allowed. On that occasion, the third line was formed of the clans under the command of their different chiefs. The Highlanders have always been most jealous of their accustomed right to certain positions in the line of battle, and rather than submit to the indignity of being placed in any other situation than that to which they were entitled, they would allow their army to be disgraced by .de- feat. A fatal omission on the part of Prince Charles, in 1745, occasion- ed him the loss of that battle, which finally terminated the hopes of his family. On the field of Culloden, the Mac Donalds were unfortunately placed on the left instead of the right wing, to which they asserted an ancient right, and not a man but the heroic Keppoch would draw a sword that day. An officer of that division thus writes concerning the conduct of his clan. "We, of the clan Mac Donalds, thought it omi- nous we had not this day the right-hand in battle, as formerly, and as we enjoyed when the event proved successful, as at Gladsmuir and Falkirk, and which our clan maintains we had enjoyed in all our battles ana struggles in behalf of our royal family, since the battle of Bannockburn, on which glorious day Robert the Bruce bestowed this honor upon An- gus Mac Donald, Lord of the Isles, as a reward for his never-to-be- forgot fidelity to that brave prince, in protecting him for above nine months in his country of Rachlin, Isla, and Uist. This right we * Amm. Marcel, xxvii. 9. t Bello Gall. vii. 18. * Vegetius ii. V. MODE OF DRAWING UP ARMIES. Ill have, I say, enjoyed ever since, unless when yielded by us out of favor upon particular occasions, as was done to the Laird of Mac Lean, at the batt'e of Harlaw; but our sweet-natured prince was prevailed on by L. and his faction to assign this honor to another on this fatal day, which right, we judge, they will not refuse to yield us back again on the next fighting day."* These Mac Donalds were not of the opinion of an ancient lord of that name. He had, by some mistake, at an entertainment, been prevented from taking his place at the head of the table, which occasioned several recnarks among the guests. On being told what engaged their attention, he exclaimed aloud, " Know, gentlemen, that where Mac Donald sits, that is the head of the table." The Saxons retained the ancient custom of arranging their armies by tribes, the head of a family leading all the members to battle. The Tricastines, a people who lived about Troies, assaulted the Empe- ror Julian's army by troops, while their main body was drawn up with strong wings and flanks, close together.! Amrnianus describes an army as being led by two kings, who were joint commanders, next to whom were five princes, second in rank to the kings and the princes of the blood royal. J The Caledonian kings were accustomed to retire to an eminence the night previous to a battle, apparently for the purpose of obtaining, by visions from their ancestors, a knowledge of the result of the impending conflict. The Scandinavians appear also to have used this custom. $) The German battalions were formed sharp in front, or drawn up in a triangular figure. Tacitus,sspeaking of the Batavi, says, this body was impenetrable on every side, and in advancing it pierced through the firmest legions. || The army of Donald of the Isles, at the battle of Harlaw, was drawn up in the cuniform order, and old Highland- ers sometimes even now speak of Geinneach-catb, the wedge form, without appearing to know its meaning. The name of a Pictish cohort seems never to have been understood. It was called Geone, and was no other than the wedge-formed battalion. IT The old Irish are represented as marching forward " with three and three in ranckes beset," and crowding together when on the point of engaging.** Their armies had also many ''loose wings." The High- landers were accustomed to arrange themselves three deep, and, by sim- ply facing about, the regiment was in marching order. When the Gauls were drawn up ready for battle, they indulged in the most opprobri- ous and provoking language towards their enemies. In " a letter from a soldier in Ireland, 1602," Tyrone's men are represented as advancing within sixty paces of the English horse, and then stopping after their fashion, shaking their staves, and " railingly vaunting." Arrian notices * Note in Memoirs of Chevalier Johnstone, quoted from Lockhart's papers, ii. 510. t Amm. Mar. xvi. 1. t xvi. 10. Ossian. || De mor. Germ. H Adomnan, i. 33. ** Derrick's Image of Ireland. 112 MODE OF ATTACK. how grievously provoking the Celts were, and .ZEIian has* a chapter on their audacity. The practice of using scornful and contemptuous lan- guage on such occasions was not, however, peculiar to the Celtte. The refined Greeks did not hesitate to use reviling language in battle.* Before an engagement, it was usual for some to step out, and, brand- ishing their weapons, challenge the stoutest of their opponents to single combat. If any one accepted the challenge, the Celtic warriors sang loudly in praise of the valor of their ancestors and their own virtues, vilifying their adversaries, and insulting them for want of courage and military renown. "f" From the success of the parties, they anticipated victory or defeat in the general engagement. Another method was to get hold, by any means, of one of the enemy, with whom they set one of their own men to fight, each armed in his own way, and from the fate of the combatants a presage of the war was drawn. It was, perhaps, from this, that the anxiety of the Caledonians, to draw the first blood in any military expe- dition, arose. It was not necessary that it should be that of an enemy; to make sure work, the Highlanders, from time immemorial, never failed to sacrifice the first animal that came in their way; and, anciently, they used to sprinkle the blood on their colors, to prevent mistake as to priority. The detachment of rebels under Lord Lewis Gordon, who defeated a party of the king's forces at Inverury, in 1745, ripped up a sow with young, that presented itself, as, in the morning, they passed by the mill of Keith Hall. The attack of the Celts was made by a deafening shout from the whole army, which was returned by the women and children, who were gener- ally close in the rear. In night assaults, the greatest silence was pre- served until the moment of "onslaught," when an appalling cry was raised, adding much to the alarm of the enemy. The practice of shout- ing was common to all Celtic nations. The Irish, we find, made "a most terrible noise of crieing." It appears to have been the Prosnacha- cath, or incentive to battle, of the Caledonians, which afterwards became a regular song or piece of music among these clans, and is allied to the Gaelic cath ghairm, or gaoir catha, a war cry, and the Slagan of the Low country. The battle-shout called Barritus, says Ammianus, xvi. ii. be- gins in a slight humming, and rises higher, like beating of waves. This cry seems to have been used by the old Romans. The first assault of a Celtic army was tremendous. They ran on with such fury that they made whole legions recoil ;J but it has been also ob- served that they were always most vigorous in the first onset, their ardor gradually subsiding if unsuccessful, for their best qualifications were strength and audacity. The strong resemblance of the Celts of modern times to their remote ancestors, in this respect, is remarkable. The Highlanders of 1745 retained all the bravery and heroism of the race, Pausan. iv. 8. t Diod. t Appian. Strabo. MILITARY TACTICS. 113 but " the chiefs knew no other manoeuvre than that of rushing upon he enemy, sword in hand, as soon as they saw them."* At Floddtm Field, " The Highland battalion so forward and valiant, They broke from their ranks and rushed on to slay ; With hacking and slashing and broad swords a dashing, Through the front of the English they cut a' full way." And at Prestonpans the rebels advanced with a swiftness not to be con- ceived.t Dio describes the Caledonian infantry as swift in running and firm in standing. An old writer, describing the Irish, says they were impetuous in their first onset, clashing their swords as they advanced; but, if repulsed, they speedily retreated to the bogs. The Germans, on one occasion, are described, when engaging the Romans under Constantius, as in the greatest heat. At the most early dawn of day they were seen running up and down, brandishing their swords, grating their teeth, and pouring forth dreadful menaces. J This was surely a most useless way of exhausting themselves, but it was quite characteristic, for they are again represented as raging about, with hide- ous gnashing of teeth, and eyes darting fury, until they were puffing and blowing hard, as they well might, from such insane exertion. The Gauls are allowed to have made a most furious onset; but after the first heat was over, they generally became disheartened. They seem to have, in the first place, aimed at securing victory by an overwhelming assault, and, on its failure, to have resorted to stratagem. Tacitus ob- served this practice among the Germans, who did not reckon it dishon- orable to retreat when the battle was unfavorable. It was esteemed good policy to retire, that they might renew the fight with more advan- tage. |j A French writer, in 1547, characterizes the Scots as " plus propre a faire des courses qu' a combattre: bons pour un coup de main ou pour une surprise." Better is a good retreat, than a bad stand, says the Gaelic proverb. Neither Gauls nor Britons depended entirely on their strength and valor for success. Their favorite military tactics were those of strata- gem and surprise, to which the nature of the country, the state of society, and predatory character of their wars, were adapted. They were most expert in these arts, and possessed such consummate skill in retreat and desultory attack, that the Roman Generals were extremely perplexed and annoyed by this system of warfare. It was certainly the wisdom of these nations to avail themselves of all means of harassing and weak- ening so formidable an enemy as the veteran and well provided legions of Rome. Whenever the Britons found a party of the enemy at a distance from the camp, employed in foraging or otherwise, they fell suddenly upon hem, and often cut them entirely off. They sometimes cut down the * Mem of Chev. Johnstone. t Col. Whitefoord's Evidence. J A mm Mar. xvi. 3. Ibid. xvi. 10 || De mor. Grm 15 114 VALOR AND INFLUENCE woods to retard pursuit.* It was also usual for them to feign a retreat, for the purpose of drawing a party from the main body, when, being enticed into the woods or other fastnesses, they were, by a furious as- sault, put to the sword. So much did 'the Roman army suffer from these disasters, that Csesar was obliged to issue strict orders that none should, on any pretence, leave the camp. These ambuscades were not to be detected: parties were suddenly surprised and annihilated, when the vicinity of an enemy was not suspected; and when a body of troops were sent in pursuit of the assailants, they were nowhere to be found. Often when victory seemed secured to the Roman arms, the Britons, retreating to marshes and fastnesses, unexpectedly rallied, and, with a desperate fury and an impetuous onset, they would check the foremost pursuers, throw them into confusion, and compel them to retrograde with the utmost celerity. Numbers suffered in this manner after the battle of the Gram- pians, and on many other occasions. The Gauls, who, in the time of Asdrubal, invaded Italy with an army of 70,000 men, gained their first battle with #milius by feigning a retreat. f The Morini, a people who inhabited the country about Terouenne, suddenly attacked Csesar from the woods into which they had decoyed his troops, and, having put most part to the sword, made good their own retreat. J It was a well planned attack, or a most luck^ turn of fortune, that enabled a body of 800 Ger- man horse to surprise and completely rout a detachment of 5000 Roman cavalry. J It was usual with the Gallic nations before an engagement, or during the heat of war, to remove their women, their children, and their aged men out of the way of danger. They were placed in the fastnesses of the country, or in their regular strong holds. The Nervii having taken the field with an army of 60,000 fighting men, before engaging the Ro- mans, placed their old men, women, and children in the bogs;^ and the Caledonians, before the battle of the Grampians, sent their wives and children to places of safety. || But the Gallic ladies were not always accustomed to shun the dangers of the field. They were in the practice of sharing the fatigues of the chase, and they frequently lent their vigorous assistance in the turmoil of battle, undismayed by the horrors of the fiercest encounter. When the Cimbri engaged the Romans, " the women attacked them with swords and axes, and, making a hideous outcry, fell upon those that fled, as well as their pursuers, the former as traitors, the latter as enemies; and mix- ing wilh the soldiers, with their bare arms, pulled away the shields of the Romans and laid hold of their swords, enduring the wounding and slash- ing of their bodies to the very last with undaunted resolution. "TT The Northern nations had their skiold moer, or shield maids, who went into batth. On a certain occasion we find the Gaulish women exerting themselves * Amm. Mar. t Polybiua, ii. t Bello Gall. Bello Gall. ii. || Vit. Agrie. fl Plutarch de Bello Cimbrico OF THE CELTIC FEMALES. 115 most strenuously to animate the soldiers and excite them to the combat They ran about with dishevelled hair, and other appearances calculated to rouse the army to the utmost rage.* When the Druids were attacked in Anglesea, their sacred asylum, by the Romans, the women did the same. The illustrious Queen of the Jceni is an instance of the heroism of British females. I am not aware that any of the ladies of Scotish chiefs actually fought, but many of them have on various occasions raised their followers, and led them to the field. The Germans placed their wives and children in the immediate vicini- ty of the field of battle, who before an engagement set up loud bowlings, which were answered by the chantings of the whole army, both together making an astounding noise. The troops beng thus under the notice of their dearest relatives, were stimulated to the most obstinate and san- guinary resistance. It was highly creditable to the humanity of the Gauls, that during the continuance of a battle they carried their slain and wounded off the field, where the affectionate females were at hand to afford relief and assistance. They administered refreshment, dressed the wounds, and even sucked the bleeding sores of their fainting relatives ."f The great respect which the Celts paid to their women was due to many amiable qualities, and the estimation in which military acquire- ments were held by these people gave an incredible weight to the author- ity of a heroine. Veleda, in the Batavian war, had the address and energy to combat and to govern the fiercest nations of Germany; and before her, Aurinia and several others had arrived at a similar height of power. Such courageous and dignified females were believed to be en- dowed with supernatural gifts, and in the name of the Deity they gov- erned the people. The influence of the intrepid Bondiuca over the British tribes, is a striking proof of the veneration paid to these exalted characters, who were believed to be the interpreters of the Divine will. The German women had the honor of turning on many occasions the doubtful scale of victory; and "fainting armies have more than once been driven back upon the enemy, by the generous despair of the women, who dreaded death much less than servitude. The sentiments and con- duct of these high spirited matrons may at once be considered as a cause, as an effect, and as a proof of the general character of the na- tion." J "We find that it was referred to the Gallic women, by soothsay- ing and casting lots, to determine when it was proper to fight. It was the peculiar duty of the Bards to animate the Celtic warriors; for which purpose they always attended the armies in considerable num- bers, and their persons were held sacred. "They were not only res- pected in peace, but also in war, and by enemies as well as by friends;" and so great was the influence of this order, that "they would often step between armies prepared to engage, their swords drawn, and spears * Bello Gal. t Tacitus de mor. Germ. J Gibbon. Bello Gal 116 DUTIES OF THE BARDS. levelled;" their inte, position having the immediate effect of stopping the impending conflict, and allaying the fury of the troops, as if they were "wild beasts tamed by some charm."* Amongst the Scotish Gael, the Druid, placing himself on an eminence, harangued the troops who stood around him, reminding them of their former glories, exhorting them to exertion on the present occasion, Sec., and invoking the divine blessing on all. At the conclusion, the army gave a loud shout, and felt quite prepared for immediate attack. The respect paid to the Bards, who survived the fall of Druidism, continued, until recent times, among the Celtic inhabitants of Britain. They are noticed as possessing a similar influence over the Irish in the seventeenth century, as they did over the Gauls 2000 years ago.| Their military duties were those which afterwards devolved on the heralds, but their religious character did not prevent them from taking a more active part in the conflict. The Bards were certainly armed, as we find from Talliesin, who was himself of the order. Carril, a bard of Fingal's time, appears fighting; and Ullin, another, is mentioned as carrying the spear. But they were of most service in animating the people by the Prosnacha cath, or incentive to battle, which was either hereditary or extempore, and was chanted both before the commencement and in the heat of battle. These war songs were composed in a quick measure, were rapidly repeated, and had a most spirit-stirring effect, for " the strife was kindled by the songs of the Bards. " The Welsh had also a war song,J called Arymes prydain; and several are found in the works of the Bards. That of Gaul is a good specimen of the ancient Celtic poetry and style of the battle song. It is taken from the copy which the Rev. Mr. Gallie, of Kincardine, in Ross, communicated to the Highland Society from memory. It may be found in the 4th book of Fingal,- as translated by Macpherson ; but the present copy seems to be preferable. A mhacain cheann, Offspring of the chiefs, Nan cursan strann, Of snorting steeds, high bounding! Ard leumnach, righ n'a'n sleagh ! King of spears ! Lamh threin 'sguch cas Strong arm in every trial ; Croidhe ard gun sea. Ambitious heart without dismay. Ceanii airm nan rinn gear girt, Chief of the host of severe sharp pointed weapons^ Gearr eios gu has, Cut down to death, Gun bharc sheol ban So that no white sailed bark Bhi snamh ma dhubh Innishtore. May float round dark Innistore. Mar tharnanech bhavil Like the destroying thunder Do bhuill, a laoich ! Be thy stroke, O hero ! Do shuil mar chaoir ad cheann, Thy forward eye like the flaming bolt, Mar charaic chruin, As the firm rock, Do chroidhe gun roinn. Unwavering be thy heart. Mar lassan oidhch do lann. As the flame of night be thy sword. Cum suar do scia Uplift thy shield Is crobhhui nial Of the hue of blood. * Diodorus. t Barnaby Riche. J Cambrian Register. SIGNAL FOR BATTLE. 117 Mar chin bho reul a. bhaish, As a A mhacain cheann Offspring of the chiefs Nan cursan strann, Of snorting steeds, Sgrios naimhde sios gu lar. Cut down the foes to earth. Many war songs of later times are extant. The Proanacha cath Garaich, composed by Lachlan Mac Mhuiroach,"]" the Bard of Donald of the Isles, to animate his troops at the battle of Harlaw, fought in 1411, is another curious production. It consists of eighteen stanzas of unequal length, corresponding to the letters of the alphabet, and the epithets in each begin with the respective letter. The following specimen may be thought interesting. A chlanna cuinn, cuimhnichidh Race of Conn, be hardihood Cruas an am na h'iorghuil Remembered in the day of strife, Gu arinneach, gu arronntach, Repeatedly thrusting confidently, Gu arach, gu allonnta' Strongly, nobly Gu gruamach, gu grinnail, Sternly, elegantly, Gu grainail, gu gaisgail, Terribly, heroically, Gu gleusda, gu geinnail, Eagerly, in a wedge-like column Gu gasda, gu guineach, Gallantly, keenly, Gu galghaircach, gu griongalach, Causing lamentations, ardently, Gu griosnamhach, gu gairlamhach, Inveterately, with sounding blows, Gu glansgathach, gu geurlannach, &c. Lopping off limbs, with keen swords. The poem is more remarkable for the alliteration, than the strength or beauty of the words. This species of recitation was retained until re- cently. Many poems of this kind were composed in 1715 and 1745; but the spirit of Celtic poetry declined among the Bards, for most of the modern productions, as Macpherson remarked, consist chiefly in groups of epithets, with little beauty or harmony. Besides the animation of the war song, the Highlanders were subject to the influence of something like that feeling which leads the Eastern nations to " run a muck." When the party was observed to be in immi- nent danger, and nothing but a most desperate effort could turn the fate of the day, or save the lives of their friends and foster-brothers, the Gael was seized with the Miri-cath, or madness of battle, which, as Al- exander Macdonald, in his panegyric on the clan, observes, required no Prosnacha. The Celtae, when warm for battle, expressed their impa- tience by striking their shields, and otherwise rattling their arms. The German Kings used, from ostentation, to be surrounded by their troops, who made a great noise in this manner with their arms. It was the usual practice among all these nations to express their desire for action; but it would not seem to be peculiar to the Celta3, for the Romans were used likewise to strike their shields with their spears, to indicate their readi- ness to fight. To hold up a shield was anciently a signal of battle. * The words are said to be now unintelligible ; they plainly signify, " Like the hav- oc from the star of death." t Pronounced Vuireach. 118 CLANSHIP. Herodotus mentions it, as formerly the practice to give this signal, by a torch-bearer, who was sacred to Mars, and whose person was inv ola- ble. Proceeding to the space between both armies, he dropped his torch in the middle, and instantly retired. We find from Ossian, that " rolling a stone " was " the sign of war," by which must be understood, I apprehend, its being dashed against some sonorous body. A more usual signal to commence an engagement was, by the raising up or un- furling the royal standard. Fingal's standard, from its beauty, was call- ed the sun-beam; and hence, in old composition, to begin a battle is expressed by the "lifting of the sun-beam." Striking the shield was another signal to commence an engagement. The military operations of the Celts, like their domestic affairs, were influenced by the peculiar system of polity, which governed the whole race, and which so long preserved the remains of this aboriginal people, distinct from the other nations of Europe. This state of soci'ety has been styled the Patri- archal: it is more usually denominated Clanship. In Scotland it existed eighty years ago, in as great strength and purity as it, perhaps, had ever done in the most ancient times. In this country the affection with which the people cherished their primitive institutions, distinguished the High- land tribes from all others known in the history of mankind. CLANSHIP was the junction of feudal and patriarchal authority, pass- ing from chieftain to chieftain; but the simplicity of this government was corrected by regular division of landed property, by many salutary customs, and by a degree of steady refinement and civilisation. At the period when the Romans became personally acquainted with this, coun- try, the inhabitants were considerably advanced beyond the simple pat- riarchal state, that only exists in the very infancy of society, before fami- lies become united in large communities, and are formed into tribes closely allied and attached to each other. The first is a step above the savage life; it is a still farther advance in civilisation to arrive at the art of domesticating cattle, and society will long exist by so doing before its members begin to cultivate even a small portion of the earth. These changes naturally succeed each other, in the progress of all people, from the rudeness of savage life to the social state. In the infancy of society, mankind are almost solely occupied in hunt- ing and warfare. The first pursuit is necessary for their subsistence, the second is unavoidable among savage tribes, for the members of an early community are obliged to be constantly on their guard, to protect themselves from the aggressions of their neighbors. The small associa- tions are firmly united and linked together, and the bonds of friendship are strengthened by time, whilst the little intercourse that takes place with other people preserves that attachment which the members cherish towards each other. It is in this primitive condition of mankind, that the peculiar system of Clanship originates, which, from particular cir- cumstances, becomes variously modified. An early society is obliged to be always in a posture of defence, in ORIGIN OF CLANSHIP. 119 order to preserve its very existence, and is continually engaged in mili- tary enterprises, either to gratify the passions of enmity and resentment, to avenge former wrongs, or to indulge in a natural propensity to supply its necessities by the plunder of others. This state of existence points out the advantage of the members putting themselves under the guid- ance of some individual, who is considered best able to direct their operations. The necessity of a regulation, by which the proceedings of a body shall be superintended and controlled by a single head, seems to be acknowledged in all countries, and naturally arises from the obedience that a family yields to the authority of a father. When men are in this primitive state, there are no distinctions in rank, and the only recom- mendations arise from personal qualifications. Strength, courage, dex- terity in managing the implements of war, a superiority in the perform- ance of athletic amusements, and other similar accomplishments, will point out an object for choice; and when a person is selected for the important station, and performs its duties satisfactorily, the community becomes attached to him. His achievements are boasted of, his exploits are magnified, and, from a natural feeling, the honor of the whole body is intimately connected with him. The more fortunate he is, the more do his followers esteem him, and the more solicitous they are to deserve his good opinion, by their fidelity and emulation to distinguish them- selves. The chief, accordingly, acquires more weight in the manage- ment of their affairs, and he is too fond of the power with which he is invested, to commit those actions which would lead to a deprivation of it. When the art of war becomes more refined, military skill and experi- ence are preferred to mere strength and agility, in the election of chief, without wholly disregarding those latter qualifications; hence the respect that is paid to old age, from the wisdom which is acquired in a long life. The individual who, in a pastoral state, has become rich in numerous herds, becomes proportionally powerful. He is able to support those who have nothing themselves, and who therefore become his dependants, and cheerfully contribute to that affluence which is readily bestowed on his friends. He is treated with respect and submission by his retainers and less fortunate relations, and enjoys a pre-eminence from the abili- ties, which have been exerted in the accumulation and management of his~flocks. Personal qualifications cannot always be continued in a family, but wealth can be transmitted through generations; and the influence of ancestors, instead of expiring with them, becomes, in some measure, added to that of the successors. This possession of property gives rise to hereditary chieftainship, and therefore the leader or governor of a tribe is often very young. When agriculture begins to be practised, there is a new source of influence, extremely favorable towards strengthening the authority of a chief or head of a village. The ground is at first cultivated in common, arj4 during this period the chief has a power of superintending the 120 ORIGIN OF CLANSHIP. labor, and apportioning the produce of the fields. When the land is af- terwards divided into certain properties, he is by common consent allow- ed an extent of territory for himself, equal to the rank he is obliged to support, and is empowered to assign to others suitable allotments: he thus becomes sole proprietor of the soil, and acquires a complete au- thority over the members of his little community. His military duties are also increased, as he is more interested in the defence of the tribe, which now requires additional exertion. The members obey him with less hesitation; they revere his command, and become so strongly at- tached to his person, that they are ready to support him on all occa- sions. To fail in this duty, would draw on them his resentment; theii faithful service procures his kindness and protection. The chief nat- urally becomes their legislator. At first he reconciles their differences by persuasion, to which a respect for his experience and judgment will induce the parties to attend, but he soon acquires power to enforce his decisions. The authority of a chief is very limited in a nation which has not advanced far in the pastoral state, but it is almost unlimited when it has become rich in flocks and agriculture, and the influence of subordinate heads of families is always proportioned to the extent of their posses- sions, and indicated by the number of their retainers. The Gallic chief had the direction of all the warlike affairs, and the great mark of nobility consisted in the number of vassals by which he was attended, who were always proportionate to his estate and quality.* After the formation of a settled community, the military and other services of the vassals, rendered for the enjoyment of the portion of land originally assigned for their subsistence, constitutes the bond of society. The improvement in agriculture, and consequent increase of popula- tion, occasions the formation of separate villages, composed of colonies branching from the original tribe. These are situated at considerable distances from each other, and in time become distinct, and in some degree independent, at least in their internal government; but they re- semble each other in manners and institutions, and continue to acknow- ledge their common descent. The enlargement of their possessions sub- jects them to more frequent attack and molestation from their neigh- bors, and their mutual interest induces them to associate for their better security. This will be sometimes the case with contiguous tribes of different origin, arid is likely to occur in the coalition of a weak clan with one more powerful. Such associations are not unknown to the shepherd state, but are more frequently formed in agricultural commu- nities. In this manner society becomes enlarged and cemented by in- termarriages and mutual hospitalities. From this cause, also, will lesser tribes merge in those larger associations, under whose protection they have placed themselves. They will be regarded as an inferior division Bello Gall. vi.T~ SCOTLAND ADAPTED FOR IT. 121 only, their particular name will cease to be mentioned separate y, and in time will be only preserved among themselves. In exchange for this sacrifice they will share in the glories acquired by the people to whom they have ceded their independence. They will still retain their own chieftain, who will continue to possess the power of governing his immediate dependants, and only submit at first to his superior in general affairs. In military transactions he will have the immediate command of his own troops, and be only subject to the chief, who is supreme leader. This arrangement, or mode of conducting military operations, is a striking part of the Celtic system of polity, which is thus seen to derive its origin from the most early associations, that are formed by mankind. In this view of the system I am obliged to differ in opinion from Sir David Stewart, who thinks, that on the transfer of the government from the Highlands, and consequent impoverishment of the country, the in- stitution of Clans arose.* Scotland is naturally well adapted for the preservation of the inhabitants in a state of distinct and independent clanship. Divided into valleys, surrounded by lofty, and in many cases impassable mountains, the various tribes were separated by permanent and well known boundaries. Hills are better divisions than rivers, which are generally fordable, and in a mountainous country, the bed of a stream is sometimes filled by the most impetuous torrent, and at other times becomes only the channel of a rippling brook; but the heights around a valley, and the extended ridges embracing a larger tract, divided Celtic Scotland into Countries, before it was laid out in parishes or in shires. From the introduction of Christianity arose the first; the last were introduced with other Saxon innovations, in the middle of the eleventh century. These alterations were deemed sufficient. Tythings, hundreds, and other institutions, were never established in Scotland."!" To the inhabitants of a valley, all within the visible horizon was a country. The great contention was always for "the sky of the hill,"J and long as it is since this Celtic division has been politically unknown, the districts inhabited by certain clans are still called their Countries. This separation of territory was, however, too indefinite. Without some established marks, the exact extent of different properties could not be well determined; and in hunting and on other occasions, infringe- ments would occur, which nothing but a war could requite. Stones, like the Roman Termini, marked the boundaries of the terri- tories of the Germans and Burgundians, in the time of Julian,^ and it may be safely presumed that many of the rude obelisks to be found all over Scotland were raised for this purpose. In the Isles and other parts of Scotland, burnt ashes, or chaff, were laid under stones for the better * Sketches of the Highlanders. t Caled. It was not until 1584 that Ulster was laid out in shires, t Skene Keith. Ammian Mar. 16 122 CLANSHIP AN EQUITABLE SYSTEM. preservation of these marks; and a practice, which is well known at the perambulation of English parishes, was in use as a farther security, that the march should not be afterwards mistaken: boys were taken to the spot and r.eceived so sound a flogging, that it was by no means likely they should, while they lived, forget the place of execution.* Trenches, or earthen mounds, were also formed as boundaries, and were sometimes carried to a considerable length. They are common in England, particularly in Wiltshire, where the Wansdike, running through Somersetshire to the Severn, the most wonderful remain of British earthwork, is still distinctly seen. In Scotland, also, particu- larly in the Southern counties, are still to be traced the vestiges of mauy extensive boundary lines, for which the unsettled state of these provinces in early ages rnay account. Here also were constructed those walls which the Romans, evidently in imitation of the Celtic mode of castra- metation, intended as the boundaries of their overgrown empire. But, leaving the theory, let us more particularly trace the progress of Clanship, and pursuing its history, observe its effects among those nations where it was most tenaciously adhered to. The whole institu- tions of the Celtoe were affected by this singular system. All the Gauls were regulated by this mode of government, and the Romans found it in full force among the Britons, whose descendants so long retained their ancient policy. * This curious social compact comprised the patriarchal with the feudal authority. Its grand characteristic was obedience to the chief by the whole clan, with the respect that the members of a family pay to a fath- er, like whom the chief exerted his authority over all his followers. The claims of consanguinity were spread over the whole community, and all were distinguished by a common name. The chief, as head of the tribe, being in a certain sense, proprietor 01 the whole territory, he managed it for the public good, and endeavor- ed to divide the lands so as to accommodate all his followers. In the later periods of their history the chiefs did hold great portions, if not, in some cases, all the land as their own, which enabled them to increase their power, and provide for their immediate relations by grants, some- times in wadset, sometimes in perpetuity, and sometimes for a limited period. Amongst the ancient Celtre, however, the prince or jfing had nothing actually his own; but every thing belonging to his followers were freely at his service, "of their own accord they gave their prince so many cattle, or a certain portion of grain." It seems probable that the Celtic chief held the public lands in trust for his people, and was, on his succession, invested with those possessions which he afterwards apportioned among his retainers. Those only, we are told by Caesar, had land, "magis- trates and princes, and they give to their followers as much as they think proper, removing them at the year's end." The king of the He- * Martin. CLANSHIP A PATRIARCHAL GOVERNMENT. 123 budre, we find, was not allowed to possess any thing of his own, lest avarice should divert him from truth and justice.* In Ireland, the tenants gave common spendings for rent, from which came the expression " spend me and defend me." Perhaps when Malcolm, in 909, resigned all his lands to his nobles, reserving nothing to himself but the royal dignity and moot hill of Scone, a circumstance that has excited much astonishment, he did no more than acknowledge, according to the Celtic system, that it was from his peo- ple he received his possessions. The following are the words of Dr. Johnson, when speaking of Clan- ship arnrms the Scots Highlanders. " The Laird is the original owner of the land, whose natural power must be very great where no man lives but by agriculture, and where the produce of the land is not conveyed through the labyrinths of traffic, but passes directly from the hand that gathers to the nouth that eats it. The Laird has all those in his power that live on his farms. This inherent power was yet strengthened by the kindness of consanguinity and the reverence of patriarchal authority. The Laird was the father of the clan, and his tenants commonly bore his name; and to these principles of original command was added, for many ages, an exclusive right of legal jurisdiction. This multifarious and extensive obligation operated with a force scarcely credible: every duty, moral or political, was absorbed in affection and adherence to the chief. Not many years have passed since the clans knew no law but the Laird's will; he told them to whom they should be friends or enemies; what kings they should obey, and what religion they should profess." Next to the love of the chief was that of the particular branch whence they sprang; and in a third degree to those of the whole clan. The Highlanders also owed good will to such clans as were their friends, and they adhered to one another in opposition to the Lowlanders. The simple principle of Clanship may be reduced to the patriarchal authority of a father over his family, and the affectionate obedience which a clansman paid to his chief as the father of the tribe. Nothing could cancel the paramount duty of allegiance. The members of one clan might reside on the lands of another proprietor, but their service was due to their lawful chief only, whom they were bound to follow. If any individual had the temerity to disobey the commands of his superior, it may be presumed his situation became not very enviable. If he per- sisted in his opposition, he was expelled the clan, for no individual could remain in the territory after setting himself above his chief; but few instances of such conduct ever occurred. The law of Kincogish, by which a chief was answerable for every mem- ber of his clan, was a truly Celtic institution. It existed in South Britain in the time of Alfred, and was found so useful, that it was embodied in the statutes of both Ireland and Scotland. Solinus, c. 22. 124 CLANSHIP, The whole clan, however numerous, were supposed to be related to each other; and although it is not easy to conceive so large a family, yet, as the members continued to intermarry, they were actually in a certain degree related, not excepting the chief himself, whose blood each individual believed, with feelings of pride, circled in his own heart. The superior orders in the tribe, the chieftains and Duine-uasals more familiarly known in latter times as the Tacksmen or Goodmen, were ac- knowledged relations of the Laird, and held portions of land suitable to their consequence. These again had a circle of relations, who consid- ered them as their immediate leaders, and who, in battle, were placed under their immediate command. Over them, in peace, these chieftains exercised a certain authority, but were themselves dependant on the chief, to whose service all the members of the clan were, submissively devoted. As the Duine-uasals received their lands from the bounty of the chief, for the purpose of supporting their station in the tribe, so these lands were occasionally resumed or reduced to provide for those who were more immediately related to the Laird; hence many of this class neces- sarily sank into that of commoners. This transition strengthened the feeling which was possessed by the very lowest of the community, that they were related to the chief, from whom they never forgot they ori- ginally sprang. "There is.,, no part of France," says Marchargy, " in which the spirit of family connexion is stronger than in Brittany: relationship is carried to the twelfth degree, and passes from genera- tion to generation."* About this simple plan of government much has been written. It is evident that it must have produced features very peculiar and very different from those to be found among any other people. The practice of fosterage, by which children were mutually exchang- ed and brought up, was a curious feature in the system, and a most powerful cement to clanship. The son of the chief was given to be reared by some inferior member of society, with whom he lived during the years of pupilarity. The ef- fect of this custom appears to have been astonishing. It often prevented feuds, and it seems calculated sometimes to produce them. The attach- ment of foster-brothers was strong and indissoluble. The Highlanders say, that " affectionate to a man is a friend, but a foster-brother is as the life blood of his heart." No love in the world, says Camden, is comparable by many degrees to it. "f That of foster parents was equally strong, and many traditional anecdotes are related of their mutual regard. Spenser relates that he saw an old woman who had been foster-mother to Murrough O'Brien, at his execution suck the blood from his head, and bathe her face and breast with it, saying it was too precious to fall to the earth. * Hist, of Brittiny, Lit. Gaz. 1825, No. 450. t Coalt is a foster-brother ; Dalta, a foster-son ; Old, a foster-father STRENGTHENED BY FOSTERAGE. 125 It appears that fifteen were usually fostered by a chief,* but Fungal had sixteen foster-brothers. J It was accounted a high honor to obtain the fosterage of a superior. "Five hundred kyne and better," were sometimes given by the Irish, to procure the nursing of a great man's child J The trust was so far from being deemed a service, that it was reckoned a very high honor. and hot contentions arose among the vassals for the preference. The foster family were particularly respected by the chief, and raised to much consideration among their neighbors. The foster-brothers were generally promoted to some office near the person of the chief. The family, at all events, received some adequate reward, and the terms were regularly settled.^ These were not the same in all places. " In Mull, the father sends with his child a certain number of cows, to which the same number is added by the fosterer ; the father appropriating a proportionate extent of country, without rent, for their pasturage. If every cow bring a calf, half belongs to the fos- terer and half to the child; but if there be only one calf between two cows, it is the child's; and when the child returns to the parents, it is accompanied by all the cows given both by the father and by the foster- er, with half of the increase of the stock by propagation. These beasts are considered as a portion, and called macaladh cattle, of which the father has the produce, but is supposed not to have the full property, but to owe the same number to the child, as a portion to the daughter, or a stock for the son." || Among a people so knit together by consanguinity, it naturally follow- ed that an injury done to an individual was resented by the whole clan. Tacitus observes of the Germans, that they adopted all the enmities as well as friendships of their particular houses. " Men in a small district necessarily mingle blood by intermarriage, and combine at last into one family. Then begins that union of affections and co-operation of endeav- ors that constitute a clan. "11 The Celtic princes were attached to their followers by relationship as well as policy. They were mutually bound by the closest ties, and their ambition was to emulate each other in acts of heroism. A numerous retinue was the greatest pride of the Celtic warriors: those of Italy strove which should purchase most friends, for they highly esteemed a man that was honored by many.** The Scyths also instilled into their children to make numerous friends. ft It was the delight of both Gauls and Germans to be surrounded by numerous bodies of chosen men, whose sense of honor was so strong, that they could not abandon their master, even to save their own lives, without incurring universal contempt. JJ * High. Soc. Rep. on Ossia. t Ibid. t Campion. A deed of fosterage, between Sir Norman Mac Leod and John Mac Kenzie, dated 1645, and written in Gaelic, still exists || Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides. 11 Johnpon. ** Polybius. n Les diff. mceurs des an. peuples, 1670. ft Bcllo Gall. vii. 38. 126 THE ATTENDANTS OF A CHIEF. Those sworn bodies of friends which the Gauls called Soldurii,* lived on a community of goods, shared in all the misfortunes as well as suc- cesses of their commanders; and Caesar declares that there was no in- stance on record of any who ever refused to sacrifice his life with tho ve who engaged him.f Amongst the Germans, he informs us, that if those who had agreed to follow the fortunes vof a leader, should break the engagement, they were branded with inVamy, which could not by any means be ever afterwards removed. The enthusiastic Mr. Roderick Mackenzie, \\ho fell into the hands of the king's troops after the defeat of the rebels at Culloden, is a noble example of devoted attachment. Bearing a strong resemblance to Prince Charles, and finding himself suddenly surprised, yet disdaining flight or submission, lest, in the homely phrase of Dugald Graeme, " That, like a thief, he should be hanged, He choae to die with sword in hand ; " $ and attacking the party, he received his mortal wound, exclaiming, as he fell, " You have slain your prince! " To this generous sacrifice the escape of Charles is to be chiefly attributed; for the head of Mackenzie was cut off, and as it 'was believed to be that of the Chevalier, for which a reward of ,30,000 was offered, the parties who were scouring the country became less vigilant. At Glenshiels, in 1719, Munro of Culcairn was wounded in the thigh, and the rebels continued to fire on him when down. Finding their de- termination to kill him, he desired his servant to get out of the way, and return home, to inform his father that he had not misbehaved. The faithful Highlander burst into tears, and, refusing to leave his master, threw himself down, and covering the body of his chief with his own, re- ceived several wounds, and, in all probability, both lives would have been lost, if one of the clan, who commanded a party, had not seen their perilous situation. He swore on his dirk he would dislodge the enemy, and by a desperate charge in the spirit of Miri-cath, he did so. ^ The Luchdtachk of the Highlanders was a body of young men, select- ed from the best families in the clan, who were skilfully trained to the use of the sword and targe, archery, wrestling, swimming, leaping, and all military and athletic exercises; and their duty was to attend the chief wherever he went. The regular establishment consisted of these per- sons, who always accompanied him when he went abroad: The Gille-coise, or Hanchman, who closely attended the person of his chief, and stood behind him at table. The Bladair, or spokesman. The Bard. The Piobaire, or piper. * Sold, gorm. stipendium, the evident origin of soldier. * Bello, Gall. iii. 23. t Metrical History of the Rebellion. This anecdote is related in the Mem. of the Chev. Johnstone. Birt, ii. 14. who had it of Clucairn. RULES OF PRECEDENCE. 127 The Gille-piobaire, the piper's servant, who carried his instrument. The GtHe-more, who carried the chief's broadsword. The Gille-casfluich, who carried him, when on foot, over the rivers. The Gille-comhstraithainn, who led his horse in rough and dangerous paths. The Gille-trusarneis, or baggage man. The Gille-ruithe, or running footman, was also an occasional attend- ant. Besides these, he was generally accompanied by several gentlemen who were near relations; and a number of the commoners followed him and partook of the cheer which was always provided by the person to whom a visit was paid. These large followings, or Tails, occasioned an act of council to be passed, prohibiting the Northern Lairds from appear- ing at Edinburgh with so formidable and inconvenient a retinue. The tails of the Highland chiefs were, however, sufficiently imposing on occa- sion of his Majesty's late visit to Dunedin.* In the laws of Hwyel dha, we find there were fourteen men in the palace. The heir apparent, the priest, the bard of presidency, the do- mestic bard, the physician, the judge, the master of the household, the master of the hawks, the master of the horse, the chief huntsman, the smith of the court, the torchbearer, the crier, and the foot holder. All these sat at table according to certain rules of precedence that will be detailed in another part of the work. The order observed in the armies of the Highlanders, before the abo- lition of their heritable independence, was this: every regiment or clan was commanded by the chief, if of sufficient age, who was consequently the colonel. The eldest cadet was lieut. -colonel, and the next was major. Some clans, in 1745, had the youngest cadet, lieut. -colonel; but this was unusual, and held to be an innovation on the established principle. Each company had two captains, two lieutenants, and two ensigns, and the front ranks were composed of gentlemen who were all provided with targets, and were otherwise better armed than the rear. In the day of battle, each company furnished two of their best men as a guard to the chief, and in their choice, consanguinity was always con- sidered. The chief was posted in the centre of the column, beside the colors, and he stood between two brothers, cousins-german, or other relations. The common men were also disposed with regard to their relatives, the father, the son, and the brother standing beside each other. The effect which this "order ofnature"f must have had in stimulating the combatants to deeds of heroism, can be easily perceived. It did not escape the notice of the intelligent Tacitus. Alluding to the practice among the Celtic tribes of the Continent, and the inhabitants of the British Isles, who always fought in parties, or by clans, under the com mand of their immediate chiefs, he says, that this disunion, preventing * The Gaelic name of Edinburgh. t Home's Hist, of the Rebellion, 1745, &c. 128 EXCELLENCE OF CLANSHIP. any general confederacy, was highly favorahle to the Romans, who were thereby enabled to subdue " a warlike people, independent, fierce, and obstinate."* We, however, find that it did not always prevent a general coalition, as was so strikingly evinced on the invasion of Gaul, and on the advance of Agricola into the regions of Caledonia. Caesar, who was surely a competent judge in this matter, thought his troops fought to much disadvantage against these parties, who stood with firm- ness, and were constantly relieved by fresh men. Tacitus himself, in his Annals, expresses his decided approbation of this mode of drawing up an army; and also says, "what proves the chief incentive to their valor, is, that the battalia are not formed by a fortuitous collection of men, but by the conjunction of whole families and tribes of relations."^ Csssar observes, that this Clannish system was introduced among the Gauls in ancient times, so that the most obscure person should not be oppressed by the rich; for each leader was obliged to protect his follow- ers, else he would soon be stripped of his authority. J It is apparent, from the constitution of Celtic society, that a chief could never become despotic. The government was radically democratic. It has been remarked that the divisions of tribes and nations were rather an obstacle than assistance in the conquest of Gaul, for the reverses of one tribe had no effect on the state of another. When Bondiuca had been defeated with the loss of 80,000 of her troops, the Britons were found still in arms.|| Although the Nervii 4ost 60,000 in one battle, and on another occasion 53,000 other Gauls were sold for slaves, these disasters had not any visible effect on the general proceed- ings. Their mode of fighting was extremely well adapted to the particular state of those people. They possessed a large extent of territory, and the loss of a general battle would have been peculiarly unfortunate; the population being so widely spread, an army, when dispersed, could not have been easily brought again into the field, except by the subdivision of authority; and before the forces could have been collected, the enemy would have completely overran the country. The influence of the chiefs over their respective dependants enabled them to execute plans with a celerity unknown under other systems; and the various opera- tions being distributed among so many, the whole army was organized with great facility. The immense hosts that were embodied could not have been raised among a semi-barbarous and roving people but through the strong influence of the chiefs, who were perfectly free and indepen- dent in the regulation of their own tribes. It is evident that each clan being so constituted, and there being no more general connexion than a common language and similar customs, there could never arise any power able to raise itself to a great superi- ority over the others. One tribe might predominate for a time; but the * Vita Agric. xii t De mor. Germ. J Bello Gall. vi. c. 7. Edraond'a Remarks on Caesar's Commentaries. || Tac. Annals, xiv. DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT OF CLANSHIP. 129 subjected people could not forget their allegiance to their natural chief, or feel a cordial attachment to their new lord. This state of things would be, besides, too hostile to the spirit of clanship to exist long; and we therefore find, that whatever successes one nation might obtain over others, the balance of power was, on the whole, preserved among the Gauls, and no one or more of the tribes were ever able to erect any thing like a powerful kingdom. They are governed, says Diodorus, by kings and princes, who, for the most part, are at peace with each other. In Britain, Dio informs us, the people, for the most part, had the gov- ernment. Their constitutions were certainly democratic. It was not, indeed, unlikely that small tribes should pay deference to those who were more powerful. The advantage of protection, and the honor of a noble alliance were powerful inducements to allow a slight interference in their internal affairs, which was not entirely incompatible with Celtic policy; but the individual rights of a chief could not be relinquished, without the consent of the whole tribe. However, from motives of prudence, or from necessity, a chieftain might be induced to humble himself to his more powerful neighbor, they were both equal in dignity. Clanship was admirably adapted to preserve the national liberty of the Celts, and it was no dishonor to their arms that they ultimately were subdued by Roman valor. The various and unconnected tribes of Gaul could not have been well governed by a single monarch, and it may be doubted whether the Highlanders of Scotland could have retained their independence so long, had they been under regal government. The dignity of chief was properly hereditary, but was not always so, especially on the Continent. Among the Scots the form of government remained more purely patriarchal, and the regular succession was sel- dom interrupted: hence it has been inferred, that Clanship could not have been derived from the continental Celts, among whom power seems to have been elective. It must be recollected that these were in a dif- ferent situation from the British tribes, whose manners had suffered less change, and who, when visited by the Romans, apparently retained those maxims which their forefathers had brought into the island. But however altered, the succession of the princes of Gaul was not elective in the general sense of the word. It has been shown that a general as- sembly of a nation made choice from the nobility or royal family of a general who should lead them to war, a regulation that was extremely judicious, for the chief might have been a minor, or less able to conduct the army than many of his experienced nobles, and his death in battle might have produced very unpleasant consequences. Tacitus says, that the generals were chosen for bravery, but the kings from splendor of descent, so that even striplings had sometimes the supreme command. A new chief required the sanction of his people before he assumed his title, and acknowledged that his power was derived from their suffrages In this sense it was a free election; but, like a conge d'elire, the choice 17 130 CELTIC CHIEFS WERE NOT DESPOTIC. of the people usually coincided with the wish of the chief, and the per- son who had the best right to the situation was elected. He was, in fact, the heir, by right of primogeniture; for, among all the Celtic nations, the chieftainship was preserved in a particular family or royal race, as among the Picts;* and the Welsh, who had five royal and fifteen special tribes, instituted by Gryfyd ap Cynan.| This is the very characteristic of a patriarchal government, and it must have been only in consequence of an insurrection, or some calamity, that the succession could have been altered. It was most dangerous to attempt to obtain the sovereignty of a tribe or nation against the public consent. Celtillus, who had presided over Celtic Gaul, lost his life for aiming at this illegal power. J The Helvetii had a law by which one who had been found guilty of such an attempt was condemned to be burned alive. By the custom of the country he was allowed to defend himself, but, during the trial, he remained bound in chains. Orgetorix, having committed this crime, assembled all his friends and followers, to the number of 10,000, and all his dependants on the day of trial, for his rescue, if found guilty. $} Kings constituted, by the regular rules of succession, although enjoy- ing a complete influence over the tribe, could not with impunity act arbitrarily, or degenerate into tyrants, for the people, who confirmed their authority, could also check their severity, and even strip them of their power. They were controlled by the opinions of both chieftains and Druids, and were also bound by acknowledged laws; but they gov- erned more by example than authority, for to none but the priests was the power of correction submitted. || It was only when engaged in war that the Germans invested their generals with power of life and death, the subordinate chiefs appearing, for the time, to have resigned their individual power of deciding controversies. IF Tacitus says, the influ- ence of these princes arose from their ability to persuade, not their power to command; and observes it as an unusual instance that the Suiones, in his time, were governed by an absolute chief. The ancient kings of the Hebudae islands were bound to equity by known laws,** of which more shall be said presently. The Highland chiefs, although they retained full power over their respective clans after the establish- ment of the Scots' monarchy, usually introduced in the bonds of Man- rent, or deeds whereby they agreed to afford each other mutual support, a covenant excepting their allegiance to the sovereign. The connexion of the Gaelic chief and his people was not the rule of the strong over the weak; it was maintained by reciprocal advantages and kindnesses. All the members of a clan were connected with each other, and their common safety depended on their united fidelity and co- operation. Tyranny and injustice on the part of a chief could not fail to * Adomnan. t British Antiquities, p. 44. J Bello Gall. vii. 7. Bello Gall. i. 3. || Tac. de mor. Germ. IT Bello Gall. ** Solinus, c. 22. MODE OF ELECTING THE CELTIC CHIEFS. 131 weaken his influence, and, finally, estrange his kindred and his friends. The chief and his followers were mutually devoted to each other; and those who, from accident, old age, or otherwise, became unable to support themselves, were provided for by their generous leader, as the Mac iNiels of Barra, whose chief always made up the loss which his tenants sustained through misfortune.* The whole members again cheerfully contributed to the support of their chief, who moderated his expenses to suit the circumstances of his people. In Ireland, there indeed appears to have been exactions that were by no means light. Coyny and livery, or meat for men and horses, are said to have been first introduced by Fitzmorris, Earl of Desmond, who had not 1000 marks yearly rent independent of his "Spendings," which Queen Elizabeth took, as they were the best part of his income."]' These last payments were, perhaps, what is other- wise called black rents; other taxes were bonnaght, fowey, kenelagh, cuthings' cuddery, coshering, shragh, sorehin, carraghes, bonnagh- beg, bonnagh-burr, barnes, Sec. &c. A singular custom prevailed in Wales; the three indispensables of a gentleman his harp, his tunic, and his kettle were, it appears by the Triads, paid by a general con- tribution. So much was the honor of the whole clan concentrated in the chief, that the greatest provocation was to reproach one with his vices or personal defects; such an insult was sufficient to lead to mortal combat. J The system of Clanship has been represented as intolerable oppression on the part of the chiefs, and abject slavery among the commons. It would, indeed, appear from Adomnan, ii. c. 34., that the Picts had Scot- ssh bondmen; but we most probably misunderstand the passage. That the lower orders in a clan were so degraded is false, for they enjoyed a degree of consideration unknown to other systems of government; and it is impossible to believe, that if they were so cruelly treated, they should have so enthusiastically devoted themselves to their masters. To the Highlanders, the name of slavery is unknown. Among their conti- nental ancestors, those who were called slaves had each a house and certain ground, for which he paid a quantity of grain, cattle, or cloth, and thus far his subserviency extended. For any to beat, put in chains, or doom a slave to severe labor, was scarce known; the strongest mark of inferiority appeared when the chief happened, in his passion, to kill one: he was not held liable to punishment. In other respects, the slave and the freed man were nearly on an equality. The singular custom of electing an ancient Celtic chief, or rather admitting the legitimate heir, was known among the British tribes as the Dlighe Tanaiste, which, although the source of lamentable discords and bl >odshed in Ireland, convulsed by ambitious factions, continued long to be followed in Scotland with less mischief. The law of Tanaistry not only regulated the government of the clans, but determined the succes- Martin. t Present State of Ireland, 1673. Desid. cur. Hib J Birt's Letters, ii. 9. 132 TITLES OF THE CELTIC NOBILITY. sion of the kings of Scotland during the Celtic dynasty, or until 1056, and pervaded the constitution to a much later period. It is not, says Dr. Mac Pherson, above 200 years since this custom prevailed in the Highlands, and some instances have occurred later.* During the life of a chief, he generally appointed his successor from the members of his own family, for the descent by Tanaistry was to the oldest and mosfc worthy of blood and name;! but, like the Gauls, he was obliged to obtain the consent of the clan,J who, previous to confirmation, required satisfactory proof of the military abilities of their future com- mander. The person so chosen was denominated the Tanaist, or Tan- istear, a word which signifies second person. The appointment of a Tanaist was evidently intended to prevent the danger of an interregnum or minority, for an experienced person, in the maturity of life, was always preferred to one more youthful: and a male, although illegitimate, was elected, to the exclusion of females; agreea- bly to which practice, the Galwegians, in the time of Alexander II., unanimously rose in support of a bastard son against three legitimate daughters. An uncle was also preferred to a nephew, whose grandfather survived the father. It was probably from a feeling of the relationship of all the members, and a sense of equality, that this singular mode of election was admitted. The custom did not, perhaps, work very well with turbulent people, among whom nothing can prevent occasional insurrection. At the same time, the practice, it must be confessed, appears but too well calculated to produce disorder. An elective government has ever been a source of contention; and, however well the Gauls regulated it, evils were sometimes the consequence. In Scotland, where Clanship became so much refined, it lost many of its inconveniences. Any tendency to misrule was checked by the people, whose influence a chief dare not contemn; for, according to a Celtic saying, " stronger than the Laird were the vassals." Strabo says, that the Gauls were anciently accustomed to elect a prince and a captain-general every year. 5) There were some instances of two kings reigning jointly; but it was very unusual. Among the ^Eduans, it was not lawful for two of the same family to enjoy this dig- nity, or even to sit together in the public assemblies. || The duty of the Tanaist, when appointed during the life of the chief, was to lead the army. He was the captain of the clan, and hence he appears to me to have been denominated the Toshich, which I do not find is intended for a different person. Tos and Toshich, in Gaelic, sig- nify the beginning or first part of any thing; so Toshich came to denote the general, or leader of the van: and the Mac Intoshes derive them- selves from Macduff, who obtained this right from Malcolm Ceanmorc * Diss. xiii. It even prevailed among the Saxons. He says, before the conquest of Ireland, Tanaist became obsolete ! t Davis's Reports on Tanaistry. * Caledonia i. 306. Lib. iv. || Bello Gall vii. 89. TITLES OF THE CELTIC NOBILITY. 133 Dr. Mac Pherson says, the Tanaist and Toshich are different, which may be true in this manner: the one was the nomination of the chief and his blood relation, the other the choice of the people or the appointment of the king. A charter of David II. to John Mac Kennedy, the captain of Clan Muntercasduff, authorizes James Kennedy, who had married Marv Stewart, the king's daughter, and the heirs male, to exercise "the capi- tanship, head and commandment of his kin;"* and another charter of the same reign is " anent the clan of Clenconan, and who should be cap- tain thereof." j A charter of Nigel, Earl of Carrick, to Roland de Carrick and his heirs, of the chieftainship of his clan in all affairs of Kinkynell,'or the right of leading the clan under the chief, was confirm- ed in 1241, and reconfirmed by Robert the Second. J The Saxon word Thane, the Taini of Domesday-book, is assuredly derived from the Cel- tic Tanaist. Women were excluded in general by the Tanaist law, but cases occur where they held the sovereignty of the clan by hereditary right, and sometimes acquired great influence. It is true that Veleda, who be- came so renowned, bore the character of a prophetess; but the heroic Bondiuca and Cartismandua, who became so powerful in Britain, were legitimate princesses. The Sitones, in the days of Tacitus, were gov- erned by a female. The title Rhi, a ruler, or king, was not the highest in Celtic prece- dency. Tierna, spelled Tighearna, literally signifies a lord or judge, and is applied to all great men. Even the Divine Being does! not receive any other appellation, a proof that the people had no idea of any higher power, than what was possessed by their chiefs. The Rex of the Romans is apparently derived from the Celtic Rhi, as the Greek Tyrannos, a name originally applied to princes, both good and bad, and is from Tierna. This word which, in Welsh, is Teyrn, has been derived from ti, one, eren, land, as implying a landed gentleman.^ From this title comes . Ochiern or Oigthierna, latinized Ogetharius in Scots law, a term ap- plied to the heir apparent of a l6rdship, and composed of Oig, young, Tierna, Lord. Mactiern is an ancient dignity among the Bretons. lar Fhlath, from lar, after, and Fhlath, a prince or commander, is pronounced larla, signifies literally, a secondary chief, and is the origin of the Saxon Earl, to which the Welsh larll arid the Cornish Arluth are analogous. ' Other dignities were the Maormor, i. e. Maor, steward, officer or one who guarded, and more, great, || a person who had the gov- ernment of provinces, and whose title was equivalent to the earls of after ages. Moar, in Manx, is a collector of manorial rents. Toscheoderach, in Gaelic, Toischuachdarach, i. e. a chief officer, is a term that frequently occurs. Niel Mac Niel sold to James Mac Niel * Robertson's Index of Charters, p. 149. No. 57. t Ibid. p. 57. No. 27. t Robertson's Index, p. 134. Crawford's Officers of State. 21. Dr. Mac Pherson. * || Mawr, is great in Welsh. Cornish, and Armoric. 134 LAWS OF HERITABLE SUCCESSION. the lands of Gigha, with the Toschodairach of Kyntyre;* and Robert the Third*confirms a charter, in which John Lachlanson, of Durydarach, grants to Duncan Dalrumpil, the office of Toscheadaroch, in Nithsdale In Ireland, the Tanaist had certain " cuttings and spendings on all the inhabitants." His lands descended to the eldest and most worthy of his blood and name, and his daughters received a certain number of cattle for their dowry. In the Isles, the Tierna's brother claimed Trian- tiernis, or a third part of the estate during his life, by right of immemorial custom.t Amongst the Germans, the children were their father's lawful heirs; and in default of issue, the nearest of kin succeeded. Amongst the Tencteri, one of their tribes, who were celebrated equestrians, the horses were heritable, yet did not descend to the eldest son, but to the one who had most signalized himself by deeds of valor. J The custom of Gavel-kind, a mode of succession still existing in dif- ferent parts of Britain, and accounted the common law of Kent, where the people have been always remarkable for their tenacity of ancient practices, was well known in Brehon law. By the Irish practice, le- gitimate and illegitimate, male and female, received an equal portion on the death of a parent: and if one of the family died, the chief or judge made a new partition of the whole; for the share of the deceased did not go to his children. By the Custumal of Kent, the fire hearth, and forly feet around it, remained with the youngest son. A husband, sur- viving his wife, was entitled to a moiety of her gavel-kind lands, so long as he remained unmarried; and a widow had a similar right, if she re- mained single, and "took diligent heed that she was not found with child." A proof of infidelity we find, was by the child being heard to cry after its birth, and by the attestation of the people, assembled by hue and cry. || Like the practice in Scots' law, property at death was by this usage divided into the dead's part, the wife's part, and the bairn's part of gear. The inhabitants of Kent preserved the freedom of their Celtic ances- . tors. In the thirtieth of Edward the First, it was declared, that in this country there were no villains, and that the son of one born there be- came free. IT Among other valuable privileges, the men of Kent claimed a right to a position in the vanguard of the army; hence, Drayton says, " Of all the English shires, be thou surnamed the free, And foremost ever placed, when they shall reckoned be." ** A conviction for felony, or any other serious crime, did not occasion a forfeiture of the lands, the heirs never being affected by the deeds of their parents, according to the adage. " The fader to the bond, the son * Caled. i. 451. t Dr. Mac Pherson says he was also called Armin t Tac. de mor. Germ. Present State of Ireland. Before the time of Solon, property descended equally to all relations, but he permitted the Greeks to leave it by will to whom they chose. || Lambard's Perambulation. 1f Robinson on Gavel-kiad. ** Polyalbion, Canto xviii. CELTIC TENURES 135 to the fond." In Scotland, fourteen is the age at which pupilarity ter- minates. An heir of Gavel-kind became of age at fifteen. This mode of succession was abolished in Wales 35th Hen. VIII. and by the 3rd of James I., it was declared illegal in Ireland, but Papists were after- wards excepted! Considerable difference of opinion exists respecting the derivation of Gavel-kind. Whittaker gives Gafael, Kinead, British, the family estate. Ghabhail, in Gaelic, is a receiving, and also a ten- ure; cine is kindred. The Udal inheritance in Orkney resembles Gavel-kind, but the brother received double the portion of a sister. The kindly tenure in the vicinity of the royal castle of Lochmaben, where the tenants hold of the king, and transmit simply by possession, is a vestige of the Celtic system of common holding, and seems much older than the time of Robert Bruce, by whom it is thought to have been first granted. " The tenure by the straw," a customary freehold peculiar to the Isle of Man, is also a relic of this ancient usage. The possession descends by rjght of primogeniture, and extends to females, with certain reserva- tions to widows, &c. The Earl of Derby having in the seventeenth century prevailed on several of the inhabitants to surrender this right for tenantcies at will, a prophecy embodied in an old song, foretelling that none who were accessary to this alienation of their right should be able long to retain an acre, is said to have been duly fulfilled. By the old Scotish practice, in giving a farm to a tenant for a long or short period, he was presented with a stick and some straw, which he immediately returned to the proprietor, and they were mutually bound.* Lands continued to be held in the Highlands, without the formality of writing, according to the ancient practice in Scotland, until the middle of the eighteenth century .| The right of primogeniture among the Celtic race was, however, obliged to give way to superiority in military abilities. The anecdote of the young chief of Clanrannald is well known. On his return to take possession of his estate, observing the profuse quantity of cattle that had been slaughtered to celebrate his arrival, he very unfortunately remark- ed, that a few hens might have answered the purpose. This exposure of a narrow mind, and inconsiderate display of indifference to the feel- ings of his people, were fatal. " We will have nothing to do with a hen chief," said the indignant clansmen, and immediately raised one of his brothers to the dignity. So highly did the Highlanders value the quali- fications of their commander, that in the deposition of one whom they deemed unworthy, they risked the evil of a deadly feud. On this occa- sion, the Frasers, among whom young Clanrannald had been fostered, took arms to revenge his disgrace; but they were, after a desperate bat- tle, defeated with great slaughter, and the unhappy hen chief perished on the field. It has been doubted whether the Gaelic chiefs ever consulted with tho Martin. t Lord Kames. 166 POWER OF THE COMMONS. elders, or, if they did so, whether it was otherwise than as a council of war. It appears to me that they had a regular senate, whose advice thoy availed themselves of on all occasions. The Pictish kings had such an establishment, as we learn from Adomnan, and " the chiefs of the Yles chose a king, and adjoined to him ane counsel of the wisest."* This counsel was formed, perhaps, of those, who also acted as judges. Near Isla, says Buchannan, is Ilan na Covihaslop, or the island of council, where fourteen of the chief men sat daily for the administration of jus- tice. "f From the Regiam Majestatem, it appears the chiefs had twelve counsellors, who sat in deliberation with them; an establishment to which I have seen reference in an old poem, and which is believed to have been introduced in the Hebrides by the Norse men. It was, however, common to all Celtic nations, the people always maintaining a right to advise, and even a power to control their rulers. In a Gaelic poem dedicated by Mac Dary, to O'Brian, of Thomond, it is said, "that it was every man's duty to possess the ear of his sovereign, with useful truth's." The declaration made in 1309 by the Scots nobility, is a strong proof of the limited nature of the monarchy. It is there stated, that the title of King Robert Bruce was conferred by the people; and that, be ing advanced by their authority to the crown, he was thereby made King of Scotland.J The public meetings of the Celts were frequent, for nothing could be done but by popular consent: the nobles met occasionally by themselves. On Caesar's advance. into Gaul, he says, a great council of princes was held. Polybius also notices these assemblies. When practicable, they were held on certain days, the full or change of the moon being reckon- ed most fortunate. The people never met without being armed, delib- erating, as Nicholas Damascenus expresses it, on the affairs of state, " girded with iron." When the Suevian monarchy had under the Ro- mans become absolute, the arms were deposited in a public arsenal, " guarded by slaves," for it did not suit, says Tacitus, " the interest of an arbitrary prince to trust the power of arms with any but a slave." In the public assemblies were chosen the chiefs who administered justice, to each of whom were assigned one hundred persons, chosen from the people, to accompany him and assist him with their counsel and authori- ty. || The chief magistrate among the JEduans was elected annually. He was called Vergobretus, and had the power of life and death, but was not allowed to go out of the kingdom. 11 Fear gubreath, the man to command, or the person who judges, is a well known Gaelic appella- tion. The Germans have Werkober;** and the Mayors of Autun, the capital of the JEduans, are still called Vierg/ft In these assemblies it was allowed to present accusations and prtse- * " Manner of choosing the Kings of Scotland of old." MS. in Brit. Museum. 1 Lib. i. \ The Right of the House of Stewart to the Crown considered, 174(5. Ap. Stobseus. 470. || Tac. de Mor. Germ. II Bello Gall. i. 14. 31. ** Werk, opus. Ober, supremum. tt Diss. Historique sur divers sujets, 170G POPULAR ASSEMBLIES. 137 cute capital offences On small affairs, the chiefs decided; but on those of greater moment, the whole nation deliberated. The king's influence, like that of any other member, arose from his ability to persuade, for he possessed no individual authority to command, and had only the privilege of speaking first. All those matters on which the people decided, were afterwards examined and discussed by the chiefs.* Here are the Celtic houses of Lords and Commons. At their feasts, which were frequent among all the Celtae, the Ger- mans deliberated about choosing their princes, reconciling parties, form- ing affinities, and discussed the questions of peace and war. They reckoned this the most proper time for considering those subjects, the heart being opened, and the mind fired with great and bold id^eas, for these people were nowise subtle or politic, but disclosed to each other their most secret thoughts. But they did not rashly decide on any mat- ter, for they met next day, and coolly revised and canvassed the various opinions of the preceding evening.* " They consult," says Tacitus, " when they know not how to dissemble; they determine, when they can- not mistake." This, indeed, appears a little at variance with what Coesar has said of the Gauls, that it was not permitted to speak of public affairs, but by permission of the council, a regulation necessary to prevent the mischief which occurred, in consequence of the credulity of the people, who held slight reports as if they were a matter of experience."}" The excessive curiosity of the Gauls, so similar to that of the present Highlanders, led them to stop passengers, and oblige them to tell all the news they had heard, before they were suffered to proceed; and any vague rumour affected them as if it were certain information. It was, therefore, a law with some, that those who had any news, should communicate with none until the magistrates had been informed, who, to prevent any commotion, were wont to conceal some things, and only impart to the public that which it was necessary should be known. J Spenser relates an anecdote of a Frenchman who, struck with the curiosity of the Irish, having met with one on the continent after many years' separation, asked him if he had ever heard the news about which he so anxiously inquired when in Ireland. If you meet one in the Highlands, this thirst for information will be very apparent; the answer to any question you may ask, is like- ly to be, " Where may you have come from?" " You are going south, it is likely;" " You come from such a place, perhaps;" or so on. Among the ancient Celts there was no distinction of seats in places of assembly, but each sat where he pleased. Every one was heard with attention, and a singular custom prevailed in order to preserve order; if any one interrupted the person who was speaking, an officer came with a drawn knife, and, with threatening, ordered him to desist. This * Tac. de Mor. Germ. t Bello Gall. vii. 4. t Ibid. w. 5. In Iceland, the chief men, by law, had the privilege of first convers ing with the crew of a vessel that had newly arrived. 18 138 THE STONE OF DESTINY. he repeated a second and a third time; and if the party still continued refractory, the messenger cut off as much of his garment as rendered what was left useless.* When the Highland chief entered on his government, he was placed on the top of a cairn, raised in the form of a pyramid, and around him, but lower, stood his friends and followers. One of the principal persons then delivered him a sword and a white wand; and the orator, bard 01 Druid, recounting his pedigree, enumerated the exploits of his ancestors, and exhorted the young chief to emulate their noble example. | By the Tanaist law, in Ireland, when the chief was elected, he stood on a stone placed on a hill, and took an oath to preserve all the ancient customs inviolate,^ and deliver peaceable possession to his successor. He, like the Highland chief, received a wand, and, on descending from the stone, he turned thrice round backwards and thrice forwards. The Tanaist, on his election, performed the same ceremonies, but set one foot only on the seat of inauguration. The stone on which the Lords of the Isles were crowned, bearing the marks of the feet, still exists; and near the cathedral of Cashel is one used by the Kings of Munster for a similar purpose. The practice of crowning a king upon a stone is of extreme antiquity. The celebrated coronation chair, the seat of which is formed of the slab on which the kings of Scotland were inaugurated, is an object of curios- ity to those who visit Westminster Abbey. The history of this stone is carried back to a period far beyond all authentic record; and the Irish say that it was first in their possession. According to Wintoun, its original situation was in lona. It was certainly in Argyle, where it is believed to have remained long at the castle of Dunstaflnage, before it was removed to Scone, the place of coronation for the kings of Scotland, whence it was carried to London by Edward the First. This curious relic is of a dark color, and appears to be that sort found near Dundee. It was looked on with great veneration by the ancient Scots, who believ- ed the fate of the nation depended on its preservation. The Iri*h called it Cloch na cinearnna, the stone of fortune, and the Scots preserve the following oracular verse: Cinnidh Scuit saor am fine, Mar breug am faistine : Far am faighear an lia-fail, Dlighe flaitheas do ghabhail. " The race of the free Scots shall flourish, if this prediction is not false vv*herever the stone of destiny is found, they shall prevafl by the right of Heaven." Its possession was considered of so much impor- tance, that its restitution was made an express article in a treaty of peace, and the subject of a personal conference between David the Sec- * Strabo, iv p. 197. \ Martin's Western Islands, 102, &c. t Spenser's View of the State of Ireland, 1633. Some of these stones bore the t that the system, as it appeared when refined by the Normans, prevailed in the first ages, but those usages on which it was founded originated with the Celts. Another writer has declared that feudism extends from the earliest ages, and the rudiments of it may be clearly perceived in the institutions of clanship. J We have seen the freedom of this mode of government, and observed that the customs of the people were regulated by certain rules of immemorial practice. It has, indeed, been stated that there being but twu dulses, the nobles and villains, among the British tribes, it was impossible for the feudal system to exist in that state of society; but the latter class were not debased in those early periods: in Kent, where the Celtic manners long remained, villainage was unknown. The followers of a Celtic chief were treated with a degree of respect unknown in those countries where the laborers were considered as the live stock of a farm, and were regularly sold with the land whereon they lived. The lowest members of a clan were of some consequence in the community, and felt a lively interest in all the quarrels in which the tribe might be engaged. They followed their leaders, not from com- pulsion, but from a-sense of the justice of the cause, and from a venera- * AylofFs Cal. of Charters, Introd. p. 58. t See Johnstone's Ant. Celto Normannia. 1 Dr. Mac Pherson's Diss p. 140 140 KNIGHTHOOD. tion to their supenois, their natural chiefs. With them "the power of a father was the prerogative of a sovereign; and the obedience of a son the submission of a subject."* The rude plenty of the chief's hospita- ble board was the only pay that he could bestow, or the clansmen ac- cept; the gifts which the warriors received, being accepted, as they were bestowed, without being considered as obligations;"!" an( ^ ^ n ^ s m de of life, " however it might accidentally weaken the several republics, in- vigorated the general character." J It is a fact that many Highland chiefs had no better proof of title to their lands than having possessed them from time immemorial, and were much alarmed when Bruce required them to exhibit their charters. It is even related of some, that, at a much later period, they felt most indig- nant that they should be required to hold by a roll of parchment what their ancestors had acquired by their sword, and held so long by no other tenure. Mac Donald of Keppoch, disdaining to hold by a sheepskin the lands of Glenroy, in 1687, asserted by arms his right, against Mac Intosh, who had obtained a crown charter of the disputed territory, vanquished and took him prisoner, in a desperate battle, and then compelled him to re- nounce his acquired claim. In requital for his temerity, Keppoch's lands were laid waste, with fire and sword, by a strong body of regular troops. The ancestors of Lord Ree had no charter for their lands until 1499 The Lords of the Isles, in conveying lands to their followers, used a very simple form of charter, drawn up, according to the curious ancient practice, in rhyme, and running in this form: "I, Donald, chief of the Mac Donalds, give, here in my castle, to Mac Kay, a right to Kilma- humag, from this day till to-morrow, and so on forever." Kneeling on the "black stones," he confirmed these grants. Camden, Spehnan, and other learned authors, consider knighthood to have been derived from the public investment of youth with arms, 5 a practice, as already described, that biiais a u iking resemblance to that offeudism. This system was decidedly military, and the whole institu- tions of Celtic policy were of a similar character. The military expedi- tions of the Celtic warrior, the probation of his virtues and abilities, were like those of the knights of later times, who, when there was no field for exertion at home, set out in quest of adventures, and, by constant exer- cise, preserved their warlike prowess. Chivalrous individuals in the Highlands were accustomed to go about like knights errant, and if not propitiated by a certain tribute, they asked a fair battle without favor. Dr Mac Pherson found, some persons who had seen these champions. Ca3sar says the robbery of other tribes was encouraged among the Gauls, to prevent effeminacy. Military virtue must have been highh valued where it was the sole safe-guard of national independence. * Whittaker. t Tac. de Mor. Germ. c. 21. t Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, c. 12. See also Dr. Mac Pherson's Diss FORAYS OF THE HIGHLANDERS. 141 " Treacherous," exclaims the eloquent Tacitus, " is that repose which you enjoy amongst neighbors that are powerful and fond of rule and mastership; when the sword is drawn, quietness and fair dealing will he in vain pleaded by the weaker."* Careful as the Celts were to cherish a warlike spirit, they did not live in that turbulence and anarchy which some have supposed. They fought desperately in a cause of quarrel: but valor was not more esteemed than fidelity to their fiends and hospitality to strangers, two characteristic virtues of the age of chivalry. To kill a stranger, was death; exile the only punishment for the murder of a native, "f The Ligurians and Iberi guarded those who were passing through their respective countries, whether Greeks or Celts; and a fine was ex- acted from the people in whose territories a traveller might receive an injury. J Distracted with inveterate feuds, often promoted to accelerate their destruction; living distinct from the Lowlanders, and obnoxious to their laws; yet the state of the Highlanders appears at no time to have been so bad as that of the people on the borders of the two kingdoms, where the government was often unable to repress the greatest outrages. The Highlanders made their Creachs ^ on hostile tribes only, or car- ried their hariships into districts of the low country; where the inhabitants were inimical to their welfare, and were taught to consider the moun- taineers as " barbarous, ethnick," and opposed to all social order. Their forays were only a retaliation for recent injuries, or in revenge of former wrongs, for they were careful of offending a clan with whom they were in amity. The Camerons having, by mistake, attacked the Grants of Moynes, the chief complained severely to Lochiel of the out- rage, who sent an immediate apology, regretting that, through ignorance, they had attempted to plunder the lands of their friends, and offering to submit the adjustment of their respective losses to arbitration. He had not much reason to dread the award, for the Grants had defeated the in- vaders; and their chief complains that he had eight dead and twelve un- der cure, " vvhilk he knew not who should live or who should die." They did not engage in these raids from a mere pleasure in robbing their neighbors. There is reason to believe that they submitted to many grievances before they resorted to arms. A scarcity made them bethink themselves on whom they could levy a contribution. A hint from a clansman, who was obliged, from hunger, to gnaw a bone, induced his chief to undertake a foray which is still celebrated as creach an aisne, i. e. of the rib; but it is absurd to suppose they would, on any consider- ation, rob a friendly or unoffending tribe. When they carried off cattle, or other spoil, it was with the consciousness that their own herds were exposed to the risk of being appropriated by others. Rapine and mutual * De Mor. Germ. Gordon's Trans. t Nich. Damascenus, ap. Stobaeus, 470. t Aristotle. Creagh, a prey. The same word in German is war. !42 BLACKMAIL aggression were, in some degree, unavoidable consequences of the stato of society; but the evil was not so serious to the inhabitants as might be supposed. "The creach," says a Gaelic proverb, " is not so bad, from which the half is recovered; " and again, " What the worse is one of the foray, if it lessen not the race; " property, it has been observed, must be perfectly established before the loss of it can be felt. There was no pc culiar pleasure in eating cattle that were not^their own. Derrick, in- deed, says of the Irish, that, " The stolen horse, the mutton, and the beef, Which things to want, who holds it not a grief." But the Highlander knew that a rupture with his neighbors placed his own flocks in peril; while, if the war was not successful, hunger and misery was certain to ensue. The Highlanders had a peculiar faculty of tracing the cattle which had been lifted or carried off. They were able not only to trace their foot-marks on the grass, but even to distinguish those which were merely straying from others driven along by the enerny. When the track of the cattle was lost, the person on whose property it might happen;, became liable either to recover the trace, or make res- titution to the amount lost. This wholesome regulation acquired the force of law. It was a no less salutary regulation which made a chief answerable for the deed of his clansman, and obliged him to deliver up an offender. This was called cincogish, from cine, a tribe, and congish, affinity. Alfred had a law of this kind, and it was embodied in the stat- utes of Scotland. Tasgal money was a reward offered for the recovery of stolen cattle; but the Highlanders were so averse to a system by which they were lia- ble to get into awkwar,d circumstances, that it was unanimously discour- aged; some clans, as the Camerons, bound themselves by oath never to accept such a bribe, and to put to death any individual who should do otherwise. Their dexterity in plundering induced the people of the low country, and even borough towns, to agree with certain parties for protection, on condition of their paying a stipulated sum under the name of black mail. These agreements were for a certain extent of country and a limited time. If the mail was not punctually paid, the Highlander had little difficulty in liquidating his own claims; and if the cattle were stolen by others, he made good the loss. It was usually stipulated that, in case of civil commotion, the parties should be released. If one had a claim on another, and could not get payment, he might carry off as many cat- tle as were sufficient to cover the amount, provided he sent notice that he had done so, when out of the reach of pursuit, and intimated his wish to return them if his demand were satisfied. The chief received two-thirds of the spoil acquired in a foray, or its produce; and the other third was the share of the captors.* It was. * Bin. ^f c -/ , yn- / LAWS. 143 besides, customary to pay a certain number of cattle, or amount of othei booty, to a chieftain, through whose lands the party might be obliged to pass. About 1341, John Munro, tutor to the laird of Foulis, having, in revenge of certain injuries, carried off a prey of cattle' from Strathardale, in Perth, was asked by Macintosh, in passing Moyhall, for part of the spoil, according to custom. A reasonable portion was offered, but Mac- intosh insisting on the half, collected his vassals, and, pursuing the Munros, overtook them at Clach na harry, who, rending the booty to a place of safety, stood to their arms and overthrew their assailants, most part of whom, with the chief, were slain. LAWS are valuable materials in the history of nations: they arc true evidences of the domestic state of society, at the periods when they prevailed. Laws are at first traditionary, and in this state they existed among the Celtic nations, long before they were written. Uniil the kingdom of Scotland was firmly consolidated, the tribes were governed by their traditionary customs and local usages. The Scotish law was undoubtedly indigenous, and appears compose** of the unrecorded practice of the Celts, and much of the statute lar which prevailed in England, and must have been equally derived fror ancient British customs. Much of the existing common law of the Ian' is to be deduced from the era of Druidism, and Montesquieu shows, tha the English constitution itself emanates from a pastoral state of society The old terms in Scots law being Gaelic, and the laws themselves dis- tinctly pointing to the customs of those nations, it must be inferred tha' the system of jurisprudence existed before it was embodied in the "Regiam Majestatem." To the Celtic institutions of our ancestors, are assuredly to be referred most of the national statutes, and the ancient usages of Scotland, which Lord Stair declares to be a common law. A very ancient body of laws, called the Malmutin, from their author, was translated from Celtic into Latin by Gildas Albanius, and rendered into Saxon by King Alfred.* Fingal is celebrated by the Irish for his wisdom in making laws, some of which, O 'Flaherty says, were extant in his own time. Adomnan, who lived in the end of the seventh century, propagated the Macentian code; and Aodh, or Ethfin, enacted laws that are noticed in the Pictish Chronicle, as those of Edi. They were renewed by Kenneth Mac Alpin, the celebrated king and legislator. The Welsh laws, although of high antiquity, were not recorded until the time of Hwyel Dha, in the tenth century. That those of Scotland, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, were different from the English, we learn by the attempts of Edward the First, to abolish the " usages and customs of the Scots and Brets." In Galloway, they were confirmed by Robert the Bruce and David the First, | and remained in force longer than in other parts of the kingdom. In Ireland, they exist- ed within these two hundred years. The Druids combined the offices of priest and legislator, and decided * Dempster's Hist Ecclesia^t. vi. 1 Robertson's Index of Charters. 144 TINGS, CIRCLES, OR LAW COURTS. according to maxims traditionally handed down from the most remote periods. Law and religion are closely connected in primitive society, and not entirely disjoined in periods the most refined. The Celtic priest- hood possessed the highest power; but, during war, they shared it with the chiefs, who, in peace, were also permitted to decide in minor affairs. The Feargubreath was, most likely, of the druidical order. The office was anciently elective on the continent, but in these islands the judge was hereditary. He was styled the Brehon or Brithib, and gave name to the laws by which he decided. In Man they are still called Breast. These judges had a good farm assigned for their support, and were besides entitled to the eleventh, twelfth,* or thirteenth,! of the fines imposed. In the Isle of Man, the Keys, who were anciently called Taxiaxi: the Deemsters, the Coroners, and all officers pf justice, for- merly lived at the king's expense. The judge had the assistance of a council of twelve or fourteen, who, in the Western Isles, sat daily for the administration of justice. J He had no power of legislation, for the king himself could not abrogate or enact a law without the consent of the people. It does not appear that in early ages there was a- regular jury. In the twelfth century, the people of Galloway decided without one. The Northern nations we, however, find had anciently twelve compurgators; and in some parts of Norway the peasants are at this day tried by a jury of themselves, whose decision is final, and who pro- portion the punishment with strict regard to the guilt of the parties. To dispute the award of this rustic tribunal, is to become an outcast from society. 5) In Man, twelve men from each sheading were summoned to attend the Alting; but this number, being a total of seventy-two, from whom the doomers were chosen, was reduced by Sir John Stanley to twenty-four, who are now self-elected. The Brehon required no clerk to register the proceedings. In Scot- land, he sat on the top of a hillock, and sometimes placed himself on the middle of a bridge. In Ireland, we are told, he " sitteth him downe on a banke, the lords and the gentlemen at variance round about him." David the First, of Scotland, sat on certain days at the door of his pal- ace, to hear and decide the causes of the poor.|| The practice of hold- ing courts in the open air, which so long prevailed in Britain, was a relic of Druidism, which subsisted in most European countries. The court of Areopagus, at Athens, sat in the open air; and Pliny informs us the Roman senate was first so held. 11 That circular enclosures of stone were used as courts of justice, and places for trial by combat, is well known.** In Scandinavia, they were long so appropriated; and in Shetland and Orkney the practice continued to very late times. In * Dr. Mac Pherson t Highland Soc. Rep. on Ossian's Poems, t Buchannan. Conway's Journey. || Scotichron, v. 20. II Lib. viii. c. 45. ** One of these on the hill of Tyrebacher, Aberdeenshire, is represented at the end of this chapter. MANNER OF HOLDING THEM. 145 these last places they were called Ting, which, according to Dr. Mur- ray, originally signified to surround, and is therefore of similar import with the Gaelic cearcail, the Circus or round temple, which seerns to have been the place where laws were originally enacted and promul- gated: the Tings being, at first, judicial only, but in process of time they became also legislative. On the abolition of Druidism, the courts which had been held in the circles, were transferred to the church; but the practice being deemed incompatible with Christianity, it was prohibited by an express canon. It appears to me, that from this originated the Moothills, or eminences, on which law courts were afterwards held. The most remarkable object of this kind is the Tynwald, in the Isle of Man, represented in the vignette to this Chapter, upon which the Duke of Athol, as descendant of the ancient kings, annually presides. In 1417, Sir John Stanley, then king, was thus instructed in the regal duties, and official practice, which are almost the same in the present day. He was to sit in his robes of state upon the hill of Tynwald in a chair, his face to the east, and his sword before him, held with the point upwards; his barons in the second degree sitting beside him, his beneficed men and deemsters also sitting before him; his clerks, knights, 'squires, and yeomen being around him in the third degree. The commons, with three clerks in their surplices, stood outside the circle of the hill. The deemsters called in the coroners, who carried their rods in their hands, and their weapons about them, either sword or axe. The Moars of every sheading came also, and the coroner of Glenfaba made a fence with much solemnity, prohibiting all from making disturbance, under the pain of hanging and drawing, while the king opened the court, promising to decide as up- rightly as the stajfin his hand. The Godordsman, Gode, or priest, summoned the inhabitants by a stick or stone. The token of the kings of Man, and of his deemster, was a small slate, on which their initials were inscribed, and it was a penalty of 3 to falsify it. These simple warrants were only prohibited in 1763. When a person was murdered, an arrow was sent to assemble a Ting. In Ireland, when any one was wronged, he sat on an ox's hide in a public thoroughfare. All went armed to these meetings, and within the limits of the ting no one was admitted without permission, the defend- ants in a trial being obliged to stand extra circum.* In Ireland, the moothills are called raths, and sometimes mota. In Scotland they are usually on the margin of a river, and in the immediate vicinity of a reli- gious edifice, forming an interesting object in the landscape. The one here represented is situated close to the ancient site of the church of Inverury, in Aberdeenshire, and is denominated the Bass, probably from bas, death or judgment. f * Dr. Hibbert, in Trans, of Society of Ant. of Scotland. t See Sir J. Munro, of Foulis, on the Hills of Dunipace. Trans, ut sup. 19 146 COMPENSATION FOR CRIMES. The Celtic laws were remarkable for favoring an equality of right, and the state of civilisation was strongly conducive to the preservation of a community of property and labor. Agriculture was pursued by the assist- ance of a whole tribe, and every other occupation of general importance was executed in a similar manner; the labor of every individual being given to a work of which all received the benefit. In private affairs this principle was not overlooked. Among other instances, by the Manx law, any one in want of stone or lime may dig in his neighbor's land foi it, paying only a reasonable satisfaction for breaking the ground. In the Western Isles, all fishing-lines were required to be of an equal length, to prevent any thing like an unfair advantage.* Among the Celtae almost every crime was expiated by a payment, made either to the party injured or to the chief. Tacitus found it "a temper wholesome to the commonwealth, that homicide and lighter trans- gressions were settled by the payment of horses or cattle, part to the king or community, part to him or his friends who had been wronged." The Germans hung traitors and deserters on trees; cowards, sluggards, and the depraved, were smothered under hurdles in mud and bogs, to show thereby that glaring iniquities ought to be punished openly; effeminacy, and those crimes which are less obvious, but destructive to morality, and hurtful to the state, ought to be removed from sight and from the face of the earth. The law of Scotland allowed this mode of compensation for crime in most cases, the fine or mulct being termed Eric, a reparation. Accord- ing to O'Conner, this law was first promulgated in Ireland, anno 164, by which, says Dr. Warner, the Irish were brought to more humanity, honesty, and good manners, than had ever been before known. In his nemoirs of Sir Thomas More, he continues, "we too far infringe on God's commands, by taking away the lives of men for theft anfl robbery. [t is not only a pernicious error, for extreme justice is extreme injury, but a national abomination. The wilfulness of the crime is no sort of excuse for making the punishment far exceed the heinousness of the transgression." Roderick, the last king, exacted 3600 cows as an eric for the slaughter of Murcertach O'Brian, King of Munster, in 1168.f * Martin. t O' Conner's Diss. GAELIC LAW TERMS. 147 When (he Lord-Deputy told Mac Guire that he was to send a sheriff into Fermanagh, lately made a county, " he shall be welcome," said the chief, " but let me know his eric, that if he lose his head I may put it on the country."* Cro, a ransom, by metonymy, signified both blood and death. The cro of a villain was 16 cows, of an earl's son, or thane, 100, of an ear 140, and that of the king of Scots was 1000 cows.| Asythments in Scotland were anciently paid in cattle, and the terms prove that the law originated in pastoral society. J Kelchy or Kelchyn, " ane penalty enjoined to a man who confesses his fault," is from the Gaelic gial, a pledge, cine, kindred, or, perhaps, cean, head, the price of one, or a fine for manslaughter. An earl paid for this 66 1 cows, his son, or a thane, 44 cows, twenty-one pence and f of a bodle. This fine belonged to the kinsman of the person slain; but if the wife of a rustic was killed, the lord had the kelchyn, and the pa- rents the cro and the calpes. Enach is a bounty, and sometimes means a ransom. Calmes, according to Dr. Mac Pherson, comes from gial, a pledge, and meas, an estimate; but it seems, rather, caelmeas, the price of a gae'l. The Calpich was a payment made to the chief, and is derived from calpa, a cow, in many cases the only article that could be given. The Irish revenue was always paid in cattle, and in Scotland it was the same, even in the time of Bruce. || Martin says that a tenant was bound to make payment whether he resided on the estate or not. Cane signifies rent, and cean-mhath, or cunveth, was a payment of first fruits; not, however, peculiar to the clergy, for in 1186 it was awarded by a jury to the king, out of Galloway. IF Gane duties are, to this day, exacted on many farms. The "Mails" of Scotish law is an- other Celtic term, and signifies rent, or tribute. The usual services are labor in seed time, hay and corn harvest, and the " casting and leading" of peats, or turf, certain quantities of spin- ning, payment of lambs, fowls, eggs, butter, &c. &,c. A laird in north Knapdale had a servitude of a night's lodging on one of his vassals, and in the proof taken of the value of his estate, there occurs "Item, for cuidoich 20s.** A tenant in Caithness spun a certain quantity of woollen yarn, and so much of lint, paid a quantity of oats to feed the laird's horses: trout, if near a river or lake; and, if in the vicinity of a wood, a certain number of nas/cs, i. e. binders of birch, to secure the laird's cows. In Man, the swine of felons belonged to the king, the goats to the queen. || * State of Ireland, 1673. t Regiam Majestatem. | In all Gaelic dialects are terms of a similar signification. Skene's Auld Laws of Scotland. || Caledonia. U Regiam. Maj. ** Agric. of Argyle. ft Sacheverel. 148 STATE OF THE FEMALES IN CELTIC SOCIETY According to Diodorus, the Celts impaled on stakes and lurnerl on lofty piles those who were guilty of any great crime, after a close im- prisonment of five years; and in like manner he says they used their captives, some cutting the throats, burning or otherwise destroying both men and beasts. Among the ancient Caledonians, malefactors who were sentenced to death were burnt between two fires, from whence is deriv- ed the saying, " edir da teine Bheil," he is between the two flames of Bel. The Breith-a-nuas, still used for a judge's decision, points to the era of Druidism. The sacrifice of captives, which was considered, in certain cases, ne- cessary for propitiating the deity, may be here noticed. The Celts were naturally humane, and willingly acknowledged bravery in an enemy; as in the case of the Cimbri, who released a part of the Roman army when captured, from admiration of their courage; but they also, at times, committed great atrocities. A general, being returned from the pursuit of an enemy, picked out from among the captives the choicest and strongest young men, and sacrificed them to the gods: the rest he shot to death with darts, most of whom he had long known, but former friend- ship was no argument to spare a man of them.* This severity was, however, unusual, for they appear to have generally behaved with mod- eration when victorious. When they had slain their enemy, we are told, they hung his head about the necks of their horses, and delivered the spoils, .besmeared with blood, to their servants, to be carried before in triumph, themselves following and chanting the paean of victory. The state of Celtic society may be farther elucidated by viewing the condition of the females, for civilisation is marked by the station which women hold in society. Among savages, the intercourse between the sexes is regulated by no principles of morality, and the females are al- ' ways degraded. Refined nations treat them with the nicest honor and most punctilious respect. t Caesar has, in his fifth book, left a record which is extremely unfavor- able to the Gaulish and British character. The former are said to have despised their females, and the latter are represented as indulging in a community of wives. Sir William Temple gives specious reasons for the existence of this barbarous and disgusting practice: Drs. Henry, Mac Pherson, and others, have taken much pains to vindicate our an- cestors from an imputation so injurious and so incredible. That such a custom did exist, is extremely doubtful; but under "Marriage" the subject will be resumed and more fully investigated. Tacitus does not countenance the reproach of Ca3sar, and the charge of immorality brought against the inhabitants of the continent has been repelled by Gibbon, with forcible arguments. The Celts allowed their wives to assist in councils and in settling controversies with their allies, submitting, with suitable deference, to their just decisions. * Diod. Fragm. xxvi. p. 65. t See Millar's Distinction of Ranks. FINES EXIGIBLE ON MARRIAGE 149 The influence of the sex, and the high respect in which they were held, are acknowledged proofs of polished manners, and are most re- markable in the age of chivalry. This age continued among the Gael while their primitive institutions remained entire. There is no country in Europe, where women are more esteemed than in the Highlands of Scotland: "an unfaithful, unkind, or even careless husband is there looked upon as a monster."* The Celts are said to have had power of life and death over their wives and children; and when a husband, in a respectable family, died, his rela- tions held an inquest, and strictly interrogated the widow. If she were found guilty of having been accessory to his death, she was executed with fire and torments."!" The Germans cut off the hair of an adulteress, and, in the presence of her kindred, expelled her naked, pursuing her, with stripes, through the village; for no pardon was ever granted to a woman who had prosti- tuted herself. "However beautiful she be," says Tacitus, "however young, however abounding in wealth, a husband she can never find.' By the Welsh laws, a man was not allowed to beat his wife, but for three causes: for wishing disgrace to his beard, attempting to murder htm, and for adultery. The barbarity of the Scots has been inferred from the existence of the merched mulierum. a custom that has been understood to mean the right of the lord to the first night of a newly married vassal's wife. Much has been written on this abstruse term,J and many etymologies have been given in proof of the revolting custom. Its import is clearly the fine that was paid fbr liberty to marry; which was exacted in Scotland within these 200 years. A superior could demand a sum, as marriage right, from a male as well as female heir, and women were entitled to receive it. The merched for an earl's daughter was twelve cows, the queen having the perquisites, and for a thane's, one cow. Boece says it was a silver mark; Buchannan the half of one. It is scarcely possible for us to conceive that a custom so repugnant to the natural feelings of mankind, could exist in any society at all remov- ed from the lowest barbarity. Marriage altered the state of the parties, and their relation to the chief. Neither widow nor single person was permitted to marry without consent of her superior, and the highest of the nobles were not exempted from the fine. The Scots are characterized as very litigious, contending strenuously for what they consider a right, although it may be of no advantage; like a substantial farmer, well known in Edinburgh, who utterly ruined himself in prosecuting his claim to the site of a dunghill; but they ap- * Jamieson's Notes on Birt's Letters, ii. p. 46. t Caesar, vi. 17. t See an Essay by Lord Hailes. Whittaker's Hist, of Manchester, an excellent pa- per, by Mr. Anderson, W. S. in the Trans, of Scot's Ant. &c. Letter from a Gentleman in Scotland, 1746. 150 FINES EXIGIBLE ON MARRIAGE. pear formerly to have adopted a summary mode of settling disputes. Sir Anthony Weldon thought, in the time of King James, that "their swords were their judges, by reason whereof they had but few lawyers, and those not very rich." CHAPTER VI. OJS THE DRESS OF THE ANCIENT CELTS, AND COfeTUME OF THE PRESENT GAEL. SAVAGES in most countries have been found to paint their naked bodies, both for ornament, and with a view to inspire their enemies with terror. Before they have learned to cover their persons with any material, this may be considered their dress; but long after they have adopted partial clothing they continue, from attachment to ancient custom, and for the purpose of distinction, to stain, with particular colors and symbols, those parts of the body that remain uncovered. Allied to the custom of painting, for the purpose of rendering them- selves terrible to their enemies, is the barbarous practice of besmearing the face with the blood of those who were slain. The Irish, we learn from Solinus, were accustomed to augment their fierceness of visage by this method, and, according to Spenser, the custom had not been entire- ly dropped in his time. The idea of filling an enemy with dread by personal appeal ance, is not a bad conception; for, as Tacitus remarks, on the savage figure of the Germans, the eyes of men are first overcome in battle. It was for the purpose of intimidation that the ancient nations stained their bodies, cherished their hair, carried strange crests or hel- mets, and wore peculiar apparel; and from this practice has probablj originated the military costumes of the present day. The British tribes were remarkable for the practice of painting their bodies; but it is not a little singular that no positive authority appears for this mode of dec- 152 MANNER OF PAINTING THE BODY. oration among the Gauls of the continent. Except a fragment of a statue, supposed to be a Gallic Mercury, discovered at Frarnont, that prolific field for antiquarian research, and here represented, I have uot met with any sculpture to indicate the prevalence of this custom.* Pelloutier thinks that Tacitus alludes to the practice among the Iberi- ans;! ne plainly describes the Arrians of Germany as tincta corpora. The Budini, a Getic people, painted their bodies blue and red;J and Virgil describes all the Geloni, or Getae, as picti. The Daci and Sar- matae delineated various characters or figures on their bodies, and the women stained their faces with the juice of various herbs. || The Thra- cians also, especially the ladies, painted their skins. IF The Agathyrsi, a Scythic nation, who are placed in Scandinavia by Jornandes, and on the Sinus Codanus by Rudbeck, painted their bodies with blue marks, the nobles being distinguished by a great number of these spots or fig- ures.** Pnny tells us, the glastum, with which the Britons dyed their bodies, was found in Gaul, but does not say the inhabitants made a similar use of it. The inference is that they did, but we have no express authority for the supposition; from which Dr. Mac Pherson thought, that as the painting could not have been derived from Gaul, it originated among the Caledonians. The Picts, by popular tradition, took their name from this practice ; and their chronicle and Isodore agree in saying, that the Scoti became Picti from this circumstance. All the Britons, Caesar says, painted with woad, and described various figures on their bodies. These consisted of the sun, moon, and other planets, animals, &c. The women dyed their whole bodies with this vegetable, the married and young equally, and they appeared so orna- mented at sacrifices and other solemnities quite naked. "|"j" Claudian seems to describe Britannia as painted in the cheeks. The stains were impressed in youth; for it was a sort of tattooing, similar to what is performed on the Indians, and for this purpose certain iron instruments were used. The Geloni marked themselves with tools of this metal, JJ and it was by a similar process that the Picts and other inhabitants of Britain stained or tinctured their bodies.^ The British * Montfaucon's Antiquities expliques. t ii. 7. p. 129. ed. 1770. t Herodotus, iv. Georgics, ii. 115. || Pliny, xxii. 1. U Dio Chrysostom. ** Amm. Mar. xxxi. Solinua. c. 15. Virgil. ft Pliny, xxii. 1. tt Virgil. Claudian de Bello Getica FIRST ARTICLES OF DRESS. 153 youth, says Solinus, were "marked with the figures of different animals by nice incisions, and there was nothing which they bore with more for- titude than the operation, by which their limbs received a deep coloring in durable scars." Isodore says, the bodies of the Picts were punctured with a sharp instrument, and his expression " stigmata Britonurn " seems to imply a deeper incision than other nations made.* The marks produced by this operation generally appear blue, -when the mutter applied is not exactly of that color, as may be observed on the "hands and arms of seamen and others, from which it may be con- cluded that the ancient Britons did not confine themselves to the use of woad. Isodore, who describes the Goths as using red, says, the Picts colored themselves with the juice of green grass;"}" and Ovid terms the Britons " Virides." Martial calls them blue, and the expression "cceru- leas scuta Brigantes,"J is applied to the personal appearance of that na- tion. Herodian seems to represent the Britons as painted with various colors, " notant corpora pictura varia et omnifariam formis animalium,"^ which is translated by several authors as meaning paintings of different colors, and is applied to the Caledonians. Maule says, that Argento- coxus, or rather Argachocoxus, a celebrated chief of the Caledonian Picts, derived his name from the ancient word Coch, or Goch, red, and that therefore he was of the red clan, as others might be of Clan-buy, the yellow tribe, &.c. The conjecture is ingenious, if not satisfactory. This practice of staining the body was retained by the Angli, to so low a period as the Norman conquest. They are even described by William of Malmsbury, as having their skins marked with figures. || The custom had before his time been very prevalent, but the attention of the clergy was at last called to this relick of paganism; and the council of Cealhythe, in 787, denounces those who used such ornaments, as moved "diabolico instinctu," the body which was created fair and comely, be- ing colored with dirty stains, unprofitable to salvation. Mankind did not at first clothe themselves for the sake of decency. Dress is assumed more from pride and ostentation among savages, and is rendered subservient to their protection in war, rather than adopted as a defence from the severities of climate. The Greeks and Romans thought it no indelicacy, to appear naked in public. Larcher on Hero- dotus states a remark of Plato, that the Greeks had not long considered it ridiculous and disgraceful for a man to appear in a state of nudity. In dress, as before observed, the chief object was to impress the enemy with dismay, by producing a strange and terrific appearance: a second, and not less strong feeling in decorating the person, was vanity. Pride of dress is found to influence the lowest savages, who are, according to their circumstances, as ostentatious in this respect, as the most civilized society. * Origines, xix. 23. Pliny says, some Eastern nations marked their bodies with lnt searing irons. t Ap. Maule's History of the Picts. t Seneca de Claudio. Hist. iii. U De G. R. A. L. 3, " picturatis stigmatibus cutem insigniti." 154 SKINS OF ANIMALS. No race were more proud of their apparel and personal decorations, than the ancient Celtae, and their taste in arraying themselves, with thu singularity and splendor of their attire, struck their enemies with amaze- ment. The beauty and riches of the dress of the Gauls, at the battlo of Telamon, was wonderful, for tho whole army shone with purple silk and chains, and bracelets of gold, which they wore about their wrists and neck,* and the brilliancy of color in their sagas were the admiration of other nations, who were proud to make a humble imitation of the manufacture. The undressed skins of animals form the first covering of mankind, and they continue to be used until the art of fabricating more suitable materials is discovered, or until all have attained sufficient wealth to purchase them. The Greeks, more particularly the Arcadians, were clothed in skins, in the time of Aristodemus,j and the Ligurians contin- ued long to dress themselves in the hides of wild beasts, fastened around them, by means of a belt.J Tacitus says, the remote Germans wore the skins of animals, in some cases from necessity, inothers from choice, and some of them they diversified with numerous spots. ^ Caesar also describes the Suevi as arrayed in skins, and Virgil says the Getae made use of the same cover- ing. According to Dio, the Caledonians were naked: but, as Dr. Mac Pherson observes, we are not to believe they were entirely destitute of covering. Herodian represents them as being only partially clad; and with their scanty covering the expression naked was not inapplicable. |j At the period of Caesar's descent, most of the inhabitants were clothed with the skins of animals, 1F but woollen garments were also in use. A clothing of undressed skins is easily procured, and is the best substitute for other materials, in a poor country, where manufactures are but little known. The common people in Germany and Gaul continued to dress in this manner, long after their chiefs had adopted garments of linen and woollen cloth. At the commencement of the Christian era, the Belgic Britons, who were more civilized than the nations of the interior, were generally dressed in woollen garments; but the use of this manufacture was chiefly confined to the southern tribes, for it was only the principal persons in the interior who had begun to use it. We find, in the ancient Gaelic poems, the skin of a boar as the dress of a hero. The monks of lona, at a later period, dressed in skins, although they had linen also, which they imported, no doubt, from the main land; nay, " in the book of dresses, Paris 1562, from which facsimiles are published," the High- landers are said to be represented arrayed in sheep skins.** The ancient Britons had a sort of manufacture of the inner bark of * Polybius, ii. t Pausanias, iv. 11. J Diodorus. DP mor. Germ. They also dressed in the skins of sea monsters. || Lib iii. 47. IT Bello Gallico. " Letter on the Highland Dress. Scots' Mag. Nov. 1798, p. 743. MATTEN AND WOOLEN CLOTHES. 155 trees, which still exists among the farmers in Germany, Sweden, Den- mark, &.c. under the name of matten, who employ it for agricultural purposes. Mathan in Gaelic is a twig, or rush, from which come the English mat, matted, &c. The first woollen vestment which we find used by the Gauls and Ger- mans, was a square blanket thrown over the naked shoulders, and, from its value, worn only by the chiefs. This was called sagum, the same name which was given to the inartificial cloak which it had succeeded. Sac, in Gaelic, signifies a skin or hide. The Belgoe called this part of their dress lene, or linne. Reno, which Varro says is Gallic, was a term applied to it by some Germans, while others denominated it mas- truga.* The manufacture of woollen cloth must have existed among the Celtae from the most early period. They were particularly ingenious in dying the material, and in its fabrication; and their perfection in the art be- speaks long use and experience, as well as much taste. The singularity of the Gaulish habit excited the astonishment of the Romans: but al- though they adopted the use of the warm cloth which the Belgae manu- factured, it does not appear that they ever wore the showy pattern which the Celtae had the honor to invent. Other nations, admiring its gaudy appearance, were induced to relinquish their own dress and adopt it in- stead. The Franks were so pleased with the striped sagum that they assumed it in preference to their own habit. "f" The Saxons, in like man- ner, imitated the curious workmanship of those ingenious people, and carried it to great perfection. The place where they worked was called "the Tuphus of woulle," and women attended to the manufacture. J The spinners and weavers in Germany worked under ground, in caves. ^ There were different qualities of Celtic wool. That of Lusitania and of Narbonne was rough and coarse; in Piemont it was chiefly gray; in Celtiberia it was mostly black; and in Andalusia and Grenada it was reddish. || The Gauls appear to have made a sort of felt without weaving, the cuttings of which were formed into mattrasses. Perhaps Strabo alludes to this article when he says the sagum was rough outside. When vine- gar was used in the preparation of this, it resisted the blow of a sword, and was even some defence against fire.|| They shore the wool close, says Diodorus, and called their thick cas- socks, coenas. They also wore the sagum thicker than usual in winter The Celtic weavers were, certainly, most ingenious artists, and produced work that astonished other nations, by its richness and singularity. The description of it has been supposed to imply that the fig ires of flowers were represented in the texture of the cloth, but this nice and * Cluverius Germ. Ant. " Saga vulgo Sayon a quo milites nostros Savatos appella- mus." Pol Virgil de Invent, rerum, 1604. t Favin, also an author in Baluzii capitularia, ii. 741, quoted by Whittaker. i Fosbrooke, in MSS Pliny. IJ Pliny, viii. 48. 156 ORIGIN OF TARTAN difficult operation in the art is not likely to have been known in those rude ages. It was much easier to fall on the way of using alternate colors, both in warp and woof, and thereby produce that appearance which, at a distance, to those unacquainted with its nature, might readi- ly be taken for flowering. Diodorus had no name for this manufacture, which was peculiar to the Celts, and only means to say, as I apprehend, that it resembled a flowered robe; for he goes on. to describe it as form- ed in distinct striped squares.* This opinion seems confirmed by what Pliny says of the Lusitanian manufacture, that the mesh-work of the homespun garment gave it value. The " scutulato textu " has been taken for round figures, or lozenge-figured damask. The following note on the passage is more just: " textus virgatus est macularum instar can- cellatim et reticulatim distinctus Lausagias Galli vocant."J If we could give credit to the few dark intimations concerning the Hyperborei of Britain, a proof that the manufacture, which is plainly Tartan, existed in this country, at a period long prior to the commence- ment of our credible history, would be found; for Abaris, the high priest of that people, wore a robe which corresponds, from the description, exactly to the Scots' plaid. It may be presumed, without insisting on an authority so doubtful, the Gallic colonists brought with them their national artificers and man- ufactures; as cloth does not appear to have been an article of import with the Britons, among whom its use was common, at the era of the Roman descent. The Belgae are believed to have introduced the use of woollen vest- ments, an opinion which is founded on their being more generally worn by those tribes than the less polished inhabitants of the interior. The skins of animals, as they were more easily procured, appear to have formed the dress of the common people throughout the island, but the manufacture of woollen cloth was well understood at an early period. Bondiuca wore a tunic, interwoven with various colors, over which was a mantle of a coarser texture, being the dress which she wore at all times. J Varro says the Britons wore a garment called Guanacum, which was of divers colors, woven together and making a gaudy sho\v; and Tacitus says the ^Estii, a German nation, wore the British dress, which must have been the Gallic. The Saxons continued the manufacture, which Aldhelm, who was Bishop of Sherborn about 970, describes in a pleasing manner. Writing in praise of virginity, he says, " it is not the web of one uniform color and texture, without any variety of figures, that pleases the eye and appears beautiful, but one that is woven by shuttles, filled with threads * " Ac seu floribus conspersas." * * ' * " saga etiam virgata, crebrisque tesselis florum instar distincta." Pliny says, " Scutulis vestes dividere instituit Gal- lia ; " while he elsewhere describes the Parthians as weaving letters or characters in their cloth. Lib. xiii. ii. t Comment, a'd Pliny, in ed. Lngd. 1668. J Di o Ap. Strutt's Chronicles, p. 275. ORIGIN OF TARTAN. 157 of purple and various other colors, flying from side to side, and forming a variety of figures and images in different compartments, with admira- ble art."* The Saxons, not having a sufficiently Celtic taste, appear to have given up this manufacture. Cloth, in the most simple composition, is left of the natural wool, without being colored by any artificial process. Hence the Celtiberians, in general, wore black sagas, | the wool being of that color. Giraldus Carnbrensis says most of the Irish were clad in black, for the same rea- son; and the Loughtan cloth of the Isle of Man is made from the natural wool of a particular breed of sheep, some of which are said still to exist in St. Kilda and other remote islands. The color is yellowish, or that of an unblanched bitter alrn-md, and the inhabitants are very partial to it.J Throughout Scotland, more particularly in the North Highlands, the cloth was made of the undyed wool, the white and black being generally appropriated for blankets, or plaids, and for the upper garments, the gray for hose and mits for the gudeman. The Hodden gray was the general attire among the fanners, as it still, in most parts of the interior and in [reland, continues to be. Sheep shearing was, perhaps, unknown to the primitive tribes. The Shetlanders still continue to tear off* the wool; a practice less cruel than at first appears, for it is not done until after the roots have been forced out by the young fleece; but it is very inju- dicious, for much is naturally cast, and, consequently, lost. It would appear that, in ancient times, the Irish had garments formed of hair. A coat of unknown texture was clug from a bog at a depth of fifteen feet; and in another place, eleven feet under the surface of the earth, a body was found clothed in a garment of hair. From the singu- larity of its appearance, the supposition was, that it had been fabricated from that of the Moosedeer.^ We find that the Irish, in later periods than those to which the above discoveries are referable, wore " girdles of women's hair and locks of their lovers ;"|| nurses and children being girt with belts of female hair, finely plaited. These were rather orna- mental than necessary apparel, but we find Fin Mac Coul was arrayed in " hieland pladdis of hair. "IT Wool is the material which the Celta3 must have manufactured, from the most remote ao-es, and the texture of the web must have varied ac- t5 * cording to the abilities of the workmen, or affluence of the parties. In 1786, there was found among other articles, at a depth of seventeen feet, in a hog in Ireland, a coat in shape like a spencer or jacket, of a coarse tvoollen net-work. * Strutt, ut sup. t Diodorus. t Histories of the Tsle of Man, Stat. Account, Agric. Rep. &c. The manx word /joshhyn, signifies burnt, or singed. Lachdan, in Gaelic, is gray. " A Lauchtanc mantle then him by." The Bruce. Archaeologia, vii. || Gainsfrrd's Glory of England, 1610. TF Interlude of the Droichis, noticed in Sir John (Sinclair's Diss. on Ossian's Poems, p. xxvii. 158 LUATHADH, OR FULLING OF CLOTH. The Highlanders sometimes made their plaids very fine, but, for gen eral wear, they bestowed less pains.* The cathdath, or cadas, was a thick sort, made for the men, and intended, as its name, battle color, implies, to be worn during war. Of this milled. .cloth, hose, trews, jacket and waistcoat were usually made, but the plaid and feilebeag were always of common tartan. Clodh was used for coats, and was commonly what is called hodden gray in the Lowlands, and lachdan by the Highlanders Cuirtan was similar to a common Scot's blanket, but of finer wool and fairer workmanship. The luathadh, or process of fulling or cleansing cloth, in the High lands, is conducted in a singular manner. Six or eight, sometimes even fourteen, females, sit down on each side of a long frame of wattled work, or a board ribbed longitudinally for the purpose, and placed on the ground. The cloth being wet, is then laid on it, and the women, kneel- ing, rub it with all their strength, until their arms become tired, when they sit down and applying their bare feet, commence the waulking in good earnest, singing a particular melody, the notes of which increase in loudness, as the work proceeds. The following account of the man- ner of preparing the plaids, and the expense attending the manufacture, about the middle of the last century, is given in the Agricultural Report of Caithness. When the web was sent home, it was washed in warm water, and, if it was necessary to full it, the door was taken off its hinges and laid on the floor, the web being then taken out of the water and laid on it. Four women, with bare legs, having set down on a little straw^ at equal distances on each side, on the signal of a song, (similar to the Ran de Vache, in Switzerland,) each applied the soles of her feet to the web, and began pushing and tumbling it about, until it was suffi- ciently done, when it was stretched out to dry. Cloth, if good, and for sale, fetched Is. per yard, and tartan, if also good, and of fine colors, Is. or Is. 2d. That industry and simplicity of life, the reporter adds, are now gone. This mode of washing is the Luaghadh, described by Pennant, and of which he has given a print. It is related of an English gentleman, that having accidentally looked into a cottage where the females were so en- gaged, he hastily retired, reporting that he had seen a whole company of furious lunatics. Woollen must have been at first woven of one color, or an intermixture of natural black and white, so frequently seen in Scotland, in the present day. The process of dying increases the expense, and is not at all times practicable. Buchannan says the prevailing color in his time was brown , most likely that above alluded to. Blue was the favorite color of the painted Britons, from which Britannia was represented arrayed in a blue garment. Pinkerton and several other writers of less note, have affected to Believe, that tartan was a recent invention. Its antiquity among tho * Martin. Gen. Stewart. TARTAN NOT A RECENT INVENTION. 159 Celtse is already proved, and if it was a manufacture of the ancient Brit cms, there appears no reason to believe that it was ever lost by their de- scendants. Lesly and Buchannan mention it, as worn by the Highland- ers; and an old chronicle says, the inhabitants of the Western Isles delighted "to wear marled cloaths, specially that have long stripes of sundry colours. Their predecessors used short mantles, or plaids of di- vers colours, sundry ways divided; and amongst some the same custom is observed to this day, but for the most part now they are broun, most near to the color of the hadder, to the effect \vhen they lie among the hadder, the bright colours of their plaids shall not bewray them." * " In Argyle and the Hebudae, before the middle of the fifteenth cen- tury, tartan was manufactured of one or two colors for the poor; more varied for the rich."'}" Beague describes the Gael nearly 300 years ago as having a woollen covering, variously colored. In the charge and discharge of John, Bishop of Glasgow, treasurer to King James III., 147], are the following items: " Ane elne and ane halve of blue Tartane to lyne his gowne of cloth of gold. jCl 10a. Four elne and ane halve of Tartane, for a sparwort aboun his credill, price ane elne 10s 25 Halve ane elne of doble Tartane to lyne ridin collars to her lady the Quene, price 8 shillins. There is a portrait of Sir William Wallace at Taymouth, a seat of Lord Braidalban, where the patriot is represented with a plaid of tartan fastened on his breast by a large brooch. The authenticity of this picture may be questioned, but it is possible for a rude painting to have been pre- served by a copy, as was done with that of William the Lion in the hall of the incorporated trades of Aberdeen, which is known to have been repainted from a very old and decayed portrait, upwards of one hun- dred years ago. If this, however, were not the case with the one in question, it is yet of greater antiquity than the period assigned by many for the introduction of the manufacture. It must have been handed down from the ancient tribes, but, from change of circumstances, the patterns were made less rich. The name breacan, which the Highland- ers give to their upper garment, "derived from breac, chequered, is a strong proof of its antiquity. Achy Edgathach, an Irish legislator, is said to have introduced the Laws of colors to that people, which are represented as having done more towards procuring esteem and respect than all the trappings of eastern magnificence. J The number of colors among them and the Caledonians, indicated the rank of the wearer, a king or chief having seven, a Druid six, and other nobles four in their robes. In later times, those who could afford to do so, may have indulged their taste by intro- ducing a variety of rich colors; the poor were obliged to make their cloth plain. Green and black, with an occasional stripe of red, seem to have * Lord Somers' Tracts, vol. xiii. t Heron's Hist, of Scotland, v. p. 28 t Dissertations on the Ancient History of Ireland, 1753, p. 124. 160 VARIOUS DYES. predominated; but some districts have been distinguished for their pe- culiar taste, as Badenoch, where red tartan was prevalent, and Locha- ber, where the patterns were remarkably gaudy, &.c. The Highlanders had neither cochineal, lac dye, foreign woods, nor other excellent substances to impart various tints to their Breacan; but their native hills afforded articles with which they had found the art of dying brilliant, permanent, and pleasing colors. Caledonia was indeed much less prolific in the materials for this purpose than Gaul, where the people arrived at high perfection in the art. With the use of herbs only in the process of dying, they produced colors so beautiful as to excite the admiration of the polished Greeks and Romans. They had a dye which rivalled the Tyrian purple. The hyacinth is said to have afforded this beautiful tint; but the vaccinium, supposed by some commentators to have been q certain herb, and by others taken for the whortle, scotice, blaeberry, is particularly mentioned by Pliny, as having been employed by the Gauls to produce this color,* the hyacinth, which, he says, pros- pered exceedingly in Gaul, being used to dye red.'j" These people also produced scarlet, violet, and all sorts of beautiful colors, from various plants. The first was extracted from the grain of a bramble which they called us, and the Greeks denominated coccos.J In Lusitania the royal scarlet was produced.^ The Gauls, says Pliny, were wiser than others, for they did not en- danger their lives, and ransack foreign countries and seas for articles to dye their stuffs, to please a licentious populace, but, "with excellent thrift and good husbandrie, they stood safe upon the drie land, and gath- ered those herbs to dye such colours as an honest minded person hath no cause to blame, nor the world reason to cry out upon."|j The British Gael were, perhaps, unable to give those rich colors to their stuffs which appeared in the manufactures of the ancient Celtic tribes of the continent. They had various articles which they employed successfully in dying their garments; but when engaged in war, they preferred a dark pattern. Bark of aller, or alder, was used for black, that of willow produced flesh color. Corkir, or crotil geal, a substance formed on stone, was made use of by the West Islanders to dye " a pretty crimson color," and another similar substance called crotil dubh, "of a dark color, only dyes a philamot," which is, however, very per- manent. There is a root called rue, once much used for red, but now strictly prohibited from being taken up, as the sand is loosened, and thereby becomes liable to overspread the land. IT Other vegetable sub- stances were employed by the Highlanders, who were able to produce finer colors than is generally supposed. The Caledonian women, who " wove the robe for their love," made it " like the bow of the shower." General Stewart mentions having seen specimens of very old tartan that * Pliny, xvi. c. 18. t Jbid. xxi. 26. J Pausanias, x. 30. Pliny. Pliny, xxii. || Ibid. xxii. Holland's Transl. 1601. p. 115. H Buchannan's History of the Western Islands. CLAN TARTANS. 161 retained the tints in their original brilliancy: and a gentleman assured me that he had seen a garment upwards of C 2GO years old, the colors in which were still admirable. The materials for dying were procured among their native hills, and, like the Gauls, they did not seek for arti- cles produced in other countries. A Mr. Gordon, of Kirk Michael, BanfFshire, about 1755, introduced to notice the simple process by which an elegant purple can be obtained from the crotil, cupmoss, or lichen, to which he gave the name cudbear, either from cuid a bear, the best part, or in allusion to his own name, Cuthbert. In the Scots' Magazine of 1776, he published a certificate from several dyers, that they used it with much success. It became consequently an article of trade, and in 1808 and 1809, from 4 to 500 worth was gathered off the rocks in the counties of Aberdeen and Banff;* but Mr. Gordon did not arrive at so much perfection in fixing the color as many of his own country- women. " Give me bullock's blood and lime," said a Highlander to a friend of mine, " and I will produce you fine colors." Every farmer's good- wife was competent to dye blue, red, green, yellow, black, brown, and their compounds. When we consider the care with which the High- landers arranged and preserved the patterns of their different tartans, and the pride which they had in this manufacture, we must believe that the dyers spared no pains to preserve and improve the excellence of their craft. "There is a great deal of ingenuity required in sorting the colors, so as to be agreeable to t*.>e nicest fancy. For this reason the women are at much pains, first to give an exact pattern of the plaid upon a small rod, having the number of every thread of the stripe on it.""j" The far- mer's wife generally dyed her own wool, although there might be some small dye works in the neighborhood; but whether she colored the materials or employed others, the pattern of the web was not left to the weaver's fancy. He received his instructions by means of a small stick, round which the exact number of threads in every bar was shown, a practice in use to this very day. Sir Benjamin West regarded the clan tartans as specimens of national taste, and says that there was great art displayed in the composition of the various patterns, and in the combina- tion and opposition of colors. The particular setts, or patterns, of tartan, appropriate to each clan, m'ist have been long fixed. Every tribe and every island differed from each other " in the fancy of making plaids, as to the stripes, in breadth and colors. "J The breacan of the Highlander was a sort of coat armor, or tabard, by which his name and clan were at once recognised'. At the same time, in their undress they indulged their taste in fancy patterns. It was a valuable reward for good conduct in youth, to bestow a plaid, in which various colors were introduced, and it appears to have been " Agric. Rep. for Banfishire. t Martin. t Ibid. p. 208. 21 162 CLAN TARTANS. prized by those of more advanced years. An old song makes a Celt, in wooing a Lowland lass, say: " Bra' sail the setts o'your braid tartans be, If ye will gang to the north Highlands wi' me." Tartans may be divided into the general descriptions of green and red, where these colors predominate. In the five regiments who still wear the kilt, it is the former. That of the 42nd is the plainest and most common pattern, and is often called the black watch, from the old name of the corps, who were so denominated from wearing tartan only, the red jacket being a late alteration. The regular colors are blue, black and green, but a red stripe in the middle of the former is often intro- duced. This is said to have been first added by Lord Murray, who commanded the regiment, as the Athol sett, and to distinguish the Feilebeag,, then introduced from the old Breacan feile.* It appeared to me very ununiform in this regiment, that both patterns should be worn indifferently. The band continue to wear tartan of the same red pattern which formed the original dress of the pipers and drummers. The 78th, or Ross-shire Highlanders, wear the Mac Kenzie tartan, having been raised from that clan. The 79th, or Cameron Highlanders, wear their appropriate and well composed tartan. The 92nd, or Gordon Highlanders, also wear their peculiar sett, which is very pleasing, and the 93rd wear the Sutherland tartan, which appears only different from the plain s.ett of the 42nd in having the green and blue lighter, the former being shown in the kilt and plaid. The 71st regiment, or Mac Kenzie Highland light infantry, when first raised, wore their own clan plaid; the 72nd, or Seaforth Highland- ers, being also a Mac Kenzie regiment, wore the same tartan and cos- tume; but the late Duke of York taking a fancy to this corps after their return from the Cape of Good Hope, called them " the Duke of Albany's own Highlanders," and gave them a scarf plaid and trowsers of the royal tartan. It is extraordinary that those two regiments, the oldest embodied clan corps, should wear trowsers, a dress formerly confined to lame, sick, or aged Highlanders! It has been a source of great vexation to their clan and country. Assuredly, Lord Mac Leod, the eldest son of Mac Kenzie, Earl of Cromarty, who raised the 73rd, now the 71st, and Mac Kenzie, Earl of Seaforth, who embodied the old 78th, now the 72nd, would never have thought of an alteration so unnecessary and so uncongenial to Celtic feeling. Whoever has the high' honor to command the British army, should not forget how strongly the high minded and brave Gael are attached to their national costume; and as these regi- ments have still the name of Highlanders, and are composed of them, it is to be hoped, their appropriate military uniform will be yet restored. While on this subject, I cannot avoid noticing an unaccountable prac- tice in some Highland regiments, where the officers seldom appear in * Stewart's Sketches of the Highlanders. CLAN TARTANS. 163 (he feilebeag, except on field days and particular occasions' Is it from an idea that it is unbecoming, or that the privates only are obliged to wear the kilt? It is a strange inconsistency, and a very unmilitary custom, for which I presume the respective colonels or adjutants are answerable. Having some time since lived four or five years where the 78th were stationed, I must exonerate that corps from the above reflec- tions, officers and men being always dressed in proper regimentals. His Majesty, and all the branches of the Royal Family, wear the royal plaid of the High Steward of Scotland, as shown in the figure of the chief of the clan, and described in the table of tartans. His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex has a pattern, peculiar to himself, which is represented in the explanatory plate. It is worn for Inverness, from which he has the title of Earl. All regular tartans are made, so that, in the folds of the kilt and plaid, which are formed in what is called quilled, or box plaiting, a particular stripe shall appear. Thus, in the Gordon sett, it is yellow, in the Mac Kenzie white, Sec., and wherever one of these patterns cannot be formed in this way, the web is irregular; and an error in weaving would equally derange the operation of making up a jacket, which consumes a considerable quantity of cloth, being cut on the bias, and is a work of great nicety and skill. The table given in the Appendix will show the exact pattern of the tartans appropriate to the respective clans. It is as correct as the most laborious personal investigations, and the able assistance of some valued friends, conversant on the subject, could make it: still there are many clans, especially in the Lowlands, who have peculiar tartans, that are not included in the table. The Highland Society, some years since, undertook the laudable task of collecting specimens of the various distinguishing tartans of the Scot- ish Celts, and succeeded in procuring a great many specimens. When we consider the severe laws that were passed, to restrain the Highland- ers from wearing cloth of this manufacture, and the long period in which they were rigorously enforced, with the act which at once abolished the system of clanship, that venerable monument of the policy of our ances- tors, and gave a deadly blow to the cherished institutions of the Gael, we must cease to wonder that so much is lost of their ancient manners, and feel rather surprised that so much has survived "the abolition of heritable jurisdictions." It will be seen that no Family tartans are introduced in the list. The investigations of the Highland Society, the stimulus given by the visit of our Gracious Monarch to Scotland, where the great chiefs brought their followers to attend him, and where the Celtic Society, dressed in proper costume, formed his Majesty's body guard, with other circum- stances which rendered it necessary for individuals to appear in their peculiar uniforms, have combined to excite much curiosity among all classes, to ascertain the particular tartans and badges they were entitled to wear. This creditable feeling unfortunately led to a result different 164 TASTEFUL ARRANGEMENT OF COLORS. from what might have been expected: fanciful varieties of tartan and badges were passed off as genuine, and the attempt to set the public right on these matters is likely to meet the objections of many. I arn, however, confident, from the respectability of my sources of information, that my statements are the most correct of any hitherto published. In laying them before the public, I claim for myself an acquittal from all prejudice and partiality. It is obvious that family tartans must be, in a great measure, depend- ant on individual taste; for, although many are, no doubt, of ancient origin, they were not distinctive of tribes. Several, also, have of late adopted particular tartans, while spurious patterns have been imposed on others, as appropriate to their name. The difficulty of compiling a correct list .must be allowed, and without giving all the varieties, it would be unsatisfactory and incomplete. As the author is preparing a work expressly, on tartans and badges, with illustrative plates, an object, for the above reasons, so very desirable, he takes this opportunity of so- liciting information or patterns from those noblemen and gentlemen who may feel interested in the subject. The utility of these lists is apparent. Any one desirous of possessing the tartan of his clan, may, by inspecting the table, inform himself of the exact pattern, and with this knowledge he cannot be deceived in making a purchase. The advantage of these accurate descriptions to the manu- facturer and dealer is obvious. They will, by this guide, be able to provide the true sett of any clan tartan. The word tartan is derived from the Gaelic tarstin, or tarsuin, across. A friend has suggested an ingenious etymology of cath-dath, before translated "war color:" it may very aptly signify the " strife of colors," as if they emulated each other in brilliancy. The French tyretaine, a sort of woollen cloth, is certainly of Gallic origin. John de Meum, the contiriuator of the Romance of the Rose, mentions scarlet woollen cloth of tyretaine, as forming part of women's dress. This manufacture appears to be unknown in France. A gentleman who has travelled on the continent in all directions, for some years past, declares he never met with it of native fabrication. In a letter which I lately received, he thus writes; c< It is a certain fact that tartan is not manufactured any where, not even in England, I believe, as it should be. A French dealer in such goods assured me that, in France, they had never succeeded." Stirling, in Scotland, has been long celebrated for its manufacture of this cloth, and a very fine web, especially of scarlet, which the High- landers could not produce- from their native dye-stuffs, was known as "Stirling Tartan." An old weaver at the village of Bannockburn, in the vicinity, has, from his intimate acquaintance with the various pat- terns, been dubbed " the Lord Lyon, of Tartan heraldry." It has been predicted, that " the tasteless regularity and vulgar glare" of this manufacture would forever prevent its adoption by genteel societ/ COSTUME. 165 flow changed the feeling of the present age must be, when it ii nut only so fashionable in the British islands, but popular throughout the civilized world. A certain writer denounced it as " most offensive to the eyo.' Sir Benjamin West, whose opinion, is likely to be much more correct, expressed his admiration of the fine effect of the combination of colors. It is scarcely possible to illustrate the costume of the ancient Celta; satisfactorily, without a series of figures, for their dresses seem to have varied. It is to be regretted, that no authentic monument, of sufficient antiquity, exists, from which we can ascertain, with certainty, the cos- tume of that people. The Greeks had some representations of them: a picture of the slaughter of the Gauls in Mysia, was to be seen in the tower of the Athenians; and the Pergamenians, who resisted them in one of their invasions, retained their spoils, and had pictures, i. e. sculp- tures or paintings of their transactions with them.* There were also figures of Gauls at Rome, but of a later period; and probably slaves were the' models. They were not represented from respect, but shown in attitudes calculated to display their inferiority, and excite contempt. | There are no monuments or statues of the Gauls, it is believed, in existence, of an age anterior to their subjugation by the Romans, a period too recent to illustrate their original costume. The bas-relief that forms the subject of the vignette to Chapter I. represents Gallic and German warriors, from the columns of Trajan and Antoninus. The one at the commencement of this Chapter represents a Celtiberian, from the shield of Scipio, and a Gallic female, from a bas-relief, discovered at Langres. Those remains that are with every probability attributed to the Celtic inhabitants, are apparently the figures of Gauls, much altered by the influence of their conquerors. The most simple dress was the Sagum, fastened in front, or on the shoulder, generally with a brooch; or, when the wearer could find noth- ing better, a thorn, or bit of wood, answered the purpose. J Whittaker says the Britons fastened it on both shoulders. All the Germans wore this, and were naked where it did not reach. It was also used by the Lusitani and Iberi, and continued very long to be a principal part of the dress of those nations. || Favin, from the monk of St. Gall, describes the Franks as so pleased with the striped sagum of the Gauls, that they adopted it in preference to their own long mantle. The sagum, whether of simple skin or coarse woollen, was long worn before it was thought necessary to provide covering for other parts of the body; but the pride of dress, a strong passion among the Celts, and the occupations of war, so fayorable to a display of personal decorations, soon lead to the adoption of more complicated attire. * Pausanias, i. 4. t Pliny, xxxv. 4, who relates an anecdote of Crassus, connected with one of those pictures in the Forum. t Tac. de Mor. Germ. Tac. ut sup. i| Strabo. 1G6 COSTUME. In later ages, the Gauls formed a hood to their sagum or cloak, and it was named Cucullus, or Bardo-cucullus, being worn by soldiers and countrymen. It was chiefly used among the Xantones, and is to this day retained by the peasants in some parts of France.* The Gauls im- parted their gaudy sagum to the Franks, and the Britons communicated theirs to the Saxons. t The Carac-challamh, according to Macpherson, was a sort of upper garment, which Pinkerton from Dio says was worn close. The surname Caracalla given to the Roman emperor, was derived from a sort of long Gallic gown. Gallica palla is used by Martial for a man's cassock. From the Gaelic term for along coat, the Highlanders call the people of the Low Country, luchd nan cosag. The military dress of the Celtae was adopted more from ostentation than as a means of defence, for they disregarded armor, and in battle were accustomed to strip off almost their whole attire. Diodorus says they despised death so much, that they fought with only a slight covering around the loins. At the battle of Cannae, when they fought in this manner, it could not fail to be " strange and terrible to see them naked from the waist." J It was the practice of the Asiatic Gauls also to fight naked. ^ The Irish, according to Solinus, continued the practice of divesting themselves of all covering in battle; and Spenser, who says the mantle was in general their sole garment, observes that it was light, and conve- nient to throw away. The Scots' Highlanders continued to throw off their jackets and plaids, until the beginning of the eighteenth century. Martin thus describes their method of fighting. " The chief of each tribe, after the arrows are spent, advances within shot, having first laid aside the upper garments and after one general discharge, attack, aut mors cito, aut victoria laeta." The Tunic was at first worn by those only who were very wealthy. It fitted close to the body, was fastened by a belt round the middle, and reached below the thighs. The Belgians had it slit, with sleeves hang- ing from the shoulders below the middle. Among the Britons it was called Cota, and was worn open before, with sleeves that, in men, reached to the hands, || and fell as low as the knee. The tunic of Bon- diuca was long and plaited. The Thraciaris, in Xerxes' army, wore a vest over a robe of various colors. IT The Scythians, from the sculpture on the arch of Theodosius, dressed in the same manner as the Germans Those among the Gauls who bore honors, according to Strabo, wore a vest adorned with gold and fine colors; one sort of which were called Comas.** A Gallic monument shows a figure dressed in a striped tunic, fastened with a belt, and descending to the knee. ft Some fragments dug up in * Montfaucon's Antiquite Expliquee. t Whittaker. | Polybius, iii. Livy, xxxviii. || Whittaker. 11 Herodotus, vii 75. ** In Gaelic, cneas is the waist. tt Schcepflin's Alsatia Illustrata. COSTUME. 167 1711, in the choir of the cathedral of Paris, represented six Gauls, all armed, arid dressed in long garments with wide sleeves, the sagum ap- pearing also in some. The legs do not in all cases appear to have been naked: sometimes they are seen covered with a sort of trowsers, even when the arms are bare. A figure found after the great fire of London, had the hair long and flowing, a sagum thrown over the shoulders, a girdle round the middle, and the legs hare.* A fragment of sculpture dug from the ruins of Antonine's wall, and now preserved at Croy, represents three figures, which are in all proba- bility meant for Caledonians. The dress is a strict resemblance to the national garb, and is similar to that of the ancient Celts. | Gildas describes the Scots and Picts of his time as having only a piece of cloth tied round the loins: and on the remarkable obelisk at Forres, in the county of Moray, the Scots are represented in a tunic, fastened round the waist. The Saxons wore the short tunic, which they derived from the Gauls, who had a rooted aversion to the long mantle. It was so convenient where agility was required, that it was worn by persons of every degree, and was the constant military habit. It usually terminated a little above the knee, and was sometimes open at each side.J Eginhart assures us, that Charlemagne wore the short tunic, strictly adhering to the ancient manners. It reached only to his knees; and Charles the Bold is repre- sented in an ancient MS. with two seigneurs, in the same dress, the legs bare from the knees, except the lacing of the sandals, which are brought to the middle of the calf, and a sagum fastened on the shoulder with a button. The Breacan-feile, literally the chequered covering, is the original garb of the Highlanders, and forms the chief part of the costume; the other articles, although equally Celtic, and now peculiar to Scotland, being subordinate to this singular remain of a most ancient dress. The Breacan, in its simple form, is now seldom used. It consisted of a plain piece of tartan, two yards in width by four or six in length. In dressing, this was carefully plaited in the middle, of a breadth suitable to the size of the wearer, and sufficient to extend from one side around his back to the other, leaving as much at each end as would cover the front of the body, overlapping each other. The plaid being thus pre- pared, was firmly bound round the loins with a leathern belt, in such manner that the lower side fell down to the middle of the knee j;>int, and then, while there were the foldings behind, the cloth was double before. The upper part was then fastened on the left shoulder with a large brooch or pin, so as to display to the most advantage the taste- fulness of the arrangement, the two ends being sometimes suffered to hang down; but that on the right side, which was necessarily the * Pennant. t Archeeologia, xxi. p. 456. J Stiutt s Hist, of the English Dress. 163 COSTUME. longest, was more usually tucked under the belt, as shown in the figure of the Gordon in the copper plate. In battle, in travelling, and on other occasions, this added much to the commodiousness and grace of the costume. From this description, it will appear that the Highlander would re- quire some assistance at his toilet if he wished to dress with requisite precision, but it was generally sufficient to spread the breacan on a box, table, over a chair-back, or otherwise, and when abroad he spread it on a sloping bank or rock, and, having the belt under it, laying himself on his side, and, buckling his girdle, the object was accomplished. He was, however, so nice, that he took considerable pains to arrange the folds after it was put on. The cloth that composed this part of the dress was simply a plaid or piece of tartan. When disposed on the body as above described, it re- ceived, in the Low Country, the appropriate appellation of the belted plaid, to distinguish it from the more usual way in which it was worn by the inhabitants, who merely wrapped it over the left shoulder, having small clothes under it. The belted plaid was, however, bv no means unknown as a dress in many parts accounted lowland by the natives of higher districts. It was peculiarly convenient for pastoral occupations, and was the common dress of the shepherds in the inland parts of Aberdeen, Banff, and other counties north of the Grampians, until towards the end of the last cen- tury. In the old song of the " Baron of Braikley," written in 1666, his lady tells him to soothe his alarm, on being attacked by the Farqu- harsons, " they were only herd widdifu's wi' belted plaids." This primitive garment is preserved in the uniform of the Highland regiments, which is an improvement on the simplicity of the original breacan. Being more convenient, as well as better adapted to the altered state of society, the modern belted plaid is much worn by the present Highlanders. The difference is this, that where, formerly, the lower and upper parts of the garb were attached, they are now separated, the lower part having the folds fixed by sewing, and being often worn with- out the other appendages. The plaid is fastened round the body and suspended from the shoulder, being, in like manner, made up by the tailor to imitate the ancient form. The loose end is represented by a small triangular piece of cloth suspended from the right side, where the end of the breacan was tucked under the belt. When the Highlander took the field during war, when he was engaged in hunting, tending his flocks in the mountains, or had occasion to travel far, he dressed in the feile-breacan; when he remained at home, he wore the feile-beag, as the most convenient. The shoulder plaid is worn by the present Highlanders chiefly for ornament, as may be seen in the 72nd regiment, being too narrow to answer the purposes for which it was at first intended. It is, however, susceptible of being thrown into a very becoming drapery. COSTUME. 169 The Highland garb worn by one who knows how to dress properly in it, is, undoubtedly, one of the most picturesque in the world. Other nations mav have an original garment resembling the feile-beag, or kilt; but the belted plaid is indisputably the invention of the Gael, and bears no resemblance, either in its materials or arrangement, to the habit of any other people. The ample folds of the tartan, that are always arranged to show the characteristic or predominant stripe, and adjusted with great care, grace- fully depending from the shoulder, is a pleasing and elegant drapery, which being of itself, as it were, the entire vestment, presents an ensem- ble equally remote from the extremes of Asiatic and European dresses. It partakes of the easy flow of Oriental costume, suited to the indolence and effeminacy of the inhabitants of the East; and, avoiding the angu- lar formality and stiffness of European attire, combines a great degree both of lightness and elegance. It is well known that the antiquity of the national garb has been ques- tioned, and the right of the Scots to claim it as original has been denied. In this respect, it has met no more favor than most of the peculiarities which distinguish this interesting portion of the British empire. John Pinkerton, an author notorious for his anti-Gaelic spirit, and whose learning is sullied by a rancor of feeling and heat, of temper which he, nevertheless, reprobates in others with intemperate severity, asserts the antiquity of the feile-beag among the Highlanders to be very questionable; that it "is not ancient but singular, and adapted to their savage life was always unknown among the Welsh and Irish, and that it was a dress of the Saxons, who could not afford breeches, Sec."* He had before observed, that " breeches were unknown to the Celts, from the beginning to this day!"| Many papers have also appeared at different times in various publica- tions, discussing the question of its antiquity, and generally with a view to prove its late adoption by the Scots' Highlanders. These communi- cations have, in many cases, been answered, sometimes very ably, but in many instances without effect. , Appeals to tradition are not very con- vincing arguments to set against the apparent authority of historical re- cord, but the passages which have been selected to show that the High- landers did not, until lately, wear the dress to which, from time imme- morial, we find them so much attached, do not, certainly, bear the con- structions that have been put on them. The point is, however, so unde- niably settled, that it is unnecessary to enter into a lengthened refutation of those writers, many of whom are anonymous. Alexander I. is repre- sented on his seal, engraved in Dr. Meyrick's superb work, with the feile-beag and round targe. Fordun, who wrote about 1350, describes the Highlanders as "forma spectabilis, sed arnictu deformis." Major, who flourished in the beginning of the sixteenth century, says " a rnedio crure ad pedem caligas non habent; chlamyde pro veste superiore," &c. * Introd. to the Hist, of Scotland, ii, 73, &c. t Ibid. i. 3U4. 22 170 COSTUME. Lesly and Buchannan also notice it. Lindsay, of Pitscottie, who wrote in the vulgar tongue, cannot afford matter for the regret which some writers have expressed, that the terms in the Latin authors are vague and unsatisfactory. " The other pairt northerne," says he; " ar full of montaines and verie rud and hornelie kynd of people doeth inhabite, which is called the Reidschankes,.or wyld Scottis. They he cloathed with ane mantle, with ane schirt, fachioned after the Irisch manner, going hair legged to the knie." * That the descriptions of this costume are neither very accurate nor very plain, is not much to be wondered at, when its essential difference from other habits is considered. It was certainly difficult for those who were unacquainted with its details to convey a proper idea of it. The old Scots of the Low Country mentioned it as " the Highland weed,"'}' "a light dress," &c.; and, except to those who lived near the hills, or had intercourse with the inhabitants, their peculiarities were little known. Diodorus was unable to describe the singular dress of the Celts, which he thought was formed of cloth, ornamented in. flowered work; and Beague, in 1549, from a superficial view of them, describes the High- landers as going almost naked, and says they wore painted waistcoats! J At the present day, although it has recently become so well known, there are many thousands who have a very indefinite idea of this cos- tume; and the ignorance of many who array themselves in tartan ag members of societies, or to figure at fancy balls, with the paltry or ill adjusted trappings of the stage, do not convey the best idea of so pic- turesque and interesting a costume. In general, the legs of the ancient Celtre appear naked from the knee downwards. A figure of a man, represented in Montfaucon's interest- ing work, has his tunic falling a little below the knees, the lirnbs having no other covering, and this appears to have been no less a personage than Magister vici sandalarius of Metz. Some of the Germans and Daci, represented on the column of Trajan, appear in a sort of trowsers that are fastened at the ancles, and fit pretty close to the limbs. They reach to the waist, above which the figures are generally naked, except the covering of the sagum that hangs loosely from the shoulders. It is evident, from other remains, that this dress was not uniformly worn, for we see, on the same pillar, &c. the above and other nations indifferently represented with their legs covered and exposed. The Gauls and Britons, it is asserted, wore the same chequered cloth which composed their upper garments, loosely wrapped around the limbs, and this part of their apparel is described under the term Braccas, from which the English " breeches " are derived. Poiybius says, the Boil and Insubres of Caul wore the braccas of their country; but Strabo con- tines their use to the Belgs. From this garment, which Tacitus call* * Chronicles of Scotland, Ixxiv. 4to. ed. i Spalding's Troubles of Scotland, 1645. J History of the Scottish Campaigns, ap. Stewart's Sketches. COSTUME. 171 "a barbarous covering," part of Gaul was called Braccata; the other, having adopted the long gown of the Romans, received the appropriate appellation Togata. Etymologists seem to agree that this name was expressive of the red or chequered appearance of the habit; but that it was similar to modern trowsers, is not so satisfactorily proved. Dr. Mac Pherson, who remarks that saga and braccge were used indiscrim- inately by the Romans, says every Highlander in Britain knows that the bracca was an upper garment of diverse colors. Brat, in Gaelic, is a mantle or covering, and in some parts of Scotland it is used for clothes. The Welsh, brati, tattered, Camden thinks, is derived from the Celtic braccae; but this does not favor the opinion that they were trowsers. They were used by the Get.se and other Scyths, and Pinkerton asserts that they were always the grand badge of the Goths. " I have no proof/' says Strutt, "from the Anglo-Saxon delineations, that the drawers were in use in this country prior to the ninth century, for the tunics of the soldiers are often represented so short, that much of their thighs are ex- posed to the sight." Polybius seems to prove that this part of Celtic dress was not of the form usually supposed, when he says that the Bo- louians and Milanois, in the battle of Telamon, made choice of such aa wore braccse, being at most ease in their dress, to stand the brunt of the action. Wolfgang describes it as a small tunic, that was fastened about the middle, and reached to the knees, a covering for the loins, a little cassock of various colors, covering one's nakedness.* Newte says the name for breeches in Gaelic is literally "a lock for the posteriors." In Welsh, they are termed Ihoudar, and in Cornish, lavrak. The common name in the Highlands for this part of male attire, is briogas, from briog, restraint. The English breeches appear to have retained a name, at first expressive of the color, or effect of the garment which covered the lower part of the body. The braccae, or reddish chequered tunic, was worn by all the Celts, and the breacan is still the national dress of their descendants, the term indicating its appearance, like the Welsh, and Armoric, brech, which signifies chequered. Pelloutier | derives the French brayes from the braccae, and says they were the German hosen. Whittaker savs brog, or brae, red, otherwise battais, or botes, were the untanned buskins of the Gael and Cumri*. Here is the origin of boots, the prototypes of which must have been the red covering which the Celts had for their feet, and which has been since supplied by stockings and shoes.J Diodorus says the Celtiberians wore rough hair greaves about their legs; and the ancient Gauls, according to Cluverius, wore skins with the hair outside, tied on their feet. A similar covering was long worn by the Highlanders and Scots of Ulster, from which they obtained, among their southern neighbors, the name of red shanks: and although they have, for a considerable time, dropped the * De mig. Gentium, p. 157, &c. t Vol. ii. p. 152. t The mullei, anciently worn by the kings of Alba, were red, and i cached to the middle of the leg. Rubenius de vet. vest. 172 COSTUME. use of the untanned hide, which reached towards the calf of the leg. the hose supply their place, and the favorite color of these has always been red. The CUARAN reached higher than the BROG, which simply covered the foot, both being fastened with laces of thong. The cuaran was worn in Man, and throughout the whole Highlands, where it is not yet, I believe, entirely disused. Their construction was simple: an oval piece of raw cow or horse's hide was drawn neatly round the foot by thongs of the same material, by means of holes in the margin. The hair was often kept inside for warmth: they were perfectly flexible, and were pierced with small holes, for the purpose of allowing the water received in cross- ing rivers and morasses to escape. The " veteres Bracha3 Britonis pauperis" is sufficiently expressive, if the term was applied to the cover- ing of the feet and legs, as there is so much reason to believe. It is in these days a common saying, to imply the utter uselessness of any thing ; that it is not worth old shoes; and brogs, when worn out, were certainly good for nothing. Perhaps the Romans frequently saw the cast off brachre of the Gauls, as the English did the cuarans of the Scots when Douglas evacuated his camp in 1327, leaving upwards of 10,000 old ones behind.* Cluverius says the Celtic shoes were formed with a sharp peak, like those worn in the middle ages.| Those of the old Highlanders were made, Martin tells us, according to Locke's mode, recommended in his system of education. They were always made right and left. The Gael began to improve their manufacture, but, like their ances- tors, covering for either feet or legs was quite dispensable. At Killi- cranky, they had neither. Birt mentions' a Laird in the North, whom he once visited, and found a well educated and polite gentleman, who ap- peared without any other clothing for his lower extremities than what his breacan afforded. When the Highland regiments were embodied, dur- ing the French and American wars, hundreds of the men were brought down without either stockings or shoes, articles considered so necessary by those who live in more favored countries. Shoes, all of one piece and neatly stitched, have been discovered in the bogs of Ireland, where they must have lain for many ages. In the ancient vessel dug from the former bed of the river Rother, in Kent, shoes of a single sole, with no quarter, were found. About fifty or sixty years ago, brogs were made in the Northern counties of Caithness, Sutherland, Ross, &c., by itinerant shoemakers, at two pence a pair and victuals; the employer finding leather, hemp anc rosin. Simple as these were, it is acknowledged that the shoes of modern times are not more durable. J An old Highlander, expatiating on the good old times, told me that the last pair he ever had, he wore so * Froissart. t GallicoB were a sort of wooden pattens ; Cicero ; or Galoches, Montf. } Agricultural Reports. COSTUME. 173 .ong, that, at last, he actually threw them away, when they were *$till fit for use. Latterly, brogs had a piece of leather on the toes, called frio- chan, from serving to protect them from the roughness of the heath. This was always cut in Vandyke fashion. In some parts, this native manufacture is given up, in consequence of the decay of the copse wood, which afforded the bark used in tanning the leather. STOCKINGS, in Gaelic, Ossan, are said to have been derived from the Romans, the Celts originally wearing nothing but the untanned buskins. In Montfaucon's splendid work, pi. 196, I find a countryman represented with a chequered covering, resembling tartan hose: and a figure intro- duced by Wolfgang has a similar appearance. The sort of stockings now generally worn is represented in the figure of the Gordon, and is the military pattern; but the more ancient resem- bled that worn by the Stewart, which is copied from the painting of the regent, Murray, formerly at Fonthill Abbey. Various fancy patterns are worn in the Highlands, where they were formerly of the same sett as the plaid. They were not originally knitted, but formed out of the web with a considerable degree of ingenuity; those of the common men in the Highland regiments are still made in this manner. The GARTERS are now chiefly red, but the native Gael continue to wear them like their fathers, striped in various colors. Among other presents given at Michaelmas in the Island of Uist, on occasion of annual horse racing, " the women presented the men with a pair of fine garters of divers colors."* The Lochaber garters were fringed, and when made of silk and fine wool would cost 2s. Qd. to 7*. Mrs. Mac Hardy, of Laggan, in her 100th year, knit a pair, which were presented to the Duke of Gordon by the celebrated Mrs. Grant. They were for- merly woven in a particular sort of loom, and some are said to be still manufactured in this way on the banks of Lochow. There is considerable taste displayed in tying the garter. In the 42nd regiment, it is fastened with a handsome knot: in the 92nd, this ornament is formed like a rose, by the needle, and is attached to the garter, a mode unknown to the genuine Highlanders, who often showed no tying, but even frequently turned the stocking over the garlan. The 78th, or Ross-shire Buffs, leave both ends depending from a tasteful knot. It is reckoned a great insult by the Gael to be told to tie their garter. It is here necessary to say something of the ancient habit of the Irish Gael, which has been described as a "mantle," and often as "trouse."' Of this latter garment there appears to be as little known as of the brachce: it has been attempted to identify both with the modern trow- sers. In the time of Giraldus Cambrensis, the Irish wore trouse and mantles, that formed the common dress until the time of Charles I, and continued in partial use even later. Solinus says " they ben single and * Martin's Western Islands p. 80 174 COSTUME. unseemly of clothing, having foldings instead of mantles and cloaks."* In the time of Richard II. Froissart describes them as breechless; f and, at Agincourt, Speed says there were 1,600 who were able men, but almost naked. Derrick also speaks of them as wearing no breeches, and describes " a coat of strange device," " His skirts be verie shorte, With pleates set thick about, And Irish trouzes, &c." They were "not lightly proud of apparel, "J but went commonly naked, according to Spenser, or at least "with naked sides and legs," the mantle being the principal covering, and it was "light to beare," and otherwise an advantageous garment. In summer, the wearer could have it loose: in winter, he could wrap it close: at all times he could use it, for " it was never heavy nor cumbersome." " It was a fit house for an outlaw, a meet bed for a rebel), and an apt cloake for a thiefe."^ My opinion is, that the Irish trouse and mantle were formed like the belted plaid of the Scots' Highlanders, although the materials were not the same as in the breacan. We have seen how conveniently the plaid can be thrown over the shoulders, like a cloak: the Irish, in 1673, are de- scribed as being partial to this use of the mantle; || nay, Spenser says it was frequently wrapped over their left arm, so closely did it resemble the Highland garb. The Gaelic, triubhas, or triughas, the Irish trius, and Welsh trws, signify the vestment which covers the loins, derived from the root trus, gather, truss or tuck up, from which is trusgan, a covering, and also those parts which mankind first conceal. The breacan was always tucked up; but the term which was applicable to it, was given to the trowsers adopted on the prohibition of the ancient dress. In farther proof that the Irish costume resembled the belted plaid, it may be observed, that Camden says the Scots and Irish resembled each other in dress and arms; and Birt, in describing the Highland dress, observes that " it was thought necessary in Ireland to suppress that habit by act of Parliament," without any dissatisfaction being evinced by the mountaineers in that country. A law passed in the parliament of 1585, by which it was ordained that none should appear in that assembly with Irish attire, to the great discontent of the members. Tirlogh Lenogh, chief Lord of Ulster, begged the Deputy to allow him to take his chap- lain in the trouse along the streets with him, because he was laughed at by every body in his new dress. I think it is Chaucer who relates a facetious story of these habiliments, which also tends to confirm the opinion of their not resembling modern trowsers. The Irish seem to have relinquished their ancient garb with less reluc- tance than might have been expected. The Scots could not be induced to lay it aside, notwithstanding the enactments against it; and so great * Trevisa's Polychronicon, xxxiv. f. 34. 1 Tome x. 161. 1 Riche, p. 34. Spenser. || Present State of Ireland TREWS -BONN El. 175 was their aversion to quit the dress of their fathers, that the law was ingeniously evaded, or openly contemned. General Stewart relates many of the curious expedients which were adopted to comply with the order to wear breeches, and yet retain the loved breacan. The law, however its infringement might be overlooked, was imperative against the Highlander, who could neither, with safety, wear his native cloth, nor carry his proper arms. I have read, in a Scots' newspaper of 1750, the trial of a person for murder, who was eventually acquitted, as the individual he killed wore a tartan dress! In 1782, this oppressive and ineffectual law was modified, inasmuch as the prohibition against cos- tume was repealed. The strong attachment of the Highlanders to the breacan-feile might be illustrated by many anecdotes. It served as a mark of distinction from the people of the machair, or plain land, for whom they had no great affection. An old farmer in the Highlands of Banffshire said he "would never lippen to a bodach that wore the breeks." When the Fencible regiments were ordered to assume breeches, many of the soldiers had never worn such articles of dress, and were consequently, for some time, extremely awkward in dressing, which their displeasure at being deprived oi their wonted habit did not tend to remove. An old man in a certain corps had put on his small clothes as Paddy did his coat, the back part before. His officer and some of his companions were laughing heartily at the mistake, when Donald, nettled at their jeers, observed that he was indeed ignorant of such dress, and never thought he should know any thing of the unmanly gear; and, as his indignation waxed high, "the deevil damn the loon," he exclaimed, " that sent them to us! " The TRIUGHAS, pronounced trius, are pantaloons and stockings, joined, and are either knit like the latter, or, according to the ancient manner, are formed of tartan cloth, nicely fitted to the shape and fringed down the leg. They were sometimes merely striped, and wejre fastened by a belt around the loins, with a square piece of cloth hanging down before. It required considerable skill to make the trius. The measure was a stick, in length one cubit, divided into one finger and a half. There is preserved a Gaelic saying respecting this garment, by which we are given to understand that there were two full nails to the small of the leg, eleven from the haunch to the heel, seven round the band, and three to the breech, a measure inapplicable to few well-made men. The purse and other articles were worn equally with the trius as with the feilebeag. BOINED, or cappan, was the Celtic name for the covering of the head, fhe materials of which, among the most ancient Gauls and Britons, were different. We may presume that as the form was not much unlike the present, the same woollen was occasionally adopted. It mqy he noticed that Giraldus Cambrensis mentions Beaver hats, to which the inhabi- tants are still partial, having been discovered in Cardiganshire.* The round bonnet was, however, not only worn by the Britons, but * Tour in Wales, 1775. 176 BONNET. was formerly used over almost all Europe; * the shape, at least, resem bling that worn by the Scots, although the materials might have been different. It was either to encourage the woollen manufacture, or to repress extravagance in dress, that so many laws have been passed. In England, it was ordained in 1571, that every person above seven years of age should wear, on Sundays and holidays, a cap of wool knit, thick- ened and dressed in the country by the cappers, under the penalty of 3s. 4d. for every day's neglect; lords, knights, gentlemen of twenty marks' land, such as have borne offices of worship, gentlewomen, ladies and maids being excepted. In 1489, the price of caps was fixed at 2s. 8d. General Stewart remarks that the Basques wear caps, in materials and form, exactly like the Highlanders. A relation of the author, who entered France with the British army, was surprised to find his native bonnets worn by the peasants inhabiting the Pyrenean mountains. The figure of St. Andrew in the sceptre of Scotland, made in the time of James V., wears a broad bonnet. This appears to have been formerly the general headdress in Scotland, the hat having rapidly come into use. In the agricultural report of Caithness, it is stated that, in 1793, eight boxes of hats .only were imported, but in 1803 they amounted to fifty-four. The ancient head-piece of a full dressed Celtic warrior was a skull- cap; from the minstrel Harry, we find that Wallace wore one within his bonnet.* The bonnet is thickened, by a peculiar process, into a body of consid- erable density. The color is commonly dark blue, but it was formerly also black, or gray, and a narrow stripe of red, white, or green was often carried round the lower edge; and occasionally these were pleas- ingly combined. The chequer work, worn by the military, is now the common ornament, but it does not appear to be very ancient. Accord- ing to General Stewart, it originated in the time of Montrose's wars, and represents the armorial bearing of the royal family. The Stewart's belt, or fess, is, however, cheeky argent and azure. The bonnets ter- minate in a knot, generally of the same color, but often red, white, or black. They are usually augmented to a small tuft, and are sometimes formed of silk. I have heard it said that some of the officers, in the re- bellion of 1745, had them of silver and gold fringe. Beautiful substi- tutes for the old chequer are now to b.e had of those who furnish the costume. The inhabitants of Badenoch, Strathspey, Strathdon, &c. wear the bonnet cocked. The Strathdee men are distinguished by having it flat, as numbers 1,2, in the plate. The bonnet is cocked, or made into the desired shape, by means of padding, &.C., the broad sort being distended by a small hoop. The Scots' military appear, from old prints, to have worn bonnets; but the * The Irish formerly wore a cap of frieze, called cappeene. The regal cap was called Asioit. It is singular to perceive the shape of the modern hat in many ancient figure* PURSE. 177 present shape is not ancient. Before the black plumes weie introduced, bear's skin was used, as in the caps of modern grenadiers. The bonnet was bound with leather, by the common sort; with black ribbon and velvet, by others; and a cockade of the same materials, with a pin, in some cases of silver, but usually formed from the shank bone of a deer's leg, ornamented with the person's crest, motto, and initials, and called dealg, secured the badge and the eagles' feathers. The Highlanders bestowed much of their usual attention to dress, in making up the bonaid, and took particular care to have a sufficient length of ribbon to wave about their ears. The officers of the 9'2nd used, formerly, to have three of black velvet, fixed to the cape of the jacket behind, which had a pretty effect. This dress is said, perhaps untruly, to be too warm for the head. It has this convenience in wet weather, that the Highlander can take it off and wring out the water. Kilmarnock is the most noted mart for this article, but ct The bonnet makers of Dundee " are celebrated in their national music. The central Highlanders supply themselves in Perth. The PURSE, sporan, of the Highlanders, like the other parts of their costume, is not only useful, but highly ornamental. Anciently, it was small, and less decorated than it is now seen. That of the unfortunate Lord Lovat is of this description. The tassels, instead of the silver or other adjuncts, were fixed with small strips of leather, neatly and ingeni- ously interwoven. In many cases, the purse was formed of leather, like a modern reticule, and appears to have been tied in front. It is formed into several distinct pockets, in which the Gael carried their money, watch, Stc., and sometimes also their shot; but, anciently, they, bore a similar wallet, or builg, at the right side, for the latter, or for a quantity of meal or other provision. This was termed dorlach, and was the knapsack of the Highland soldier; and, small as that of the present military is, among the Gael, it was still more portable. " Those of the English who visited our camp," says an author quoted by Jamiesou, "did gaze with admiration upon those supple fellows, the Highlanders, with their plaids, targets, and dorlachs." The purse admits of much ornament, but, according to my taste, when too large, it hides the beauty of the kilt. The village of Doune, in Perthshire, was, at one time, cel- ebrated for the manufacture of purses, which is now entirely given up. The first covering which mankind adopt is necessarily loose, and must be fastened round the body. Dress is, also, first assumed as a military costume; the belt which secures the garment serving to sustain the sword, and, from the primitive fashion of raiment, the ancients continued to call putting on armor, begirding.* The baldricks of the Celts received a large share of ornament; and the Highlanders displayed, in the sword and dirk belt, as well as in that * Pausanias, ix. 17. " Girded " was used in this sense by the Scots. 23 178 ORNAMENTS. whi'jh bouna the female dress, precious stones, handsome buckles crests, mottoes, devices, and foliage. The shot-pouch attached to the belt, which is around the middle, is a late improvement; and the eadharc an foudre, or powder horn, suspend- ed also on the right side by a silver or other chain, was, likewise, recent- ly introduced. The shoe buckles cannot date higher than their introduction to Scot- land. They were only invented about 1680. In 1673, it was remarked that Irish gentlemen seldom wore bands, or neckcloths. These were unknown to the old Highlanders, who left the neck bare, even when linen shirts became a usual article of dress; some- times a black ribbon supplied their place. In addition to what has been above explained, may be added a de- scription of certain articles essential to the dress of ancient arid modern times, but more correctly coming under the denomination of ornaments. The Celts, in the most remote ages, as we have seen, evinced their per- sonal vanity by their gaudy and costly ornaments. The Gauls had little or no silver, but plenty of gold, with chains of which they loaded them- selves. The massy torques, of pure and beaten gold, which hung around their necks, were a desirable booty to the avaricious Romans; besides which, they wore bracelets of it about their arms and wrists, and had croslets of gold upon their breasts.* Polybius describes their whole army in Hannibal's service, as shining with the splendor of their dress. A sort of fine golden carcanets, of green-colored gems, called by the Romans viria3, were properly Celticas; and the necklaces of gold, called viriohe, were distinguished as Celtibericse."]" The Britons were equally vain of their persons, and studious to deck themselves in rich attire. Those who could not obtain gold or silver, imitated their more fortunate companions in less valuable materials. Herodian says the Picts wore chains of iron for ornament. In the South, the precious metals were less scarce. Bondiuca wore a massive chain of gold around her neck; and a great number, taken with the noble Caractacus, were borne in procession before him at Rome. The Caledonians, from some discove- ries, appear to have worn armlets. J These were often of massy gold, in South Britain. Small jet, and other ornaments, have been found in sepulchres throughout the Highlands; but it is impossible to enumerate the various articles discovered in British interments, every grave, almost, producing something different from what has been before seen. The dress of the Celtic women was, anciently, little different in form from that of the men. The tunic was bound round the waist, and had * Diodorus. Polybius. t Pliny, xxxiii. 3. { A barrow opened at Glenholrn, Peeblesshire. Stat. Acct. iv. Those who are curious to know something of the variety of ornaments among these ingenious people, are referred to Douglas's " Nennia Britannica," Sir R. Hoare's " Ancient Wiltshire," the " Transactions of the Ant. of London and Scotland," " Sib- bald's Erud. Ant. Misc." 2, &c. WOMEN'S DRESS. 179 seldom any sleeves, their arms being left bare, and their bosoms partly uncovered. They wore a sagum, which they fastened, like the men with a pin or brooch, as they did other parts of their dress, whence, Pinkerton thinks, may be derived the usual perquisite of females, pin money. Bondiuca wore a tunic of various colors, long and plaited; over which she had a large vest and thick mantle, which was the dress she wore at all times. A passage in Ossian may allude to the introduction of the Roman toga, adopted by the South Biitons: of Moina, daughter of Reuthamor, king of Balelutha, it is said that her dress was not like that worn by the Cale- donians, "her robes were from the strangers' land." The females are represented, some centuriessince, as wearing sheep skins; but the authority for this is doubtful. The Irish women wore a mantle similar in form to that used by the men, but longer. Pinkerton, on the authority of Giraldus, says they had little caputii, or hoods of plaid, and linen vests. This mantle seems to be described, in 1673, as " a sort of loose gowns."* Women in the Highlands, befjre marriage, went with the head bare; when they were privileged to cover it, they wore the curch, curaichd, or breid, of linen, which was put over the head and fastened under the chin, falling in a tapering form on the shoulders. A large lock of hair hung down each side of the face to the bosom, the lower end being ornamented with a knot of ribbons. The Welsh still wear a handkerchief, fastened in a somewhat similar manner to the Highlanders. The TONNAG is a small square of Tartan, or other woollen stuff, worn over the shoulders, in manner of a mantle. The AIRISAID was a peculiar garment, the same as was worn by Bon- diuca, and is mentioned in one of the poems of Alexander Mac Donald as having been worn so late as 1740."j" The plaid, which was usually white, with a few stripes of black, blue or red, and made of sufficient length to reach from the neck to the an- kles, being nicely plaited all round, was fastened about the waist with a belt, and secured on the breast by a large brooch. The belt was of Jeather, and several pieces of silver intermixed, giving it the semblance of a chain, and, " at the lower end was a piece of plate, about eight inches long and three broad, curiously engraven, the end of which was ingeniously adorned with fine stones, or pieces of red coral." This singular ornament and vesture are now unknown. The chief ornament of the Gael, both of Albin and Erin, was the brooch for fastening the plaid, on the shoulders of men and on the breasts of women. It was formed of brass, silver or gold, and adorned with precious stones, according to the fancy or means of the wearer. It was sometimes as large as an ordinary sized platter, and had a smaller one within, for fastening the dress, that weighed between two * Present State of Ireland. t Quoted in Mr. Ronald Mac Donald's collection of Gaelic poems. 180 THE BROOCH. WOMEN'S DRESS. and three ounces, and was ornamented with a large crystal, or cairngo- ruin, in the centre, with others of a lesser size set around it. The whole was curiously engraved, the figures being the well-known tracery, ani- mals, &.c. Martin says, he has seen some silver buckles worth 100 marks. The one here represented in possession of Air. Donald Currie, is drawn by a scale half the size of the original. It is of silver, weighing two ozs. twelve dwts., and is a good specimen of the general form ana ornaments of the brooch. A simple form of fibula, found in a barrow near Canterbury, is shown at the end of this chapter, but the ancient Britons had some, very in- geniously and elaborately constructed. The old Highlanders had also brooches of superior workmanship. That of Bruce, in possession of Mac Dougal, of Lorn, according to the description of a gentleman who has seen it, is silver, of a cup form, with a large cairngorum or topaz in the centre. It was some time in the custody of the Campbells, of Glen- lyon, who have another similar relic, of silver, studded with pearls and uncut gems, having underneath a centre bar and two pins, or tongues. Of this brooch Pennant has given an engraving. The ladies, in those days, wore sleeves of scarlet cloth, like those of the men, laced with gold or silver, and adorned with buttons of plate, set with precious stones. The old Irish adorned themselves with large jewels. The Cuirtan, or white twilled cloth, made from fine wool, was used exclusively for under petticoats and hose, before the invention of modern stockings, and the industry of young women was judged of by its fine- ness and whiteness. A large sort of hose were called Ossan preasach. A favorite pattern of stuff for female dresses, was crimson arid black, in stripes of three or four threads in the woof, the warp being all black; besides which, there was a sort much worn by women and children. It was made party-colored, by tying cords very tight round the hasps of yarn, when undergoing the process of dying; thus, supposing the color SHIRTS. LINEN. 181 blue, the spots preserved white by the ligatures would appear irregular- ly throughout the web, forming a motley texture, or cloud-figured pattern. The upper garment of the females of former ages, throughout the North and West of Scotland, was the full plaid, which usually contained three yards in length and two in breadth, and which, in the Highlands, was often of the cuirtan, or white sort, but, in the Low Country, was of all manner of showy patterns, either worsted or silk.* This garment is worn over the head, and fastened under the chin with a brooch or pin, like the habit of certain nuns, or otherwise only over the shoulders, as the state of the weather may permit. From the change of manners, the use of the plaid is now almost confined to the elderly females, but was formerly worn by the married, whether young or old. An English gentleman, who visited Edinburgh in 1598, says, " the cit- izens' wives, and women of the country, did wear cloaks made of a coarse cloth, of two or three colors, in checker work, vulgarly called Ploddan." j In Edinburgh, where Birt says it was the undress, and, perhaps, in other places, the ladies formerly denoted their political principles by the manner of wearing their plaids, those who were Jacobites being thus distinguished. When adjusted with a good air, the plaid was very be- coming, the ends either falling as low as the ankle, or being held up in graceful folds; usually by the left arm, to leave the right at liberty, but sometimes by both. Those who have been in the brae country of Scotland, cannot forget the picturesque effect of the congregation of a kirk on Sunday, loitering in the churchyard until the commencement of worship, or moving along the mountain paths, the men in their varied tartans and smartly cocked bonaids, the married women in their gaudy plaids and snow-white mutch- es, or caps, the girls with their auburn hair neatly bound up in the snood. The shirts of the Highlanders were formerly of woollen, from the use of which rheumatism, and other complaints, were little known. Although linen was not in very general use, it was far from being rare; and the expense to which the Gael went in their shirts was astonishing. The Lenicroich, or large shirt, worn by persons of rank, was dyed of a saf- fron color, and contained twenty-four ells. In Ireland, the natives are said to have required above thirty yards in the composition of this vest- merit, a fashion so expensive that a law was passed by Henry VIII., by which they were prohibited from putting more than seven yards in it, under a severe penalty .J Great quantities of linen were formerly made to supply the demand for these garments. The Lenicroich was fastened round the middle by a belt, and reached below the knees, being gathered into folds, or pleats, like the breacan, but was not, as its name would seem to imply, worn under other clothing: it was an upper garment. It * Plaids, all of scarlet, were latterly reckoned most genteel. + Arnot's Hist, of Edinburgh ; it is still called plaiding, in the Low lands, t A Description of] -eland, Leyden, 1627, quoted by Gratianus Lucius. Acts of Par liament 182 CONVENIENCE OF THE DRESS. would appear from Spenser that it was worn by both sexes, the women, as Riche describes them, wearing deep smock sleeves, like herald maunch- es. " Linnen shirts," says Campion, " the rich doe weare for wanton- nes and bravery, with wide hanging sleeves, playted, thirtie yards being little enough for one of them. They have now," he continues, " left their saffron, and Tearne to wash their shirts foure or five times in a yeare."* The Celts had, in very early ages, attained celebrity for the perfec- tion to which they carried the growth of flax and manufacture of linen. The Iberians of Tarraconia excelled in its fineness, and those in the army at Cannae were clad in shirts of linen, worked with purple, after the manner of their country."!" The use of linen appears to have been more common among the Gallic and German females, than among the men. Beyond the Rhine, the females thought themselves most grand when dressed in fine linen.J The vests of the German ladies were embroidered with purple.^ Whit- taker says, the skiurd, or shirt, was derived from the Romans; but surely these linen vestments were shirts, to all intents and purposes. Lein is the Gaelic for this part of apparel. By the Cadurci, Caletes, Rutene, Bituriges, Morini, and throughout all Gaul, linen cloth and canvass for sails were manufactured. The Gauls and Britons pounded the flax, when spun, in a stone mor- tar with water; and, when woven, it was beaten upon a smooth stone with broad clubs. The more frequently and forcibly, the whiter and softer it became; and, to make the water more efficacious in cleansing, some put into it the roots of wild poppies and other herbs. || This mode of bleaching, or whitening linen, by beating it, is still practised in Scot- land and Ireland, where it is called beetling, from the wooden imple- ment with which it is struck. The Scots' women, both single and married, have generally good store of sheets and blankets. The hardihood of the Celtic race has been before noticed. Their dress inured them to the vicissitudes and severity of the climate. The lusty youth, says Marcellinus, had their limbs hardened with frost and continual exercise. Pelloutier relates an anecdote which shows how little these people regarded exposure to cold. One morning that the snow lay deep on the ground, one of their kings, who was well clothed, perceiving a man lay- ing down naked, asked if he was not cold? " Is your face cold? "replied he. " No," said the king. " Neither, then," returned the man, " do I feel cold, for I am all face. "IT The Highlanders, before the subversion of their primitive institutions, were indifferent to the severity of a winter night, resting with content in * Hist, of Ireland, 1571. t Polybius, iii. f Pliny, xix. I Tacitus. || Pliny, xix. xx. 2 and 3. IT Tome ii. c. 7, from Lilian, Var. Hist. vii. 6. LAWS TO RESTRAIN ITS USE. 183 the open air, amid rain or snow. With their simple breacan they suffer- ed "the most cruel tempest that could blow, in the field, in such sort, that under a wreath of snow they slept sound." The advantage of this vesture was almost incalculable. During rain it could be brought over the head and shoulders; and, while other troops suffered from want of shelter, the Highlander carried in his mantle an ample quantity of warm covering. If three men slept together, they were enabled to spread three folds of warm clothing under, and six above them. The 42nd, 78th, and 79th regiments, who marched through Holland in 1794, when the cold was so severe as to freeze brandy in bottles, suffered in- comparably less than other corps who wore plenty of warm apparel. O'Leary, contrasting the ancient state of his countrymen with their degeneracy, and, alluding to their practice of sleeping in the woods, observes that "the uprising combatant had not the ringlets of his hair bound with frost." Breeches formed no part of their ancient costume; and, even in 1712, Dobbs tells us that they went bare-legged most part of the year. From constant exposure to a cold and inconstant climate the Gael were inured and indifferent to hardships. They were so habit uated to wet, that it had no effect on their constitutions. However rude and unpolished the ancient Gael were, according tc our ideas who live in an age of so high refinement, they were certainty in possession of many curious and useful arts. Giraldus Cambrensis is convicted of falsehood, in saying that the Irish had no manufactures, it being evident, even from his own testimony, that they had knitters, weavers, dyers, fullers, tailors, &.c. If they had not the art of making cloth, where did they procure the braccae, the phalangium, or sagum, with caputii of various colors, which he says they wore? While the Highlanders were able to produce cloth of many brilliant and permanent colors, the inhabitants of other countries were less skil- ful manufacturers. I believe it is Camden who relates, that at the tirm of the Spanish Armada invasion, the people of England were general!} obliged to wear white cloth, because they could not send it to the Low Country to be dyed. That the Franks and Saxons retained, for a long time, the manufac- tures of their Celtic ancestors, has been shown. Charlemagne, adher ing to the primitive costume, dressed like the Scots' Highlanders; and from Windichind's description of a Saxon, he closely resembled a Cale- donian.* The costume of the Gael, like their language, being so different from that of the other inhabitants of the British islands, was fondly retained as a national distinction, and a memorial of their independence. This strong predilection led to repeated enactments. By an act of the fifth of Edward IV. the Irish were ordered to dress like the English, un- der the pain of a forfeiture of goods; and a similar law was passed in the tenth of Henry VII. These statutes had little effect, for, in the twenty- * Camden's Britannia. 184 ACT AGAINST THE DRESS REPEALED. eighth of Henry VIII. another enactment prohibits, under a severe pen alty, all persons from shaving above their ears, wearing cromeal on their lips, or glibes on their heads; or from dressing in any shirt, smock, kerchor, bendel, neckerohor, mochet, or linen cap, colored or dyed with saffron; or to wear in their shirts or smocks more than seven yards of eloth, according to the king's standard.* The Irish, notwithstanding these peremptory statutes, which were strictly enforced by Queen Elizabeth, had not entirely laid aside their ancient garb, in the middle of the seventeenth century. It was, how- ever, confined to the peasantry, the dress of others being assimilated to the prevailing fashion in England, although, in some parts, an adhe- rence to ancient custom was apparent. The costume of the gentry, at the above period, is described as consisting of a leather quilted jacke, long-slieved smocks, half-slieved coats, silken fillets, and riding shoes of costly cordwaine.j The Highlanders were prohibited from carrying their arms by the first parliament of George I., 1716. In 1747, a similar act was passed, with these more oppressive and absurd additions, that " neither man nor boy, except such as should be employed as officers and soldiers, should, on any pretence,, wear or put on the clothes commonly called Highland clothes, viz. the plaid, philibeg, or little kilt, trowse, shoulder belts, or any part whatsoever of what peculiarly belongs to the Highland garb; and that no tartan or party-colored plaid, oftstuff, should be used for great coats or for upper coats." In 1782, the Duke of Montrose brought forward a bill, by which " so much of the above, or any other acts, as restrain the use of the Highland dress, is repealed." The costume of the Gael is no longer deemed a mark of disloyalty, and an object of legal prohibition. The harsh and unnecessary law which denounced the use of tartan has been expunged from the statute book; and one of the most popular objects of the Highland Societies of London and Edinburgh, with their various branches, is to cherish and promote an attention to this honorable and manly costume, so appropri- ate a concomitant to the peculiar language and manners of the Scotish Gael. The Highland dress is universally admired and respected. On the Continent, where the bravery and moral worth of the Scots is known and appreciated, it is not merely an object of interest: it is a passport to the best society, and a uniform that can rank with the proudest of orders. Our gracious Sovereign, when he visited the capital of his north- ern dominions, personally fixed it as the court dress of Scotland. Harris's ed. of S. J. Ware's Antiquities of Ireland, ii. 178. t Spenser. CHAPTER VII. OF THE ARMS AND MILITARY ACCOUTREMENTS OF THE CELTS. THE armor of the Celts may not inappropriately be considered their dress, inasmuch as they apldotn laid aside their arms of defence, and never appeared abroad without some part of their military weapons. Respecting these, we have to express the same regret that was occasion- ed by the subject of the preceding Chapter: there are few monuments of antiquity that can, with certainty, be pronounced Gallic, and of these few, scarcely any display the military attire; the Romans, according to Montfaucon, repressing any desire to represent a subjugated people as independent warriors. It was a particular honor conferred on two Cel- tic legions, and a tribute to their unparalleled bravery, that statues of them in their arms were set up at Edessa, as before recited. The Gauls, in general, sought no other defence than what nature sup- plied, despising artificial means of protecting their bodies;* but, when fully accoutred, they had both helmets and shields, breast-plates, and coats of mail, the common use of which was, apparently, confined to the nobles; the vassals, or clients, being unable to procure these articles, or, perhaps, denied the privilege of wearing them. The German foot, in the days of Tacitus, were either naked, or dressed in light cassocks, having few coats of mail, and fewer helmets. The ancient Britons are described as going generally almost naked, disregarding all defensive armor, except the shield. f It does not appear whether the plates of iron with which they covered their necks and bellies, J were used as ornaments or for protection. Mela savs, the Britons wore the same armor as the Gauls, but, like * Diodorus. t Herodian, iii. 24 Dio. 186 CELTS' CONTEMPT FOR DEFENSIVE ARMOR. them, they relied on their dexterity and physical strength rather than on any defensive armor, which they considered as an incumbrance, if not an indication of cowardice. "I wear no armor," said an Earl of Strath- erne, at the battle of the Standard, 1138; "yet they who do, will not advance beyond me this day." Giraldus Cambrensis says, the Welsh fought naked, or used very light armor, that it might not impede their exertions, the Irish despising it altogether. At the battle of Telamon, the Gesata? stripped off their dresses and stood before the army naked, carrying their weapons only, that they might not be entangled by the bushes or otherwise obstructed. Polybius describes it as terrible, and astonishing to see those men marching naked, and to observe the motion of their big bodies; conduct, however, more fool-hardy than discreet, for they were dreadfully galled by the Roman archers, and, finally, beaten back with dreadful slaughter. On other occasions, we find this practice of denuding themselves noticed. The Gael retained the same custom until almost the last century, the chief being the first to set the example. However creditable this was to their heroism, and however advantageous it might be in allowing a perfect freedom of action, the want of defen- sive armor must have, on many occasions, been severely felt. The peo- ple of the Low Country were, in this respect, superior to the Highland- ers, who, as the song says, " Had only got the belted plaid, While they were mail-clad men." Or as was observed of their scanty covering in a later age, " The Highland men are clever men, at handling sword or bow, But yet they are ower naked men, to bide the gun, I trow." However much the Celts may have valued themselves on their con tempt for armor, they were not ignorant of its utility, nor deficient in its fabrication. They were dexterous in the manufacture of military wea- pons, and careful, even to nicety, of their warlike accoutrements. Their greatest delight was in the excellence and beauty of their arms; the ancient Irish appearing, from Solinus, to have been remarkable for this attention to their appointments. To the Gauls the honor of inventing CHAIN MAIL appears due, which, from being at first made of leather, according to Varro,* acquired the name of Lorica. It is called, in Gaelic, luirich, and was the usual body covering of the Scots and Irish, who wore armor, the plate being almost unknown among mem; and it seems to have been worn of considerable length. "The armor wherewith they cover their bodies," says the old Chronicle before quoted, " in time of war, is an iron bonnet and an habergion side almost even to their heels." Throughout Scotland, the jaque de inaill was chiefly worn, according to a French author, who describes it in the sixteenth century; and the person who furnished Holinshed with his ac- count of Scotland seems to prefer it, as he regrets that his countrymen should use heavy armor. The Irish full armed troops, in the seventeenth * De lingua Latina. MAIL AND HELMETS OF THE CELTIC NATIONS. 187 century, wore shirts of mail that reached to the calf of the leg, and which were sometimes of leather, stuck with iron nails.* They also had girdles, that were proof against shot.| The Cimbri wore iron breastplates ;J and some of the Gauls, accord- ing to Diodorus, had a sort of cuirass of similar metal, formed in rings, or hooked, resembling chain mail, as some think. They had also a kind of interlaced wicker under their vests. HELMETS were more general, it would appear, among the Gauls than the Germans, who, from various sculptures, are seen with a piece of cloth wrapped round their heads. In the form and ornaments of the helmet, the Celts had an opportunity for indulging their passion for dec- oration. Among the Gauls, the Lusitanians, the Celtiberians, and all of the same race, they were made of brass. The former sometimes fixed on them appendages resembling horns, or the wings of Mercury, of the same metal, or embellished them with the figures of birds and beasts. The tribes in Spain and Portugal surmounted them with red plumes, ap- parently of horses' hair, and the Cimbri had them formed like the jaws and muzzles of various wild beasts, adorning them farther with plumes, like wings, of a prodigious height. || Chonodomarius, a celebrated hero, is described as riding about in glittering armor, with a flame-colored wreath or tassel on his helmet.lT In the preceding cut, the two helmets on the right are from the sculp- tures at the church of Notre Dame, Paris; the upper one on tne left is from Dr. Mey rick's work on armor, as is the one in the vignette, the lower is from a figure engraved in Montfaucon's Antiquities; and that in the centie from a German on the column of Antoninus The Massagetce had their helmets and breastplates ornamented with * Spender. Ware. t Barn. Riche. Diodorus. || Plutarch, ut sup. t Plut rch, de Hello Cimb. H Amm. Mar. xvi. 10. i&a CELTIC SHIELDS. gold. The Thracians, in Xerxes's time, had caps of foxes' skins.* l\ is probable the ancient Caledonians had a covering for the head, of a similar material; little Oscar, in Smith's version of "Cathula," being represented with his little helm of the fur of fawns. The helmet, clogaid, literally the apex, or ceann-bheart, a headpiece, is mentioned by the oldest bards as not uncommon amongst the Gael; and from these authorities we find that they were adorned with the feath- ers of the eagle's wing, perhaps the whole pinion, by which Ossian appears to have recognised an Irish chief, it. being a mark of distinction, for we find the "gray feather " always worn by a hero. We must make allowance for the privilege of the poetical historians to embellish their recitals by national imagery, every individual figuring in these tales be- ing a hero, if not a cean-tigh,^ and consequently entitled to wear a helmet and its proper crest. Whether helmets formed of metal were very numerous in Caledonia during the Fingalian dynasty, may be doubted; but the eagle's feather has ever been the peculiar badge of Highland nobility. A skull cap, in times less distant from the present age, protected the chieftain's head, and does not at any time appear to have been worn by those under the degree of a Galloglach. Among the Irish, the glibe, or matted hair, served the purpose of a helmet, but they also used a head-piece covered with hide. The Scots were long but ill provided with armor. At the battle of the Standard, the infantry had nothing for defence but a target of leather. The SHIELD of the Gauls, according to Strabo and Virgil, was usually long,J and the Ligurians carried one of the same form. In sculpture, we perceive the Germans with an oval shaped buckler of ample dimen- sions. Tacitus admits it was large, but suited to the size of the bearer. From the plates in Cluverius's work, we^nd it was at first formed of the rough wood, or bark of a tree, sometimes retaining the natural curve, but at other times appearing flat, and nearly the length of the boq\y ; in several instances it appears formed of straw, or rushes, something resembling the work of bee-hives. A small round shield seems, however, to have been the favorite of the Celtne; and Schoepflin notices the remains of some discovered in Ger- many.^ Several of the Celtiberi used the light shield of the Gauls, and others bore round targets, the size of bucklers ;|| but, at Cannee, Poly- bius says they both carried the same kind, which he describes as weak. 11 The Roman shield was, at first, square; but in their wars with the Tyrhenians, a people of Gallic origin, they adopted the round form used by thit people.** From the spoils that were taken at Thermopylae .vhere the Gauls had no other weapons of defence, and deposited in the * Herodotus, vii. 75. t Head of a house, chieftain. t Lib. iv. p. 299, ed. 1707. lEneid, viii., v. 6(50, &c. Alsatia illustrata, i. 67. || Diodorus. TI Lib. ii. 2. ** Diodorus, Fragmenta xxiii. CELTIC SHIELDS. 139 temple of Apollo at Dclphos, Pausanias describes them as similar to the wicker targets of the Persians, called Gerrha.* Those Celts called them thur^oi, or thyreos; the Welsh still use tarian, and the French retail, thiros.f In the Gaelic, tearmun, protection, or defence, is applied to a shield, as well as targaid, from whence comes the Saxon targa and Eng- lish target: but sgiath is the usual term, and is applied to a buckler from its supposed resemblance to a wing, denoted by the same word. The most ancient and most common shields of the Caledonians were, proba- bly, made of interwoven twigs covered with hide. In the poem of Cathula, a sword is said to pass through the folds of a shield; and young Oscar, in Duthona, is represented with one formed of woven reeds.J Cresar describes the Aduatici, who occupied the country about Douay, as having targets of wicker, covered with a tough hide; and Tacitus says those of the Germans were either a sort of basket work, or of board, painted, but seldom bound either with leather or iron, 5} like that of the Romans. The Scots of Ulster, in the time of Spenser, car- ried long wicker shields, which were quite unknown among the Southern tribes. || Lucan says some of the Celtiberi used a small shield, called Cetra, which the Romans afterwards adopted. I find that C'etra, in Gaelic, means something intervening, a term very applicable to a shield. The Lusitani carried shields of a peculiar form, resembling a half moon, and composed of the sinews of animals, so strongly interwoven, that, for lightness and strength, they could not be excelled; being, besides, man- aged with admirable skill, and whirled about so dexterously that it was scarcely possible to wound the person who bore them. IT They were cal- led Peltce, and four are represented on the shield of the Vesontes in the engraving. Among the Etruscans it was round, and not fixed to the arm, but held in the centre by the hand. The shield of the ancient Caledonians, according to Herodian, was oblong, resembling those assigned by Cluverius to the continental Celts; but numerous discoveries prove that this was not the only form, if it was at all common. Dr. Meyrick, indeed, exhibited lately to the Society of Antiquaries, a curious remain of a shield of this shape, but the original British target was circular. The figure of Britannia on Roman coins is represented with one of this form, and apparently of the dimensions of those which the Highlanders, during their independence, continued to use. The bards invariably speak of them as round, and they appear to have generally resembled those used in the last century, the poetical ex- pressions "dark brown," "shield of thongs," alluding to their cover- ing of leather. The targaid of the Scots' Highlanders was always orbi- cular, and formed of one or two thin 'pieces of wood, covered with one or more folds of thick leather, fastened by numerous nails, usually of brass, but often of iron, and sometimes of silver, according to the cir- Lib. x. 19, 20. t Holmes. J Smith's Gallic Ant. $ Annals, ii. !j View of Ireland, p. ritons availed themselves of such places of retreat there can be no reason to doubt, and that they improved the work of nature is evident from many curious remains. Several caves in the Western Islands, and throughout Britain, contain places for the purpose of cooking, seats hewn in the natural rock, Sec.: and some are not only well lighted, but are divided into various apartments. Subterraneous abodes seem to have been invariably selected for secre- tion by primitive nations. Josephus mentions them in Galilee, and during, the Crusades the inhabitants retired to them for security. The Cimmerii lived in caverns under ground, and the Germans, in winter, retreated to caves covered with dung, where they also deposited their grain.* Even in the time of Kirchurus, they occasionally lived in such places, and there the gipsies of that country still pass their winters. The singular caves at Hawthornden, near Edinburgh, have at differ- ent periods afforded a safe and not uncomfortable retreat to the celebrat- ed Alexander Ramsay, Dunbar, Haliburton, and others. A remarkable cave was discovered at Auxerre in 1735; f and in Picardy, a vast exca- vation in form of a St. Andrew's cross was laid open.J The subterra- nean works and caverns of the Britons may be seen near Blackheath and Crayford in Kent, at Royston, in Hertfordshire, in Essex, in Corn- wall, near Guilford, at Nottingham, and in other parts. A curious place of this sort was recently discovered near Grantham, hewn out of the white stone rock, in the interior of which was found a hand mill, with wheat and barley of a black color and apparently mixed with ashes The great cavern in Badenoch, where nine of the principal men of the Cumins were slain by Alexander Macpherson, commonly called the Re- vengeful, is thirty feet square and ten high. Curious subterraneous edifices are to be seen in many parts of Ireland, and generally within the area of fortifications. The side walls are usually formed of large stones pitched on end, the roof being covered with horizontal slabs. In many cases the roof is formed by several stones, each overlapping the other until a small space is left, which is covered by one of a larger size, thus forming a rude sort of arch. Some of these curious structures are of considerable dimensions, and are divided into different apartments or cells. That some may have been places of sepulture is not improbable, but their general use was for the deposition of the grain and other valq- * Tacitus. Mela. t Le Beuf, Divers Ecrits, i. p. 290. t Mem de 1'Acad. des Inscriptions, ap. Pinkerton. A view and plan of a singular remain of this kind at Annaclough Mullach, Kils- levy, Armagh, is given in Archceologia. 26C DUNS. able effects of the natives, and the occasional secretion of themselves in troublous times. It was a well known practice of the Celtic nations to construct such places as granaries, and Varro describes them as often very spacious and admirably adapted for the purpose.* In the North of Scotland, numerous artificial caves are found, of a con- struction resembling those in Ireland. They are called Eird-houses in the Low Country, and are considered as the hiding places of the abo- rigines. They are sometimes of considerable extent, being long and narrow; but many, to render the size more commodious, have in subse- quent periods been built up at the farther end. The sides are usually built of small stones, without cement, and the roof is composed of large thin stones resting on either side. The entrance to most of them ap- pears now only a rude hole or opening, but some are more artificial. Near Tongue, in Sutherland, are some where the passage is formed by large stones inclined to and resting on each other. The appearance of these Eird-houses on the exterior, when they are at all discernible, is that of a slight, green eminence, and except one is directed in his search, it would be difficult to discover them. In the parishes of Achindoer and Kildrummy, in Aberdeenshire, they are nu- merous. I have inspected several in these parts; but I confess I should not have looked for so many as the late Professor Stuart says had been discovered, not less than forty or fifty! He justly observes, that per- haps so many in one place has never occurred. In all those which he visited nothing was found but wood ashes and charcoal, which with an aperture for the escape of smoke, may have been produced by recent occupants. In the parish of Golspie, Sutherland, subterraneous buildings have been discovered, having a small oblique entry from the surface of about two and a half feet square, which after advancing three yards widens to about three feet, and winds a few yards farther to an apartment of about twelve feet square and nine high, covered above by large broad stones, terminating in one, formed like a mill-stone, having a hole in the centre, probably to emit smoke. From this cell a passage led to others, which are now inacessible from the fall of the superincumbent earth. Rude as the common habitations of the ancient tribes were, and un- important as the science of domestic architecture was deemed, the dwell- ings of the chief men were qf a superior construction. Adomnan men- tions castles as the residence of the Pictish kings, arid many structured are undoubtedly of their era. The existence of palaces of these mon- archs at Abernethy, in Perthshire, has been noticed by Mr. Small in a work devoted to an investigation of the subject. The DUNS, properly so called, or those circular buildings in Scotland, constructed without any cement, and usually exhibiting double walls, to which this term is particularly appropriated, are objects of great antiqua- * De Re Rust. 57. DUNS. 261 nan interest, and admirable specimens of Celtic architecture These edifices have been scattered over Scotland in considerable numbers, but in most cases but very slight remains of their curious walls now exist. It is asserted by the author of " Caledonia," that not one bears an ap- pellation from the Pictish or British languages; * and that they are only found in the parts where the Scandinavians settled. Buildings similar in plan and internal arrangement, are indeed found in Orkney, Shetland, and in parts of Scotland where these people did reside; but why may not they have imitated the construction of the Celts? or taken possession of buildings erected before their arrival? The learned Mr. Grant, of Cor- imony, who devoted much attention to the examination of, these antique structures, thus expresses himself concerning them: " That the Danes, or Norwegians, and the Gael, were equally capable of building such ed- ifices, there is no good reason to entertain any doubt; but that these towers were built by the native Gael, and not by foreigners, appears to be in no small degree probable. They are of an uncommon construction, and different from any of those antique edifices to be seen in the islands possessed by the Danes." A writer who is not inclined to concede much to the Celts, and who has certainly studied the national history with attention, however his prejudices may have misled him, thus observes. " It has been on all oc- casions found that there was a considerable resemblance in the manners, usages, warlike weapons, and monumental practices of the original Brit- ish or Celtic inhabitants, and those of their early invaders, and there seems no ground for attempting a distinction in the structures which they erected for the purposes of defence. "| Two quaeries may be proposed: the Norwegians invaded and subdued other countries; do we find them building any circular forts there? Are round towers found any where in Europe except in the regions inhabited by Gael? If some of the Duns bear names which appear to indicate Norwegian or Danish founders, many others are distinguished by appellations decided- ly Celtic. Those of Glenelg, without enumerating many others, have the appropriate names of Caiman, Conal, Telve, and Troddan, that are purely Gaelic, and were apparently imposed before the introduction of Christianity. This remarkable assemblage of buildings, one of which, Caistell Trod- dan, being the most perfect, is represented in the preceding vignette, is, or rather was, to be seen in Glenbeg, a small valley, which terminates in Glenelg, in Inverness-shire. Within the extent of a mile, four of these singular edifices were to be seen, displaying a mode of construc- tion truly admirable. The one alluded to is still upwards of thirty feet high, having, it is sup- posed, been originally somewhat more than forty, J and has a clear area of * Vol. i. p. 343. f Mac Culloch's Western Islands, i. 141. t Dr. Mac Pherson found it thirty-four, arid Gordon, who visited it ahont fifty yeara before, calls it thirty tnree fret. 262 DUNS. thirty feet diameter.* Two walls, each four feet in thickness, are built at four feet distance from each other. That in the interior is perpendic- ular, the outer one being inclined so as to meet the other near the top of the building. The interval between is divided by means of horizontal flat stones, inserted in both walls, into galleries. It was the opinion, ac- cording to the Rev. Donald Mac Leod, of some old men, that these pas- sages had originally a spiral ascent, like some on the east coast, but they seem rather to have formed distinct flats or stories, as shown in the sec- tion (C.) At the junction of the walls, in the interior, is a row of large flat projecting stones, and about eight feet below was another similar range, destroyed by a military contractor. There is no window or opening on the outside, except the door, which communicates with a small circular stone fabric, similar to what has been described. The windows, of which two are detached from the others, commence about thirteen feet from the ground. Six rows of the first are all one and a half feet wide; some are two and others three feet in height. " The building of those edifices," says Mr. Grant, " must have been attended with immense labor and difficulty. The stones with which those structures are built, are many of them of great weight and size, and must have been brought from parts of the country at a great distance from the towers. No such stones are to be found in the whole extent of the valley where the towers stand. Stones of similar size, shape, and di- mensions, it is said, are to be found near the summits of some of the high mountains which form one side of the valley. The great mountain of Ben Nevis, near Fort William, is 1640 yards in height. This mountain is not of a conical figure, terminating in a sharp point, like many others of the highest mountains in Scotland; the summit is a plain, exhibiting in abundance such stones as those with which the Glenelg towers are built. All the stones are flat-sided parallelograms; their edges are right lines, terminating in regular angles; they are capable of being closely joined, and built in such manner as that the superincumbent stones are made to cover both ends of the immediately subjacent stones all round the building. " Two of these towers still remain, though not whole or entire; the other two have been destroyed by unhallowed hands, and taken away to build the barracks of Bernera, standing at the bottom of the larger valley of Glenelg. Those curious stones, laid with such admirable skill, and collected with such wonderful industry by our remote ancestors, were to be confounded with common stones of irregular figures, to be hidden from the eye by cement and mortar, after the manner of more improved ages in the arts of architecture. Thus those curious monuments of antiquity were pulled asunder, and swept away, to gratify the mean avarice of servants in the pay of government. Disgraceful barbarity! * The diameter of these buildings varies from seventeen to fifteen feet. DUNS. 263 It is to be hoped that the proprietor of those singular monuments of rude architecture, will in future pay particular attention to the preservation of their remains, which cannot but afford a delicious entertainment to the eye of curiosity." These sentiments of a zealous and learned antiquary, must be conge- nial to every cultivated mind. It is unfortunately too often to be regretted that the interesting remains of ancient art fall into the hands of those who have no veneration for the works of antiquity, nor admiration of the ingenuity of former ages. Arthur's oven, that unique and curious spe- cimen of ancient architecture, standing near the river Carron, was rased to the ground for the construction of a mill-pond! This venerable mon- ument, of which Stukely and Gordon give engravings, was of a circular form. The walls were bent over in the manner of a vault, without closing, a considerable aperture being left in the centre, which with an arched door and small window lighted the interior. It has been supposed a Roman temple erected to Terminus. Horsley thinks it a sepulchre, and Pink- erton believes it gave the hint for the erection of the Duns. It is cer- tainly of the same character, and resembled some structures in Ireland that will be briefly noticed. The following sections of two of these buildings, dun Dornghil, in Strathmore, parish of Durness, in Sutherland, (A,) and the burg of Mousa, (B,) supposed of Norwegian construction, show no further difference than a greater rudeness in the latter. The stairs of these Duns were sometimes, as before observed, carried up in a rude winding form, as in that at Mousa; but the general plan appears to have been in the manner shown by this section. Dun Dornghii, erroneously called Dornadilla, is represented at the 264 DUNS. termination of this Chapter. It was, in the memory of man, about thirty feet high, but is now much dilapidated. Not a stone of this fabric " is moulded by a hammer, nor is there any fog or other material used to fill up the interstices among the stones; yet the stones are most artfully laid together, seem to exclude the air, and have been piled with great mathematical exactness." The following verse concerning it, is repeated by the inhabitants. Dun Dornghil Mac Duiff Or an taobh ri meira don strha Sehcht mille o manir Er an rod a racha na fir do Gholen. TRANSLATION. The Dun of Dornghiall, son of Duff, Built on the side of the strath next to Rea, Seven miles from the ocean, And in the way by which the warriors travel to Caithness.* Castle Coul, situated upon a rock at the black water of Strathbeg, parish of Clyne, in the same county, is another remarkable edifice of similar construction. The walls are now only about eleven feet high; they are thirteen and a half feet thick at the base, and leave an area of twenty-seven feet clear. The stones are large and well joined, without any cement, and the building inclines inwards nine inches in three feet. In the middle of the wall, on each side of the entrance, which is three and a half feet in .height by two and a half in width, is a small apartment, about six feet square and five feet high, that seerns to have been intended for a guard room. Six feet from the base of the wall are the remains of another, which surrounded the dun. This appears to have been for the purpose of forming, by means of large flag stones stretching to the castle walls, an additional security from assault. In this place it is said the cattle were kept during the night, and when the country was invaded. t The water of the river was carried by a ditch round the castle. In the parish of Dunse, county of Berwick, is a ruin called Edwin's Hall, which is supposed to have been erected by the Picts, and will be seen from the description^ to be of the same class as the Duns just described, only exhibiting an arrangement of three walls, with a mode of connecting the stones extremely ingenious and uncommon. Like all similar structures, it is situated on an eminence. Cockburn Law, the site of this fort, is 900 feet above the level of the sea. The circular walls, seven feet in thickness, are concentric, and the clear interior area is forty feet. The stones are chiefly a hard whinstone, and are fixed without any cement, but are attached to each other by alternate grooves and projections, or, in technical phrase, are dove-tailed. In Ireland, from statements in a foregoing page, it might seem there were anciently no buildings of stone. Such observations are to be taken * Rev. A. Pope, in Archasologia, v. t Henderson's View of the Agriculture of the County. J Traveller's Guide through Scotland. \ ROUND TOWERS. 265 in a general sense, or with so much allowance, as will prevent the appearance of contradiction. The subterraneous structures already noticed were rude, but successful attempts in masonry: and although it is believed by some of the antiquaries of that country, that the Domliag, or stone house of St. Kianan, was the first of that kind, there is some reason to entertain another opinion. Many curious buildings are scattered throughout that interesting island, which, from their singularity of style, and unknown appropriation, are in all probability of extreme antiquity. On the Skelig isle, off the coast of Kerry, are the remains of several cells, which are built of a circular form and arched over. No cement whatever is used, but the stones are dove-tailed together in a very in- genious manner. On the Island of Innis Mackellan, opposite Dunmore Head, and at Gallerus, are similar cells; and at Fane, all in the same county, are the ruins of another.* These buildings are perfectly imper- vious to water, and, consequently, were well calculated to resist the injuries of the weather for many ages. The ROUND TOWERS, so numerous in Ireland, and which are spoken of by Giraldus Cambrensis as of great antiquity, even when he wrote, have attracted not merely the notice of the antiquary, but excited the admira- tion and curiosity of all who view them. Their singularity, arid the mystery which envelopes their origin and design, have drawn towards them much attention, and elicited many curious speculations on their apparent uses and probable era of construction. It has been supposed that they served as edifices wherein to preserve the sacred fire of the Druids. It has been also said that they were pla- ces of residence and probation for devotees, who, by religious exercises and privations, gradually ascended from story to story, as they mortified the flesh and improved in holiness, secluding themselves from society, and acquiring a high reputation for superior devotion, and perhaps su- pernatural powers. This supposition, which may receive some counte- nance from what Tacitus relates of the Prophetess Veleda, that she did not permit herself to be seen, but lived in a high tower, having an attend- ant to communicate between her and all applicants, "f and which does not appear to have struck any inquirers, is yet entirely conjectural. The preceding opinion is liable to the same objection, and is considered by Mr. Higgins as completely overthrown by the fact of the crucifixion, and other sculptures emblematical of Christianity, appearing on the walls. This is not a just conclusion, except it is first satisfactorily as- certained .whether these figures are part of the original work. It cer- tainly appears a strong argument in favor of the connexion of the towers with Christianity, that they are always in the vicinity of churches, and that those churches are invariably without steeples. J It is to be borne * Luckombe's Tour. At Ithaca, a building resembling these still exists, supporting Grant's idea of the origin of the Gael. Poems and Translation's from tne Gaelic by Mr. Donald Mac Pherson. f Annals iv. + Archdall's Mon. Hist., 259, et seq., &c. 34 266 ROUND TOWERS. in mind, however, that Christian places of worship were founded on tnu Bites of ancient temples;* and it is obvious that where one of those lowers existed there was no necessity for building another steeple, its chief use being to hold the bells. That the towers were appropriat- ed for this purpose seems clear, from their name of Cloghad, or bell tower. This appellation is decisive of their having been long so appro- priated; but it has been asserted, without much reason, that their small diameter rendered them unfit for belfries. The height of these tow- ers varies from about 60 feet to 130. The walls are usually about 3 feet in thickness, and the clear diameter about 10 feetj They are built of stones about a foot square, neatly joined with very little cement The inside is sometimes remarkably smooth, and the masonry is so good, that instances have occurred of their falling down and lying entire on the ground, like a huge cannon. Those in best repair are covered by a conical roof of stone, which has usually windows facing the cardinal points, and the inside generally shows the corbel stones on which the wooden floors of four to six different apartments rested. The door is commonly a considerable distance from the ground, sometimes 15 feet or more, and this is reckoned one of their most unaccountable peculiarities. Assuming that these towers were erected after the introduction of Christianity, is it not probable that they were used as watch towers, whence the approach of an enemy could be descried at a great distance, and to which the ecclesiastics could speedily retreat with their relics and other valuable articles? The elevated entrance demonstrates that it was intended to be difficult of access, and is a well-known characteristic of the fortifications of other nations. A subterraneous passage between the cathedral of Cashel and its attendant tower corroborates the opinion that it was a place of retreat. Consistent with this use would be the position of an alarm bell, to ring on the advance of invading enemies, or the ferocious nations who had not learned to respect the persons of the clergy, or the rights of the church. In Scotland, and I believe also in Wales, the steeples of old churches have crenellated battlements, and other appearances of having been built with the prospect of having to sustain assaults, and the pages of history inform us that the sacred edi- fice did not always protect its inmates from the rage of a barbarous foe. In Scotland there still exist two round towers, in every respect like those in Ireland. They both stand in the territories of the ancient Picts; and Abernethy, where one of them is seen, was once the capitaj of their kingdom. The tower here is about seventy-four feet high, and has re- cently got a covering of lead. The stones of which it is built have been brought from the Lomond hills, five miles distant, and are carefully plac- ed in regular courses, without much cement. The Rev. Andrew Small * The tower at Cashel is believed to be the oldest building on the rock. f At Kineigh, a ruined church near Inniskeen, is a tower hexagonal to a ctrtaip CASTLES. COTTAGES. 267 notices the tradition, that the stones were handed from one person to another, the edifice being finished in one day; to accomplish which, he calculates that 5,500 men were sufficient. It is clear to him " as a sun- beam," that this tower is the bury ing-place of the Pictish kings, and, on digging, an urn, and eight or ten skulls, with other parts of the human body, and some bones of dogs were discovered. The tower at Brechin consists of sixty regular courses of hewn stone, of a fairer color than the adjoining church. It is eighty-five feet high to the cornice, above which is a low roof of stone with four windows. It communicates with the ancient cathedral by a door, which, like that at Abernethy, is on the north side, but this may not be original. Both are about forty-eight feet in outward circumference, which is, with a few exceptions, larger than those in Ireland. The castles of Dunstaffnage, Inverlochy, and many others, are of un- deniable antiquity. It is true that the remaining ruins do not display very perceptibly the marks of primitive architecture. Buildings were successively repaired and renewed, until all traces of the original work were lost; but it would be quite unwarrantable to deny that the struct- ures referred to in history, as standing on the sites of these buildings never existed. Both Picts and Caledonians were able to raise fabrics of sufficient grandeur and strength for the accommodation and security of their princes. The Gael do not adhere to the circular form in which their ancestors built their houses, but construct them of an oblong that sometimes stretches a considerable way. From the abundance of the material, they are usually of stone, built with much nicety, and are finished with or without the addition of mortar, according to circumstances. Turf and stone, in alternate layers, are much used, the first being laid in manner of herring-bone work. A sort of wall, formed of clay and straw, mixed together, called Achenhalrig, is prevalent in Banff* and Moray- shires. The interior arrangement is simple. Each end forms an apart- ment, the centre being occupied by wooden fixed beds, ambries or cup- boards, &c. These are termed in Scotish the but and ben ends, which are the Saxon words " be out " and " be in," applied to the common and better apartments.* The cottages in Scotland are constructed without much trouble or expense, and are generally the work of the owners. An old corporal in Sutherland, who appears, from having seen a little of the world, to have acquired a taste for something better than the common sort of houses, being asked how he intended to build his dwelling, replied, that there should be one good room in it, should it cost two pounds! Few houses, except those of the chiefs and clergymen, had any upper floor, or any ceiling. In many parts of the Highlands there is a difficulty of procur- ing wood of sufficient length for couples or rafters. Cabers a*e rough * The Dutch have also buten and benen. 268 COTTAGES boughs spread across the rafters; and for defence these were formerly interwoven, and the whole roof strongly wattled. A usual covering for the houses in Scotland is feil or divot, i. e. turf cut tnmiy, and with much nicety, by a peculiar implement called a flaughter spade. This, when used alone, is laid in manner of slating, with the greatest care and the regularity of fishes' scales. The turf is generally covered with heath, a material so cheap and lasting, that it is surprising to find it not universally adopted. It can be used alone, and with timber of a very ordinary description. It also takes very little trouble to keep in repair; and, if the covering is well executed, it is equal to slates, and will last 100 years, if the timber do not give way. Many churches were formerly covered with heath, some within my own memory, the services from lands being often a certain quantity of it for this purpose. Its only disadvantage is being heavier than straw or rush- es. Fern or rainneach is next to heath, but much inferior, and will not last above twelve or fifteen years. In Argyle the houses appear to be chiefly covered with it. A straw thatched roof is light, and has this ad- vantage, that it is warmer in winter, and cooler in summer than the others. The floors are commonly of clay or mortar, well hardened, but it is often partially laid with stones. The ben end in the houses of the better sort is sometimes floored with wood, and the ceiling is often of the same material. The windows are small, and few in number, and glass is an article with which they can easily dispense. The room is chiefly lighted hy the chimney, and this, in the old-fashioned houses, where the fire occupied the middle of the apartment, was in the roof above it. In many Highland cottages it still retains this situation, a position which allows the inmates to get around it, an accommodation so desirable, that where the hearth is fixed, in accordance with the modern plan, at one end, a sufficient space is often reserved for seats between the wall and the fire. In the aboriginal huts the most convenient site for the fires was the middle of the dwelling. The Welsh had not altered its place in the time of Cambrensis, who informs us it occupied the centre of the round hall, arid men, women, and children slept around it on rushes spread on the floor. Chimneys were alike unknown to the ancient and recent Gael. At the present day, they have in many cases adopted the artificial funnel for carrying off the smoke; but a hole in the roof, above which there is sometimes a low chimney of wood or wicker work, is usually all that is thought necessary, and very inefficient it generally is. It has been observed by a recent traveller in these parts, that chimneys are a premature improvement, the cottages, while constructed on the old plan, and the inhabitants remaining in the same state, being suffi ciently comfortable. The houses of the Gauls were coated inside with an earth or clay, sometimes so varied, pure, and transparent, that it resembled painting.* * Tacitus. HOUSES. 269 The Britons preferred plainness in the decoration of their dwellings, white-washing the clay with chalk only.* The old Irish seem to have ornamented their wooden buildings with rude paintings. The furniture of the houses was more ample than might at first be supposed. When we find the arts of carpentry, pottery, &.C., so well understood in remote ages, it must be evident that the dwellings of the Celts were not destitute of those articles which are subservient to do- mestic comfort In this place, it will be sufficient to notice the general appearance of their habitations, before proceeding to view, more partic- ularly, their manner of living. As might be expected in those rude and martial people, the Celts had some singular and barbarous modes of ornamenting and furnishing their houses. They hung up the spoils of their enemies, with the skins and other parts of animals which they had killed, in the vestibules of their houses. The heads of the most noble of their enemies who fell in battle were cut off, and after being embalm- ed with oil of cedar, and other substances, they were carefully deposited in chests, and exhibited to strangers with much ostentation. They boasted with pride, that their fathers or themselves, although offered much money, would not accept it, nay, refused to part with them even for their weight in gold. The Caledonians were also accustomed to decapitate their enemies; but whether they preserved them to ornament their dwellings, we are not aware. A poetical description is not indeed to be received as a faithful and unexaggerated picture, but it may tend to prove the existence of the arts of civilized life, among a people deemed by many little better than savage. The chamber of Everallin, the spouse of Ossian, was " covered with the down of birds, its doors were yellow with gold, and the side posts were of polished bone." We have found corroborative testimony that the ancient Gael were able to form more ingenious ornaments than these, and an opportunity will shortly offer to investigate more particu- larly their acquirements in various arts. Strutt from the same. CHAPTER IX. OF ANIMALS, AND THE MANNER OF HUNTING HUNTING is one of the principal occupations of mankind in a state or barbarism. With the exception of war, it is almost their sole pursuit, and the necessity of following it as a chief means of subsistence, overcome? the indolence which is so characteristic of uncivilized nations. The Celtae were celebrated hunters, and they pursued the game not only for the purpose of supplying themselves with food, but as an agreea- ble diversion, suited to their active and roaming dispositions. There was also an advantage in hunting, which, perhaps, had some influence in stimulating them to the pursuit: it lessened the number of ferocious animals with which their dense woods were filled, and to which their flocks were so much exposed, and this was urged as a strong reason by the Highlanders why they should be allowed to retain their arms. The produce of the chase continued to afford the Celts a plentiful supply of venison when it had long ceased to be their chief dependence. The ancient Caledonians had numerous herds of domestic animals, and raised a scanty supply of corn. Their successors extended agriculture, but they preferred the hunting and shepherd state in which they remained until the sixteenth century, and continued both the practice and love of fowling and the chase until the disarming act altered their situation. Allan Mac Dougal, a modern bard, regrets this change, in lines imitated in English Sy a literary friend: HUNTING 271 " Cha n'eil abhachd feadh na beann, Tha giomanich teann fo smachd ; Tha fear na croichde air chall, Chaigh gach eilid a's rnang as. Cha ! ir f haighar ruagh-bhochd nan alt Le cu seang gachuir le strath ; An eiric gach cuis a bh' ann Feidirich na'n grail sgach glaichd." " The cheerless hunter hangs his pensive head, No more the hills re-echo to his voice ; To meet the stately stag with mantle red, No more the fawn and bounding doe rejoice No more is heard the deep-rnouthed hollow voice Of the lank greyhound that pursues the roe ; But, in exchange for all our former joys, Foul frowsy shepherds, whistling as they go, Are seen in every glen, O bitter sight of wo !" " Sealg is sugradh nan glean,"* a favorite air of the mountaineers, keeps alive the recollection of other times. The Highlander scorned the shepherd life as an occupation, but none could be more attentive to the condition and pasturage of his flocks and herds. The care of looking after the cattle was assigned to the youth between boyhood and manhood: tending the goats and sheep was the peculiar duty of the girls. The Gael thought it beneath them to spend their time in the servile occupation of a shepherd, but were by no means unwilling to assist their fair partners, recommending themselves to the good opinion of their mistress by an attention to her fleecy care. The existence in Europe, at some remote period, of many animals that are no longer found in these regions, and of certain creatures whose species are now extinct, is well known. It is not intended to investigate the subject of the curious variety of fossil remains that have so often been discovered, the deposits, perhaps, of an antediluvian world; but it is necessary to notice some of the animals that must have formerly in- habited these climates. Britain and its surrounding islands are found to have once contained an extensive and strange variety of the brute crea- tion. The bones of a large sort of bear, of the hyasna, of the elephant, &c., have been discovered. The Welsh Triads notice the first as in- habiting the island before it became the permanent residence of human beings. Guillim says the bear was carried from Britain to Rome, but he does not give his authority for the assertion. It was very common in Spain, where the flesh was esteemed good food. The Beaver, an animal of which there will be occasion to speak in a succeeding page, long haunted the British rivers and lakes, and was only becoming rare in the time of Giraldus Cambrensis. In the Welsh histories, this animal is called efaine, in Gaelic it is named beathadach. One of the most singular animals that formerly lived in these islands, * The ancient hunting and hilarity of the glen. 272 MOOSE DEER. ALCE.- WOLVES. is the MOOSE DEER, but the period of its existence has not been satisfac- torily ascertained. Even the Irish legends, whose antiquity seems able to reach the probable era, do not appear to recognise these animals as inhabitants of Erin, where their remains are so frequently discovered. In a learned communication by Dr. Hibbert, which I had the pleasure of hearing read at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, it was maintained that they have not been so long extinct as is generally believed. On this occasion it was remarked, on what authority I cannot tell, that the Norwegians were anciently accustomed to pass from Orkney to the mainland of Scotland, to hunt the Rein-deer! If this is true, the climate must be greatly altered. It is much too warm now for this hardy animal, which was formerly to be found plentifully in the Hyrcinian forest, in modern Germany, which they have long abandoned for colder regions. Whether the moose deer were cut off by a general murrain, or were extirpated by the efforts of mankind, is matter of conjecture. The re- mains of some have been found, that bore the plain appearance of having received a deep wound, the apparent cause of death. The horns of this animal, that are frequently dug up in Ireland, in Scotland, and in the Isle of Man, are discovered sometimes alone, and at other times, seve- ral together, and they are not seldom attached to the scull. These enor- mous horns have measured two yards in length and nearly fifteen feet from tip to tip. The only species of animal resembling the moose deer, which is known now to exist, is that in America, which bears the same name. The ALCE of the continent, from the descriptions of the ancients, was a very singular animal. It was so extremely shy that it was very seldom taken or killed, and the greatest cunning was requisite to surprise it, for it could not be regularly hunted like other game. According to Pausanias, it was an animal between a camel and a stag:* it appears to have been the elk, the bones of which are often found in different parts of Britain. The Elk is mentioned in several poems of the ancient Bards. To this authority, however, the skeptical may object, as well as to a tradition but little known, that Lon dubh, a term now given to the blackbird, was originally the name of the moose deer, some of which Ossian appears to have seen. WOLVES were anciently very numerous on the continent and in the British islands. The exaction of their heads as a tribute from the Brit- ons, and the imposition of a certain number as a compensation for crimes, led to the extirpation of this fierce inhabitant of the forest. The wolf has been extinct in Scotland since 1697, when the last one was destroy- ed by the celebrated Sir Ewen Cameron, of Lochiel. The statutes by which the Barons were enjoined " to hunt and chace the wolfe and wolfe's whalps, four times a year, and as often as they see them;"f and " the Scherrif and Baillie to hunt them thrice in the year," with power to raise the country to their assistance, J prove how numerous they must * Lib. ix. 21. t Seventh Parliament, James I. f First Parliament, Jarnes VI. FOXES. WILD CATS. BOARS. 273 have formerly been in the north, and evince the anxiety of the govern- ment to root out this formidable enemy to the Scotish farmer. These enactments, and a reward for the heads, hastened their extermination, since which the word fiadhchoin, literally wild dogs, has become obso- lete. Malcolm Laing thought he had found a strong argument against the authenticity of Ossian's poems, in their silence respecting wolves; but the publication of the originals has overthrown this objection, raised from an ignorance of the Gaelic language. In the first book of Fingal we find "the growling of wolves from their caverns;"* and in the poems of clan Uisnich f and Cuthon they are also alluded to. Faol, which occurs in ancient poems and various MSS., has long since fallen into disuse, but is preserved in the compound faoilteach, or faoltmhi, the wolf-month, which includes the last fortnight of winter and the first of spring. J Mada, a dog, and alluidh, ferocious, form the present name of a wolf among the Highlanders. Wolves are said to have remained in Ireland until the beginning of last century, the bog of Kilcrea being one of their latest and least accessible retreats. Derrick, in 1581, speaks of no other wild animal. Mr. Adams, an English gentleman, having been driven from his house with his family during the troubles in the seven- teenth century, they were attacked when in the woods, by wolves, and the whole party, to the number of fourteen, were destroyed. The Lupus cervarius, a hart or hind wolf, called by the Gauls Raphi- um, was found in their extensive forests, and several were exhibited at Rome by Pompey, as natural curiosities.)} They were not the only re- markable animals of the kind: there were a sort of very large and fierce creatures, called wolf dogs, being a cross from the two animals. Great herds of these roamed in the woods, and, what was most singular, a par- ticular dog acted as a leader, all the others following and submitting to his direction, the whole pack observing an appearance of order.lf They appear to have resembled the Irish wolf dog. FOXES, called Madadh ruadh, red dogs, or Sionach, and Cat fiadhaich, WILD CATS, are still plentiful in Scotland. They are, indeed, much less numerous than heretofore, from the exertions of district foxhunters, but these gentlemen are not likely to obviate the necessity of their own di- versions by exterminating the breed. The wild cat is extremely fero- cious, and does much injury to the poultry. It would appear from royal licenses, that this animal was formerly common in England. BOARS were numerous in the primaeval woods of Britain, where they ranged in natural wildness, and hunting them was a favorite amusement. The native domesticated breed has long been intermixed with others. In Sutherland, I believe, are still some remains of the indigenal stock, which was of small size. In Man they remained wild, or semi-domesti- cated, until lately, roaming without restraint in the woods and on the * Gadhair is fiadhchoin nam earn. t S'air chuilen na fiadhchoin, stanza 7, b. 3. t Rep. on the Poems of Ossian. Appendix, p. 199. Ireland's Tragical Tyrannie, 4to. 1642. || Pliny. IT Pliny, vii. c. 40. 35 274 DEER. CALEDONIAN OX mountains They were called purrs, and had all the flavor of the wild boar. * In the wastes of Germany these animals seem still to live in a state of nature. The ancient Gauls appear to have attempted their do- mestication, but Atnenasus says they were allowed to remain during the nighl in the fields, and surpassed all others in size, strength, and swift- ness, being little less dangerous than wolves. DEER, once so numerous in Scotland, a"re much reduced in number, and a chief cause assigned for their disappearance is the decay of the woods. In many parts, the mountains, that were formerly covered with red deer and roe, are no longer a retreat for them. The improvements in sheepfarming have driven them to the inaccessible parts of the High- lands. Their ancient haunts are now traversed by the shepherd and his dog, before whom they have fled to the distant heights, and it is in many parts now rare to meet with even a solitary straggler. This, however unpleasant to the sportsman, is, perhaps, less to be regretted by the far- mer, who might have had his cornyard plundered by these animals, with- out being permitted to destroy them. In the rugged mountains of Bra3 Mar numerous herds of red deer still find protection in the remains of the forest of Caledonia, where two or three hundred are sometimes seen together. It is supposed that up- wards of three thousand are in the range of shooting-ground attached to Mar Lodge, a seat of the Earl of Fife, which is nearly a square of twen- ty miles. In the Rea forest, Sutherland, there are perhaps two thousand -ed deer, See. and about two hundred fallow deer find comfortable shelter in two sequestered islands in Lochlomond. In the mountain of Arkel, in the forest of Dirimore, in Sutherland, there was a peculiar sort of deer, according to Sir Robert Gordon. They had all forked tails, three inches long, whereby they were easily known from any others. Bede informs us, that Ireland was celebrated for stag-hunting, but deer had become rare in that country about the beginning of the 16th century, and the roebuck is said to have been un- known. | There is a Gaelic saying, S'fiach aon fhiadh 's Mhona' liath, a dha dheug an Gaig, i. e. one deer in the gray mountain is worth a dozen in Gaig, or in the Grampians in general; an exaggeration, certainly, but meant to denote the superior size of the deer found in the gray ridge. The CALEDONIAN Ox is believed to have been peculiar to the north. The- remains of this animal are frequently discovered deep underground, and it is remarkable that, in most cases, they are found without the horns. J The skull of one is preserved in the British Museum, from which the animal appears nearly allied to the European domestic ox, but of a larg- er size. At Craven, in Yorkshire, ChiUmgham park, in Durham, and Drumlanrig, in Scotland, breeds of these curious animals are yet pre- served. Numbers of cattle must long have continued to live in a state * Agric. Report. They were subjected to a particular tythe. t Riche's Description of Ireland. I Cut off for drinking cups, or musical horns ? 1T Caesar SHEEP. GOATS. HARE.-RABBITS. -POLECATS. WEASLES. 275 of nature among the inaccessible woods and mountains. Gildas relates that in his time wild bulls were caught by means of strong nets. The peculiar sort of wild cattle which the Triads relate were among the first living creatures in this island, are denominated Yohan-banog, oxen with high protuberances. They appear to have been buffaloes, the name of which in Gaelic is bo-alluidh, or ferocious ox. Caesar says that, in Germany, was a bull, from the forehead of which grew a straight horn! SHEEP, Caoraich, like other animals, must have been originally wild, out the period when they were in this state in Scotland, is too remote to be ascertained. Donald Munro says, that in the Hebrides he saw sheep ''feeding masterlesse, pertayning peculiarly to no man;" and in Orkney they are described by Brand as wild, but these assertions are inconsid- erate, for although there may have been stray flocks, the sheep were formerly, from the small size of farms, more tame than they are now. GOATS, Gabhair, have remained in a state of wildness almost until our own times. The HARE was a native of Britain, and one of those animals used in divination. The religion of the Britons consequently forbade its use as food,* and it was only occasionally killed for the purpose of drawing auguries.t In the mountains of Sutherland, and other elevated situa- tions, is found an Alpine hare, rather less than the common sort, a beau- tiful creature, white as snow in winter, and in summer marked with a few dark gray hairs on the back. RABBITS, Coinean, appear to have been introduced to Britain, J prob- ably from Celtiberia, where they were particularly numerous. In most of the Western Isles they are yet. unknown. Those of the smallest size are found in Isla; the largest are those of Man.|| POLECATS, WEASELS, and other animals of the same sort common to South Britain, are to be found in Scotland. Gordon gives a list of a variety of these creatures that were numerous in Sutherland. A species of amphibious animal, apparently of the rat kind, called Beothach an' f heoir, is found in the eddies of the higher regions, al- ways inhabiting the vicinity of the green patches around springs. When a horse feeds upon the grass that has been recently cropped by this an- imal, it swells, arid in a short time dies, and the flesh is found blue as if it had been bruised or beaten. I believe this creature has not been hitherto described by naturalists. The tradition, of St. Patrick having by his blessing saved Ireland from the annoyance of noxious reptiles, is well known, but has in later times been found to be not strictly according to fact. Some parts of Scotland, it appears, long remained free from rats. Badenoch is said to have been thus fortunate, and in Sutherland, Sir Robert Gordon says, there is not a rat will live, and if any are brought into it " they die presently, as soon as they smell the air of the country, and, which is strange, there * Cjesar. t Dio. t Varro, iii. 12. ap. Whitaker Pliny. || Pennant. 276 HENS.-GEESE. CAPERCAILZIE. EAGLE. are many in Caithness. " It is certain, that before 1798 they were not known in that part of the country, but a ship being then stranded at Ceantradwell, in the parish of Clyne, a few rats got ashore and took refuge in a mill, where they increased, and soon ovefcpread the country. Birt says he never heard of rats in the hills but at Coul na kyle, in Strathspey, to which they had been brought in 1723 from London, and were then thought a presage of good luck. The Calf, a rock near the Isle of Man, was formerly celebrated for affording a supply of young puffins, esteemed a great delicacy; but a vessel unfortunately having been wrecked on it, the rats that got ashore soon exterminated these birds. In Man itself there are no foxes, moles, snakes, or toads; and magpies, frogs, partridges, and grouse were im- ported not perhaps more than one hundred years ago. A country may be happy in not possessing those noxious and unsightly creatures that annoy the inhabitants of other lands; but no calamity has happened to any place in these islands like what befell an unfortunate city of Gaul, where the inhabitants were actually forced to abandon it by a prodigious number of frogs. Nor have the number of rats been ever so formidable as they were to the poor German baron, whose strong isolated tower could not preserve him from ultimately perishing by these disgusting animals. The Britons had plenty of hens and geese.* Religion did not permit them to be used as food, but the people kept numbers of them about their dwellings. If their eggs were also prohibited, the Briton must have been influenced solely by superstition in keeping them around him. It does not appear from Pliny, who praises the German geese, that these people refused to eat them.| Those in the Highlands are half wild, occasionally resorting to the sea and lochs. The CAPERCAILZIE, or cock of the wood, once found in tolerable plenty in the forests of Scotland, is now only seen on the most remote and inaccessible mountains, and so rarely is it met with, that it is suppos- ed by some to have been extinct nearly a century. It is larger than the black cock, which is now also very rare. The Ptarmigan, Grouse, and other game, are well known to be plentiful on the moors and mountains of Caledonia. The EAGLE, lolar, that majestic tenant of the craggy steeps, has been time immemorial the emblem of strength and independence. Its pinions were the badges of Celtic chieftainship, and were esfeemed the most honorable reward by the adventurous sportsman. This noble bird is, however, extremely destructive to poultry, and even the young lambs are not secure from its audacious attacks. Two eagles had built their nest in the neighborhood of a gentleman's house in Strathspey, and the quantities of game which they collected were truly astonishing. On the * Geadh, Gaelic, a goose ; Gwyz, Welch. 1 He mentions the circumstance of a flock walking all the way from the territories of the Morini, (Terouenne,) to Rome, x. 22. DRUID-DUBH. CNAG DOGS. 211 arrival of any visiters, however unexpected, the gentleman had only to despatch some one to the eagles' eyrie, when an ample supply of hares, rabbits, muir fowl, partridges, ptarmigans, snipes, &c. were speedily procured. The Scots, like the Germans, are fond of singing birds, and do not often kill them. The Nightingale, which has now forsaken the northern part of the island, is supposed to have once frequented the woods of Scotland. Its name in Gaelic is beautifully expressive of the sweet- ness of its song, and the character of the bird. In Rqs an ceol, the rose music, the melody is put for the melodist, the former being heard when the latter is unseen. The DRUID-DUBH, erroneously called Lon-dubh, or mountain black- bird, I believe is peculiar to the Alpine regions of the Scottish high- lands. It resembles in every thing, except its color, the blue bird of the Alps, mentioned by Bellonius and others. The female is larger than the common blackbird, and the feathers on the back are varied by a beautiful dark green gloss. The cock is distinguished by a snow white collar, or ring about three quarters of an inch broad round its neck, and above all birds for the loudness and clearness of its notes. The CNAG, or Lair fligh, a bird like a parrot, which digs its nest with its beak in the trunks of trees, is thought peculiar to the county of Sutherland. The numerous sea birds found on the coasts of Scotland and the isles, that form so large a part of the subsistence of the inhabitants of some places, are caught with peculiar dexterity, and by the most adventurous methods, practised only by the hardy and experienced natives. The Celtae had a prejudice against fish, which probably arose from the veneration they paid to the waters. The Gael retained this antipa- thy, and notwithstanding the numerous lochs, rivers, and arms of the sea which intersect their country, the Highlanders have never paid much attention to angling or other methods of catching the finny tribe. Many of their lakes have never been stocked. The Gauls employed themselves very sedulously in hunting, and practised various methods to make sure of the game. The want of food is a strong incentive to the pursuit, which is not always one of pleasure, and however much attached a rude and spirited people may be to the activity and enterprise of the chase, we may believe with Tacitus, that during peace they usually resigned themselves to sleep and repasts. Dogs were employed by the Gauls both in hunting and in'war. The Celtic dogs were excellent in the chase, and those of the Britons were superior to all others. They were so much esteemed, that great num- bers were exported not only to Gaul but to Italy, being highly valued by the Romans.* They excelled in swiftness, a quality for which all Celtic dogs were celebrated."!" Those of the Belgce, Segusi, and Sicambri. were next in value to the British.! * Strabo, iv. p. 200. t Arrian, f. 121. t Montfaucon. 278 DOGS. Vossius says, that the Latin catulus, a little dog, is a Gallic word. Lew is, in his History of Britain, derives the Roman cynegii, dog keepers, from the British ci, a dog. (Pvid uses gallicus canis for a greyhound, and those now called beagles were denominated agassceos and vertra^os. The Scots dogs were celebrated all over Europe.* Their use in hunting rendered them inestimable to the tribes of Caledonia, and pro- duced a strong attachment between the hunter arid his faithful companion, who was believed to accompany his master to the " airy hall" of his rest. A beautiful lamentation of Umad, an aged warrior, over gorban, his hound, is preserved in the poem of " Manos," and it shows, in a strong light, the love of the Highlanders for hunting, and the regard which they have for their dogs, that this ancient composition is at the present day the most universally known among them.f The docility and attachment of the dog may have arisen from sharing its master's confidence, and receiving his continued attentions. Buffon ascribes these qualities in the Hottentot oxen to their enjoying the same bed and board as their owner, and experiencing his daily care. The Caledonians maintained great numbers of dogs, and the names of some of the most famous are still preserved. Bran and Sgeolan were favorites of Fingal, and in Glenlyon, in Perthshire, is pointed out his conabhacan, or stake, to which his hounds were fastened. In the Isle of Sky is a stone which was used by Cathullin for the same purpose. The Irish greyhounds that were used for hunting" the wolf, are described as having been bigger of limb and bone than a colt.J The shepherd's dog I believe is peculiar to Scotland. The instinct of this animal is wonderful, and its services incalculable. It will bring the most numerous flock of sheep from the distant mountains, without other assistance, and without missing a single individual! It is probable the Celts used horses in the chase, after they had been domesticated, but they may have often amused themselves in hunting the animals themselves; for in the northern countries of Europe they were formerly wild, and roamed about in large troops. Even in after ages these animals must have continued to enjoy a freedom approximating to wildness. This is still nearly the case in some parts of Scotland, and in the Isles of Orkney and Shetland. All, a Gaelic term for a horse, is long gone into disuse, and is only preserved in cab-all, a tamed horse or mare. Besides the assistance of horses and dogs, the Gauls endeavored to secure their prey by assisting the effect of their weapons with poison. With one sort, which Pliny calls venenum cervarium, they rubbed their arrows in stag hunting; limeum, or hartsbane, was used in the same way.^ They also dipped the points of their weapons in the juice of hel- lebore, but in thus studying to render their shot effectual, they took cate * Symachus, ep. ii. 77. Ant. Pagi. t Smith's Gallic Ant. p. 255. t Campion. Lib. xxvii. 11. HUNTING. 279 that the game should not be injured. They immediately cut the flesh from around the wound, and affirmed not only that the venison waa uninjured, but that it was much improved, being rendered very tender.* An antique sculpture, representing a boar hunt, was discovered in the province of Narbonrie.j" The animal appears of a very large size, and is attacked by two hunters on foot, each armed with a dart, or venabu- lurn, about 3^ feet long, which is held in the right hand, while in the left they carry a piece of cloth, which one of them is about to thrust down the throat of the animal, as it rushes open mouthed on its assailants. This forms the subject of the vignette to this Chapter, only it will be observed, that one of the figures, who is in the same attitude, is omitted. In the portfeuille of M. Lenoir, is a representation of a similar attack, by a single hunter, who, instead of the cloth, wraps his hand in his sag u til. The hunting of the boar was particularly famous among the ancient Gael. This perhaps arose from the peculiar address that was requisite in attacking so furious an animal; for we learn from Ossian, and other bards, that a warrior esteemed himself highly upon his address in spear- ing the boar, and one of their heads is represented to have been sym- bolical of particular prowess in hunting, being a trophy obtained at considerable peril. HUNTING, among the ancient Scots, was an employment of the great- est importance. In the reign of Paganism it was connected with their mythology, for they believed that in the clouds they should enjoy, as a reward for their bravery, the pleasures of the chase in higher perfection than the earth could afford. According to Arrian, the Celts sacrificed to Diana the huntress. Whether the Gael invoked Grianus or Baal to prosper their hunting expeditions, we are not certain, but to be accom- plished in this exercise was the sure, "the sole warrant for future renown and ability to govern. A young chief was obliged to evince his talent for conducting military operations by the leading of a great hunting incursion, a practice that long survived the last of the Fions.J The magnitude of the Highland expeditions against the wild tenants of the dense forests arid rugged mountains was astonishing. Fingal, in an ancient poem, is said to have had 1000 hunters: succeeding chiefs have been accompanied by even a more numerous retinue. The heads of various and remote clans were accustomed to meet at certain times and in appointed places, attended by numbers of their followers, and com- menced a rigorou.^ campaign against all the inhabitants of the forest, which never failed in producing a most abundant slaughter: but fond as the Highlanders were of the chase, and useful as it was to their subsis- tence, they did not pursue it to the neglect of more important avocations. " Though hunting," says their proverb, " be a good help, yet the chase is but a poor livelihood." The great hunting matches were the means * Pliny, xxv. t Montfaucon. I Marlin. 280 HUNTING. of preserving a social intercourse between tribes who lived far distant from each other. It was a means also of bringing the chiefs and princi- pal men of the country together, and enabled them to adjust differences, settle future proceedings, &c. They were at these meetings also able to arrange many things among themselves, which were of much more con- sequence than the ostensible object for which they were collected. A general hunting match has been the method by which the greatest en- terprises have been suggested and matured, without a suspicion being excited beyond the mountains. Huntings were often given in compliment to the visits of friends, and the vassals were summoned in suitable numbers. The chief could, of course, muster his clan by hereditary right, and they were besides spe- cially bound td hunt with their superior, the Highland servitudes being hunting, hosting, watching, and warding. The gallantry of the ancient Caledonians led them to honor a stranger with the danger of the chase; in other words, he was allowed to expose himself to the greatest hazard, and hence have the opportunity of gaining the most renown. By the Welsh laws of Griffith ap Conan, hunting was divided into three parts; helfa holet, hunting for the cry; helfa cyfarthfa, hunting for the bay, and helfa cyffredyn, common hunting, or that by which a person coming up to another who had killed an animal, could challenge the half* The laws of the chase, according to Scotish Chronicles, were settled by Dornadilla, one of the kings or chiefs of the fabulous period of na- tional history. Without any such intimation we are sufficiently convinc- ed of the importance in which it was held by the Celts. Many supersti- tions were connected with hunting, from the belief that it formed part of the amusements of the blessed after death, and some curious fragments of bardic composition exist on the subject. In Scot's discovery of witch- craft, it is recommended to prevent hunters or their dogs from being ensnared by this foul art, that an oaken branch should be cleaved, over which they should all pass. It was a most ancient belief that the forest was infested with supernatural beings, who amused themselves at the expense of mankind. A certain late writer has said that the Highlanders are naturally good marksmen. Their dexterity is produced solely by attention and prac- tice; which has long rendered them famous for taking sure and steady aim. Nearly 200 years ago they are thus noticed: " In the first place stood Highlanders, commonly called Redshankes, with their plaides cast over their shoulders, having every one his bowe and arrows, with a broad slycing sworde by his syde: these are so good markesmen, that they will kill a deere in his speede, it being the chiefest part of their liv- ing, selling the skins by great quantities, and feeding on the flesh. "f A^purious instance of the nicety of shooting occurred about seventy years ago. A poacher had long pursued his mode of life undetected, although the destruction of game was very great, and his habits well * Lewis. t His Majestie's passing through the Scots' armie, 1641. HUNTING. 281 known; but this veteran protracted his fate by using the weapon of his ancestors, the noiseless bow and arrow, and he was perhaps the last who used it for the purpose. After his capture he vaunted of his skill in archery, and the Duke of Athol, pointing to a stag, desired him to shoot it through the off eye; on which the Highlander giving a particular whis- tle, the animal looked round, and immediately received an arrow in the intended spot. Some interesting descriptions of Celtic huntings have been preserved. In the poem of" Fingal," three thousand hounds, that excelled in fleet- ness as in fierceness, were let loose, and each is represented as killing two deer; rather an exaggerated number, one should think. In the poem of "Dernrid" is a paragraph, describing the manner of hunting, which we regret has not been translated. * Taylor, the water poet, cel- ebrates this noble sport of the Highlanders in energetic verse. " Through heather, moss, 'mong frogs and bogs and fogs, 'Mongst craggy cliffs, and thunder-battered hills, Hares, hinds, bucks, roes, are chased by men and dogs, Where two hours' hunting fourscore fat deer kills. Lowland, your sports are low as is your seat : The Highland games and minds are high and great." The Celtae, we are informed by Pausanias, surrounded plains and mountains with their toils. In like manner, the Highlanders encom- passed a hill or large tract of country, and, advancing on all sides with " hideous yells," they enclosed the animals in a small space, and cut them down with their broadswords so dexterously, as not to injure the hide. In other cases they arranged themselves, part on the plain, and the others along the declivity of the mountains, and with loud cries as they advanced drove the herds of deer and other animals towards the chief and his party, who were ready in a desirable spot to enjoy the sport. This resembles the Spanish batidas, where some hundred people collect and drive the game through a defile, where the king, with his attendants, in an arbor or hut, constructed of boughs, slaughter the animals as they pass. King James V., having, in 1528, " made proclamation to all lords, barons, gentlemen, landvvard-men, and freeholders, to compear at Edin- burgh, with a month's victual, to pass with the king to danton the thieves of Teviotdale, Stc. ; and also warned all gentlemen that had good dogs to bring them, that he might hunt in the said country; the Earl of Argyle, the Earl of Huntley, the Earl of Atholl, and all the rest of the High- lands, did, and brought their hounds with them, to hunt with the king.' His Majesty, therefore, " past out of Edinburgh to the hunting witn 12,000 men, and hounded and hawked all the country and bounds, "and killed, as Lindsay heard, eighteen score harts. Next summer he went to hunt in Athol, accompanied by Queen Margaret and the Pope's ambas- sador, where he remained three days most nobly entertained by the Earl, * Smith's Gallic Antiquities, p. 189. 36 282 ROYAL HUNTING. and killed " thirty score of hart and hynd, with other small beasts, as roe, and roebuck, wolf and fox, and wild cats."* This last expedition was accompanied with such extraordinary circum- stances, that Lindsay's account of it must be interesting. " The Earl of Athole. hearing of the king's coming, made great provision for him in all things pertaining to a prince, that he was as well served and eased with all things necessary to his estate as he had been in his own palace of Edinburgh. For, I heard say, this noble Earl gart make a curious palace to the king, his mother, and the ambassador, where they were so honorably lodged as they had been in England, France, Italy, or Spain, concerning the time and equivalent for their hunting and pastime; which was builded in midst of a fair meadow, a palace of green timber, wound with green birks that were green both under and above, which was fash- ioned in four quarters, and in every quarter and nuke thereof a great round, as it had been a blockhouse, which was lofted and geisted the space of three house height; the floors laid with green scharets and spreats, rnedwarts, and flowers, that no man knew whereon he zied, but had been in a garden. Further, there were two great rounds on ilk f the gate, and a great portculleis of tree, falling down with the manner of a barrace, with a drawbridge, and a great stank of water of sixteen foot deep, and thirty foot of breadth. And also this palace with- in was hung with fine tapestry and arrasses of silk, and lighted with fine glass windows in all airths; that this palace was as pleasantly decored with all necessaries pertaining to a prince as it had been his own royal palace at home. Further, this Earl gart make such provision for the king and his mother, that they had all manner of meats, drinks, and del- icates that were to be gotten, at that lime, in all Scotland, either in burgh or land, viz. all kind of drink, as ale, beer, wine, Stc. ; of meats, with flesshes, &c. ; and also the stanks that were round about the palace, were full of all delicate fishes, as salmonds, trouts, pearches, pikes, eels, and all other kind of delicate fishes that could be gotten in fresh waters, and all ready for the banquet. Syne were there proper stewards, &.C.; and the halls and chambers were prepared with costly bedding, vessel, and napry. according for a king; so that he wanted none of his orders more than he had been at home. The king remained in this wilderness at the hunting the space of three days and three nights, and his compa- ny, as I have shown. I heard men say it cost the Earl of Athole every day in expences a thousand pounds." All this sumptuous edifice was purposely consumed by fire on the king's departure! Another old writer thus describes a great Highland hunting match "In the year 1563, the Earl of Athol, a prince of the blood royil, had, with much trouble and vast expense, a hunting maich for the en- tertainment of our most illustrious and most gracious que^n. Our people call this a royal hunting. I was then a young man, and was present on that occasion. Two thousand Highlanders, or wild Scotch as you cah * Lindsay of Pitscottie, Hist of Scotland, 225, ed.1776. HUNTING MATCH. 283 t'nem he re, were employed to drive to the hunting ground all the deer from the woods and hills of Atholl, Badenoch, Mar, Murray, and the countries about. As these Highlanders -use a light dress, and are very swift of foot, they went up and down so nimbly, that in less than two months' time they brought together 2000 red deer, besides roes and fallow deer The queen, the great men, and others, were in a glen, when all the deer were brought before them. Believe me, the whole body of them moved forward in something like battle order. This sight still strikes me, and ever will, for they had a leader whom they followed close wherever he mov- ed. This leader was a very fine stag, with a very high head. The sight delighted the queen very much, but she soon had occasion for fear. Upon the Earl's (who had been accustomed to such sights) addressing her thus, ' Do you observe that stag who is foremost of the herd? There is danger from that stag, for if either fear or rage should force him from the ridge of that hill, let every one look to himself, for none of us will be out of the way of harm; for the rest will follow this one, and, having thrown us under foot, they will open a passage to this hill behind us.' What happened a moment after confirmed this opinion: for the queen ordc one of the best dogs to be let loose on one of the deer: this the dog sues, the leading stag was frighted, he flies by the same way he had come there, the rest rush after him, and break out where the thickest body of the Highlanders was. They had nothing for it but to throw themselves flat on the heath, and to allow the deer to pass over them It was told the queen that several of the Highlanders had been wound- ed, and that two or three had been killed outright; and the whole body had got off, had not the Highlanders, by their skill in hunting, fallen upon a stratagem to cut off the rifcr from the main body. It was of those that had been separated that the queen's dogs and those of the nobility made slaughter. There were killed that day 360 deer, with 5 wolves, and some roes."* .When a single deer was wanted, the gamekeeper and a few assistants went to the hills, with a little oatmeal or other provision, and lay in wait for their prey, sometimes for several days and nights together. Stalking is the term applied to the pursuit of deer by individuals, and, as the ani- mals are shy, incredible patience and exertion are necessary to secure the game. A deer stalker has walked two miles in deep water, and crawled a considerable distance on his belly, in order to approach the animals unobserved. The forester was an important member of the clan, and enjoyed several perquisites. On the return of a young chief from his first public hunting all his arms, clothing, and other articles were, by immemorial custom, given to the forester. Sir Robert Burnet, of Crathes, in Aberdeenshire, bears a Highlander as one of the supporters to his arms, his ancestors having been the king's foresters in the north. * Barclay's contra Monarc homacus. 284 HAWKING. It appears that HAWKING was a diversion of the ancient Britons Helfa, hunting, signifies also hawking,* and Ossian mentions " a hun- dred hawks with fluttering wing." By the laws of Hwyel Dha, the master of the hawks enjoyed his lands free, he sat the fourth man from the king, slept in the barn, and had a hand breadth of wax candle to feed his birds and light him to bed. He received a dried sheep, and was served with drink sufficient only to quench his thirst, lest his charge should be neglected. The hearts and lungs of all animals killed in the royal kitchen were allowed him to feed his birds, and he was obliged to have his horse always ready. Rederch, King of the Strathclyde Welsh, included hawks, dogs, and swift hunters among his most valuable presents. * Lewis's Hist. Pliny describes hawking as practised by the Thracians, among hawk and the hunter shared the prey. Lib. x. c. 8. CHAPTER X. OF THE PASTORAL STATE AND OF AGRICULTURE. THE cattle of the Gauls who were accounted affluent, were their chief riches, and some of them, according to Caesar, lived entirely on their flesh and milk. The Celtic race were much attached to the pastoral life, for its freedom was suited to their state of refinement, and congenial to their independent spirit. The inhabitants of Britain, at the period of the first Roman descent, were for the most part in the pastoral state of soci- ety, and long after this epoch many of the tribes, like their remote an- cestors, continued to pay almost exclusive attention to their flocks, con- temning the servile and less advantageous task of cultivating the soil. Many parts of the island are adapted for grazing only, and those who inhabit the mountainous districts must continue to depend for subsistence on the produce of their herds. Although the wealth of the Highlands has always consisted of cattle, the poets have not indulged in rapturous encomiums on the shepherd state, for this reason, that the education of the men was entirely military, the care of the flocks being left to the women and youth. Cresar remarks the great numbers of cattle which were reared in Britain, and Solinus avers that Ireland was overstocked with them.* In Germany they were no less abundant, the inhabitants taking great delight in the number of their flocks, which, according to Tacitus, formed their only wealth. The animals were, however, but of small size, for they appear to have been indifferent to their appearance; * C. 35. 286 CATTLE. GOATS. whereas the Gauls took so much delight in them, that they thought they could never pay too dear for a beautiful ox.* In the time of Severus, the people beyond Adrian's wall lived chiefly on the flesh and milk of their flocks, with what they procured by hunting. It is certain that at this early period the rude tribes of the north had do- mesticated numerous herds, it being customary for them to place cattle and sheep in the way of the Roman armies, to induce parties to straggle from the main body, and fall into their ambuscades.^ A quarrel, con- cerning the bull of the heath of Golbun, forms the subject of an episode in the poem of " Fingal." Before the arrival of the- Saxons, North Wales is said to have been chiefly appropriated for the pasturage of royal cattle, three herds of which consisted of 21,000 head. J The cattle and sheep of Scotland were anciently its chief resource; the numbers now raised for the supply of the English markets are immense, and it may with perfect truth be said of many of the Welsh, Irish, and Highland Scots, as it was of the ancient Gauls, that cattle are their only riches. The wild animals which inhabited the woods of Britain and Gaul, fur- nishing subsistence to the Celtic huntsmen, have been already described. Tlk domestic animals can be here only briefly noticed. Those who are desirous of further information concerning the various improved breeds m the northern division of Britain, are referred to the Agricultural Re- ports, Transactions of the Highland Societies, the Statistical Returns, and other similar works, for more detailed accounts. There exists a belief that the inhabitants of Scotland had anciently domesticated a species of deer, and the tradition has received something like confirmation. A communication from H. Home Drummond, Esq., to the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh, describes a large stag's horn that was discovered in the great Blair Drummond rnoss, which had a piece of wood fitted into a circular perforation. It is not improbable that these animals were tamed, as the rein-deer are at present among the Laplanders. The CALEDONIAN Ox was considerably larger than that of the present, day, as may be seen from the skulls, which are frequently discovered al great depths. At Drumlanrig, a seat of the Duke of Queensberry, herds of wild cattle of a white color are still preserved. The Gaelic bual, a buffalo, or any wild horned beast, seems bu-all, or bo alluidh, a wild ox. The breeds of Highland cattle and their qualities are well known. The GfoAT, so useful a breed of animals in a mountainous country, is now much reduced in Scotland. In Inverness, Sutherland, Caithness, and other northern counties, there were formerly numerous flocks of goats, every farmer, about fifty years ago. having from twenty to one hundred. They wandered almost in unrestrained wildness in the moun- tains, and their flesh was good meat, while, during summer, cheese was made either of the milk alone, or of a mixture with that of the cow * Bello Gall. t Dio J Triad, 85. Letter read August, 1825. SHEEP. 287 Their skins were an article of very early export, and in recent times ".ould always (etch a shilling from the travelling chapman. In the Isles, a late visiter says they have almost disappeared. The goat is peculiarly fitted for a rugged country, for it can pick up subsistence in places to which the more timid sheep cannot venture, and is able to defend itself against the fox, so destructive to the latter. It is curious to find that the deer will pasture freely with goats, but evince a strong dislike to sheep SHEEP formed a considerable part of the pastoral riches of the Celts. It would appear from what has been before observed, if we are to receive the doubtful testimony ofD. Munro, that many were in a state of nature in his time, as they are said to have also continued until lately in the re- mote islands of Orkney and Shetland. There appears, however, in these assertions, an ignorance of grazing and sheep farming. Every mountain may be now found covered with sheep wild as deer, and to all appear- ance masterless, and where there were; no foxes or 6ther vermin to de- stroy them, the same was formerly observable; but each person's prop- erty was no doubt distinguished by the lug mark, or some other token. The flocks that range in freedom on the muirs, are collected four or five times in the course of the summer and autumn, and those gatherings exactly resemble the ancient hunt. The grazing range is surrounded silently, as early in the day as possible, when a simultaneous cry of men and barking of dogs are set up, by which the timid animals are roused from all their haunts, and brought together in a narrow pass, where the flank or fold is erected. The native sheep were very different from the modern breed. The fleece was a sort of down, mixed with straight hairs of some length; the tail was short, slender, and tapering, and was thinly covered with long silvery hairs. They were remarkably tame, and very delicate, probably from the once invariable practice of housing them. The breeds of sheep have been so often crossed and intermixed, that the genuine native animal can scarcely be found. The original stock were small, and dun colored, particularly in the face, but, notwithstanding their hardiness, and some good qualities, few now remain. It appears from Cambrensis, that in Ireland the sheep were chiefly black. Some of the old Scots' sheep still exist in Galloway, and a few may be found in different parts of the Highlands. A recent traveller seems to think them confined to the remote island of Hirta, or St. Kilda,* but they ap- pear also to be found in Orkney and Shetland, and are supposed to have been originally brought from Norway. They were easily fed, their mut- ton was delicious, and their fleeces were soft, to procure which it has been said that the wool was pulled off, a practice, which, there is reason to believe, did not, at least within traditional knowledge, prevail among the Highlanders, who have an appropriate name for sheep shears, but none for common scissors. It is not long since both sheep and goats were committed to the entire management, and hence have been thought * M'Culloch. An epithet by which this island is designated : Irt na'n caoiraicb feann, Hirta of the hairy sheep, is thought to indicate a peculiar breed. 288 SHEEP. SWJNE. the exclusive property of the wife, being considered beneath the atten- tion of a man, and so strong was this feeling that no man would con- descend to assist at the sheep-shearing. The Highlands are admira- bly adapted for rearing sheep, the fragrant herbage of the hills producing most delicious mutton. Many ages since, the inhabitants of various parts pursued with success the improvement of their stock. From before the middle of the sixteenth century, "all the districts of the shire of Aberdeen were distinguished for numerous flocks of sheep, which yielded fleeces of the finest wool."* Many Highland proprietors have of late turned their almost exclusive attention to sheep farming, and have followed their object with so much zeal, that whole districts have been depopulated, that they might be turned into extensive sheep walks! How far this may be ultimately of advantage to proprietors it is not easy to foresee, but its policy is certainly very objectionable. To force so great a number of the inhabitants to emigrate, and thus deprive the country of the services of a large proportion of the best part of the peasantry, is surely a serious national evil. Regiments can no longer be raised, in case of need, in those places where now are only to be seen the numer- ous flocks of the solitary shepherd. The piobrach may sound through the deserted glens, but no eager warriors will answer the summons; the last notes which pealed in many a valley were the plaintive strains of the expatriated clansmen Cha till, cha till, cha till, sin tuile, " we return, we return, we return no more." The necessity for thus expelling the tenantry is doubtful, the President of the Board of Agriculture having proved by experiment, that the Cheviot breed of sheep, so much esteem- ed by the farmer, could be introduced and thrive on the most bleak mountains, and a large proportion of the old inhabitants might be retain- ed in their possessions. f The sheep has always been associated with our ideas of the pastoral life, and, from its inoffensive nature and great usefulness, has ever been a favorite with the shepherd, and the theme of rural song, and it is tp be remarked, that while cattle-lifting was not considered dishonorable, a sheep stealer among the Highlanders was held infamous Although apparently a stupid animal, many curious proofs of its strong instinct might be adduced. The attachment of sheep to the place of their nativity is remarkable. They have been known to traverse great distances for the purpose of revisiting the scenes of their youth and rejoining their progeny. SWINE, muic, were formerly numerous in the low country of Scot- land, but the Highlanders appear to have paid little attention to them, allowing them to roam in a state of nature. The breed has been inter- mixed with others, and much improved in size, by the encouragement of the Highland Society, and the native animal, which was small, is extinct, except perhaps in the Isle, of Man and in the wilds of Sutherland, * Heron's Hist, of Scotland, v. 15. t Agric. Report. PASTURE. 289 where a few still remain. The Scots retain an antipathy to pork; wheth- er derived from the ancient Celts, or the early Christians, is difficult to determine, and, although this aversion is disappearing, it is far from being eradicated. In the Agricultural Report for the county of Banff, it is stated that live swine have never yet been sold in any of the fairs of the norlh. Many places evince by their names that these animals must have been there found in considerable numbers. There is the Isle of Muc, Glen Muic, Mucross, &.c. Those who fttended the cattle were, by the ancient Britons, called Cheangon, retainers, and Paruis, herdsmen, whence some tribes, it is thought, were named by the Romans, Cangi and Parisii. Goat herds were denominated Gabr and Gabrant, or Gabrantic.* The laws of Wales provided for the pasturage in common of all the cattle of one place. The Aoireannan of the Highlanders are the " keepers of cattle," and are a sort of farm servants who have the charge of cultivating a certain portion of land, and taking care of the cattle it supports. They are allowed grass for two milk cows and six sheep, and had also the tenth sheaf, with the privilege of raising as much potatoes as they chose. The slaves of the ancient Irish, or those purchased or carried off from England, Wales, or the continent, were employed in tending the flocks. f In the old practice of folding cattle on the farm lands, the herds shelter themselves in a little hut of poles and pliant twigs, and this, called Bothan tothair, is an exact model, on a small scale, of the ancient British hut. The Cattle of the Celts were usually secured in a strong inclosure connected with the camp or fort, as may be seen by inspecting the plans of the ancient strongholds. At other times they were placed in inclo- sures formed, according to Brehon regulations, by trenches and banks, strengthened by stakes or live hedges to guard against the attacks of wolves and other ravenous animals, as well as the attempts of hostile tribes. There is reason to believe that means were found to secure the cattle near the Duns, as at Castle Coul, before described. Pennant says the Boaghun was the dun in which they were lodged. The Britons, according to Whitaker, had sheds, constructed of stone and wood, for this purpose, some of their ruins, 16 feet by 12, having been discovered at Manchester Pliny says there was no better pasture than the German fields. J The Gauls had very extensive fields of grass, and it was mostly natural; the only artificial sort known to them being trefoil: but the superior manner in which these people prepared their lands, and the judicious use of marie, must have rendered them abundantly fertile. Their cattle \jere objects of great pride, and in their anxiety to improve the breed they showed themselves good farmers, and acquired the praise of others for their agricultural knowledge. It was remarked by Cato, am) assented * Whitaker, on authority of Ptolemy and Richard of Cirenceater. I Ware. * Lib. xvi.4. 37 290 MODE OF PASTURAGE. to by Pliny,* that the best means of deriving profit from a farm wjs to feed cattle well. Since Scotland has become so destitute "of wood, the pasture has materially suffered. The ground in the Straths, where the ancient woods have decayed, do not now yield a quarter of the grass it did when shel- tered by the foliage, and the farmer is not able to outwinter his cattle as formerly: but the bare hills and flats are now abundantly stocked with sheep, the animal whose increase is said to have been the chief reason of the destruction of the young trees, and consequent deterioration of the pasture. Notwithstanding the care of the Highland farmer, he often loses great numbers of his cattle from want of food. The variable cli- mate sometimes indeed reduces himself to want, but he frequently has his farm much overstocked, and the consequence, scarcity of provender in a severe winter, is certain,/ while to counteract the evil there are few means. In Strathdon, in Aberdeenshire, the people are accustomed to take heath tops for winter store with advantage; and when the cattle can be turned out they assist them to this food by clearing the snow from it.j In the early stages of society, before land is regularly divided among the members of a tribe, the shepherds freely move from pasture to pasture as in the days of the patriarchs. The Suevi, the chief nation at one time in Germany, had no inclosure, but moved to new situations every year. Britain, says Gildas, abounds in hills that are very convenient for the alternate pasture of flocks and herds, which most certainly alludes to the ancient practice still preserved among the Scots Highlanders, and formerly a remarkable characteristic of the Irish, who maintained abun- dance of cattle. Spenser describes them as leading a wandering life, driving their herds continually with them, and feeding only on their milk and white meats, a practice which was called boolying.J This vagrant life, so like to that of the Scythians, seems to have given rise, as before observed, to the name of Scots, common to certain parts of the population of both countries. It has been long impossible for any among the civilized nations of Europe to pursue exactly this itinerant life, but in Scotland, where a large tract of mountainous country is annexed to a farm, the owner still continues to move his flocks in something resem- bling the ancient manner. After the Irish rebellion, in 1641, several wandering clans, under the name of creaghs, or plunderers, overran the country with their numerous flocks, so much to the annoyance of the English settlers, that it was found necessary to restrain their perambulations by public authority. The Highlanders were till lately universally accustomed to move from the Bailte Geamhre, or winter towns, to the Arich, or breeding grounds, in the hills; every davoch, or tenpenny land, and even each farm, having * Lib. xviii. v. t Stat. Account; xv. 463. \ Page 35. Coll. reb. Hib. ii. p. 2^5. Beauford's Diss. on Irish Language. MODE OF PASTURAGE. 291 a certain portion of mountain territory for this purpose.* Here the seisgach, or dry cattle, remained during the winter, if not too severe, while the others were brought down to the more sheltered homesteadifig in the glen. Spenser says, in Ireland each cantred maintained 400 cows in four herds kept apart. In Scotland, where there existed any right of common pasturage, the number of cattle which each individual was en- titled to turn out was according to the number which he could fodder in winter on his own farm, and the proportions, in case of dispute, were settled by a form of law called an action of souming and rouming. The ancient practice, which is still fondly adhered to where practicable, is thus described by an~intelligent proprietor of Sutherland. "The princi- pal farmers, who reside in the straths, or valleys, along the banks of the streams, have extensive grazings in the mountains where the cattle are driven in the summer. Early in the spring a person, who has the name of Poindler, is sent to these hill pastures to prevent strange cattle from trespassing, and when the crop is sown and the peats cut, the guidwife and her maids, with some of the male part of the family occasionally, set out with the milk cows and goats, and take up their residence in the Shealing or Airie, which is a hut, or bothy, with one apartment, perhaps 12 feet square, for the purpose of eating and sleeping in, another of a simi- lar size for the milk vessels, and, in general, there is a small fold to keep the calves apart from the cows. Here they employ themselves indus- triously in making butter and cheese, living on the produce of their flocks, some oatmeal, and a little whiskey, contented, happy, and healthy, dancing to the pipes or the melody of their own voices, and singing their old native songs, not only in the intervals of work, but in milking their flocks, who listen with pleasure and attention to the music, particularly to an air appropriate to the occupation, of which the animals even evince a fondness. Here they remain for about six weeks, the men occasionally returning to the homestead to collect their peats, and perform any other necessary work, when the pasture becoming exhausted, they all return to the farm, and leave the yeld, or young cattle and horses, to roam at freedom among the hills until the severity of winter drive them home. The practice was to rear a calf for every two cows, and after the family were served with the product of the dairy there were twenty-four to thirty pounds of butter, and as much cheese from each cow. "I The temperature of the milk in churning is ascertained by the sound of the crearn. When harsh, it indicates its being too cold, but when sufficiently warm, it is soft. Rennet of a deer, lamb, or hare's stomach, are indifferently used by the Highlanders for coagulating the milk: sometimes the gizzards of fowls are applied for this purpose, and the stomach of a sow is said to be preferable to any other. The old practice was to convert the cream * Grant's Thoughts on the Gael. This intelligent writer believes the name of Argyle, anciently spelt Aregael, and applied to a great proportion of the Highlands, signifies the breeding grounds of the Gael. t Agric. Report. 292 TREATMENT OF CATTLE WHEN DISEASED. into butler, and the skimmed milk into cheese, but there is little sweet milk cheese now made. The old mode of curd cut into large pieces is therefore in a great measure given up. It is a very old custom in the Highlands to mix aromatic herbs with the rennet, a practice that has recently been recommended as a great improvement by some English writers, by whom it is thought a new discovery. The ancient Celts had some singular methods of treating their cattle when ill, and superstitious observances to protect them from mischief. They were accustomed to take as much of limeum or belenium as could be laid on an arrow head, which was put in three measures of liquid and poured down the animal's throat. What disease this prescription was designed to cure does not appear, but the cattle were fastened to stakes until it had ceased to operate, for they often went mad from its effects. Samolus, march wort, or fenberry, which was gathered with peculiar ceremonies, was laid in the troughs where cattle drank, in order to save them from all diseases.* The Highlanders, as may be supposed, have many superstitions re- garding their cattle, and indulge in many absurd ceremonies, some of which may have at the same time originated in satisfactory experiment, and acknowledged efficacy of prescription. The manner in which the disease, or accident, called elf-shot, is successfully treated, has been before described. On new year's day it is a practice deemed salutary for the cattle, to burn before them the branches of juniper. It is com- mon to the Highlanders and Irish to keep a large oval- shaped crystal, the virtue of which is, that water being poured on it and administered to the animals, they are sained, or preserved from many evils that would otherwise befall them. Mountain-ash and honey-suckle, placed in the cowhouse on the second of May, we may be assured, has not been resorted to* without undeniable experience of much good. Most of these superstitious customs have no doubt existed since the days of Paganism, their object being to counteract the designs of evil spirits. Witches, war locks, and other " uncanny" persons, are now the chief objects of dread, and to baffle their diabolical efforts the farmer exerts his utmost skill and faith. Reginald Scot's " special charm to preserve all cattel from witchcraft," is doubtless a secret well worth knowing. While on the subject it may not be amiss to describe some of the methods by which the Highlanders endeavor to cure their cattle when diseased, and guard them from impending illness. To prevent the spreading of that direful disease called the blackquart.er, the animal is taken to a house into which no cattle are ever after to enter, and there the heart is taken out while the creature is yet alive, and being hung up in the place where the other cattle are kept, it preserves them from death. A live trout, or frog, is put down the throat to cure what is called blood- grass. Murrain, or hastie, a complaint with which an animal is sudden ly seized, becoming swelled, breathing hard, with water flowing from * Pliny, xxiv. c. 9. DROVERS 293 the eyes, and dying in a few hours, is treated in a peculiar manner. The disease is less frequent since 4he decay of the woods, but it appears in so malignant a form, for dogs who eat of the carcass are poisoned, that it is firmly believed to be the effect of supernatural agency. To defeat the sorceries, certain persons who have the power to do so are sent for, to raise the Needfire. Upon any small river, lake, or island, a circular booth of stone or turf is erected, on which a couple, or rafter of birch- tree, is placed, and the roof covered over. In the centre is set a per- pendicular post, fixed by a wooden pin to the couple, the lower end being placed in an oblong groove on the floor; and another pole is placed horizontally, between the upright post and the leg of the couple, into both which, the ends, being tapered, are inserted. This horizontal tim- ber is called the auger, being provided with four short arms, or spokes, by which it can be turned round. As many men as can be collected are then set to work, having first divested themselves of all kinds of metal, and two at a time continue to turn the pole by means of the levers, while others keep driving wedges under the upright post so as to press it against the auger, which by the friction soon becomes ignited. From this the Needrire is instantly procured, and all other fires being immediately quenched, those that are re-kindled both in dwelling-house and offices are accounted sacred, and the cattle are successively made to smell them. This practice is believed to have arisen from the Baultein, or holy fires of the Druids. Sometimes the diseased animal is brought, and held with its tongue pulled out, for about fifteen minutes, over a sooty turf fire, and the sods from the roof are at other times put in a pot with live coal and a quantity of good strong ale. The Highland drovers, or those persons who are intrusted with the charge of bringing the cattle from the mountains to the southern markets, are a class of considerable importance, and their occupation is peculiar to their country. The drover was a man of integrity, for to his care was committed the property of others to a large amount. He conducted the cattle by easy stages across the country in tractways, which, whilst they were less circuitous than public roads, were softer for the feet of the ani- mals, and he often rested at night in the open field with his herds. These trusty factors often come as far as Barnet, and even to London. In one of Sir Walter Scott's novels, the Chronicles of the Canongate I believe, is a spirited description of one of these Celts. I am not aware of the rules which may have regulated the division of a cattle spoil, farther than that there was generally a mutual division, among the ancient Celts. The Highland practice, as before stated, was to give two thirds to the chief, but whether any particular rights existed among the Gael, as we find in other nations, does not appear. A con- stable was anciently entitled to all cattle without horns, horses unshod, and hogs taken in foraging, and the marshal received all spotted cattle.* If any one in the Highlands could claim horses without shoes he would * Edmonson's Heraldry. 294 AGRICULTURE. have taken all. In a following chapter will be seen the perquisites which some individuals in Celtic society received when cattle were slaughtered. The cattle of the Gael were the temptation to mutual wars and unre- lenting feuds, and they were the estimable reward of entei prising war- riors. The herds often changed owners during the continuance of war In 1626, we find the Governor of Ireland taking 4000 cows from the Burkes; and in 1587, Tyrone carries off 2000 cows, and a great number of garrons, &c., from Sir Arthur O'Neal. These were respectable creachs, and seem to justify the title which the Highlander claimed for the cattle lifters, gentlemen drovers. AGRICULTURE. The Celtae, although much attached to the pastoral life, were not in- attentive to the advantages of agriculture. The sterner tribes did not to be sure apply themselves with much assiduity to that or any other pursuit, save those of war and plunder; thinking with the Germans, of whom Tacitus speaks, that it was stupid to gain by their labor, what could be more quickly acquired by their blood, but in general they cul- tivated a greater or less proportion of ground. The Belgic part of the population of Britain is described by Csesar as practising agriculture to a considerable extent, while the Celts, or tribes of the interior, are represented as neglecting or remaining ignorant of this useful art, paying exclusive attention to the pasturage of numerous flocks. This description has led to the belief that the cultivation of the soil was entirely confined to the Belgians, and even introduced by them, but the expression does not warrant this supposition. That the inland tribes were not ignorant of agriculture, but did raise corn, is certain. It may, at the same time, be readily admitted, that the local and commer- cial advantages of the inhabitants of the southern provinces stimulated them to greater diligence, but they were not the sole agriculturists in the island. The rich fields of corn which Caesar found on the south and west coasts, a fortunate acquisition for the sustenance of his troops, most like- ly struck him as a peculiarity on observing the numerous herds and the limited crops in the interior. From the address of Bonduca to her army it is apparent that agriculture was not unknown to those tribes denomi- nated Celtic, however limited the extent of their operations may have been. It has been asserted, from the speech which Tacitus assigns to Gal- gacus, that the art of procuring sustenance by the culture of the ground was unknown to the Caledonians, but an attentive perusal of the pas- sage will show that this inference is not quite fair; the warrior only reminds his countrymen that, while free, they had no fields to cultivate for a master.* Dio Nicseus, who relates that the people north of Adri- an's wall had no cultivated lands, but lived on the produce of their flocks. * Vita Agric. 31. AGRICULTURE. 295 is also brought forward as authority on this subject, but his assertion cannot be unhesitatingly admitted. Strabo enumerates grain among the British exports, and it is well known that, shortly after the Romans had settled in the island, large quantities of corn were annually transported to the continent, for the supply not only of their friends, but the armies of the Romans. It is true that this increased industry in agricultural labor is attributed to Roman incitement, but as that people had not to teach the Celts how to improve their soil, but, on the contrary, found them enterprising agriculturists, the reasonable explanation of the fact is, that the Britons only availed themselves of the new opening for the sale of their grain. The same energy was exerted by the nations of the con- tinent, Gauls, Germans, and Celtiberians; when subdued by the Roman arms, they found a profitable market for the produce of their fields, but these nations followed agriculture with success long before they became tributary to Rome. Malmutius was a celebrated British legislator on agriculture. The laws of Moelmus, who is perhaps the same individual, are now believed to be lost.* The Welsh Chronicles celebrate Eltud, or Eltutus and others, as the authors of different improvements in the system of field labor. The laborers of the ground were called by the ancient Highlanders, Draonaich, the genuine name, it is thought, of the Picts^ The people of the eastern coast, where agriculture could be pursued with success, were so designated by the western Gael, and vestiges of the habitations of the Draonaich are found within the limits of the ancient Caledo- nia, proving the meaning of the appellation synonymous with Pict, and still retained by the Gael. The sites of these houses are scarcely ever found without the visible marks of former cultivation on the adjoining heath. Although the inhabitants of the plains, who devoted themselves to the cultivation of the ground, were called Draonaich, "yet a certain portion of the people residing among the Gael of the mountains, were also known by the same denomination; of which important fact the most complete evidence remains to this day. The foundations of the houses of those who employed themselves in the cultivation of the soil are distinguished by the appellation Larach tai Draoneach, (the foundation of a house of a Draonaich or Pict.) These are very numerous in many parts of the country, and are, without exception, of a circular form, with the entrance to the house regularly fronting due east. In the neighborhood of the place of residence of the writer of these sheets, within the bounds of the ancient Caledonian forest, there ,are cultivated fields; which further proves the fact, that the term Draonaich was not exclusively appropriat- ed to the people inhabiting the more level country of Scotland, but Vvas applied also to the cultivators of the soil in the mountainous parts of the country. Druim a Dhraonaich and Ach a Dhraonaich are fields well * Roberts. t Grant's Thoughts on the Gael. 296 AGRICULTURE. Known in the western part of the valley of Urquhart, lying to the west- ward of Lochness; and still farther to the westward, in the adjacent valley of Strathglass, there is a cultivated field called An Draonachc. And even at this day the people who possess the arable lands in the bottom of the valley in the vicinity of Draonachc, and who have been, for a long period of time, remarked to be more industrious than their neighbors, are called Draonaich Bhail na h amhn (the Draonaich of the River town,) which is a village situated by the side of the river Glass, running through the valley. When a man is observed employing himself in laborious exertion upon the soil, it is a common expression among the Highlanders, be'n Draoneach e, that is, he is truly a Draoneach. The Gael of the mountains were divided into two classes, Arich and Draon- aich. The first were the cattle breeders, and the other were the culti- vators of the soil, and indeed comprehended all persons who practised an art. Accordingly in Ireland, Draoneach signifies an artist, and Draonachas, an artifice." " The foundations of the houses of the Draonaich are so numerous in some parts of the Highlands, as to afford the most decisive evidence that the number of the cultivators of the soil must have been, in very ancient times, prior to the knowledge of the plough, very considerable."* When mankind first associate together, and apply themselves to culti- vate the earth, it is done by the joint labor of all the members of the community, who have an equal right to the crop that is produced, and will receive proportions of it according to their wants, but after a village has been some time settled, and the inhabitants advanced in civilisation, this common property in the land is generally abolished. Each individ- ual is considered entitled to the produce of his own labor, and as he continues to possess the same parcel of land, he is understood to have a certain right to it, and thus either by prescription, or allotment, the tracts under cultivation become distributed among all the members. In regu- lating these divisions, as in the management of the common property, the chief exercises his delegated power. The right he assumes of disposing of the public possessions is naturally acknowledged, and by retaining for himself an extent sufficient to support his rank, he acquires an additional authority, and subjects the different proprietors to the observance of certain conditions necessary for the general welfare. Such is the natural progress of mankind in the advance of civilisation, but this tendency to an early division of the land is counteracted by various circumstances. Poverty, the rudeness of husbandry, the relationship of the members, and an adherence to ancient custom, with a strong impatience of any thing like an infringement of their equal rights, com- bine to prevent a separation of interest. Under the patriarchal or clannish system of government, where the claims of consanguinity are so strong, mutual labor and assistance continue, and the practice ot * Grant's Thoughts on the Gael, p. 280. COMMON HOLDING. BOUNDARIES. 297 cultivating the land in common, once so universal in Scotland, where it still lingers among the Celtic inhabitants, is the ancient mode of conduct- ing agricultural operations. The Suevi, a powerful nation of Germany, who were distinguished for their attention to agriculture, pursued their rural occupations under the following regulations: the tribe consisted of 200,000 fighting men, and of these one half went yearly to the wars, where they served for twelve months, returning to take the place of the others, who, in like manner, took the field for the same period of service. The individuals seem to have had a certain quantity of land assigned to them, but no man was allowed to remain more than one year in the same place.* The Vaccaei, a nation of the higher Iberia, now Leon, every year divided their land, ploughing and tilling it 'in common. After harvest they distributed the fruits in equal proportions, and it was death to steal or abstract any thing from the husbandman. f The Germans, who raised corn only, and made no orchards, moved from land to land, and still assigning portions suita- ble to the number of persons, parcelled out the whole lands according to the condition and quality of each individual, every year changing and cultivating a fresh soil.J The partition of land did not preclude the ex- istence of common holding among the members of a tribe or community, whose territorial possessions were, by public consent, reserved for them- selves. All disputes concerning inheritances, and the limits of fields, were settled by the Druids.^ The practice of common holding still remains in the western isles of Scotland, and in many parts of the Highlands, and has not long been abolished in many districts. An act of Scots parliament, 1695, author- ized the division of lands lying run rig, the term by which this common property was distinguished. || Under such a system it is not easy to regulate the proportions very nicely: there are generally more people living on lands so managed, than are taken into calculation, but, " ab- surd as the common field system is at this day, it was admirably suited to the circumstances of the times in which it originated; the plan having been conceived in wisdom, and executed with extraordinary accuracy. IT One of its evils was, that sometimes none would commence work while any individual who ought to attend was absent, but this must have been in an ill regulated township. In the most western counties of England there is no common field. The lord lets off a portion of the common for two crops, when it is allowed to become pasture again. When the land is cultivated in common, boundary lines scarcely appear necessary. The Suevi, Caesar observes, had no inclosure: the * Caesar. This writer describes them as excellent agriculturists, yet he says they lived on milk and flesh. Is he inaccurate, or did these people, like some of the Scyth- ians, raise corn to sell, and not to eat ? t Diodorus Siculus. t Tacitus. He says of one of their tribes, they labored with more assid:: jty in agri- culture than suited the laziness of other Germans. Csesar. ij It was also called Rig and Rennal. II Loudon's Agriculture, p. 504. 38 298 BOUNDARIES. Romans themselves appear to have had no other mark of separation than a statue of Terminus.* The old divisions of land were, when practica- ble, rogulated by natural boundaries, that were sometimes nicely deter- mined by the point of a hill, whence the water was observed running to either side. It was also a most ancient custom, all over the Highlands, to build head dykes, or walls, that were erected where there appeared a natural demarcation between the green pasture and the barren heath Within this dyke was the, arable and meadow land of the farms, while beyond that line the cattle, horses, goats, and sheep, fed in common. In the Highlands are often seen the vestiges of inclosures that exhibit marks of great antiquity, concerning the original use of which the inhab- itants have lost all knowledge; the ridges of stones, visible at a consid- erable distance, and displaying extended white lines along the brown heath, may, with propriety, be referred to this mode of laying out lands. Inclosures are often very improperly formed of the turf, or surface of the adjoining land. Galloway, or rickle dykes, are much esteemed in Dumbartonshire and other Highland districts. This fence is construct- ed of stones loosely piled up to the height of four or five feet, every tier being less in size, and at the top the stones are wide apart. The fabric seems too open and ill constructed to last long, but it is found to be dur- able. The stones being placed with the thickest end upwards, act in some degree like the key stones of an arch, and the wall opposes little resistance to the wind. This is an excellent protection against sheep who will not venture to scale such an erection. According to the co- operation system, neighboring proprietors joined in the erection of boun- dary or march walls. In 1577, we find the Deemsters of Man enforcing an ancient practice, that persons whose lands were contiguous should be at the mutual expense of forming the respective inclosures. By the Welsh laws the husbandman had a right to the second best of every three hogs, sheep, goats, geese, or hens, that trespassed on his corn. This enactment shows the care of that people to secure to every one the produce of his industry; it was afterwards modified: only one out of fif- teen hogs, thirty sheep, goats, geese, &.c. being awarded to the com- plainant, and if there were not so many animals, the compensation was made in money. For the encouragement of agriculture no less than eighty-six laws were made by the Welsh. If any one obtained permis- sion to lay dung on another man's lands, he was allowed the use of them for one year; and if the dung was in such quantity as required carts, the term was extended to three years. If the lands of another were cleared of wood, and rendered arable, the person who did so enjoyed their pro- duce for five years, and a person who folded his cattle on another's field without objection, for one twelve months, was entitled to cultivate it four years after. From the nature of society, it is evident that farms or portions of land * Virgil's Georgics, iii. 212, &c. SIZE OF FARMS. 299 possessed and labored by individuals must have been small. In other words the land must have been subdivided, without a great disparity in the quantities of the different allotments. It was one of the earliest regulations of the Romans to assign every man two acres of land. The jugerurn, or as much as could be ploughed in one day with a yoke of oxen, was reckoned a sufficient reward to a deserving officer, and to re- ceive the half of a quartarius, or a pint of adoreum, a sort of fine red wheat, was esteemed an honorable testimony of public respect.* Steel-bow tenants in Scotland, received corn, straw, agricultural im- plements, &.C., from the proprietor, on condition of their restoration at the end of the tack or agreement, and were bound to share the produce with the landlord. The old system of agriculture encouraged the resi- dence of numerous laborers or cottars around the house of a farmer, who enjoyed their cottage, and a patch of ground as a vegetable garden, for which they paid small or no rent. In the Highlands, the malair, a per- son of the same order, was in the same condition. His sole dependence was not on the employment which the land on which he resided gave him, but he was bound to allow his services to the farmer in harvest and on other occasions. There were no day laborers in the Highlands. Their pride and sense of equality prevented them from working for a neighbor, although many toiled in the low country for very small reward. Improvements in Agriculture have led to the disappearance in many places of this class of peasantry, and it is long since the desire to in- crease the size of farms has destroyed the more equable division of land. Pliny says that large farms had been the ruin of the Roman provinces, and would eventually prove the ruin of the whole state. f How far they are to be considered national evils in these days, I am not pre- pared to state. The country may be depopulated, and the numerical strength of a state may not be lessened, those who can no longer live as farmers taking up their residence in towns; in the Highlands, however, the ancient tenants who have been displaced, unable to gain a livelihood by their handicraft, have forever bidden farewell to their native soil, and sought an asylum in the wilds of America. A farm in Argyle, eighteen or twenty miles long, and three to four broad, is said, by Doctor Robert- son, of Dalrnenie, to be the largest in Britain. The sheep farm of Gal- lovie, in Badenoch, is about twelve miles long, and from eight to ten broad, which makes it at least ninety-six square miles, consequently six- teen square miles larger than that in Argyle. One at Balnagowan, in Sutherland, contains 37,000 acres. A Highland farm may be generally described as a certain part of a valley, stretching on either side of the burn or stream by which it is watered. To every possession, large and * Pliny xviii. 3. Hence, by metonomy adorea. the quantity distributed came to sig- nify honor, praise, &c. The first institution of Romulus was twelve wardens of corn fields, Ibid. 2 ; and it shows how important they considered the protection of agricul- ture, that when Carthage was taken, the only articles saved were twenty eight books, which were written by Mago on that subject. \ Lib. xviii. 6. 300 SIZE OF FARMS. LAND MEASURES. small, a share of arable, meadow, pasture, and muir land was allotted. The best part of the farm was distinguished as infield and outfield, the former being generally under crop, and in good state; the latter consist- ing of places not fit for tillage, but appropriated to pasture the cattle, and produce a little hay. Beyond this, and separated by the head dyke, was the common heath, extending to the summit of the mountains. Near the house was also the door land, which served for baiting the horse of a visiter at meal time, or such like. Crofters, or smaller farmers, had no outfield. In officiaries, which were generally an ancient barony, but sometimes a modern division of one to three or more square miles, the ground officer regulated the management of the farms, fixed boundaries, and settled disputes, in which he was assisted by the Birlaw or Boorlaw men, a sort of rural jury. The more ancient Gaelic practice was, how- ever, to refer the decision of any controversy to the oldest men of the clan, who determined according to the Clechda or traditional precedents, and their award was enforced by the chief. Several ancient terms, ex- pressive of the extent of land, are still preserved. Davach is a common denomination, and is equivalent to four ploughs.* Many farms in Scot- land retain the name, and a well known toast in Strathbogie is the forty- eight davach, alluding to the possessions of the Duke of Gordon in that district. A Carucate is a term anciently in very general use, and is expressive of as much arable land as could be managed with one plough, and the beasts belonging thereto, in a year, with pasture, houses, &c. for the persons and cattle. "f An Oxgate was a certain extent of land, recognised in the later periods of Scots' history. On the llth of March, 1585, " The lords fand that thirteen aikers sail be ane oxengate; and four oxengate of land sail be ane pound land of auld extent. "J The old extent was made about 1190, and remained in force until 1474. The only mode of ascertaining the extent of arable land seems to be from the quantity of grain sown. The usual calculation is, that a boll of seed is required to an acre, hence land is let by this allowance, and by the number of cattle that it will maintain: but this valuation is not strictly correct, for if the land be good, a less quantity is used, and if bad, more is required; it is, however, a general guide for proprietors. Ara- ble ^ land in Galloway, and most parts of the Highlands, is still reckon- ed by pence, farthings, and octos. The penny land is generally allowed to contain eight acres, consequently a farthing is two acres, and an octo is one. or a boll's sowing. In Lochaber the land is reckoned by pence, farthings, and octos, but in Bc.denoch, and I believe in Strathspey, &.C., it is reckoned in marks, eighty marks being equivalent to an octo, and ei^ht octos making a * Shaw. t Preface to Domesday Book. J Harl. MS. 4628 Arable is derived from aratus, ploughed, a Latin word of Greek extract. Ar, tr Gaelic, is Agriculture, and in old Celtic was earth. RENTS. 301 davach. On the old system, a quarter davach was reckoned a sufficient possession for a gentleman, and this quantity was generally attached to every bailie or farm town. A good grazing quarter davach will support from twenty to thirty milk cows, and a proportion of yeld cattle and horses, yielding them sufficient fodder. The mountain skirting the Strath and attached to the bailie, was fed in common by the cattle of the davach, and was divided by water or land marks from the mountain of the ne,xt valley, but the people of as many as four or five davachs some- times grazed in common, in the more distant summer sheilings or ruidhs. As many as eighty bothies might be seen on the plain of Altloy, in Drummin, in Badenoch, and the same on the plain of Killin, in Strath- Eric, a spot of itself worth a journey from London to see, about five miles above the celebrated Fall of Fyers. Rents were obviously at'first paid in kind, or by certain quantities of produce. This originating in early society, remained an unavoidable mode of payment in countries destitute of a sufficient quantity of coin to render the barter of commodities unnecessary. By the laws of Ina, in the end of the seventh century, a farm often hides or x plough lands, paid ten casks of honey, three hundred loaves, twelve casks strong ale, thirty of small ale, two oxen, ten wethers, ten geese, twenty hens, ten cheeses, one cask of butter, five salmon, one hundred eels, and twenty pounds forage.* In Scotland all sorts of domestic cattle and poultry, and the grain rais- ed on the land, or proportions of meal, under the name of customs, were commonly rendered until late years, and still form the chief amount of rent in many places. Muir fowl, salmon, loads of peats and dry wood, &c., were by no means uncommon in rentals. Tenants were also for- merly bound to indefinite servitudes or feudal duties, under the name of arriage and carriage, or services used and wont, but by the act abol- ishing ward holdings, no services, except to mills, can be exacted that are not specially mentioned in leases or terms of agreement. The cus- tomary duties were certain days' work in seed time, hay and corn har- vest, the leading or bringing home firing, &.c. These services being often useless, from the non-residence of the proprietor, and money be- coming more common, and being found a much more convenient medium of settlement, were often commuted for the legal coin. In the rental of the Bishoprick of Aberdeen, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, we see the gradual conversion of customs into money, and the improve- ment of society. As an instance, " The lands of Clovach, in the paro- chen of Kyldrymie, sett to Lumsden fibr 9. 6s. 8d. One mart, twelve kidds, four geese, 3s. 4d. for bondage and services, -37s. 4d. for grassum, and 6s. 8d. of augmentation." f The following enumeration of the different sorts of grain raised by the Celts, with accompanying observations, are perhaps more curious than important, but are not irrelevant to the subject now under consideration. * Wilkins's Leges Saxonica?, p. 25. t Harl. MS. 4613. 302 DESCRIPTIONS OF GRAIN. Corn, originally the natural production of the earth, was certainly cultivated by the Britons, before they were visited by the Roman le- gions. The Germans raised much oats. Barley, the most ancient food of mankind, had been long familiar to all the Celtne,* and in Iberia they raised two crops of it in the year. That ancient historian Herodotus says, that the Egyptians neither used wheat nor barley, which were then common in other countries."!" The wheat of the Gauls and Britons was light, and of a red color, receiving the name of brance, breic, or; brae, from its bright appearance. J It was also called by the Romans Sanda- lium, or more properly, it should seem, Scandalum, both terms being derived, according to Whitaker, from the red brogs of the Celtx. San- dalium is indeed the Latin name of a shoe, but it does not appear to have been applied to those of the Celts, and the name of the wheat is various- ly written sandalum, scandalum, scadalam, Sec. In some parts of Italy, Dalechamp observes, the word scandella is still in use. ^ This grain was peculiar to Gaul, and is celebrated by Pliny as of all others most neat and fair, yielding more bread by four pounds in every rhodius or bushel, husked and dried, than any other sort. || That called Arinca was also a native of Gaul, and made the sweetest bread. IT The siligo, or white wheat, was chiefly raised in Gallia comata, among the Averni and Se- quani; the Allobroges called it blancheen, as the modern French say Ble-blanche. In Aquitain much panicurn was grown, a sort of wheat resembling millet, which last was the chief crop among the Sarmatse.** The Thracian wheat was very good, being heavy, and ripening remarka- bly quick. || Our researches do not procure much information concern- ing the qualities of British grain in ancient times. It appears that Gwent Iscoed, a native appellation for part of Monmouthshire, was noted for abundance of wheat and honey; Dyfed, or F^embrokeshire, for bar- ley and wine, while the staple of Carnarvon was barley alone. JJ One Coll ap Coll frewi, in the sixth century, is said to have introduced the culture of wheat and barley to the Welsh, oats having been the chief grain previously grown. Gildas says the Britons when at peace raised all sorts of grain in the greatest abundance. In Scotland oats are the chief produce, and the chief food also, as all who have turned to the word in Johnson's Dictionary are aware. Great quantities of barley are likewise grown, but wheat, except in the southern and more champaign districts, is not very common. From the marks of cultivation on the acclivity of mountains, and on the summits of hills, so generally observable in Scotland and in Ireland, it has been supposed that the population must have been considerably greater formerly than it is now. These appearances are of themselves no decisive proof of this, for the high grounds were evidently cultivated * Barley bread was anciently given to the Roman sword players, who were hence called Hordearii. Pliny, xviii. t Lib. ii. c. 36. $ Whitaker. Comment, ed. 1668, iii. p. 427. || Lib. xviii. 7, 10. IT Ibid. *" Pliny. ft Ibid. ft Triad, 101. ANCIENT AGRICULTURE. 303 when the straths were obstructed by impervious woods.* The ancient farmers also preferred the security of the hill, to the risk which the haugh presented from the floods of autumn, an evil much to be dreaded in those moist climates, and they were, doubtless, careful to preserve the natural pasturage in the valleys, which no artificial means could supply on the hills. Another opinion is very prevalent. Where the marks of cultivation are found in Scotland, they are often considered the memori- als of recent periods of scarcity, and the ravages of the civil wars, by which the proprietor becoming ruined, was obliged to abandon his farm; and it is argued that, in a short period of neglect the ground will become overspread with heath. It is true that this may be the case, but it is, from the ridges which remain, sufficiently apparent that those fields are recognised, and they may have been formed in very remote ages. There are many proofs in the pages of national history that the Scots were at an early period actively engaged in agriculture; they seem to have been equally celebrated as keepers of cattle and laborers of the ground, in both which occupations they are at present surpassed by no people. The Scots of Ireland were formerly noted for their assiduity in improv- ing the land, for which they were much disliked by the less diligent natives. t On the submission of O'Neal, he solicited aid to assist him in expelling them, the manuring and fertilizing the ground appearing to be a chief cause of ofFence.J In 1269, we find it recorded as a great calamity, that a frost in Scot- land prevented ploughing from the 20th Nov. to the 2nd of February. In 1298, while the English were besieging Dirleton Castle, they were obliged to subsist on the peas and beans which they gathered in the fields, and in 1336, a feud in Lothian laid one hundred ploughs idle.|| Those facts, it must be allowed, relate to parts of the country that were not then Gaelic, but they show that agriculture was by no means neg- lected in distant ages. As the Highlanders, from their numbers of cat- tle, had it always in their power to supply themselves with corn in the Lowlands, and found it necessary to take grain in exchange for their * When the Caledonian forest was thick, its growth on the banks of rivers must have led to the formation of marshes. The plains on the sides of the Spey, which are still overflowed by the autumn floods, must have formerly been mere swamps. It is related of Michael Scot, Alexander Gordon, (Alastair Ruadh na Cairnich, probably Cairness,) and Mac Donald of Keppoch, that they had studied the black art in Italy, the end of the 15th century, and it is added that Mac Donald was the greatest profi- cient. He was accustomed to converse on the subjects with which his unhallowed learning had made him acquainted, with a female brownie called Glaslig, for whom it is believed he was more than a match. One evening he asked her the most remote circumstance she remembered, when she replied that she recollected the time when the great Spey, the nurse of salmon, was a green marsh for sheep and lambs to feed on. t At a depth of five or six feet, a good soil for vegetation, formed into ridges, is often discovered. A plough was found in a deep bog, near Donegal ; and a hedge, and some wattles, were found standing at a depth of six feet. t Derrick. W. Hemingford, i. 160. || Fordun, xv. 31. 304 MARL. flocks, it may in some measure account for the limited cultivation u "the rough bounds," for the Gael were certainly not incompetent to raise grain, as far as the sterility of the mountains, and variable nature of the climate, would permit. Donald Munro, in 1549, describes lona, Mull, and other islands of the west, as " fertil, and fruitful of come." The Highlanders have been charged with laziness and mismanage- ment of their farms, from a stubborn adherence to old and erroneous practices; and their system of management is much censured by South- ern farmers. There is, doubtless, some truth in this stigma; but when we consider the disadvantages of climate and soil, their conduct as agri- culturists may be palliated. The husbandman can have little inducement to lay much of his land under culture, with a chance of his hopes being blasted, and his labor lost, by a rigorous season. If a severe frost should kill the seed before it has arisen; if a wet summer should prevent its ripening, or an early winter should destroy the crop, the loss will be easier borne the less it is. The farmer therefore risks but a limited quantity, sowing little more than he expects to want for use. If indo- lence exist, it is surely most excusable where there is no motive for ex- ertion; and if the Highlanders mismanage their farms, few others would be found willing to undertake to make so much of them. It is believed by those best able to form a correct opinion, that it would be impossible to find any other people to inhabit the bleak mountains now possessed by the Scotish Gael.* They may have old-fashioned notions, and awk- ward implements, but it is not always the case that novelties are improve- ments, or that the present generation are in all things wiser than their fathers. Birt acknowledged that " their methods were too well suited to their own circumstances, and those of the country, to be easily amend- ed by those who undertook to deride them." Gaul, says Mela, abounds in wheat and hay, and the lands of the Germanni, we otherwise know, were excellent for bearing grain. These nations well understood the art of fertilizing the earth, and it is an une- quivocal proof of the ability of the Celtic farmers, and of their attention to agriculture, that they discovered the use of margam, or marl,f which they imparted to the Greeks and Romans. J The Hasdui and Pictones of the continent made considerable use of lime to improve their grounds,^ but margam was in universal esteem. The obvious advantages of its application created an anxiety to discover new sorts, yet, according to Pliny, the various kinds were resolvable into two, as had been the case from the first, namely, the white fat marl, and the heavy, reddish color- ed rough sort, which was called capimarga, or accaunamarga. Both kinds would retain their strength in the ground for fifty years. || The Britons possessed a superior knowledge of the various marls and their properties. Their chalky sort was the best, which retained its * Rose of Aitnach, Agricultural View of Sutherland. t Marg, margu, marrow. Whitaker. J Pliny, xv'il. 6. Pliny, xvii. 8. |] Ibid. 7. MANURE. 305 strength for eighty years, so that no man was ever known to marl his ground twice during his life.* That which the Greeks called Glischro- inargen, resembling Fuller's earth, was used for grass land, and kept its vigor thirty years: the sort called Columbine, the Gauls termed Egle- copalarn. The use of marl appears to have been forgotten for a long time in the south of Britain: one of the Lords Berkeley is said to have been the first who revived it."}" The people beyond the Po preferred ashes to other manure, raising fires for the purpose of producing it; but it was not used for all crops, and was never mixed with any thing else.J The Ubians, a German nation, dug their lands three feet deep, a mode practised by no other people, and not equal to the application of marl, for the ground required to be broken up again in ten years. Limestone is much used, but sea weed is the common manure in the isles and along the coast of the Highlands. The very objectionable mode of digging up the surface soil of the upper grounds, to mix with animal dung as a manure for the valleys, is visible in many places. The High- landers convert their houses into good manure. As they are chiefly formed of turf, or foid, such frail tenements are only inhabited for a short number of years, and, when they are taken down, the materials, impregnated with smoke and soot, become a very useful compost. The method by which the inhabitants of St. Kilda prepare their annual man- ure, is singular, and apparently confined to that remote island. It is composed of the ashes of their fires, the dung of their cattle, &c. which accumulate on the floors of their houses during their long and dreary winter. The ancient method of conveying manure to the ground, general throughout Scotland, but now confined to the Highlands, was simple and expeditious. Two semi-circular creels, or baskets, one and a half or two feet long, formed of strong wattle work, were suspended on each side, of the horse, by means of ropes made of the pliant twigs of the birch or willow, and affixed to the clubbar, or saddle, which rests on the fleat, or summac, a sort of mat composed in general of straw and rushes interwoven. The bottom of the creels are attached to the side nearest the horse by twig hinges, so that it can be opened and closed, being fastened when full, by means of sticks which are slipped into nooses at either end of the basket. When the contents are to be discharged, the sticks of both baskets are simultaneously withdrawn, and the manure lulls to the ground, but to do this properly requires peculiar address, for, should one side be discharged before the other, the apparatus is in- stantly overturned, to the great merriment of the other laborers. This method, apparently so awkward, is yet efficient, and is performed with celerity. Six loads of the Highland ponies are equal to a cart load, and the. manure is more equally spread, and in much less time, than by carting * Pliny, xvii. 7. t Berkeley MS. t Pliny, xvii. Ibid. 8 39 306 SYSTEMS OF AGRICULTURE. The particular systems of agriculture, pursued by the ancient Celts and modern Gael, are not very remarkable. They varied a little, ac- cording to the nature of the ground and other circumstances, the art being pursued with simplicity, but with considerable success. The Ubi- ans, we have seen, dug their land three feet deep, which was more than could be done by the plough; but we do not know how they disposed of the stones, where numerous, in clearing their fields. They may have accumulated them in certain places, as was the practice in Scotland, where the Draonaich collected them in numerous small heaps, leaving the intermediate spaces clear for cultivation. This is observable around all the sites of their dwellings, and differs from the later practice, which appears to have been occasioned by the operation of ploughing, the stones being thrown on each side, forming alternate ridges, with the clear land, and denominated rigs and baulks. The Welsh, Cambrensis informs us, used not to till during the year round, as in other places, but in March and April, once for oats, and in summer twice. For wheat, they only dug up the land once in winter. The Irish were formerly censured for their ill management, in having hay and corn harvest at the same time.* The unfavorable climate and sterility of the land are heavy disadvantages to the Highland agriculturist. From the mountainous nature of the count- ry, he is obliged, in many parts, carefully to turn all the earth into one part, forming thereby an artificial bed, while the hollow on each side serves to carry off the water, which otherwise would wash down the scanty soil. The ridges are called in the Low country lazy beds, a name not very applicable, considering the labor necessary to raise and preserve them on the acclivity of steep hills. In such situations, no other plan of cultivation could possibly be adopted; the name, however, is often appropriate, when such beds are formed where the uniform depth of soil obviates any necessity for them. These spots of cultivation, scattered over a rugged hill, have a singular appearance. The Highlander might certainly improve his methods of cultivation, for in many things he is deficient. The ground cannot be very clean when it is tilled in the spring only, nor can it be very productive when not subjected to proper rotation of crops; but in objecting to the Celtic practices, it is right to bear in mind that in parts of the island, where natural obstacles did not check improvement, agriculture remained long in a state of great rudeness. Even in England, the farmers continued extremely ignorant, and, consequently, unsuccessful. In the reigns of Edward I. and II. they set beans by hand, and leazed the seed wheat from the ear itself, and in the time of Richard, they had not adopted the simple and efficient mode of improving pasture by penning the sheep progressively over the field, but gave themselves the trouble of carrying the dung in small quantities from a distant fold. The harvest of the ancient Britons was by no means late. Caesar, * Riche. SUPERSTITIONS. AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 307 according to the calculation of Halley, arrived on the 26th of August, and the crop was almost all cut down, only one field, that had been later than usual, being observed standing. In the Highlands, where the climate is so disadvantageous, it seems unaccountable that the inhabi- tants should be partial to late sowing; they indeed give a reason, which may be allowed its weight, without however proving the system of management to be good: if the seed was put earlier in the ground, the Highland farmer alleges it would be smothered with weeds. That the Highlanders retain several old and ridiculous superstitions respecting their agricultural operations, cannot be matter of surprise, when their more refined neighbors in the Low country, and the inhab- itants of England, have not relinquished equally absurd and unmeaning observances. In the most flourishing ages of Greece and Rome, the farmers were incredibly superstitious regarding the seasons, the influence of planets, the winds, &c. The Highlanders think the moon ripens their corn as much as the sun does. This, like most popular beliefs, is founded on experience, although the effect is erroneously deduced. In clear and settled weather, when the moon is unclouded by night, as the sun is by day, the crop must obviously ripen well. A superstition, lately very prevalent, seems to have originated in the times of paganism. It was the custom throughout Scotland to leave a portion of land untilled, which was called, " the good man's croft," or " the old man's fold," a practice which the Elders' of the Kirk, in 1594, exerted their utmost influence to abolish,* without effect. This hallowed spot is believed to have been the place where the Druids invoked the divine blessing on the corn and cattle of the owner,t or where he himself sacrificed for an abundant crop. In noticing the various implements used by the Celtic agriculturist, it will be seen that he possessed many ingenious articles that are gener- ally supposed the invention of later ages. The PLOUGH was used by the Gauls in their agricultural operations, and was called Planarat, Plum- arat, or more probably, as commentators have observed, Pflugradt.J The Celtic plough was very ingeniously constructed, for it was provided with two small wheels, and the shares were large and broad, turning up large turfs and casting a good furrow.^ The practice was to make but two or three bouts and as many ridges, and one yoke of oxen were able to prepare forty acres of good land.Sj This seems to resemble the alternate ridges, which the old Scots formed, by their manner of plough- ing, which received the descriptive appellation or rigs and baulks. The plough was very early in use among the Britons, if we could trust the relation of Geoffry of Monmouth, who says, Dunwallo, a prince who flourished 500 years before Christ, was a great encourager of agriculture, which he seems to have considered as an occupation connected with religion. A law assigned to him, enjoins the ploughs of husbandmen, * Arnott's History of Edinburgh. t Rev. Mr. Johnstone, of Monlquhiter. | Pliny, xviii. 18. ed. Lugd. 1668. Ibid. 308 AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. and the temples of the gods to be sanctuaries. Eltud, or Iltuttis, im- proved agriculture, and taught the art of ploughing, until which time the land was dug with the spade and pickaxe in the Irish manner,* and no man was allowed to use a plough who could not make one. The ropes, or harness, were to be made of twisted willows; and it was not unusual for six or eight individuals to associate for the purpose of supplying themselves with this implement, and for their regulation many curious laws were enacted. | The old Irish plough was drawn by five or six horses yoked abreast, and five men were required to conduct the opera- tion. J In the beginning of the seventeenth century, ten shillings annually were exacted for permitting the use of their "short ploughs," which were drawn by the horse's rump, a practice not altogether unknown among the Highlanders, among whom it was common to break a colt by tying a harrow to his tail. The Irish were so fond of this barbarous custom, that they petitioned the Deputy to be allowed to continue it without being taxed; but they were answered that the law was not so severe as in 1606, when a garron was the penalty for the first year's use of one plough in that manner, and for the second year two; and as the practice occasioned the loss of so many horses, it was necessary to abolish it. The Irish are described by Spenser as Ct great plowers, and small spenders of corne." In many places of Gaelic Scotland, a small plough, called a ristle, is used, and employed to precede the larger sort. Its chief peculiarity is the culter, shaped like a sickle, to cut along the turf. In these parts deep ploughing is avoided, on account of the high winds to which they are subject, and which sometimes blow both seed and soil away. The old Thraple plough is now seldom to be seen, except in the remote Highlands, or in the Orkneys. In Argyleshire, it continued to be used on some farms about twenty years ago, but was fast giving way to the more improved manufacture. In some places it was called the Rotheram plough, and was rude and simple in its construction, and awkward in its management. It was entirely composed of wood, with the exception of the culter and sock, and had but one stilt. It was drawn by four garrons or oxen, yoked abreast to a cross bar; which was fastened to the beam by thongs of raw hide or ropes of hair; and he who managed the stilt, held it close and firm to his right thigh, to protect which he had a sheep or other animal's skin wrapped around it. To keep the plough sufficiently deep in the earth, a person was required to press it down, while another performed the office of driver by placing himself between the two central animals, where he walked backwards, |j protect- ing himself from falling by placing both arms over their necks. The mould-board was ribbed or furrowed, in order to break the land, and old people declare that the soil yielded better crops after being ploughed in * Triad, 56. i Leges Wallicaj. } Riche. Des. cur. Hib. Ulster paid 870 of this tax. || Gir, Camb. describes the Welsh ploughman, likewise, as walking backwards. CASCROM. CASDIREACH 309 this manner than it does by the modern practice. The supposition is, that by the old method the soil was more equally broken up. That excellent instrument the CASCROM, literally crooked foot, a kind of foot plough, which the Highlanders can manage with great dexterity, and which is too little known,* is still used in mountainous districts, and, from its excellent adaptation to the culture of rugged and steep hills, where a plough cannot be used, is not likely ever to be superseded by any im- provement. With the same labor it will perform nearly double the work of a spade. It consists of a strong piece of wood, five to seven feet in length, bent between one and two feet from the lower end, which is shod with iron fixed to the wood by means of a socket. The iron part is five or six inches long, and about five inches broad. At the angle, a piece of wood projects about eight inches from the right side, and on this the foot is placed, by which the instrument is forced diagonally into the ground and pushed along, as may be seen from the vignette. By a jerk from the shaft, which acts as a powerful lever, eight or ten inches in breadth of the soil is raised from a depth of eight to twelve inches, according to circumstances, and dexterously thrown to the left side. Eight, 'ten, or a dozen of men are sometimes employed working with the cascrom. They arrange themselves in a line at the bottom of the hill, with their backs to the acclivity, and with surprising rapidity turn over the rough and scanty soil, forming, in their operations, an extended cut or trench, like a plough-furrow. This is repeated as they gradually ascend the hill backwards, and the land so labored is very productive. One active man can turn more in a day with this instrument than four men with common spades. Munro describes Tarnsay and other islands, in 1549, as " weil inhabit and mariurit; bot all this fertill is delved with spaides, excepting sa meikell as ane horse-plough will teil, and zet they have maist abundance of beir and meikell of corne." The Casdireach, or spade with a straight handle, is also in consider- able use. The Manx have an implement similar to this, furnished with an iron spur for placing the foot upon; it is about four inches wide at the end, and well adapted for rough and stony ground. Serviceable spades are formed, in the North, of fir-wood shovels, imported from Norway in exchange for meal, and afterwards shod with iron. The spade used for casting or cutting turf for building or covering houses, &,c. called also the divot, and the flaugter spade, is a sort of breast plough, used by a person who presses his body with all his strength against it, forcing it before him, and nicely cutting off the grassy or short heathy surface of the ground. The laborer protects his thighs by a sheep's skin, or several folds of plaid, hung like an apron before him, and will cut nearly 1000 turfs per day. It may be noticed that in the LOAV country, the Highlanders are esteemed the best laborers at trenching or other hard agricultural work. The Gaulish method was to sow immedi- * Sir. John Sinclair. 310 MODE OF REAPING. ately after the plough, and cover the seed by means of harrows, aftei which the land required no more weeding. These harrows were fur- nished with iron teeth. In the Isle of Lewis there was formerly, if it does not still exist, a peculiar sort of harrow. It was small, and provided with wooden teeth in the first and second bars, to break the soil; in the third was fastened heath to smooth it, and a man dragged it along by means of a strong hair rope across his breast. Iron teeth are seldom used in the Highlands, because they bury the seed too deep in the earth, which wooden ones, from their lightness, do not. While the Romans reaped their corn with a sickle, the Gauls, whose fields were remarkably large, went to work in a more expeditious manner, and cut down their crops by means of a scythe, used by both hands, an implement for which we thus seem to be indebted to these people, who appear to have been more anxious to finish their labors as quickly as possible than desirous of executing their work nicely, for they did not cut close, but rather mowed down the tops.* They had also another ingenious method of cutting down their largest fields, which shows not a little perfection in the mechanical arts. A large machine, resembling a van, was constructed, in which the horse was yoked so as to push it before him. The sides were furnished with sharp teeth or knives, and this carriage being driven into the field, the ears of corn were cut off, and, at the same time, were thrown into the body of the car, which was made to receive them!"]" Giraldus says the Welsh reaped with an instrument like the blade of a knife, and a wooden handle at each end. In the Scillies, the corn is reaped with sickles, but it is all laid down regularly as it would be by a scythe. J The Britons were as regardless of the straw as the Gauls, reaping their corn by cutting off the ears only. The harvest work in the Highlands is performed in a very creditable manner. The women are the chief reapers, and, in the words of Mr. Marshall, who drew up the Agricultural Report of the central Highlands, they cut it "low, level, and clean, to a degree I have never before observed." Lint also, which is said to be a late introduction to the Highlands, is allowed to be a well-managed crop. It is carefully weed- ed by the women on their hands and knees. In so variable and unpropitious a climate as that of the north of Scotland, much care was required in guarding the crop from injury when growing, and after it was reaped. In Sutherland and Caithness, the Highlanders had observ- ed that if the hoar frost remained on the corn when the sunbeams of the morning first struck upon the crop, it became blighted; they were theiefore accustomed to go to their fields before the sun arose, and with a rope made of heath, held by a person at each end, and pulled along the top of the corn, the frost was shaken off. The usual method of oiling the corn in shocks, consisting of twelve sheaves, prevails in the * Pliuy, xviii 28. t Pliny, c. 30. | Troutbeck. GRANARIES. 311 Highlands, but in some of the Northern counties it was preserved in small round heaps resembling beehives, which were well thatched all round, and denominated bykes.* The sheaves are also, in many parts, set up singly. It is usual to have the upper parts of the gables of barns formed of wattle work, so constructed as to throw off the rain and admit a thorough draft of air, a most judicious plan in a climate so wet. It would have been much to the advantage of the husbandmen of former years, in more favored parts of the country, to have had similar buildings, for want of which they were obliged to keep the corn on the ground as long as they possibly could. In 1358, an inundation in Lothian swept away the sheaves that were laid out to dry at Christmas eve! f It is to dry hay and corn that the spacious and elegant barns of the Duke of Argyle were erected in Glenshira. The Britons laid up the corn in the ear, and preserved it in subterra- neous caves or granaries, J a practice also of the Celtiberians. They deposited it in pits from which the damp and air was carefully excluded, and in these receptacles wheat so preserved remained fresh and good for fifty years, and millet for even more than 100.^ The Thracians stored up their grain in similar vaults, and in the ear also, which Pliny recom- mends as the best method of preserving it. Throughout Scotland, but especially in Highland districts, are found subterraneous buildings of rude but substantial formation. These are the eird or earth-houses before noticed, built of loose stones, and cover- ed with large flags, which may have often served as the hiding-places of the natives, but were, in most cases, there is every reason to believe, the places where the grain of the inhabitants was deposited for security. The remarkable number of earth-houses at Kildrummy has been refer- red to. All these subterraneous apartments are accompanied by a sort of square inclosure or space, level, and somewhat lower than the sur- rounding ground, and by noticing these places, one is often able to dis- cover the caves; which, from examination, were evidently the storehouses of the ancient inhabitants. Many of the inclosures have been cleared out, and numbers of hand mill-stories have been invariably found. That these recesses were designed chiefly for the deposition of grain, we may safely conclude from the known practice of the Celtic tribes, who were accustomed to take from their stores a requisite quantity of grain daily, spending their time in the woods hunting, or in warfare. The muirs of Achindoer and Kildrurnmie were eligible positions for the granaries of surrounding tribes, being warm and champaign, inclosed by lofty ridges of hill, and, as it were, just within the mountains. They were not less favorably situated for cultivation; and to this day " Kil- drumrnie oats" are esteemed before others in the Northern counties. To these plains the natives resorted for their daily supplies of corn, which they always ground for immediate use. * Pen. i. 202. t Fordun. xv. 21. + Diod. v. Varro. 312 THRASHING. WINNOWING. Those remarkable hollows on the borders of Wilt and Somerset shires, qalled Pen pits, are most singular remains of former ages. A space comprising more than 700 acres has been excavated into pits, in shape like an inverted cone; and various conjectures have been formed as to the purpose for which so numerous and close an assemblage was intend- ed. As hand mill-stones have been found, I believe, in all that have been examined, and as the situation is so dry that no water has ever been known to stagnate in them, it appears probable that Pen pits were the store-houses of the aboriginal tribes who lived in that part of the country, and who in this place had their common granaries, whence they supplied themselves as occasion might require. The most early method of separating the grain from the straw was by means of cattle, who, by repeatedly treading, effected the object. This was the mode in practice among the Jews in most ancient times, and the Romans either trampled their corn in the same manner, or pressed it with the tribula, a sort of dray made of rough board. The Gauls and Britons, however, used a Flail,* which performed the work much better, and in much less time. This implement was introduced in Italy about fifty years before Christ, but the Roman husbandmen, notwithstanding the encouragement given to agriculture, were inferior to the Gauls, for they continued to use their oxen in treading out their grain, to whose assistance a roller, or heavy stone was added, j~ being the only improve- ment made on the old plan, and the awkward practice is retained to the present day.J The inhabitants of Scotland continue to use the flail, where thrashing mills have not been erected, and where mills or farm houses are not provided with winnowing machines, the chaff is separated from the grain by sifting it in the open air, when the weather permits, or between the opposite doors of a barn, the draft of air carrying aside the lighter parti- cles. Some of these buildings are constructed of an angular form, in order to catch the wind blowing from any point. The Waight, guil, an implement for winnowing, is a sheep-skin, the wool being removed, of about on foot and a half in diameter, stretched on a hoop, like that on a drum head. In these the corn is exposed to the wind, and the chaff blown away, a light work, which the Highlanders commit to the women. The most obvious, and consequently the first practised, method of reducing grain to flour, for the composition of bread, is by simple pound- ing. The Gauls had early arrived at the art of grinding their corn by a hand mill, which was also used by the Britons before they were visited by the Romans. This people, otherwise so greatly advanced in civ- ilisation and refinement, had not altogether discontinued the practice of bruising and pounding their grain, even in the time of Vespasian The hand mill is of great antiquity, as appears from many passages n the Scriptures. Pausanias ascribes its invention to Myleta, the son of * Whitaker. t Colum. ii. 22. t Blunt's Vestiges of Ancient Manners, p. 209. Pliny. GRADDANING. CORN MILL. THIRLAGE. 313 JLelex. That of the British tribes was called Quern, and in Scotland, where its use is still by no means rare, it retains the same name.* Grind- ing by the hand stone appears very awkward to those who are accustomed to good machinery, for it takes two women four hours to grind a bushel, and it is to this work which Barnaby Riche alludes, when he says that the women in the North of Ireland ground their corn " unhandsomely." The manner of preparing the grain for the quern was called Graddaning, a term which comes from grad, quick; but Jamieson derives it from the .Norse word gratti, descriptive of the grit stone, of which the quern was made, whence are the Danish gryte, to grind; the English grits, German grout, Swedish groet, and Scots grots and crovvdy. The process was thus conducted. A woman sitting down takes a handful of corn, which she holds by the stalks in her left hand. She then sets fire to the ears, and being provided with a stick in her right hand, she dexterously beats off the grain at the very instant when the husk is quite burnt, neither allow- ing the grain to be injured, nor striking before it is ready to fall. This practice is chiefly confined to the Western Islands and most remote districts of the main land. The usual method, in Badenoch and else- where, is this: the corn is switched out of the ear with a stick, fanned or separated from the chaff, and put in a Scots pot stuck in the fire, while a person keeps turning it with a wooden spatula, called speilag, in the same manner as coffee is roasted in some places. This manner of preparation is called araradh, often improperly written Eirench. " I have seen," says a gentleman from Laggan, " the corn cut, dried ground, baked, and eaten in less than two hours." A laborer returning from his day's work carried home as much corn in the sheaf as he re- quired for his supper and next day's provision. The water mill -is believed to be an invention of the Romans, and communicated by them to the Britons; we, however, read that Coel, grandson of Caradoc ap Bran, first made " a mill, wheel with wheel." The Gael of Albion were earlier acquainted with the nature of mill ma- chinery than those of Erin, for about the year 220 Cormac Mac Art, King of Ireland, sent notice to carpenters from Albin to make for him a mill. | The horizontal mill, in Shetland called a tirl, and used in some parts of the Highlands, is a very simple piece of machinery. There was usually a mill on each barony, and the Laird, to secure the multure or miller's fee, was solicitous to break the querns. The miller on every Lairdship had usually a croft for his support, besides the legal multures and sequels, i. e. the perquisites of the miller and his man. In Scots' law, thirlage is the servitude by which lands are astricted to a particular mill, being bound to have their corn ground there on certain terms. The district or lands thus bound are termed the sucken, and the payments are the multure or quantity of grain or meal exacted by the heritor or his tacksman, and the sequels or those quantities given to the servants under the names of knaveship, bannock, and lock, or gowpen. * The quern is still used in the Scillies t Keating. 40 314 MODES OF CARRIAGE. In the Highlands the thirle is called siucam, and the multures are term i ed cis. The tenant paid a certain measure out of every boil to the chief, , half that measure to the miller, and a quarter to the gille-mullin, or miller's man. The Gauls refined or sifted the flour by sieves of horse hair, which were their own invention, and the (Jeltiberians improved on the discove- ry, by making two sorts, both formed of fine linen.* The British tribes were sufficiently skilful to construct cars of superior workmanship for war, and had evidently machines for the purposes of traffic!, but it does not appear how far they made use of those conveyan- ces in their agricultural operations. In Caledonia, the mountainous nature of the cou itry almost precluded the use of wheel carriages. All work which cou'd not be performed by manual labor was executed by horses^ for which the farmer was obliged to keep considerably more than appeared to Lowland farmers compatible with good management. For this they are still condemned, but it is an overstocking which is unavoida- ble. In 1778. on a Highland farm, where one hundred and ten bolls of oats, and thirty-six of bear, were sown, there was not a wheel carriage of any description. f A wagon, or vehicle where the thill horse does not bear the weight, is well adapted for the Highlands, where it seems unknown. The old cart, the use of which is not yet entirely discontinued, was formed wholly of wood. The wheels were of ash or other hard wood, two feet and a half in diameter, and three inches in thickness, and were fixed to the axle, which moved with them, and the traces were fastened to a hoop of birch wood around the axle. Between the trarns or thills a conical basket was placed, into which the fuel or manure was put, and, to unload the carriage, the driver had a method of oversetting and replacing it with great facility. The Irish car appears to be similar to this machine. In the Isle of Man, a sort of sledges are used, composed of two shafts, widening towards the end, but connected by five or six cross bars, and dragged along the ground. Oxen, it has been stated by a respectable author, are not worked in any part of the Highlands. The Welsh, by their ancient laws, were prohibited from using any other animal for the plough. A usual mode of conveyance is by the crubban, a trian- gular machine formed of rods, and suspended across the horse's back on each side. It is well adapted for carrying peats, corn in sacks, hay, &.c. A sort of stout creels, of a similar construction, are called Rechailich, and a tradition exists that the stones of which the bridge of Dee, near Aberdeen, was built, about 1522, were conveyed by these means. A sort of saddle, called a Clubbar, formed of wood, has a deep notch in the top, for the purpose of holding a rope of straw, rushes, or heath, to which are fastened, on each side the horse, a basket or bag, made of straw, rushes, or floss, a sort of reed, and woven like a mat. They p. re of an oval shape, about three feet wide at bottom, and two and a half at tp, being about one foot eight inches deep, and capable of * Pliny, xviii. 11. t Trans, of Highland Soc. i. 132. STATE OF HIGHLAND TENANTRY. 315 -ontaining half a boll of oats. They are called cazzies, or ceises, and are furnished with a handle or fettle at each end, by which they can be carried, and have two straw or other ropes to tie the mouth, when full. These simple and convenient articles are generally made during the winter nights; they will last two years, and their value in the Northern counties is perhaps fourpence or sixpence; but in Badenoch, where they were chiefly employed in carrying cheese and butter from the sheelings, they cost more. Highland garrons with these will travel through the most rugged paths, each fastened to the tail of the other, however many there may be, attended by one driver, and, when unloaded, the halter of the foremost is tied to the tail of the last, so that it is impossible for *hem to stray, as they can only move in a circle. This mode of fasten- ing by the tail is thought an excellent method of breaking horses. To conclude this chapter, it may be observed, that the state of the old Highland tenantry was far from being slavish or uncomfortable. Strangers seldom took farms, or indeed had the opportunity, for few were ever removed from their ancient possessions, to which they thought they had a sort of prescriptive right. The farm tenants of modern times have generally a cow on the common pasture, and one, or one and a half acres of land for vegetables, with the privilege of cutting grass on the bogs, for which they pay a rent of five or six pounds. The freedom of a pastoral and agricultural life is highly favorable to a military spirit, and it did not escape the observation of the ancients, that their best troops were raised in the country. The children born of husbandmen, says Cato, are the most valiant and hardy soldiers, and the most intrepid.* The late war e ced, in the case of the Highlanders, the truth of his remark * Pliny, xviii. 5. CHAPTER IX. OF THE FOOD OF THE CELTS, THEIR COOKERY, LIQUORS, MED ICINAL KNOWLEDGE, HEALTH, AND LONGEVITY. THERE was no scarcity of food amongst, the Celtae, when they came jnder the observation of the more polished nations of Europe, and their good living must have materially assisted in producing the strong limbs and large stature for which they were so remarkable. The vegetable Kingdom, unimproved by horticultural skill, and the wild herds of the ibrest, afford the means of subsistence to mankind in the first stage of civilisation; but the nations of the west were not confined to these pre- carious supplies, having long before the commencement of our era, as may already appear, pastured numerous flocks of cattle, and cultivated, with success, extensive fields of corn. To this general observation the state of some of the remote and barbarous tribes will indeed be an ex- ception. Strangers to the advantages of climate and intercourse with more refined nations, they continued in primitive rudeness, unaffected by commerce, and contented with their savage enjoyments; but the Gauls were far removed from that state in which human beings are under the necessity of appropriating the coarse fruits of the forest trees, or the wild herbs and roots of the field, for their chief subsistence. They were, as has been shown, supplied with abundance of venison from their well- stocked forests, and other meat from their tame herds, and the plenty which filled the land was evinced by their well-supplied tables and con- tinued feasting, which were the theme of even Roman commendation The Aquitani were famed for their sumptuous and frequent entertain- ments,* and the Celtiberi were noted for being particularly nice and curious in their diet."f Before manners have been changed by civilisation, or mankind has emerged from a state of nature, the savage beings subsist on the coarse and undressed articles of food which they may be able to procure. The roots of the field, and the produce of the forest trees, supply a Marcellinus. t Pliny. INDIFFERENCE TO FOOD. 317 ready, though precarious, means of sustenance, and, consistent with the plan hitherto pursued, it will be inquired how far the ancient Cells depended on the wild productions of nature, or had supplied themselves with vegetables and fruit, improved by horticultural industry. Tne Germans, according to Tacitus and Appian, lived chiefly on raw herbs and wild fruit, and some of the Britons, also, were accustomed to satisfy the cravings of hunger with the same unsavory aliment ; but this must have been in cases of necessity, and among the most barbarous of the tribes, for they certainly had, in general, ample supplies of other food. It is, besides, found that nations will continue the use of the hard fare which satisfied their fathers, when it is in their power to procure better provisions, as the Arcadians, who continued to eat acorns to the time that the Lacedemonians warred with them ;* and the Celtiberi, who used, throughout all the country, to serve up roasted mast as a second course,! notwithstanding they had all sorts of flesh in plenty, and were not obliged to use this plain diet.J The Celts, although, as shall be shown, they by no means disregarded good living, seem to have considered temperance a virtue, being moderate, as Diodorus and Tacitus express themselves, in eating, banishing hunger by plain fare without curious dressing. This race have ever been noted for their contempt of delicacies, or aversion to epicurianism, and their ability to bear the privations of hunger and fatigue. It has been found that the Highlanders are, when surrounded with plenty, more sparing in their diet than others ; and it is a fact,, that they will continue a whole day at laborious field work, contenting themselves with only two meals of water brose, or a simple mixture of oatmeal and water. They will eat, says Mrs. Grant, with a keen appetite and sufficient discrimination ; but were they to stop in any pursuit because it was meal time, growl over a bad dinner, or exult over a good one, the manly dignity of their charac- ter would be considered as fallen forever. I have seen a piper from "the head of the Highlands," at a sumptuous dinner on St. Andrew's day, select, from the various choice dishes around him, plain boiled sheep's trotters in preference to any thing else! The ancient Celts held corpulence in so much abhorrence, that the young men had a girdle to determine their size, and if they were found to exceed its dimensions, they were subjected to a fine. A fat paunch has always been reckoned a great misfortune in the Highlands. Health may be preserved with a much less quantity of food than is generally supposed ; for repletion is more inimical to the system than a scanty meal. Martin justly observed, that if among the Highlanders there were no corpulent persons, none bore the appearance of starvation. The remark is still applicable ; and although, from their hard living and frequent exposure to the severity of the weather, the appearance of old age is seen at a more early period of life than is the case with laborers in more favored climes, yet they live equally long, if not longer, enjoy * PausaniaSj vii. i. t Pliny, xvi. J Diodorns. 318 VEGETABLES. as good health, and perform as much work, and often of a great dea harder nature.* The Caledonians, we learn from Dio, were obliged, when in the woods, to live on the fruits of the trees, and even on the leaves and roots of wild herbs; but game, the chief subsistence of an uncivilized people, formed their principal food, to which the vegetable kingdom afforded an estimable accession. In the woods and valleys were found the natural productions, which diversified the simple meals of the Celtic nations, and the herbs and esculents which nature had spread before them, they were long satisfied to gather from the open fields, before they thought of culti- vating them around their dwellings. The Britons, in distant ages, paid some attention to this useful pursuit, yet many, in Strabo's time,"!" were totally ignorant of horticulture. The vegetable garden of the ancient Celt, we may believe, was but scantily stored; the natural meadows in the vicinity of his humble dwelling, and the mountain wilds, afforded him a sufficient and not uninviting supply. In summer, the Gael could vary his repasts by many sweet and wholesome productions of his native land; he could gather subhans^ in the glen and avrons^ on the height; in the woods he could find various fruits and nutricious herbs on the muirs he could pick the delicious blackberry, the aromatic aitnach, the lus- cious blaeberry, arid many others. A people occupied in pasturage could not fail to become acquainted with the value of different vegetables, either as human food, or suste- nance for their herds. Turnips were served up at table in Gaul, and were given to the cattle in winter, a part of rural economy which we thus see is far from being an improvement of modern times. || A sort of wild carrot was known in almost every country. The kind called Dau- cus grew spontaneously in the woods of Gaul and Britain, and was known in Italy as the Gallic. Leeks, of which the Welsh are reputed to be so fond, were plentiful in the Principality in the fifth century. The old Irish made great use of watercresses, sorrel, and scurvy grass; and even shamrock is said to have been eaten by them. The poor of that country were often obliged to make such articles a chief part of their food. In 1673, they are represented as " feeding much on watercresses, parsneps, potatoes, and sea weed," and Sir William Petty describes them as using potatoes from August to May, a pennyworth of cakes serving an individual a week; to which, eggs and rancid butter were added by some; others, it is said, used a preparation of curdled milk and norse's blood, and those who lived near the sea gathered mussels, cock- 'es, and oysters, but flesh meat was seldom seen among the lower order. *The alleged abstinence of some ancient nations is almost incredible. Pliny tells us the Sauromatse took but one meal in three days ! Lib. vii. 2. t Lib. iv. p. 200. t Strawberries, used in the Low Countries of Mar and Banff for raspberries. Otherwise oighreag, the cloudberry, rubus chamoemorus. II Columella, ii. 10, p. 198, edit. 1595 H Dio. VEGETABLES. DAIRY 310 The ancient Gael had a certain vegetable, of which, about the si/.e of a bean enabled them to resist, for some time, the effects of a want of eithei meat or drink. The Highlanders, at this day, occasionally use an irticle that was in much esteem with their ancestors, and which, if not the above, seems to possess similar qualities. The root braonan, which grows abundantly in the country, is delicious, and very nutritious when boiled. It is dug from November to April, and, when dried and ground, it makes good bread. Many, also, chew it like tobacco, and allege that it allays the sensation of hunger. Pennant confounds this with the cor-mheille, or blue button, the root of which is only used as a tonic. The Scythians, according to Pliny, who, it must be confessed, was credulous, had two herbs which can hardly be classed among those used for food, although they appear to have answered as most valuable sub- stitutes. One received its name from the people among whom it was found, or who discovered its properties, being called Scythica; the other was called Hyppici, and by keeping either in the mouth, the want of meat or drink was not felt for a considerable time.* A knowledge of these excellent articles would be of inestimable value to hungry wights in the civilized society of the present day. Shunis, or Scots' parsley, is much valued by the Highlanders, who use it both as food and medicine. The vegetables which they usually cultivated were cabbages, onions, carrots, beans, and peas. The kale yard, or garden for the vegetable, Cole, was formerly an important adjunct to a cottage in the Lowlands, but since the introduction of potatoes it is in less esteem. The Highlanders, about one hundred years ago, had in general an aversion to the productions of the kitchen garden. The Grants appear to have been the first among the clans who cultivated the above-noticed vegetable, and they are, at this day, often alluded to as ' : the soft kale-eating Grants." The old Highlanders were chiefly carnivorous and lactophagious, and even yet they are indif- ferent to the use of vegetables. The kale and cabbage which they require for planting, are purchased in the Low Country. Kale seems derived from the Latin, Caulis, a stalk or stem, but the original plant does not appear to be well-known. The Celtae paid great attention to the management of the dairy, the produce of which is necessarily a principal part of the subsistence of a pastoral people, and they were able to make butter, the nature of which was unknown to the Romans."!" Pliny describes the churn as " longa vasa angusto foramine," but although a handle is not mentioned, the cream is said to have been shaken. J The name buyd ur, chief or excellent food, is believed to have arisen from its being confined to the use of the chiefs. The better sort, who were thus distinguished from the poor, had so much that they sold of it,|| and it is probable that the * Pliny, xxv. 8. t Pliny, xxvii. J Ibid. Whitaker. || Dalechamp. Comment, on Pliny, xxviii. 9. 320 BUTTER. CHEESE. nobles received butter of their followers as a perquisite. In Gaelic it is called Im. The Irish are described as very " unmannerly in making their butter," and the process is certainly not likely to have been inviting when they thought it extremely unlucky ever to wash their milk vessels,* and by a practice of hiding it in the bogs it was usually rancid. It would be unfair, however, to let it appear that the Irish alone were addicted to this filthy and superstitious practice, for in some parts of Scotland, I have been informed, the same prejudice exists, or did exist, which is humorously noticed in the " Cottagers of Glenburnie," " Do you not clean the churn before you put in the cream ?" asked Mrs. Mason " Na, na," returned Mrs. Mac Clarty, "that wadna be canny ye ken. Nasbody hereabouts wad clean their kirn for ony consideration. 1 never heard o sic a thing in a my life." In some parts of the High- lands the gudewife takes the following method to procure fresh butter in winter. Salt butter being mixed with sweet milk, in the proportion of one pound to the chopin, or quart, of milk, is put through the same process as cream undergoes in a small churn: the butter, consequently, becomes sweet, and the milk turns salt. This is sometimes practised by the Irish also. The Gauls made excellent cheeses : they were highly aromatic, and Pliny extols them as medicinal. The best of those at Rome were pro- cured from Nismes, and two villages in the Gevaudan. They were excellent for present use, but were not made to be kept long. Pliny expresses his surprise that some nations, who thickened their milk into a pleasant curd and rich butter, should not make cheese ; f an igno- rance with which some of the Britons are charged by Strabo.^ Cais is the proper Gaelic name of cheese cabog, the Scots kebbuck, seems to denote the shape. The process of making cheese in the Highlands has been before alluded to. There is one sort, of which some people are very fond, called cais tennal, or gathered curd, which is thus made : the whey being pressed from the curd, it is put, without any salt, into a damp and dark place, where it is allowed to remain for fourteen or twenty days, when it is broken down, mixed with salt in the usual pro- portion, and put into the cheese press, becoming ripe for use in six or eight months. It is generally made of sweet milk, but cream is some- times added when the salt is mixed with it. Cheese of goat and ewe milk is only used by the poorer people ; the former yields scarce any cream, the latter makes tolerable cheese, but white rancid butter. It was usually mixed with that of the cow, and the mixture produced the best of all cheese. Little goats' milk is now to be seen in the High- lands ; and, since the establishment of large sheep farms, no ewes' milk at all. A great accession to the supply of food is procured from the cultiva- * Riche. t The Germans used coagulated milk. Tac. de Mor. Germanium t Lib. iv. p. 200. BREAD. 321 (.ion of the soil. Panick was much used in Aquitain, and formed part of the food of all the Celtae; the nations on the Euxine had no daintier meat than what was made of this grain ; about the Po, they scarcely used any of it without a mixture of beans.* Barley gruel was in com- mon use among the Gauls. In Germany, they cultivated oats, and lived much on gruel, or pottage, made of it, which they called abre- mouz."|" The Japides, a Celtic nation in Pannonia, lived chiefly on oatme.al and millet. The Britons used the panick, which was first cul- tivated by the Gauls; and, in very ancient times, were accustomed to take as much grain from their storehouses as would serve them for a day, and having dried and bruised the grains, they made a sort of food for immediate use.J The Irish and ancient Caledonians pursued the same system, and among the remote Highlanders it still exists. They bring home at night as much corn in the ear as may be wanted at the time, and quickly convert it into meal in the manner described in page 313. Eireirich, or araradh, is a term which the Highlanders apply both to the drying of corn in a pot, according to the old practice, and to the grain and bread so prepared. Giraldus Cambrensis says the Welsh lived on butter, cheese, &q. with plenty of flesh, but used very little bread. The Irish ate their flesh without bread, keeping what corn they had for their horses.^ An assertion that, in a wild part of Argyleshire there was no bread, until some strangers arrived and taught the art of baking, is certainly untrue. |j The bread of the Gauls, who, according to Athenoeus, used but little, was superior to that of the Romans, from the use of yeast in the kneading of the dough. Their knowledge of brewing enabled them to procure barm, which was a much better ingredient than honey or eggs, used by other nations. " When the Gallic and Celtiberian brewers steeped their wheat in water, and mashed it for their drink, they took the froth that collects at top, and used it instead of leaven, which was the reason that their bread was always lighter than any other. "IT Ovens must have been very early known to the Britons, from the dis- coveries of baked pottery; but if applied to the purposes of cooking, they were, probably, confined to the establishments of chiefs ; neverthe- less, the Celtae excelled in preparing their bread, which Pliny attests was the best in the world. It was baked on stones placed around the fire, which the Britons denominated greidiol ; and Whitaker says the inhabitants of Manchester retained this simple mode of preparing their bread until recent times. From this word is derived the Scotish girdle, a round piece of iron suspended over the fire, on which oat cakes are baked. Amongst the most rural of the Scots, the " cakes " are still " fired " in this manner, and are called bonnach ctaiche, or * Pliny. The Sarmatians lived chiefly on pottage, or gruel of millet, and used raw meal mixed with the milk of mares, and sometimes with the blood of the ;attle. t Ibid. i Diod. v. Campion. || Birt. tf J tiny xviii. 7 41 322 BREAD. COOKERY. rather bonnach lichde, stone cakes. The baking of this family, or household bread of the Scots, has not yet become a trade ; every guidwife makes her own cakes, by which, as the agricultural reporter of the Isle of Man observes of the people of that interesting island, she is independent of the baker. There is no scarcity of bakers of wheaten bread, but oat cakes have not been sold, except, perhaps, in the lowest puilieus of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, or other large and manu- facturing cities. Froissart gives us a curious account of the mode in which the Scots soldiers were anciently accustomed to convert their meal into cakes. Observing that neither knights nor squires took carriages into the field with them, he says, " every man carries about the saddle of his horse a great flat plate, and he trusses behind him a wallet of meal, the purpose of which is this: after a Scotish soldier has eaten flesh so long t that he begins to loathe it, he throws this plate into the fire, then moistens a little of his meal in water, and when the plate is heated he lays his paste upon it, and makes a little cake, which he eats to comfort his stomach. Hence it is not strange that the Scots should be able to make longer marches than other men." The occupations of baking and brewing continued to be performed by women, even when the profession had become public.* The kings of Scotland had bakers and brewers,! who were, like most professors among the Celtic people, hereditary, and were in high estimation, holding lands in reward for their services.^ Little more can be said respecting the art of cookery, or the various dishes of the ancient. Celts. The Germans ate their venison fresh, ^ the Gauls occasionally salted it.]) These latter also used great quan- tities of flesh sodden in water, or roasted on the coals or on spits. IT They had abundance of provisions, and were not indisposed to improve their food by culinary process, but it would appear they preferred plain joints, and feasted with more delight on such substantial fare as "the roast beef of old England," than on soups and hashes, so much esteem- ed by their French posterity. It appears from Varro, that they sent into Italy, sausages, hogs' puddings, gammons of bacon, and hams. The Celtic women carried pots of pudding into the baths, which they eat along with their children while they washed.** The British tribes, who " were contented with plain and homely fare," were, probably, less expert in the art of cookery than those of the continent, and the people in the northern division of the island must have been still less versed in the science. The activity of their lives, and healthy, robust constitutions, imparted a zest to their rough and scanty meals, which epicures wish for in vain. The heroes of * When making bread became a trade at Rome, the chief bakers were tvomen. Pliny. 1 Baxter and Brewster, whence the family names. t Caledonia, Robertson's Index, &c. Tac. de Mor. Germ. || Strabo- V Athenseus. ** Plutarch, viii. 9. CANNIBALISM. 323 Lacedemon lived on a certain black broth, so unsavory and coarse to those of more delicate taste, that a citizen of Sybaris, tasting it, said he ceased to wonder at the Spartan contempt for death, since they were obliged to live on such fare. The observation which was made to the tyrant Dionysius respecting it had more truth but less wit ; " the dish wants the sauce," remarked the cook. " What sauce," asked he. " That of a good appetite," was the reply. The art of cookery is, however, of more importance than might at first be supposed, and Drs. Hunter and Kitchener, Count Rumford, and others have employed their talents in this useful science ; but, although duly appreciated, it is by no means so highly esteemed as formerly. In the middle ages, the master cook, provost of the cooks, Sec. were officers of dignity and emolument, and the king's larderer, was often a clergyman of high rank. His Majesty's cook is allowed, by the laws of honor and prece- dence the title of Esquire, now so much prostituted: but to return to the food of the ancient Celts. In Dio's account of the expedition of Severus, the food of the people beyond Adrian's wall is said to have been the milk and flesh of their flocks, what they procured by hunting, with the fruits of trees, and leaves and roots of herbs. The inhabi- tants of Thule lived chiefly on milk in summer, and on fruit in winter. The stature and strength of the ancient Caledonians indicate a suffi- ciency of food, yet they appear to have had some means of subsistence with which we are not sufficiently acquainted. The Gauls are not entirely free from the imputation of cannibalism. Those who went into Greece with Brennus, according to Pausanias, drank the blood and ate the flesh of the best conditioned infants at the breast.* The horrors of famine may be an excuse for so revolting a practice. Those who resisted the Cimbri and Teutones were reduced to the deplorable necessity of living on the bodies of the aged ; and long afterwards, when besieged in Alesia, Critognatus, the command- ing general, advised his adherents to imitate their ancestors and do the same, rather than yield. t The testimony of St. Jerome, representing the Scots or Attacots as cannibals, is well known. In this noted passage it is said, that when these people met with herds of cattle, sheep, and pigs, they were wont to select the most delicate parts of both the male and female keepers for their repasts. The correctness of this translation has been questioned, and fhe meaning asserted to be, merely that they preferred the rumps of the oxen, and udders of the cows, leaving untouched the other parts. I am afraid, however awkward the sentence may be, " pastorum nates, et feminarum papillas," cannot well be mistaken; but, with deference to the Saint's authority, we may entertain some doubt of the prevalence of so horrible a practice. Diodorus had indeed said, that those nations who were towards the north, bordering upon Scythia, were so fierce and savage that they, according to report, ate men as the Britons ivho * Lib. x. c. 22. Bello Gall. vii. 71. 324 CANNIBALISM. FOOD. inhabited Iris did; and he is, unfortunately, not the sole authority foi this shocking propensity of the ancient Irish. Strabo accuses them of a gluttonous indulgence in human flesh, and says they did not hesitate to eat their dead relations,* in which he is followed by Solinus, who repre- sents them in a state of deplorable barbarity. Except we believe that those authors were misinformed, or exaggerated the vices of a people of whom so little was then known, it is to be feared the Irish, who claim the Attacots as a native tribe, must take them with this imputation, to which their ancestors, from concurring authorities, seem more certainly obnox- ious than the Scots of Britain. It will scarcely excite surprise that this idea of the cannibalism of the Celts should have prevailed among the ancients, concerning a people who were so distant, and reputed so barbarous, when we find that, so recently as the rebellion of 1745, the people of England really believed that the Highlanders were accustomed to eat children, a fact which is attested by several officers of the Scots army! Mr. Cameron, of Locheil, on entering a house," was implored by a woman to spare her children; and on his assuring her, with some surprise at her alarm, that he had not the least intention of doing them any injury, she released them from a closet where they were concealed, telling them to come out, for the gentleman would not devour them! Mr. Halkston, of Rathillet, also, in inquiring where all the children were, as none could be seen, was told that they had been sent out of the way, to prevent their falling into the hands of the Highlanders, who were believed to eat human flesh ! | Perhaps the good folks of England were at some loss to conceive how these Highlanders lived, they seemed to require so little food.J They did not, indeed, obtain very large rations during the progress of the rebellion, and it was well that their desires were moderate. When the Highlanders of former days took the field, they only provided them- selves with a small bag of oatmeal: in 1745, they often had nothing else to carry them through their toilsome marches than a little of this, which they ate mixed with water, morning and evening; but, to them, this rough fare was no privation. The ability of the Highlander to endure a long abstinence from food was remarkable; and the ancient Caledonian much excelled his posterity, for he could live many days concealed in the marshes, up to the neck in water, without sustenance; and in the woods he could live on the bark, roots, and leaves of trees. The Scots have always been an abstemious or rough-living people a quality excellent for soldiers. Cromwell complained that his troops were ruined, for "whom the Scots were too hard in respect of enduring *the winter's difficulty." The usual diet of the present Highlanders is milk and crearn, cheese, butter, oat and barley cakes, and mutton or goat's flesh, with that excel- * Lib. iv. p. 201. t Memoirs of the Chev. Johnstone, and remarks on ditto. J' Tt was said by the troops who so ineffectually pursued them, that " they lived by snuffing- *he wind * BUOSE." BROCH AN. SUANS. POTTAGE. POTATOES. 326 lc it article, potatoes. They also have meal of peas, which they usually buy unground, and which they use with milk in bread and puddings.* When at the Shealings in the summer months, their meals in general con- sist of curds and cream, or oatmeal and cream, mixed cold, and qualified by a glass of good whisky. In times of scarcity, which have frequently occurred in the Highlands, the inhabitants are under the necessity of bleeding their cattle in summer, and dividing the coagulated blood into square cakes, they boil it, and eat it with milk or whey.j Brulhuiste, or brose, a dish said to be of Greek derivation, is common all over Scotland. In the most simple preparation, it is merely meal and hot water mixed together; to which butter is added; but the proper way is to use the juice of cabbages or turnips in which meat has been boiled. The Irish, says Campion, " crammed" oatmeal and butter together. The Highlanders do the same still, forming it into rolls like sausages, called bodmear. , Brochan is a similar preparation to oatmeal gruel, but the Gael fre- quently add onions, and sometimes even pounded cheese. Easoch, or thin brochan, is eaten with bannocks, and was the sole winter diet of thousands of the Highlanders in the time of Martin. Sughan is the suans or sowens of the Low Country, being the juice of" sids," or the sittings of oatmeal, after having been steeped in water until it has acquired a slight acidity. In the process of making sowens, a peculiar sieve is used in draining the liquid, which is thin and white, and, on^being boiled, acquires a starchy consistency, in which state it is usually eaten with milk, and termed lagan by the Gael; but many prefer it '* knotted," or half boiled, with the addition of butter, a little sugar, or treacle. This is the preparation of which all in the Low Country par- take on the morning of Yule day or Christmas. Cath-bhruich is sowens as thin as bnochan acidulated gruel, one of the most healthy prep- arations. Libhte, or pottage, is the favorite preparation of oatmeal in Scot- land. That it was much used in ancient times, appears from St. Jerome, who taunts Celestinus, a native, for gorging himself with Scots pot- tage.* Drammack, in Gaelic Tiorman, is oatmeal and a little salt, sprinkled with cold water, and stirred with the hand until the whole is in a state of adherence. This is preferable to eating the meal dry, and is more agreeable than the foarag or crowdy, which is a thinnish mixture of meal and any cold liquid. When milk is at hand, the crowdy, to save time, is preferred to drammack. Potatoes have been a fortunate acquisition to the Highlanders. The various soups and other dishes of which they form a principal part, need not be enumerated; but the practice of boiling and mashing them, and * A mixture of bean and barley-rneal used to be a favorite food in the south of Scotland. 1 Rev. Skene Keith, in Rep. of the Agriculture of Aberdeenslure. i St Hieron. on Jeremiah 326 OON. ANCIENT COOKING. FUEL. slicing them up the next morning for the purpose of being toasted Ike bread, seems peculiar to the mountaineers. Oon froth is a quantity of milk or whey boiled, and then worked ap by a stick having a cross part at the lower end. This substitute for more substantial fare was often used by the poor of the Western Isles; and Martin asserts that he saw those who had for months lived on whey thus prepared, climb the rugged mountains with as much agility as those who were better fed. Many curious anecdotes might be told of this pleasant but unsubstantial mess. The people in the remote islands boiled dulce, a seaweed, gathered from the rocks, and if able to add a little butter to it, it was esteemed a very excellent dish. When cattle were slaughtered, the smith got the head, the quarter- master got the hides, and the piper was entitled to a certain share. This last person was called ullaicher, literally, provider of both food and lodg- ings. Droin-uinn, a rump, has been called the bard's portion from this circumstance: when a person was helped to this part, he or she was obliged to compose a verse, or resign the nice morsel. A few of these rhymes would be a curious collection. In dressing flesh-meat, the old Gael were probably contented with plain roasting and boiling, the latter being most usual. In the poem on the death of Carril, mircorra, a favorite dish with Fingal and Gaul, is mentioned. It was a choice collop, chopped small, and mixed with marrow and herb-seeds. The ancient manner of preparing their meat, after hunting, as preserved by tradition among the Highlanders, is curious. A pit, lined with smooth stones, was made, and near it a heap of smooth flat pebbles was placed. The stones and the pit were both well heated by burning heath, and part of the venison was then laid in the pit, and covered by the hot, loose stones ; another t piece was laid over that, and the same process repeated until the pit was full, when it was closed over with heath. To confirm this tradition, pits are shown in various parts ; and a passage in the poem of Fingal thus describes the preparations : ce It was on Cromla's shaggy side that Dorglas had placed the deer, the early fortune of the chase, before the heroes left the hill. A hundred youths collect the heath ; ten warriors wake the fire ; three hundred choose the polished stones. The feast is smoking wide." The fires of the ancient Caledonians were formed of wood ; and, at their feasts, a large trunk of an oak tree was reckoned an indispensable part of the entertainment ; and so much attached were the people to the practice, that they viewed its disuse as a kind of sacrilege. The decay of the forests prevents the general use of wood ; and peats, or turf, have long been the common fuel in the Highlands and in the North. The use of coal was early adopted in many parts, to which necessity alone seems to have led. JEneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II., says, the poor people of Scotland were obliged to burn black stone instead of FUEL. COOKING UTENSILS. 3T wood.* At this day, crofters will go ten or fifteen miles for peat, in preference to coal, which might be had with less trouble and at as little expense. In digging turf, a particular spade is used, represented in the closing vignette of last Chapter, which cuts it into regular squares of the form of a brick, the workmen either casting the peats, as it is called, by cutting horizontally or perpendicularly. The latter, called pitting, was the ancient way of working mosses in the Highlands, and although, in some respects, objectionable, it is not so destructive to the bogs as running level, by which mosses have, in some cases, been rapidly exhausted. The Irish taught the inhabitants of Lismore and other islands the method of baking loose peat earth, which forms serviceable fuel. The cottages are always accompanied by the peat-stack, that is, the fuel neatly built up at the end of the house, a covering being formed of the surface parts of the moss or heath dug in large pieces. Great part of the summer is often consumed in casting and bringing from a distance the winter's stock of fuel, in which work the poor have the voluntary assistance of their neighbors. The Celts used numbers of pots, pans, and spits for preparing their victuals; and thought game, killed by arrows dipt in the. juice of helle- bore, the flesh surrounding the wound, being speedily cut away, became tender. The Britons, there is reason to believe, were less nice in their taste, and less attentive to their culinary arrangements. Among the rude tribes of the North, such an art received but very little attention. Their mode of roasting or baking, already described, was ingenious; but even in the time of Bruce the raw hide of the animal, stretched on four sticks, was used to form the bag in which the flesh was seethed. When Douglas and Murray retreated, after the celebrated inroad which they made on England, no less than three hundred of these awkward utensils, with a thousand wooden spits, were found in the camp which they had evacuated. The people of some parts of the Highlands, at a much later period, continued this custom. Birt tells us they had a wooden vessel, hollowed by the dirk, for the purpose of heating water, by means of hot pebbles thrown into it. The most ancient iron pot is seen in the vignette, with a high neck, and the sort at present in common use, which is not reckoned so good for boiling, is beside it. In hunting, the flesh was occasionally eaten raw, after the blood was squeezed out; but the Irish were more accustomed to this barbarous food, and Campion remarks, that the flesh thus swallowed " was boyled in their stornaks with aqua vitas, which they swill in after such a sur- feit e by quarts and pottles." They also, he says, bled their cattle, and baked the curdled blood spread with butter. A French writer, some centuries ago, describes Scotland as " pauvre en or, et en argent, mais fort bon en vivres;" and again, " assez des veaux et vaches, et par le moyen la chair est a bon compte." * Gough's Top. ii. 564. A coal mine was discovered in Ireland concerning which there was no tradition. Hamilton's Letters on the Coast of Antrim. 328 SALT. PORK. The Caledonians, no doubt, preserved their meat by salt, which the surrounding ocean would supply; in the isles, the ashes of burnt sea ware was often used to preserve fowl and to mix in cheese; but they could save fish for many months without salt. In Gaul and Germany, salt was made by pouring seawater upon burning wood. For this pur- pose the oak was generally preferred, the ashes of which alone was sometimes used. In certain parts hazael was considered best for the purpose; but all salt so made, as might, be expected, was very black. The Umbrians procured this article by boiling some sort of reeds and canes until the water was nearly evaporated. At Egelasta?, in Spain, there were mines whence salt was dug, which was reckoned medicinal.* No river in Germany possesses the qualities which are ascribed to one by Tacitus, who is either misunderstood or has been imposed upon by his informers. As the story is curious, it may be related: the Catti and Hermanduri quarrelled about the property of a river, the waters of which, on being poured over large fires of wood, produced salt, and they were, perhaps, the more irritable on the subject of their respective rights, in consequence of a belief that the stream and the neighboring woods were near heaven. The war seemed to be one of extermination; for the Cat tans, who were ultimately defeated, had taken avow to devote the whole of their opponents men, horses, and every article to be burnt or slain, in honor of Mars and Mercury. "f There was also a controversy, fomented by the Romans, in the time of Marcellinus, between the Bur- gundians and Germans, concerning salt-pits. The Britons procured salt from mines, and one of the ancient roads is called the Salt way. Many curious observances, to be deduced from the Celts, were connected with this article, several of which still exist. The Manx will do nothing without carrying or interchanging salt; a beggar will even refuse alms if offered without it.J Camden says, that before the Irish put seed in the ground, the mistress sent salt into the field; and when a person entered on a public office, women in the street, and girls from windows, sprinkled them and their attendants with it. In parts of Scotland, a portion is put into the first of a cow's milk after calving, which is intended to prevent the person who receives it, if one of the "uncanny," from doing any harm to the cattle; and that it was an antidote to witchcraft, we learn from Reginald Scot, who assures us the devil cannot bear to take any in his meat, it being a sign of eternity. The Gorleg yr Halen, or prelude of the salt, is a tune which was first played, say the Welsh, when the salt-seller was placed before Arthur and his celebrated knights, || a fanciful origin, perhaps, of a more ancient ceremony. The Scots were anciently accustomed to salt ryeef in (he hide. The Celts are said to have had a dislike to the flesh of swine, which is supposed to have arisen from religious scruples. This aversion does * Pliny, xxxi. 7. t Tacitus' Annals, xiii. | Waldrons' History 3 Slat. Account of Killearn, &c. [[ Pennant's Tour in Wales. FISH. 329 exist, but it upbears doubtful whether the antipathy is of ancient origin. The laws of Kenneth Mac Alpin contain some regulations respecting this animal; and from the Chartularies and other documents, it. is appar- ent that very considerable numbers were formerly reared. The Gauls who inhabited Pesinus, a city of Galatia, could not bear to touch swine,* but the boar was a favorite object of pursuit with the Celtic huntsman, "]" and Strabo says, they used much pork, both fresh and salted.^ In Spain, the inhabitants used to live on boar's flesh; but they believed that, to eat of the heads, drove men mad, and, therefore, effectually to guard against that calamity, they always burned them.5; There was not, among the ancient Britons, a daintier dish than the chenerotis, a bird less than a goose. || The Celtae did not in general make use of fish as an article of food, from religious prejudices; for, as they adored the waters, it would appear they abstained from living on the inhabitants of that element. This abstinence, however, was not universally adhered to, for the Celtiberi caught scombri, or mackerel, from which they procured the celebrated garum,lT and Athenaeus says, the nations about the Po used both sea and river fish; while Solinus informs us, the people of the Hebudos Islands lived on them; but the Caledonians are expressly noticed by Dio and Herodian as not eating the fish with which their seas and rivers abounded. The Irish "had little skill in catching fish" two centuries ago, a proof that they paid small attention to the pursuit; and the Highlanders appear to have been still more indifferent to it, and had a particular antipathy to eels and pike. From the abundance of land animals and the feathered race, this dislike to a species of food so excellent, and so bounteously pro- vided by nature, in a country where the variable climate renders the harvest so uncertain; may have, in ancient times, produced little effect; but the continuance of so much indifference to so obvious a source of national profit is much to be regretted. The'clergy were obliged to eat fish during thueir fasts, and necessity would, no doubt, compel the Celt to relinquish his ancient prejudice for a time, and might, ultimately, subdue his obstinacy; but as he had no motive ever to catch more than was sufficient for his wants, he was not likely to become very enterpris- ing. The Dalriads, it must be observed, did not refuse to partake of fish; and in a copy of the poem of Darthula, in possession of the High- land Society, and of date 1238, their food is said to have consisted of fish and venison, but the Highlanders, notwithstanding the mention of fish in several old poems, certainly did never willingly make use of such food. It was matter of astonishment to an English resident among them a century ago, that the trout with which their streams were teeming remained entirely disregarded; but they retain a proverb which implies their contempt for fish-eaters, and the encouragement of * Pausanias, vii. 17. * Pork was much esteemed among the Scandinavians. Pink. t Lib. iv. 19. Pliny, viii. 36. || Pliny, xxii. IT Pliny, xxxi. The Scyths ate river fish. 42 330 FISH. government has not yet induced either the Scots, Welsh, or Irish, to enter with spirit into the fishing trade. "When we see a principle of religion itself exploded, producing consequences through so many cen- turies of change, we ought not to be surprised that the manners and customs of the same races of men should have continued for ages, so extremely analogous."* No great lines were formerly used in the west isles of Scotland; but cod, ling, and other large -fish were angled for, and occasionally they were speared. The Seal, Ron, may not have been considered as a fish by the Gael, as it appears to have been eaten by them in most ancient times. The monks of lona had artificial ponds of salt water, in which they were preserved,! and many of the Highlanders were accustomed in the last century to cure hams of them. Young seals are even at the present day eaten in some of the Orkney Islands. J Many dishes were formerly esteemed, that would now be thought intolerable. The monks of Dum- fermline had a grant from Malcolm IV. of all the heads of a species of whale, called crespeis, that should be caught in Scotwattre, or the Firth of Forth, his Majesty reserving the tongues, as the most dainty part, for himself. In 1290, the ship that was sent to bring over the Maiden of Norway had the fish part of her provisions from Aberdeen, and, amongst other articles, were fifty pounds of whale. ^ Martin, whose curious work appeared in the beginning of last century, says the people of Tirey ate whales with certain roots. Seals and porpoises were com- mon at English tables in the time of Richard II. At Uist they were regularly fished for in Martin's time; the steward and his officer had each a young one, as a perquisite, and the minister was allowed his choice of those caught. A poem in Mac Donald's collection, of a date somewhat later, contains these lines: " Nuair a'ghabhd go tamh, Ann an cala port sheamh Cha b 'f hallan bhom laimhs an ron." In Aberdeenshire, a traveller of the last century observed, that "there was neither fine architecture nor gardening, but abundance of good cheer and good neighborhood," the servants, during the summer, having so much salmon that they refused to eat of it oftener than twice a week.|i In that part of the country a favorite winter dish is " stappit heads," or boiled haddocks, the heads being filled with a mixture of oatmeal, onions, and pepper. It is from the fishing villages on the coast of Kin- cardineshire, the adjoining county, that the much esteemed fish called Finau haddocks, from the name of a small port, are procured. They are cut open when taken, and cured by being suspended for some time 'n the smoke of turf. In the isle of Sky. herrings .vere dried and preserv- Caledonia, i. p. 4GO. It is but just, however, to remark, that the English hare not engaged with greater spirit into the fisheries than the Scots. t Adomnan, i. c. 41. t Stat. Account, vii. 46. Mac Pherson's Annals of Commerce. || Journey through Scotland, 1729. HOSPITALITY. 331 ed without salt, and if they were taken after the 10th of September, O S., they would keep for eight months. About the Po, the inhabitants ate their fish either roasted or boiled, with vinegar, salt, and cummin, oil being too scarce for common use, but, had it been otherwise, they did not like it so well as their old sauce. The Scots have but very recently divested themselves of many preju- dices against certain fish, and those without scales are still disliked. " It was only at a late period that turbot was relished even in Fife, where fishing is so generally followed; and people advanced in life do not yet esteem it so much as the halibut, which is very commonly dignified with the name of turbot. There are living, or were very lately, in one of the coast towns, several poor people who were wont to derive great part of their subsistence from the turbots which the fishermen threw away on the beach, because nobody could be found to purchase them."* HOSPITALITY was a virtue which the Celts carried to the extreme. They took the greatest delight in inviting strangers to their tables, be- fore whom were always placed the fairest and best joints."!" The Celti- beri were famed for courteousness to strangers, from whatever place they came; and those who were so fortunate as to have it in their power to entertain guests, were esteemed the favorites of the gods.f In deeds of hospitality and social feasts, says Tacitus, no nation on earth was ever more liberal than the Germans. J The Gaulish chiefs had always a numerous retinue, who followed them to the war, and lived well at their expense. Some curious instances of the delight which the Celts took in an os- tentatious display of liberality are recorded. Ariamnes, a wealthy Ga- latian, formed a resolution of entertaining all his countrymen for a whole year, at his individual expense, and he proceeded in this manner. He divided the roads throughout the provinces into convenient day 's journeys, and with reeds, poles, and willows, erected pavilions capable of contain- ing three hundred persons or upwards, and having the preceding year employed numerous artificers to fabricate caldrons, he placed them in these buildings, and kept them continually full of all sorts of flesh. Every day many bulls, swine, sheep, and other cattle were slain, and many measures of corn, and much barley meal ready kneaded, was procured; and all this was not confined to the .inhabitants, but the servants were instructed to constrain all strangers to partake of the feast. The rich- es of the Gauls enabled them to indulge in very extravagant expenditure, l.uernius, a king of the Arverni, to court popularity, was accustomed " * Tullis's ed. of Sibbald's Hist, of Fife. t Diodorus. Caesar in like manner celebrates their hospitality, vi. 23. ; De Mor. Germ. This is a virtue of most unpolished nations. A poor woman in Norway refused any payment from some English travellers, observing, that " as long as the earth gives us corn, and the sea fish, no one shall have to say we have taKen money of him." Boye's Tour in Norway. The Poles had Radogost, the gcd of hoa- itality, and the only one worshipped, in a covered temple, called Gontina. Athenasus, iv. 332 HOSPITALITY. to throw silver and gold among the crowds who followed him as he drove through the fields. On one occasion he inclosed a space of twelve fur- longs, in which he had constructed ponds filled with costly .and delicious liquors. Stores of victuals, ready cooked, were also provided, sufficient for all who chose to partake of them, for many days.* It is not to be doubted but numbers availed themselves of this munificent treat, and the pleasure of the feast was heightened by the civilities of numerous attendants. The manner in which the Germans received their guests was familiar and kind. To refuse admitting any person whatever, was held wicked and inhuman. Every one that came to a house was received and treat- ed with lodging and repasts, as long and as liberally as the owner could possibly afford, and, when his whole stock was consumed, he took his guests to a new scene of hospitality, both proceeding to the next house, to which the formality of an invitation was unnecessary, and where they were received with the same frankness and joy, no difference being ever made between a stranger and an acquaintaftce, in dispensing the rites of hospitality. Upon the departure of a guest, if he asked anything, it was cheerfully given. Favors were requested and bestowed with equal familiarity,| for in mutual gifts the Celts delighted, but neither claimed merit from what they gave, nor acknowledged any obligation for what they received. The Gauls, with singular delicacy, never asked the name of a stranger, what he was, or his business, until the entertainment was all over.J The guest of a Highland chief was not questioned as to his business until the expiration of a year, should he stop so long.^ There was a striking resemblance to these manners in the practice of hospitality among the Britons, who cherished this characteristic virtue of the Gauls as long as they were able to retain their primitive Celtic man- ners. Giraldus Cambrensis says of the Welsh, that when a stranger entered a house, water was immediately brought for him to wash his feet. If he did so, it was then known that he would stop some time, perhaps for the night, or longer, which diffused great joy throughout the family, and every entertainment which they could afford was provided for their guest. || The Highlanders of Scotland formerly carried their hospitality to as great an extent as the ancient Celtoe; and even at this day the more se- questered inhabitants are prone to indulge in a habit of liberality, which however honorable to their feelings, their limited means do not altogeth- er justify. In past ages, it was uniformly a practice to leave their doors open during the night, as well as the day, that any traveller might be able to avail himself of shelter and entertainment. It was long consid- ered infamous in a man of condition to have the door of his house ever shut, lest, as the bards expressed it, the stranger should come and be- * Tbid., from Posidonius. Strabo also extols the Celtic feasts. t Tac. de Mot. Germ. t Diodorus. Dr. Mac Phta-son. || Descriptio Camb. c. 10. HOSPITALITY. 333 hold his contracted soul. The gate of Fingal stood always open, and his hall was the stranger's home.* The Celts never closed the doors of their houses, ~f but esteemed it the greatest happiness to have the opportunity of entertaining strangers. In later times, it was the practice in Scotland, before closing the doors, to look out for strangers or wayfaring men, and it is still remembered in the traditions of the peasantry in many parts of the North, that the Laird had his " latter meat table," daily spread for all who chose to partake of his liberality. To their friends, the Gael gave the protection of their roof, regardless of circumstances. To one who besought their hospitality, they perform- ed the sacred duty, and were ready to fulfil their own saying, " I would give him a night's fare, although he had a man's head under his arm- pit." An anecdote told of Mac Gregor, of Glenstrre, and young La- mond, of Cdwal, is in point. The latter had killed the only son of Mac Gregor, and, when pursued, had rushed into the father's house to save his life, without knowing whose protection he had claimed. The old Laird, in ignorance of his loss, afforded him an asylum, fulfilled his pledge of protection wheji he knew him as the murderer of his son, and, to pre- vent the otherwise inevitable destruction of Lamond, he even aided his escape during the night. For the following account of a worthy Highlander of the old school, I am indebted to Mr. Donald Mac Pherson, author of melodies from the Gaelic. Donald Mac Donald, Esq., of Aberarder, of the house of Kep- poch, father of Captain Mac Donald, of Moy, was remarkable for his hospitality, as well as for many other traits of eccentric virtue. Aberar- der House is situated in one of the most romantic spots on earth, at the side of Loch Laggan, and is distant on one side four, and on the other six, miles from any house. In good weather, he used to seat himself on a green knoll, above the mansion, which commanded a view of the road, at least a mile each way, and when he discovered a traveller, he used to desire Mrs. Mac Donald immediately to prepare food, for that he had discovered a stranger, whose slow progress indicated the necessity of refreshment. Sometimes, it happened that the stranger passed without calling; on discovering which, he would exclaim, " Damn the scoundrel, I am sure he is a bad fellow at home." He was even known sometimes to follow a considerable distance with food, or to persuade the traveller to return and spend the night. The unbounded hospitality of the Celtic chief was a favorite theme of the Bards, who continued, like their predecessors among the ancient Gauls, to fare well at their master's table, and enliven his banquets by adulatory effusions. In the compositions of this, latterly, servile body, the hero and the hospitable are almost the only persons whose praises are extolled, and it is remarkable that in Gaelic there is but one word for a landholder and a hospitable man. Cean uia' na dai, or the point to which all the roads of the strangers lead, was the epithet bestowed on * Smith's Gallic Antiquities. t Agathias. i. p. 13, quoted by Ritson. 334 HOSPITALITY. the chief's house ; and so uncommon was it for any to be otherwise spoken of, that the translator of Ossian declares, among all the poems he nad ever met with, but one man was branded with the charge of inhospitality. He was described as the cloud which the strangers shun. Birt mentions a Laird to whose house he was going,' who met him with an arcadian offering of milk and cream, carried before him by his servants.* But it was not the higher order only who were distinguished for the virtue of hospitality the whole population was imbued with a spirit of disinterested kindness, which, according to their means, they cheerfully displayed. For this feeling the Scots are still remarkable. When Dr. Mac Culloch, who had fallen sick at Dollar, recovered so far as to be able to walk forth, " half the whole sex came out of their houses when they saw the stranger gentleman crawling up the hill, to offer him seats and milk, and what not; and when I returned many years afterwards, I was received, not as one who had been a source of trouble, but as an old friend." The poorest cottager is ready to share his little provision with a stranger. On a hundred occasions I have par- taken of their hospitality without being able to prevail on them to accept remuneration, which, in some cases, they have refused in a manner that showed their feelings were hurt at the idea of selling their meat and drink. It is a common practice, not only where the Gaelic prevails, but towards the Lowlands, to set before you milk, ale, bread and cheese, or whatever else they may have, unasked. Nor are they less willing to afford you the shelter of their roof, nay, will even give up the beds of the family for your use; and if you will listen to their kind solicitations, your day's march will be often shortened. The rites of hospitality were practised to a ruinous extent by the poor Islanders, who retained the virtue when its exercise was highly injurious to themselves. In the distant isle of Rona the clergyman who super- intended the spiritual concerns of the inhabitants, was seldom able to reach these remote members of his flock ; but when he could visit them, the poor people killed five sheep, being one for each family, and presented him with their skins neatly flayed and full of meal.f The untutored, but generous islanders carried their charity to an imprudent length, for they bestowed so liberally the little they possessed that many unprincipled persons frequented the Hebrides for the purpose of unworthily profiting by their indiscriminate bounty. Such improv- idence, however well meant, brought on these simple people much in convenience, and heightened the miseries of occasional want ; and it was sometimes necessary for the chiefs to restrain so injurious a system of supposed charity, by enjoining their people to bestow their alms on natives or acknowledged objects only.J Those who subsisted on the bounty of others, in the Highlands, did not however appear as * Letters, ed. 1818, ii. 7. It was customary to offer milk to those passing a fold. * Martin. t Ibid. COSHERING. 335 paupers. As the houses were never locked up, the poor entered freely, and, without begging, were supplied with present food, and perhaps something besides ; and if in want of a lodging, a plaid was given them, in which they reposed themselves on the floor. The unprotected state of the houses proves the honesty of the people. Nothing was stolen, even by the poorest mendicants ; and the altered state of society has not yet induced the inhabitants of many secluded districts to provide bolts for their doors. The number of persons in the Highlands who had no means of their own on which to subsist, was very considerable, but the statement in the Gartmore MS., where they are calculated at 57,000, is surely much exaggerated.* It is observable that, at the present day, the professional beggars are from the Lowlands. The acts of the Scots parliament, ordering " that nane pass in the country an'ly on the king's lieges, or thig or sorn on them," but that " in all burrowes there sail be hostellaries, and provision for horse and man, that all travelling men on horse or foot lodge in hostellaries, and that nane other receive them,"| were evidently framed to repress the practice of idle and dissolute people traversing the country, en couraged by the inconsiderate hospitality of the natives. In Ireland, statutes were passed for a similar purpose ; but such acts were anoma lous and premature, in that country, for, while coigny and livery were prohibited, there were no inns, and it was treason to enter a house for refreshment, were it the dwelling of the traveller's own tenant! ' When, like their ancestors on the continent, the stock of the High lander was exhausted, he carried his visiter to the house of his neigh- bor, to whose care he was then resigned. " They never depart so long as any provision doth last; and when that is done, they go to the next, and so from one to one, until they make a round from neighbor to neighbor, still carrying the master of the former family with them to the next house." This was practised less than fifty years ago, and the custom is not entirely laid aside in the present day. It is only an idle people who could devote so much time to these protracted entertain- ments. The practice of entertaining a stranger as long as he chose to stop, by a whole circle of friends, was zealously adhered to in Ireland, where its ancient name, coshering, is still in use, even in Dublin and other cities, and is applied in almost the original sense. The Irish gentlemen retain much of the hospitable disposition of the ancient chief, and the curious custom alluded to is thus described by a tourist of the last century. When strangers arrive at any of their houses, the relations of the family are informed of it, who immediately join the company After you have received the attentions of your first host, you are invit- ed to another family, where you are entertained with the same hospi- tality, and are successively conducted to the houses of others, until " Appendix to Birt's Letters, ed. 1818. t Acts of James. I. J Spenser 336 HIGHLAND FEASTING you have gone through the whole circle, if you are inclined to stop so long. The day of separation is the only one of grief and discontent.* The visits of the flaith, or chief, to the raths, for the redress of popular grievances, were the occasions of great feasts, the origin of coshering, among the ancient Gael; but the chronicles of Ireland inform us that the fonnteach, or house for travellers; kept by a person denominated the bruigh, was supported at the public expense; and it is believed that every tribe had one of these establishments. In the British Museum is preserved a MS. , in Gaelic, which gives an account of six of these houses. | It was said of O'Niel, in the language of the bards, that " guests were in his house more numerous than trees in the forest." The Mac Swineys were anciently famous for hospitality. Near Clodach castle, an old seat of theirs, a stone was set up by the highway, on which was an inscription, inviting all travellers to repair to the house of Edmund Mac Swiney for refreshment. One of the family overturned this stone, perhaps for very substantial reasons; but it was well remarked, that he who did so never afterwards prospered. Doctor Molloy relates that one of his ancestors, in the time of Elizabeth, entertained 960 men, at Christmas, in his house of Broghell. The Forbes's, of Culloden, near Inverness, were celebrated for their extraordinary hospitality. Birt says, there was as much wine spilt there as would content a moderate family. "A hogshead was constant- ly on tap near the hall door, for the use of all comers; and it appears in the account book of President Forbes, that for nine months' house- keeping in his family, the wine alone cost a sum which, at the present, price of that article, would amount to upwards of ,2,000, sterling. J Among the Scots Highlanders, the chief gave a great entertainment after any successful expedition, to which all the country round was invited. On an occasion like this, whole deer and beeves were roasted, and laid on boards or hurdles of rods placed on the rough trunks of trees, so arranged as to form an extended table, and the uisge beatha went round in plenteous libations. This was called the sliga crechin, from being drunk out of a shell. The pipers played during the feast, after which the women danced, and, when they retired, the harpers were introduced. There were also entertainments, some of which continued to be acted when Dr. Mac Pherson wrote; but if these little dramas were, as the Rev. Dr. Mac Leod says, chiefly selections from Ossian, they could scarcely deserve the epithet ludicrous, which the former applies to them. The funeral of any great personage was accompanied with profuse feasting, a custom, although conducted with less extrava- gance, not yet disused. At the burial of one of the Lords of the Isles, in lona, nine hundred cows, valued at three marks each, were consumed. * Luckombe's Tour. t Harl. Coll. 5280. Solinus, however, testifies against their hospitality, saying the country was rendered inhuman by their savage manners, iii. 6. t Culloden Papers, p. xxii. . HIGHLAND FEASTING. 337 At Highland entertainments, the chief sat at the upper end of the table, and the chieftains and principal men of the clan were ranged on each side, in order of precedence, the commons being at the bottom. The best dishes were, of course, served to those who occupied the honorable end. The famous Lord Lovat was a striking example of a genuine chief of the old school. About 1725, when he was actively engaged in raising his company of the freceadin dhu, his manners, and the arrangement of his household, are thus described by a veteran who volunteered into his service.* His lordship got up between five and six o'clock, when both doors and windows were thrown open. Numbers of the vassals were about the house, and all were entertained at the chief's expense. The lairds sat towards the head of the table, and drank claret with their host; next to these were seated the duin uassals, who drank whisky punch; the tenants who were beneath these were supplied with ale ; and at the bottom, and even outside, a multitude of the clan regaled themselves with bread and an onion, or, perhaps, a little cheese and table beer. Lovat, addressing the second class, would say " Cousin, I told the servants to hand you wine, but they tell me ye like punch best." To others, " Gentlemen, there is what ye please at your service, but I send you ale, as I know ye prefer it." It required good management to make a limited income sufficient for so liberal house-keeping, and some atten- tion was necessary to preserve the motley company in good humor. In the laws of Hwyel Dha we find that two tables were daily spread in the hall of the palace; the king, with ten chief officers, occupying the one; the other being placed at the lower end of the room, for the master of the household and other three personages, empty spaces being left for such as might, in confequence of misbehavior, be dismiss- ed from the king's table. The whole were thus arranged: the king sat next the fire, and close to him the torch bearer, beside whom was placed the guest; next to him sat the heir apparent, then the master of the hawks, then the foot holder, to be about the dish with him, and then the physician, to be about the fire with him. Next to the fire, on the other side, sat the chaplain, to bless the food and chant the Lord's Prayer,"|" the crier striking the pillar above his head, to command silence. Beside him was placed the judge of the court, and next to him the bard of presidency, and the smith of the court sat on the end of the form before the priest. The master of the household had his station at the lower end of the hall, his left hand opposite the front door; and any of the guests whom he might desire were obliged to sit with him. The domestic bard sat on either side of the master of the house- hold, and the master of the horse was to be near the fire with the king, while the chief huntsman was to be on the other side with the priest. * Mem. of Donald Mac Leod. } The conclusion of the Highland chaplain's grace always contained a hearty prayer for the prosperity of the chief. 43 338 CELTIC MEALS. Giraldus Oambrensis gives the following description of his country- men's meals: The Welsh " remain fasting from morning to night, being employed through the whole day in managing their affairs; and in the evening they take a moderate supper. If, by any means, they are disappointed of a supper, or get only a very slight one, they wait with patience till the succeeding evening. In the evening, the whole family being assembled, they prepare their provisions according to their ability; in doing which, they study only to satisfy nature, not to provoke an appetite by the arts of cookery, sauces, or a variety of dishes. When supper is ready, a basket of vegetables is set before every three persons, and not before every two, as in other countries. A large dish, with meat of various kinds, and sometimes a mess of broth or pottage, is added. Their bread is made into thin and broad cakes, which are bake,d from day to day. They neither use tables, table-cloth, nor napkins. When strangers are present, the master and mistress of the house always serve them personally, and never taste any thing until their guests have finished their repast, in order that, should there be any deficiency of provisions, it may fall to their share." The old Highlanders had but two meals a day. " Taking a small bit of oatcake in the morning and passing to the hunting, or other busi- ness, they content themselves therewith until the evening."* In distant ages, they only took o.ne repast in the day. Lon, or daily meal, is the only genuine native word. Breakfast, dinner, and supper are modern terms : but there is certainly diot (Greek JKXITU) bheg, little meal, and diot mhor, great meal. Feill, cuirme, and fleagh, were the names applied to great feasts. The former was that which a chief gave to his vassals, and including the company as well as the entertainment, the term became used for a fair.f The alloglach, who carried his master's armor, and was himself heavily armed, was allowed a brefier, that is a rrtan's meat, or double allowance. The men servants were always allowed twice the quantity of food which the women received, an ar- rangement of which, says Martin, the females never complain, from a feeling consideration of the more severe labor of the men. When allowed meal instead of house board, the scalag received a stone, or seventeen pounds' weight per week, the ban scalag, or maid-servant, being allowed only a peck, or about eight pounds. It was, until lately, customary at festivals to burn a large trunk of a tree, which was termed the trunk of the feast. The common people looked on it as a sort of sacrilege to discontinue this ancient practice. On the first of November, it was an ancient Celtic practice to indulge in a sort of feast, which was called la mas ubhal, the day of the apple fruit, because, on that occasion, roasted apples were bruised and mixed in ale, milk, or, by those who could afford it, in wine.J This is the ori- gin of lamb's wool ! * Chronicle, 1597. t Ross's Notes on Fingal. t Vallancey. IRISH MEALS. 339 An extract from the work of Barnaby Riche will give an idea of the coshering feasts of the Irish, arid the viands with which the company were enlivened. Good bundles of straw, or, in summer, green rushes were laid on the floor, on which the guests sat down, another bundle being shaken over their legs, on which were placed the dishes and meat. The rhymers sang, and the harpers played, whilst the company regaled upon beef, mutton, pork, hens, and rabbits, all put together in a great wooden dish. They had also oaten cakes, and good store of aqua vitae, without which it was not to be termed a feast, and on Wednesday, Fri- day, and Saturday, when, according to their religion, they dare eat no meat, they substituted plenty offish. Derrick gives some other particulars of Irish banquets, which farther illustrate the manners of the people. Before they sat down, the priest blessed the whole party, and repeated his benediction before they rose from the table, after which, we are given to understand, they were well prepared for an assault on the English, a favorite pastime. The seats were formed of straw, or hay, plaited into mats or hassocks. They used wooden platters,* and " a foyner of three quarters of a yard long," for a knife. Milk was their common drink, but on great occasions the uisge beatha was handed about in basins. The bards and harpers were not brought in until the repast was finished. We have some account of their mode of dining, at a more ancient period. Sir Richard Cristeed, who was appointed by Richard II. to introduce the four kings of Ireland to English customs, thus describes their man- ners at table, and his own conduct towards his pupils. " I observed, as they sat at table, that they made grimaces that did not seem to me graceful or becoming, and I resolved, in my own mind, to make them drop that custom. When they were seated at table, and the first dish served, they would make their minstrels and principal servants sit beside them, and eat from their plates and drink from their cups. They told me this was a praiseworthy custom of their country, where every thing was in common, but the bed. I permkted this to be done for three days; but, on the fourth, I ordered the tables to be laid and covered properly, placing the four kings at an upper table, the minstrels at anoth- er below, and the servants lower still. They looked at each other and refused tc eat, saying I had deprived them of their old custom in which they had been brought up." Having explained to them that it would be neither decent nor honorable to continue it, they good-humoredly gave it up. When they were afterwards knighted, and dined with his Majesty, notwithstanding their tutoring, and being " very richly dressed, suitable to their rank, they were much stared at by the lords and those present: not, indeed, without reason; for they were strange figures, and differently countenanced to the English, or other nations. We are naturally inclined," adds the knight, " to gaze at any thing strange, and * Aisead, a platter, in Armoric aczyed, French assiette. 340 CELTIC FEASTS. it was certainly, at that time, a great novelty to see four Irish kings."* The description of a coronation in Ulster, given by Campion, seems rather apocryphal. A white cow was killed by his Majesty, and imme- diately seethed whole. In the water of this carcass he placed himself naked, and thus sitting, he and his people supped and ate the broth and flesh, without spoon or dish ! It is not digressing to observe, that knives and forks were not former- ly in use among the Gael. Indeed, the latter were introduced Jn Eng- land no earlier than the beginning of the 17th century, and they were not very generally used fifty years afterwards."]" Martin, who visited the Isles at the close of that century, says, the people of North Uist used a long stick for a fork, when eating the flesh of the seal, on account of its oiliness. The Highlanders, who carried knives and forks, politely cut the meat for the ladies. The want of these utensils, so indispensable in modern society, is not felt by those who are unaccustomed to their use, nay, they are considered ridiculous assistants ; so much are we under the influence of custom. Among the Arabs, there are no such articles as knives, forks, or spoons, but all sorts of victuals are taken up in the hands, a mode of feeding at which Europeans are extremely awkward : " Poor creatures !" exclaimed they, on observing some of our countrymen, who recently visited them, with so much difficulty taking up curdled milk in their hands, "they do not even know how to eat ; they eat like camels !" Diodorus and Athenceus give curious and not unpleasing pictures of the Celtic manner of conducting feasts. The former says, " at their meals, they sit upon the ground, on which wolves' or dogs' skins are spread ; near at hand, are their fire-places, with many pots and spits, full of joints of meat, and they are served by young girls and boys," their feasts continuing until midnight.^ No one touched any thing until the master of the house, or chief person, had first tasted of all the dishes. Among the Germans, every man sat by himself, on a partic- ular seat, and at a separate table. |j Strabo says, most of the Gauls took their meals sitting on rush beds or cushions. When a company could agre^, they sat down to supper in a circle. In the middle sat he who was reckoned most worthy, either from his rank or valor, and next to him was placed the person who gave the entertainment. The others were arranged, each according to his rank. Behind the guests stood some who bore shields, a number of spearmen sat in a circle opposite to the others, and both took meat with their lords. The Celts offered their libations upon wooden tables, brought in, we are told, neat and clean, being raised a little above the ground, and covered with hay. It was the custom to put the bread, broken into many pieces, on the table, with flesh out of the caldron, of all which the king or chief first tasied. * Froissart's Chronicles, vol. iv. c. 84. Johnes's edition, t Beckmann's History of Inventions. t Marcel. Flerodotus, iv. ap. Montf. || Tacitus HIGHLAND BANQUET. 341 Some would take up whole joints with both hands, and tear them in pieces with their teeth ; but if the flesh were too tough, they cut it with a little knife, which was kept in a sheath, in a certain place near at hand. Boys served round the wine, both right and left, in earthen or silver pots. The company drank very leisurely, frequently tasting, but not taking more at a time than a glassful. After supper, they sometimes engaged in sword play, challenging each other to friendly combat, in which they only joined their extended hands and points of their swords, without injury, but sometimes they began to fight in earnest, wounding each other ; in which case, they became irritated, and, if the others did not interfere, they fought till death. In former times, also/ the strongest would take up the limbs of cattle, and, if challenged by any, they fought with swords until one was killed.* In Celtiberia, the lights were brought in by boys, who cried out " vincamus;"j" and, speaking of lights, it may be noticed that the sub- stitute for a candle among the Gael, and Scots farmers generally, is a slip of the resinous fir wood, dug out of the mosses, and dried. This is called Gius puil, or blair, and is held beside the guid man during meals, by the younger branches of the family. It would seem that, anciently, the chiefs had servants for the purpose of holding their rude flambeaux ; and a story is related of an Earl of Braidalbane showing some English friends these torch-bearers, in proof that he possessed much more valuable chandeliers than those of silver exhibited to him in the South. Old Gaelic poems mention wax candles as in use. The Master of the Lights, an officer in the King of Wales' household, was obliged to hold a taper near the king's dish, when eating. An ancient and common way among the Highlanders, of illuminating their dwellings, is this : The quantity of gius required for the night is split in the morning from the roots, heaped near the peat-stack, and is placed- on the Suiican, and suspended at a convenient distance over the fire, to be thoroughly dried. At the close of the day's labor, the duine, literally the man, as the head of every family is emphatically called, takes his seat close by the headstone of the fire, which is an oblong solid square, generally about three feet long, three feet high, and one and a half broad, placed at the back of the hearth. As soon as it is dark, the duine kindles the solus, or light, by putting a large burning coal on the top of the headstone, and laying some of the dry resinous slips upon it. This he continues to feed, by adding a fresh one or two ; and such a light will illuminate a large apartment better than six good tallow candles. The entertainment of James V. by the Earl of Athol, when on a hunting visit, as before noticed, was an extraordinary occasion ; but as it is characteristic of the manners of the time, and as the various provi- sions are minutely detailed in the historian's quaint style, it is d^sira- * Ritson, Mem. of the Colts, 211. This seems what Athenseus calls waging war for cicatand drink. t Amm. Marc. xvi. 4. 342 HIGHLAND BANQUET. BEES. ble to insert his account. " There were all kinds of drink, as ale, beer, wine, both white and claret, Malvasy, Muskadel, Hippocras, and Aqua- vitrc. Further, there was of meats, wheatbread, mainbread, and gingerbread, with fleshes, beef, mutton, lamb, veal, venison, goose, grice, capon, coney, cran, swan, partridge, plover, duck, drake, biissel cock and pawnies, black cock and muir fowl, capercoilies; and also the stanks that were round about the palace were full of all delicate fishes, as salmonds, trouts, pearches, pikes, eels, and all other kind of delicate fishes that could be gotten in fresh waters; and all ready for the banquet. Syne were there proper stewards, cunning baxters, excellent cooks and pottingars, with confections and drugs for their deserts; and the halls and chambers were prepared with costly bedding, vessels and napry according for a king; so that he wanted none of his orders more than he had been at home in his own palace. The king remained in this wilder- ness the space of three days and three nights, and his company. I heard men say it cost the Earl of Athol every day, in expenses, a thous- and pounds. The ambassador of the Pope, seeing this banquet and triumph, which was made in a wilderness, where there was no town near by twenty miles, thought it a great marvel that such a thing should be in Scotland, and that there should be such honesty and policy in it, especially in the Highland, where there was but wood and wilderness. But most of all, this ambassador marvelled to see, when the king depart- ed, and all his men took their leave, the Highlandmen set all this place in a fire, that the king and ambassador might see it. Then the ambas- sador said to the king, ' I marvel, sir, that you should thole yon fair place to be burnt that your Grace has been so well lodged in;' then the king answered and said, ' It is the Mse of our Highlandmen, though they be never so well lodged, to burn their lodging when they depart."* Water is the natural drink of mankind, but the art of rendering it pleasant, or increasing its strength by the addition of various ingredients; is found among people in the lowest scale of civilisation. A very simple method of producing an agreeable beverage is by the admixture of other substances, and we find the Gauls steeping honeycombs in water, and the Celtiberi using drinks made of honey. It here becomes necessary to say something of this article, the excel- lent succedaneum for sugar. " Of all the insect tribes, none have engrossed so much attention as bees. Their social habits, and indefatiga- ble industry, must have excited the admiration" of mankind in the most early ages. Their delicious stores must have equally soon attracted attention. The Celtge certainly employed themselves in the manage- ment of bees, their honey being in much request for mixture with different liquors, and Pliny observes, that the combs were largest among the Northern nations, noticing one found in Germany eight feet long, which, he says, was black inside. In Spain, which according to Dio- dorus, abounded in honey, it had a flavor of broom, from the great * Pitscottie, p. 147, fol. ed. HONEY DRINK. MEAD. MILK. 343 quantifies of that shrub. , In this country the people were accustomed, when the flowers became insufficient to afford the requisite supply for the bees, to remove with their hives to a more desirable situation, in the same manner that a pastoral people did with their flocks.* The Britons kept considerable numbers of these useful insects. In Ireland the Bre- hon laws provided for their careful protection, and in the Isle of Man it is still a capital crime to steal them. Ireland was celebrated for swarms of bees, and abundance of honey, and the monks, in the fourth century, according to Ware, had an allowance of a certain quantity in the comb fresh from the hive. The Celtic Britons kept their bees in a bascaud formed of willow plaited. t About fifty years ago one of these was found in Lanishaw Moss, and about eighteen years since another was discov- ered, about six feet under ground, in Chat's Moss, both in Lancashire. This last was a cone of two yards and a half high, and one in diameter at bottom, and was divided into four floors or separate hives, to which were doors sufficiently large to admit one's hand. The whole was formed of unpeeled willows, and contained combs and complete bees. These were larger than the present species,^ which may perhaps account for the great size of those combs noticed by Pliny. Scotland was formerly called a land of milk and honey, but it hardly deserves the latter appellation in these days. In most parts of the Highlands about fifty years ago, a farmer had two or three hives that remunerated him very well for the trouble attending the management. It is not so now, which is matter of surprise, the abundance of heath af- fording so plentiful a field for the collection of honey, at no expense; and it is well known that what is gathered from the heaths is much preferable to that which is extracted from garden flowers. The Highland Society of Scotland is, at this time, endeavoring to extend the culture of these use- ful insects throughout the country.^ That the Highlanders had ancient- "ly a liquor made from honey, appears from ancient allusion to it. It is probable that the beverage was similar to metheglin, or mead, called mil dheoch by the Gael. This excellent liquid is made by boiling honey and water in certain proportions, subjecting it to fermentation; and the Welsh, who have different ways of making it, and have used it from early times, derive its name from medclyg, medicinal, and lyn, drink. The mead maker ranked the eleventh person in the household of the kings of Wales. The famed Athole brose is a mixture of whisky and honey, with a little oatmeal. Milk, so easily procured by a pastoral people, is a common and ex- cellent drink by itself, and affords, in its different states, a pleasant * Pliny, xi. 8, xxi. 13. 1 Kanelh, fn Welsh a large basket, is, in Cornish, a bee-hive. t WhitiVer's Hist, of Manchester. Many superstitions formerly prevalent, still exist concerning bees. In Devonshire f.liey are never paid for in money; never moved but on Good Friday; and, on occasion of a funeral, the 1 hives are carefully turned round. Brande's Pop. Ant. ii.202. Ellis's 'tid. From Domesday book we find the Gustos apium was a person of some note. 344 CURMI AND ZYTHUS. refreshment. The making of butter produces whey, a wholesome liquor, which some of the Highlanders, Buchanan says, boiled and kept in hogsheads under ground for several months, by which it was rendered a very agreeable beverage.* Sweet cream mixed with butter-milk is delicious. The Irish are said to be peculiarly fond of the latter, but they formerly used a great deal of other milk, whey, and broth. The infusion of herbs in the formation of cordials must have been practised in the most early ages, and it is to be noted that the Gaelic lusadh, drinking, is derived from lus, an herb, or plant. Boece says the old Scots were moderate drinkers, using chiefly infusions or mixtures of thyme, mint, anise, &c. The Celtiberi, at their festivals, had a certain liquor in the composi- tion of which no fewer than five score different herbs were employed, but no one appeared to know precisely the particular ingredients of this famous wassail, although every one understood that it required one hundred articles, if properly prepared, as its name implied. This name has not been preserved, but we are told the mixture was esteemed the most sweet and wholesome of drinks. "j" The people of the Scilly Islands are fond of distilling various flowers and herbs, to mix in their liquors, and they take special care to gather them at a certain age of the moon.J The art of making strong liquors seems to be one of the first acquire- ments of mankind; in all parts of the world, and in the rudest state of society, substances, or mixtures to produce intoxication have been discovered. Before wine became known to the Gauls they appropriated much of their corn for the production of an excellent beverage. The nations of Western Europe Gauls, Germans, Celtiberians, and Brit- ons made liquors of two sorts from grain steeped in water, which were denominated curmi and zythus, answering to the modern ale and beer.^ Schcepflin thinks zythus was the British cider, |j in which he is evident- ly wrong. The Gaelic suthan, juice, clearly shows its relationship to the ancient Celtic term. The Britons, Dioscorides says, drank the strong liquor called curmi, a word long retained by the Gael in its original acceptation, being the curvvi of the Welsh, which is their name for ale. Ol elmi, I drink, is the expression of a modern High lander, IT and it is not a little curious. Ol is ale, and el, in ancient German, signified water;** from which original term the alica, a drink of the Britons, apparently a sort of gruel or frumenty and other names originated. The Highlanders substituted loin, or lain, provisions, for the ancient * Lib. i. It seems to be what Perlin calls " force laict." t Pliny, xxv. 8. t Troutbeck. The . Egyptians made a similar liqnor. Where vines would not grow, says Diodorus, Osiris, or Bacchus, taught the inhabitants to make drink from barley. Lib. i. 2. iv. i. In Illyricum, the liquor made from grain was called Sabaia. Marcellinus. l| Alsatia illust. p. 64. U Sir J. Foulis, of Colintotm. ** Cannegieteri Diss. de Brittemburgo. HEATH ALE. 345 tame of this liquor, not an inapt term for what is in modern times called " liquid bread." Corma appears to have been zythus made without the addition of honey.* Marcellinus mentions garaus as a drink of the Germans in the time of Valens,| and in Spain they used coelia and ceria, or cervisia, which Whitaker tells us signify strong water. The Gauls drank the strongest ale with water, and the Celtiberia made it to keep for a con- siderable time.J Whether the Caledonians could make malt liquors so early as we find them in use by the south Britons, is not known, but curmi was drank in the third century, and was common in the sixth. ^ The Picts are celebrated for possessing an art whereby they extract- ed a delicious drink from the tops and blossoms of heath, which it is believed was lost with their supposed extirpation. This is related by the national historians, and is preserved in popular tradition throughout Scotland ; the story representing the secret as last remaining with a father and son, prisoners to Kenneth Mac Alpin, who were urged by the promise of liberty and liberal rewards, to impart their valuable knowledge to the Scots. The father, after long solicitation, expressed himself willing to accede to their proposals, on condition that his son should previously be put to death, which request being unsuspectingly complied with, the stern Pict told his enemies they might also put him to death, for he could never be prevailed on to disclose a secret known only to himself. The enraged Scots, as may be supposed, speedily sacrificed the obstinate captive. Many extensive tracts of Muir are observable that are level and free from stones, and they are believed to have been the fields cleared by the Picts for the cultivation of the hoath, which they mowed down when in bloom. This shrub, I have been told, may, by a certain process, produce a good spirit, and a pleasant liquor is often made in the Highlands chiefly from its flowers, but it differs from the ancient beverage, in having the additions of honey or sugar with other ingredients, whereas the heather ale of the Picts, it is thought, required nothing extraneous to bring it to perfection. In the Highlands it was an almost invariable practice, when brewing, to put a quantity of the green tops of heath in the mash tub, and when the plant is in bloom it adds much to the strength and flavor of the beer. The roots, also, will improve its qualities, for v they are of a liquorice sweetness, but their astringency requires them to be used with caution. Herb ale was a favorite " brewst" with the women of olden times. An ancient matron, whose grandmother had made it, has often descant- ed to me on its excellence, alleging that those who drank heartily of it became speckled in the face like a salmon. Being only a child when this was observed, she could not say what were the ingredients, .but as her ancestors were natives of Buchan, where the descendants of the an- cient Picts, according to Pinkerton, are to be found, the secret was not, I * Athenseus, iv. t Lib. xxvii. i. t Pliny, xiv. 22, xviii. 7. Scrip. Hist. August, p. 942, ap. Low's History of Scotland. 44 346 BREWING WHISKY. perhaps, entirely lost.* I am assured by a native of the Highlands, that he could make beer, equal to the best malt liquor, from ingredi- ents furnished entirely by the Scotish mountains. Perlin describes the Scots as regaling themselves with " bierre, god alles, and alles." They were partial to malt liquor, and the old farmers used much more of it than their successors, and made it of a superior quality. Even the poorer sort brewed their own ale, sometimes using no other utensils than a common pot, and pail, or tub. Hops were unknown to the old Highlanders, and are not used by many even yet. The con mheill root was, no doubt, an excellent substitute^ but a common infusion was wormwood. A curious method of preserving yeast was used in the Isles. A rod of oak, which was to be cut before the middle of May, from four to eight inches long, and twisted round like a wyth, was boiled in the wort, and when dried was kept in a bundle of barley straw until wanted for use, when, being steeped in the liquor, it produced fermentation. Martin says he saw one that had served the purpose no less than thirty years. Brewing devolved on the Celtic females, and the Saxons observed the same rule; it is only in recent times that the business has been done by men, malt liquor being formerly made and sold by the women. The " ale wife" was, at one time, synonymous in England with the keeper of a " pot house" in Scotland the appellation is still expressive of the landlady of a " change house." A curious old Scots statute respecting " wemen wha brewis aill to be sauld," ordains " gif she makis evil aill, and is convict thereof, she sail pay an unlaw of aucht shillings, or she sail be put upon the cuckstule, and the aill sauld to be distribute to the pure folk." Dr. Smith thinks the Caledonians had a drink formed by a fermenta- tion of parts of the birch tree. It is well known that the birch furnishes the strongest and most pleasant of all British wines, but whether the old Highlanders knew this I cannot say; few of their descendants are aware of it, and, notwithstanding popular belief, there is reason to think ,the opinion that spirits were made of this tree, is not well grounded. Whisky, so common in Scotland and Ireland, so much esteemed, and produced in such excellence, by the Celts of both countries, is well known, and the art of making it was probably possessed from an early period by the Gael, who have so long been celebrated as distillers of the " mountain dew." It is, however, a matter of dispute with antiqua- ries whether it be a late invention or of ancient origin. Ware inclines fo the former opinion, and Pinkerton says it became known perhaps three centuries ago.J Uisge-beatha is literally aqua vitre, water of "Augsburg beer, so much esteemed in Germany, is said to owe its excellence to aven's roots, geum nrbanum, that are pat into it. \ IVnmnt, says a fermented liquor was rnnde of it. 1 Enquiry ii. 144. In 1599 it was a favorite beverage of the Irish. WINE. 347 life; whisky is a corrupt pronunciation of the first part of the lerm. Trestarig is whisky three times distilled, which is reckoned an excel- lent spirit, and uisge beatha haul is four times distilled, of whi^h two spoonfuls is enough to drink at one time.* Whisky, illicitly distilled, is termed in Ireland potteen, and in Scotland pot dhu, that is the small pot and the black pot, in allusion to the vessel in which the wash is boiled. The superior excellence of small still whisky is believed to be owing, in a great measure, to the regular coolness of the pipes, which is effected by introducing a small stream of water, which flows through the bothy where the spirit is made. The Gauls were excessively fond of wine, which their own country did not, it is said, in early ages, produce. It is evident from Possidon- ius, Strabo, and Martial, that the grape was cultivated by the Celts, but they do not appear to have understood how to make wine. The climate could not have been an obstacle to its manufacture, for the districts famed for the best varieties have long been the northern provinces of France. | The Celtiberians, according to Diodorus, also bought their wine, but Pliny mentions a vine called cocolobin, famed for a medicinal drink which it afforded. J The berry called fionag, literally wine-berry, is produced in great abundance in the mountains of Scotland. It is about the size of a Zante currant, of the same color, and equally juicy and sweet. It also bears the appellation dearcag fithich, crow-berry, but the above' is the proper name, and from its being called wine-berry, it is clear that wine must, at some period, have been procured from it by the Gael, unless we may suppose that that people came immediately from a grape- producing country into the Highlands of Scotland, and from the resem- blance of the crow-berry to the grape, imposed that name upon it. I have no doubt, however, but good wine may be procured from it without the addition of sugar. The Gauls imported large quantities of wine from other countries, and they are represented as drinking it with avidity as soon as they re- ceived it. The Roman merchants encouraged an intemperance by which they made immense profits, and supplied the Gauls with abun- dance of wine, 'both by the navigable rivers and land carriage. The trade was most lucrative ; for so inordinately fond were they at one time of this excellent liquor, that they purchased it at any cost, and did not hesitate to give a boy in exchange for a hogshead. ; They often drank it to such excess, that they continued, at times, " wrapped in wild and wan- dering cogitations," and even became stark mad ; yet, perceiving these strange effects, they began to believe that the use of wine was highly improper, and Tully, in pleading for Fonteius, says, they had resolved to dilute it with water henceforth, because they thought it poison. |j The * Martin. t In 1808 there werft nearly four millions jf acres occupied in vineyards, and there uiv 1400 different wines in that country. ; Lib. xiv 2 Diodorus, v \\ Ainm. Mar. xv. 10. 348 DRINKING. Germans on the Rhine dealt largely in this article, and were equally remarkable for their intemperate use of it. They would continue drink- ing night and day, and the broils that constantly attended their debauch- es, commonly ended in maiming and slaughter. The Gauls in Asdrubal's service, having procured a large quantity of wine, made themselves raging drunk, when the army being attacked by the consul Csecilius, was, in consequence, completely overthrown.* From the charge of debasing themselves in this way, the Nervians must be excluded, as the importation of wine into their territories was strictly prohibited. The Scythians are stigmatized as very intemperate, and gave riste to the say- ing of the Greeks, " let us drink like the Scyths," when they meant to indulge themselves immoderately."!" A remark of one of their ambassa- dors, however, that the thirst of the Parthians increased as they deep- ened their potations, J does not countenance the charge of drunkenness. A favorite beverage of the rich Gauls was a mixture of wine and water, called dercoma; they also put salt, vinegar, and cumin in wine, ingre- dients which likewise formed a sauce for fish. Wine appears to have been very early known to the Highlanders, from its mention in old poems. It was formerly plentiful in Scotland, being chiefly procured from France, and was both good and cheap. Before the laws regulat- ing the importation of Port affected that part of his Majesty's dominions, " the free-born Scotsman stood, Old was his mutton and his claret good ; Drink Port ! the English legislator cried, He drank the poison, and his spirit died." The vessels out of which the Caledonians drank, were the corn or horn, the sliga or shell, and the fuach or cup. Ki-gu&ai, the expression of Athenaetis, translated, pour our the drink, is, literally, horn the liquor, the horn of animals being apparently the first articles converted into drinking^cups. Those used by the Highlanders are sometimes mounted with silver, or otherwise ornamented, and are usually formed of a portion of the horn, to which the ruder sort have a cork or wooden bottom. The chiefs were accustomed to use a whole horn, of large size, and richly ornamented, chiefly to be offered to visitors as a mark of res- pect, or as a trial of their abilities. It was the object to take off the contents at once; and if this was not done, the remainder in the horn, discovered the failure by the noise which it made in the sinuosities,- on which the company immediately called out, corneigh, the horn cries; when the party was obliged to refill it, and drink Celtic, i. e. according to the custom of the Celts. || At Dunvegan, in Sky, the ancient seat of the chiefs of Macleod, is an ox horn of this sort, finely mounted with sil- ver, which was borne on the arm, and its mouth being brought over the elbow, the contents were drank off. The choicest liquors were served * Diod. Fragment, xxxiii. Ritson. t Herod, vi. 84. t Pliny xiv. 22. Home. || Foulis, in Trans, of Scots Antiquaries, i. The Hirlas horn of the Welsh appears to be a similar article. DRINKING. 349 round in shells, whence the expressions to rejoice in the shell, and feast of shells. They were cockles, held with the thumb placed on the hinge part, and continued in use by the Highlanders until lately. Whisky was filled out in a shell, at Mr. Mac Svvein's, in the Isle of Coll, in 1773.* After the disuse of natural shells, some made of silver were re- tained. The Picts appear, from Adomnan, to have had drinking-glasses The Highlanders used wooden cups; but the usual article for ale was the maighder, a round vessel, with two handles, as represented in the vignette, by which it was carried to the head. The quach, so named from cu, round, is formed of different colored pieces of wood, in manner of cooper's work, but the staves are joined together by mutual insertions, presenting a very pretty appearance, and they are, besides, often hooped with silver. Plenty of liquor was of great importance at festivals. With- out this adjunct, as an author said of the Irish coshering, it could be no feast; the truth of which is proved by the term which the Highlanders apply to a great entertainment: they call it curme, the very word by which the strong liquor, at first confined to the household of a chief, is distinguished. The bach-lamhal, or cup-bearer, was a high office among the Gael, and, like the steward of the household in Wales, tasted all liquors. The smith, among the latter, was entitled to a draught of every sort brought to the king's table. The truliad, or butler, who had the custody of the king's cellars, was the eleventh person in the royal establishment. When a guest sat down at the table of a Highland chief, he was first presented with a draught of uisge beatha out of the family cup or shell, and when he had finished this cordial, a horn, containing about a quart of ale, was given him, and if he was able to finish it, he was esteemed a good fellow. f Riche, in his Irish Hubbub, describes the manner of drinking among that people: One standing up and uncovering his head, took a full cup, and, with a grave countenance, gave the name of the party whose health was to be drank, and he who was pledged, took off his cap, kissed his fingers, and bowing himself "in signe of reverent acceptance," the lead- er took off his glass, and, turning the bottom up, gave it "a phillip, to make it cry twango." The bumpers being refilled, the person whose health had been drank repeated the same ceremony, and it went in like manner round the whole company, provided there were three uncovered until it had made the circuit of the table. The love of intoxicating liquors is a vice which people in a low scale of civilisation are prone to. The Gauls, who drank sparingly of their own beverages, indulged to excess in the produce of the Italian vintage. The Highlanders can enjoy a social glass as much as any persons; but although whisky is plentiful with them, habitual tippling is extremely- rare, and there is a proverb which speaks their contempt of those who meet for the sake of drinking only. The renowned Fingal, who, by the by, delivered his maxims in Triads, said, that one of the worst things * Boswell's Journal of a Tour. * Dr. Mac Pherson. 350 SNUFF-TAKING which could happen to a man was to drink curmi in the morning. Measg mixture, now pronounced meisg, signifies drunkenness, apparently from the stupifying effects of drinking mixed liquors. A gentleman assured me that, in the parish of Lairg, in Ross-shire, where he was formerly resident, there was but one person addicted to drink; and a native of Laggan, Inverness-shire, knew but one individual in that part who was accustomed to intoxication: these characters indulged their depraved tastes in solitude, for they could find no associates. The Highlanders seldom met for a carousal, and when they did assemble they enjoyed themselves very heartily, the " lawing," or bill, being paid by a general contribution, for which a bonnet was passed around the company. If, however, the Highlanders seldom met to drink together, it must be con- fessed that when they did "forgather," they were inclined to prolong their stay, and would occasionally spend days and nights over the bottle. Donald Ross, an old man, full of amusing anecdotes of the gentlemen of Sutherland and the neighboring counties, used to dwell with particular pleasure on those social treats. The laird of Assynt, on one occasion, having come down to Dunrobin, was accosted by the smith of the village, when just ready to mount his garron and set off. The smith being an old acquaintance, and the laird, like the late Mac Nab, and others of true Highland blood, thinking it no derogation from his dignity to ac cept the gobh's invitation to take deoch an doras, a draught at the door, or stirrup cup, for every glass had its significant appellation, and went into the house where the smith called for the largest jar or graybeard of whisky, a pitcher that holds perhaps two gallons, meaning, without doubt, to .show the laird that when they parted, it should not be for want of liquor. " Well," says Donald, " they continued to sit and drink, and converse on various matters, and the more they talked, the more sub- jects for conversation arose, and it was the fourth day before the smith thought of his shop, or the laird of Assyrit." It is customary at meetings of Highland Societies to accompany cer- tain toasts with " Celtic honors," that are thus bestowed. The chief or chairman, standing up, gives the toast, and with a slight wave of the hand, repeats three times, suas e, suas e, suas e, up with it, up with it, up with it, the whole company also standing, and joining him in three short huzzas. This is repeated, when he then pronounces the word nish, now, also three times, with peculiar emphasis, in which he is join- ed by the company, who dwell a considerable time on the last cheer. As the company sit down, the piper strikes up an appropriate tune. Every one knows that the Scots are fond of snuff, and the figure of a Highlander is the almost invariable symbol of a snuff-shop. How they became so noted for their partiality to " sneeshin " is not easy to deter- mine; it is a subject that has hitherto received little attention. There is a tradition, that when the Black Watch, now the 42nd regiment, first came to London, the men were so constantly calling to supply themselves with their favorite powder, that the dealers whose snuff had met with TOBACCO AND SNUFF. 351 their patronage, adopted the figure of a Highlander to indicate their business. This may be very correct, but how came the inhabitants of the remote Highlands and Isles so speedily to bring into universal use an article that had been but recently introduced in England? Sir Wal- ter Raleigh first brought tobacco here, about 1586, and we know that, like all innovations, it must have been some time before its use became common, even in the south; yet, in a poem by Mary Mac Leod, of the house of Dunvegan, addressed to John Mac Leod, brother to Sir Nor man, and written about 1600, she thanks him for presenting her with a bra thombac, or tobacco mill-stone. Now it is not at all probable that the Highlanders could have received their knowledge of this plant from the English, or that, in so short a time, they would have been, not only reconciled, but proverbially ad- dicted to its use. The strong prejudice which the Gael have to inno- vation of all kinds, even emanating from a less objectionable quarter than the Sassanach, forbids us to believe that their snuff* was connect- ed with Raleigh's discovery. The root cormheille, or braonan was chewed like tobacco by the old Highlanders, and may have been smoked or ground to snuff, but whatever the article was, it is certain that the Celts were accustomed to smoke, and their pipes have been frequently dug up both in Britain and Ireland. They were discovered, in consid- erable numbers, under ground, at Brannockstown, in the county of Kil- dare, in 1784, and a skeleton, found under an ancient barrow, had' a pipe actually sticking between its teeth!* Its form is much similar to those now in use, only of an oval or egg-shape. Herodotus says, the Scyths had certain herbs, which were thrown into the fire, and the smoke being inhaled by those sitting around, it affected them as wine did the Greeks. Strabo tells us, a certain religious sect among them smoked for recrea- tion; and Mela and Solinus "f" plainly describe the smoke as being inhaled through tubes. The Highlanders appear to have adopted the tobacco introduced by Raleigh from a previous addiction to a native herb of similar pungency, and they are said to have formerl)- grown and prepar- ed their own tobacco in a very judicious manner, drying it by the fire, and grinding both stem and leaf, making a snuff* not unlike what is now termed Irish blackguard. They are so partial to snuff, that a supply of it is often a sufficient inducement for one to accompany a traveller across extensive tracts of mountain or muir. The mull, as the neat spi- ral horn, represented in the preceding vignette, in which they carry their snuff, is called a constant companion, and they take much pride in ornamr .ting it. They usually carry it in the sporari, or purse, but it was formerly stuck before them in the belt, J and the snuff* is taken by a " pen," either a quill or small spoon of tin, brass, or silver, attached to it by a chain of similar melal. The large ram's horn, with its appen- * Anthologia Hibernica, i. 352, where there is a print of it. The author picked up om, thrown out of a recent excavation at Primrose-hill, near London. t C. xv. Brodigan on Tobacco, &c. t Journey through Scotland, 1729. 352 MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE. dages, as represented in the closing vignette, is for the banqueting table, and usually lies before the chief, who occasionally passes it to the company. This utensil is usually ornamented in a very costly manner with silver and precious stones, and sometimes both horns and part of the skull are retained. The hammer is to shake the snuff from the sides, the rake is to bring it within reach, the spike is to break it if pressed together, the hare's foot is to brush away any particles that may be dropped, and the pen is to convey the snuff to the nose. I cannot vouch for the truth of the assertion, that the large horn was formerly carried about the person. The art of cookery and practice of medicine were formerly very inti- mately connected, and it is, perhaps, to be regretted, that they are now disjoined. Mankind, in a rude state of society, entertain a superstitious opinion of the healing powers of herbs ; but their belief is not, in all cases, groundless. When the chief occupations of a people are the pasturage of tame and the hunting of wild beasts, or even when they are employed in agriculture, the vegetable kingdom, so constantly under their obser- vation, is the wide field which nature spreads before them, whence they procure the simple remedies that are applied to their diseases and their wounds. Their materia medica is confined to roots and plants, and, from the experience of ages, they acquire a considerable knowledge of their sanative properties; the brute creation have even, sometimes, it is related, informed mankind of the medicinal virtues of certain plants; a crow is said to have led the Gauls to the discovery of the virtues of toracwn* It is easier to ascertain the properties of vegetables than '.hose of minerals. From the vegetable kingdom are still procured many valuable specifics, and the most ancient physicians prescribed no other remedies than what were derived from herbs. | Untutored savages have been found to possess valuable secrets in the science of medicine, .where the prescriptions were the natural produce of the earth, and administered almost without preparation; but, perhaps, the repute which has been, in some cases, attached to the application of simples, has arisen as much from their innocuous qualities as from their medicinal properties. People ignorant of more active medicines, will always esteem remedies which can be administered with safety, if not with a decidedly salutary effect. The Gauls are represented by the ancients to have attained very old age, enjoying peculiarly good health and vigor. The Britons were par- ticularly remarkable for their protracted lives. .Plutarch says, sorm* of them lived one hundred and twenty years, and the inhabitants of * Aristotle. t Pliny, xx vi. 1, 4. The virtues imputed to these prescriptions were so incrediblr, that, at last, a general skepticism arose, which paved the way for the new practice of Asclepiades ; that, in its turn, became equally corrupted. Ibid. The loss of that portion of Solomon's wisdom, contained in the treatise on every plant, " from thf cedar-tree, that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop, that springeth out of the wall " .8 to be regretted equally by the physician and naturalist. MEDICAL PROPERTIES OF VARIOUS HERBS. 353 the Hyperborean Island are said to have lived until they were satiated with existence. Their mode of life was, doubtless, conducive to strength and longevity, but the Celts were not entirely exempt from disease; yet those which were common at Rome, were little known in Gaul or Spain.* The glacach, among the Highlanders, is a disease of a consumptive nature, affecting the chest and lungs. It is also called the Mac Don- ald's disease, because there are particular tribes, of that name, who are confidently believed to be able to cure it with their touch, accompanied by a certain form of words, means which are quite ineffectual if any fee is offered or accepted! From the simple and active lives of these people, they were subject to few diseases; and it is only since linen has come into general use, that rheumatism is said to have been known. In the large county of Sutherland, only one doctor can find sufficient employment."!" The practice of physic amongst uncivilized people is always accom- panied by religious ceremonies, which have been assigned as the origin of all magic and incantations. The Druids were physicians as well as ministers of religion, J and, in certain diseases, their interposition with the gods was added to their physical applications, for the recovery of their patients. Sometimes it was thought necessary even to sacrifice a human victim for the removal of some desperate malady. As these priests were the chief depositaries of Celtic knowledge, which they pre- served as part of their religious profession, it is probable that the other classes of the community paid less attention to a study that would have infringed on the peculiar privilege of the Druids; but this species of knowledge being, in a great measure, the result of experience, it could not remain entirely with that class, although the office of administering bodily relief may have been conceded to them from a belief in their superior sanctity and influence with the Deity. In the Gaelic poem of Oithona, we find a chief who had been a diligent student of Esculapius: " Can the hand of Gaul heal thee?"he asks; " I have searched for the herbs of the mountains, I have gathered them on the secret banks of their streams, my hand has closed the wound of the brave. "^ Fingal is celebrated for his cuach fhinn, or medical cup, which is yet commemorated in Highland tradition. |j Amongst the Cel- tic nations, Pliny celebrates the people of Spain as most curious in searching after simples; and some herbs, in great repute for their medi- cinal virtues, were peculiar to that country. IT One of these was named oantabrica, from the territories of the Cantabri, where it grew. Vetton- ica, 01 betony, was not indeed peculiar to Celtiberia, but it received its * Pliny, xxvi. 1. A sort of cancerous bubo is described as peculiar to Narbonne, which, without being accompanied by pain, carried its victim to the grave in three days. Ibid. t Agricultural Report. t Bello Gallico. This is not, perhaps, a fair proof of the practice of surgery and medicine indepen- dent of the Druids ; for tradition asserts, that the kings of Morven had, at this period refused longer submission to that body. || Smith's Gallic Antiquities. H Lib. xxv. P. 354 MEDICAL PROPERTIES name from the Vettones, one of the tribes of that country, who probably first discovered its salutary properties.* The miseltoe was esteemed a panacea, and was called by a name wmch signified all-heal. It was particularly celebrated for the cure of epilepsy, in which disease it is even yet sometimes applied. "f Its wonder- ful properties, which need not be enumerated, were quite lost if it was allowed to touch the ground after being cut down. An hrrb, called britannica, supposed to have been cochlearia, or spoon-wort, was celebrated for the cure of paralysis. The name seems to point to this country as its original soil; but although it was exported to the continent from Britain, Pliny says it was not very plentiful in this island, and confesses he does not know why it has received the name.J Its properties were first discovered to the Romans in the time of Cassar Germannicus, when the army, having drank the waters of a certain fountain in Germany, lost the use of their legs, and were otherwise much affected. On this occasion, the natives, who were well acquainted with the deleterious quality of the water, and of the value of this herb in counteracting its effects, instructed the Romans in its application. y Agaricum, a production resembling a mushroom, grew on most trees in Gaul, and was not only prescribed as a medicine, but became an arti- cle of export to Rome, where it was much esteemed as an ingredient in confections.^ Many very astonishing virtues were imputed to verbenacum or ver- vain. It was not applied solely to heal bodily infirmities, but wag famed for removing mental disorders, having the power effectually to reconcile those who were at the deepest enmity, and by merely sprinkling the place where a party were to feast, it promoted hilarity and a good understanding among the company. These were, indeed, estimable qualities, especially as the Gauls are represented to have been extremely irritable, and prone to quarrel at their entertainments. This plant deserved the estimation in which it was held, for it was besides of much use in divination, and was gathered with the most superstitious observances. Those who were employed in the work, com- menced their operations by drawing a circle around it, and slipping their left hand cautiously from under their cloak, as if afraid of being seen, plucked it up by the roots and threw it in the air. They finally made an oblation of honey to the earth, as an atonement for depriving it of so valuable an herb.|| The Romans retained the ancient and almost universal veneration entertained for verbenacum, imputing to it several wonderful virtues. When the heralds went on any embassy, they carried a bunch of it, pulled up for the purpose, from which circumstance they derived their * Pliny, xiv. i Sir John Colbach, in 1720, published a Dissertation on the Miseltoe, where he recommends it as a medicine excellent to subdue epilepsy and all other convulsive dis- orders. J Lib. xxr. 3, xxvii. Pliny, xvi. 9. || Pliny, xxv. 9. OF VARIOUS HERBS 355 name, Verbenarii.* The Greeks employed vervaine in the worship of their gods, and the Eastern magi paid the same regard to it, affirming that it possessed many miraculous properties. The Druids, in their character of physicians, practised no greater deception than the priests of other nations. They knew that this herb really possessed certain qualities, which the wisdom of succeeding ages has not disputed, (e. g. for headaches, wounds, .c.,) and if they disguised this knowledge by superstitious ceremonies, and pretended miracles, they only displayed what the credulous populace, who delight in the marvellous, were great- ly pleased with, and thereby taught them to respect and venerate what they would not otherwise have valued The shepherds in the North of France continue to gather vervaine, pronouncing certain words, the meaning of which is unknown perhaps even to themselves, and apply it, not only for the cure of several complaints, but believe that it can ope- rate as a charm. "j" The Gauls seem to have believed that the potency of herbs were chiefly imparted by the mysterious ceremonies with which they were gathered and applied, an opinion that the Druids would naturally encoar- age. Those nations appear to have imputed to certain plants very wonderful and powerful virtues, and to have considered them as able to assist them in battle. Pliny, although sufficiently credulous, justly doubts their being able to fortify themselves by such means. " Where were those potent herbs among the Cimbri," he asks, " when they were so completely routed, that they yelled again ?"J The supernatural pow- ers which the Gauls ascribed to their medical applications were certainly ridiculous, but the articles which formed the prescriptions, if not effect- ual in their operation, were naturally harmless. In general, they pos- sessed some good quality, and, compared with the contemptible nostrums in credit among the Romans, they were respectable applications. The Gael do not appear to have been much tinctured with the belief in charms that prevailed among other people. Dr. Mac Culloch found no " superstitious remedies" among the people of the Isles, and amongst those to be noticed, few will appear to be such as deserve this term. In an old Gaelic poem, allusion is made to a ring used as a preservative from disease. " I am astonished, from the virtue of his ring, how he should be in pain or torment." Need we be surprised, that "the savage Celt," as he is stigmatized, should have believed that this article possessed wonderful powers, when we find Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Chancellor to Queen Elizabeth, giving her Majesty a ring to protect her from the plague ! The well-attested cure of Lady Baird, of Sauch- tenhall, near Edinburgh, by the Lee penny, is on a par with the Chancellor's gift. This valuable penny was borrowed by the town of Newcastle, to protect it from the plague, and a bond was granted for its sa'e return. |l In the Diary of El. Ashmore, 1681, we find, " I took a ^ood dose of elixir, and hung three spiders about my neck, and they "Pliny, xxii. 2. t M. Latour ap. Phillip's Flora Histonca. J. xxvi. 4, 1. S Ellis's Letters on English Hist. iii. || Murray's Guide to the Beauties of Scotland 356 MEDICAL PROPERTIES OF VARIOUS HERBS. drove my ague away !" I believe some of the Highlanders still attach a deal of importance to unspoken water, which is brought from certain parts, and applied without uttering a single word. The veneration which the ancient Celtse paid to water, led them to believe in the super- natural virtues of particular fountains and streams, in which their descendants continued long to bathe, in the faith of a cure, and this respect for wells was not relinquished by the Christian Scots ! Selago, or hedge hyssop, was reckoned by the ancient Celts excellent for all diseases of the eyes, the cure being produced by fumigation. It was gathered with singular ceremonies, of the same character as those observed in collecting other herbs, the person being clad in a white robe, with bare feet, &c.* Samolus, which was procured with similar observances, was chiefly employed as a preservative of cattle from every disease, but all its virtues seemed to depend on the due performance of the formalities with which it was pulled. Those who were employed in this office were enjoined to do it fasting ; they were not on any account to look aside, or turn their eyes from the herb, &c.j" The Celtic nard was valued at Rome as only inferior in quality to the Indian, and a pound of it was sold for thirteen denarii, something more than eight shillings sterling. It was much used by physicians, and was employed in the manufacture of a certain wine, greatly esteemed by the Romans, but whether the composition of this beverage was learned from the Gauls does not appear.J The nard was plucked up by the roots, which were carefully washed; it was then steeped in wine, dried in the sun, and made up into little bundles wrapped in paper, for sale. Exacon, a sort of centaury found in Gaul, was esteemed very useful in several distempers.|| The virtue of ischamon, or mylet, in stanching blood, was discovered by the Thracians. The scithica, which received its name from the Scyths, besides its use among that people, as a pre- ventive of hunger and thirst, was applied to the healing of wounds, for which it was much esteemed even in Rome. IF We know very little of ancient Celtic pharmacy. The juices of herbs were usually extracted by bruising or boiling.* Sometimes the plants were dried in the shade, at other times in the sun, and these operations were accompanied with many superstitious and nice observances. The leaves, the roots, and the stems of verbenacum, were each carefully and separately dried before use in a place shaded from the rays ot* the sun.** The Gauls extracted the juice of hellebore, a poison with which they rubbed the points of their arrows, and which had the property of making the venison sweet and tender."|"|" Limeum, called also belenium, was another poisonous extract, which, besides several other uses, was administered with salutary effect in a draught to cattle. * Pliny, xxiv. 9. t Ibid. xxiv. 9. J Ibid. xvi. Ibid. xii. 12. || Ibid. xxv. 6. IT Ibid. xxvi. 14, xxvii. J. ** Ibid. xxv. 9. tt Aulus Gellius, xvii. 15. Pliny, xxv. CELTIC PHYSICIANS. 337 Xenicum, also a poison, killed with such celerity, thtit it was necessa- ry for the hunter when he had struck his game, to run up quickly and cut the flesh from around the wound, to prevent the matter from spreading. An antidote to xenicurn was oakbark, or a leaf which they called coracion. There can be no doubt but tne Celtre were skilled in the treatment of wounds, the reduction of fractures, &c. The state of almost constant warfare in which they unhappily lived, afforded but too much practice to the surgeon. Sir Richard Hoare, in a barrow which he opened, near Stonehenge, found a skeleton, the skull of which had a piece, about five inches broad, so neatly cut off, that he thought it could only have been done by means of a saw. Severe wounds, that must have been long healed, are often perceptible on the mouldering remains of the Celtic warrior. The physician was hereditary, like other professions, and one was generally found in the retinue of a chief, where he held a situation of some distinction. In Ireland, the surgeon and the priest were placed beside each other at table, the chief perhaps considering the person who took care of his body on a near equality with him who attended to his spiritual welfare, or, it may be more likely, that when the professions were separated, the priest was assigned the place which the Druid had occupied. The kings of Scotland, from the most early period, had physicians in their establishment, who enjoyed lands as the reward of their services. Amongst the Highlanders, the rights of the physician were secured by royal grant. In 1609, King James granted to Fergus Mac Beth the office of principal physician of the Isles, with the lands of Ballenabe and Tarbet.* The Scots always paid great veneration to the profession, but they made it a rule to abstain from physic as much as possible, relying much on a system of abstinence for effecting a cure. A mutilated trea- tise on physic, and another on anatomy, were in the hands of Dr. Smith; and one on medicine, written in the end of the thirteenth, or beginning of the fourteenth century, was in possession of the late Mr. Astle. The Dr. says, there were in Mull, until lately, a succession of doctors, who wrote a chest full of Gaelic MSS., on subjects connected with their profession, which were purchased by the Duke of Chandos. Their prescriptions were from necessity chiefly confined to simple pre- parations of herbs, to which the inhabitants of the Isles arid the coasts of the mainland added certain sea weeds. A clergyman in the North of England writes to Dr. Fosbrooke,| " I have often regretted that our village herbalists are fallen so much into disrepute. There are some plants have qualities which are disallowed or neglected by botanists; and these qualities, brought into action by an old crony, will sometimes cure a disease that has been given up by her betters as irremediable." He instances a decoction of plantain and salad oil, successfully applied by * Mac Farlane's MS. Gilcohn is said to signify " son of the physician." t Traditions and Recollections. 358 CELTIC RECIPES. these rural doctors for the bite of an adder, &c. A good constitution is more in favor of a patient, perhaps, than any power in the application, which, if it does not positively assist recovery, it is not likely to check. The herbei, or herbary, was a spot in gardens, anciently devoted to the rearing of medicinal plants. We have a curious account of one of the self-taught Highland doctors in the work of Martin, who wrote 125 years ago, and attests the cure of a gentlewoman of his acquaintance, who was believed to be within but a few hours of her last, by this person, who applied only a simple plant. Neil Beaton was a native of Sky, and his renown was not only spread over the Islands, but extended far and wide throughout the Western parts of the mainland. Ho extracted the juices of roots and plants by a process peculiar to himself, at little or no charge, and had so nice a discernment, that he could discover their nature by the color of the flower. He treated medical works with contempt, from observing that their methods had often failed when his had succeeded. Martin says he examined him, and, with great simplicity, declares his belief that he worked by no supernatural assistance, but formed his system of treat- ment chiefly from a consideration of the constitution of his patient.* In Ireland, the O'Calinanes were so very famous for their skill, that it gave rise to a proverb. In that country, willow herb, lythrum sali- caria, is a celebrated medical plant. A few recipes of acknowledged efficacy will impart an idea of the state of medical science among these people. The tops of nettles, chopped small, and mixed with the whites of eggs, applied to the fore- head; or erica baccifera, boiled for a little in water, and applied warm to the crown of the head, procures sleep. Spirewort, cut very small, and applied in the shell of the limpet to the temples, removes toothache. A similar application, sufficiently strong to raise a blister, cures sciatica and other complaints. The infusion of wild garlic is drank for the stone. Fern, mixed with the whites of eggs, dispels bloodshot from the eyes. Wild sage, chewed, and put into the ears of cows or sheep, certainly restores sight. The broth of a lamb, in which the herb shunuish has been boiled, is reckoned good for consumption. The liver of a seal, dried, pulverized, and drank with milk or whisky, is a good remedy for fluxes. Linarich, a green colored sea weed, is applied to the temples and forehead, to dry up defluxions, and for the cure of me- grim: it is also applied to burns. I am not sure if the following practice was peculiar to the Highlanders. At the birth of a child, the nurse took a stick of green ash, and putting one end in the fire, while it was burning, she received in a spoon the juice which oozed from the other end, which she gave to the infant as its first food."f In the Island of Gigay, nettles were used to stanch bleeding, but the most esteemed article for this purpose is the bolgabeite, a round sort of fungus, that 'Western Islands, p. 198 Dr. Mac CullCfch says dyspepsia was the prevailing disease. t Lightfoot. LONGEVITY. 359 when il dies becomes full of a light powder, of a brownish color, which, being exposed to the wind, flies off like smoke. In cases of fracture, a poultice of barley meal and white of eggs must be immediately applied; the part then surrounded by small splinters of wood, tightly wrapped up, and not to be untied for several days. An ointment of St. John's wort, bettonica, and golden rod, all cut and mixed in butter or grease, with which they cure wounds in general, is then applied, and in this manner they treat the most compound fracture with tolerable success. When the feet were benumbed, the West Highlanders used to scarify their heels. When they were hot and galled with hard walking, they were bathed in warm water, wherein red moss had been put. The leaves of alder, applied to the feet, when inflamed by travel, was a prescription in other parts. A singular but effectual method of inducing perspiration was anciently practised by the inhabitants of the Hebuda?. A large fire was made on the earthen floor, and when it was properly heated, the fire was removed, and a heap. of straw spread over the place, upon which was poured a quantity of water. The patient then lay down upon it, and was quickly in a profuse sweat. In more recent times, they adopted another equally efficacious means. The patient's shirt was boiled, and put on wet, and as warm as could be borne.* To cure jaundice, the patient laid bare his back, for the inspection of the doctor, who, without any previous intima- tion, gently, but quickly, passed a hot iron along the vertebras. Others suddenly dashed a pail of cold water on the naked body. In both cases the cure was produced, or attempted, by the fright which the patient receives. Having thus described the manner of living among the Highlanders, exhibiting the activity and freedom of their lives, and showing the supply of food which their situation affords,, with the means which they adopt to counteract disease or accident, the inference must be, that these people are both healthy and long lived. Such, indeed, is the case, most of them attaining extreme old age, without suffering from any of the mala- dies which are the scourges of the luxurious and inactive. Martin, himself a native of the Hebrides, whom it has been found necessarv so often to quote, in his very curious and particular account of these islands, and their inhabitants, mentions several instances of pro- tracted existence, some of which came under his own observation. Gil- our Mac Grain, an inhabitant of Jurah, he says, kept 180 Christmasses, in his own house, and notices a women in Scarba, who reached the patriarchal age of 140 years, and a person in South Uist, who had but lately died at 138. In more recent times we find Flora Mac Donald, who died in Lewis in 1810, with full possession of her faculties, at the age of 120, and Margaret Innes, who died in Sky in 1814, aged 127. In 1817, Hugh Cameron, called Eobhan na Pillie, died at Lawers in Braidalban, in his 112th year ; and one Elizabeth Murray died at Auchenfauld, in Perthshire, when she had reached 116. Peter Gairden, who has been before alluded to, a native of Mar, was a sturdy old High- * Martin, p. 189. 360 LONGEVITY. lander when he died at the advanced age of 132. This veteran, whose portrait has been engraved, continued to wear his native garb, in this and other particulars resembling Alexander Campbell, alias Ibherach, who lived in Glencalvie, in Ross-shire, and was born in 1699. This "ancient of days" died at the age of 117, retaining his vigor of body and mind to the last, and enjoying his favorite amusement of roaming about the glens. A walk of eleven miles to visit his clergyman was a recreation, and shortly before his death he went to Tain, a distance of twenty-six miles in one day. He trod with a firm step, and uniformly dressed in the kilt and short hose, leaving his breast and neck exposed to the blast, however cold. Poor Ibherach, after living so long, was indebted for support to the generosity of his friends. About a year before his death, in 1816, he received from Lord Ashburton a shilling for every year of his life, with something additional for whisky to mois- ten his venerable clay, and cheer his spirits in the evening of life. This sum outlasted Campbell, and helped his clansfolk to perform the last offices with becoming decency and respect to the hoary veteran. In August, 1827, John Mac Donald, a native 1 of glen Tinisdale, in Sky, died at Edinburgh, aged 107. It was too memorable a circumstance to forget, that early one morning he supplied two females, as he supposed, with water from a fountain, which individuals were Flora Mac Donald and Prince Charles Stewart in disguise. This man was very temperate and regular, and never had an hour's illness in his life. On new year's day, 1825, he joined in a reel with his sons, grandsons, and great-grand- sons. The public prints have for many years past occasionally recorded the deaths of Highlanders, whose remarkable old age may have entitled them to notice, but who obtained a place in the obituary chiefly from the circumstance of their having been concerned in the last unfortunate struggle, and being supposed at the time the only survivors of those engaged in that affair. Successive communications have hitherto proved the supposition erroneous, and afforded a proof of the general longevity of the Gael. It is represented, that when his Majesty was in Edinburgh, John Grant, aged 110, was presented to him as one who had fought against the Royal forces in 1745, when, addressing his Sovereign, he observed, that although " he might not rank among the oldest friends of his throne, he was entitled to say that he was the last of his enemies." CHAPTER XII. OF THE SHIPPING, COMMERCE, MONEY, AND MANUFACTURES OF THE CELTS. IT has been said that no art is so primitive as navigation, nations in the rudest state of existence being found to possess sufficient ingenuity to form vessels capable of bearing them on the surface of the waters. The Gauls, in the most distant ages, appear to have had ships wherein they transported themselves to other countries, as those who, escaping after the battle of Thermopylae, passed into Asia.* A canoe, forrned by hollowing the trunk of a tree, seems the first attempt at ship-building. Hannibal, in passing the Rhone, bought all the small boats of the natives, a great number being there at the time attend- ing the fairs of the sea ; he also, as Polybius informs us, made so many vessels of hollow logs of trees, that every man strove to cross the river by one for himself. Lord Kames, however, thinks that beams and planks were first used in the construction of vessels, an opinion that is scarcely tenable. The remains of log canoes have been discovered under ground in Scot land, evincing a very remote but unknown antiquity. In the Locher moss, near Kilblain, one was found that measured eight feet eight inches in length, the cavity being six feet seven ; the breadth was two feet, and 46 * Pausanias, i. 4. 362 SHIPS. the depth eleven inches : it had evidently been hollowed by fire, and at one end were seen the remains of three pegs for the oars or paddles. In the same moss, in 1736, another was found which measured seven feet in length, and contained a paddle. The Welsh Triads celebrate Corfinawr, a bard, as the first who made a ship for the Cumri, and the account which Athenaeus gives of the mainmast of King Hiero's great ship having been procured from the mountains of Britain is, no doubt, equally true.* Coit, an obsolete term for a tree, is the name which the Highlanders apply to the simple vessel formed of a hollow log. It was also called amar, literally a trough, both appellations being in use by the Irish and Scots. When Dr. Mac Pherson wrote, about fifty years since, a few were still to be seen in some of the Western Isles. We are told by Pliny that the German rovers, who formed their boats in this way, made them sometimes sufficiently large to carry thirty men. I Long is also Gaelic for a ship; and Pryce, in his Cornish British Archaeology, says it is the British log. This first essay at ship-carpentry was succeeded by a frame of wicker, covered with hides, a sort of vessel used by the Iberians, J Veneti, &.c. They were also used by the British tribes in the most early ages, from whom Caesar learned their manner of construction, and by this means conveyed his army across the river Sicoris. Lucan, referring to this circumstance, describes them " The bending willow into barks they twine, Then line the work with spoils of slaughtered kine: Such are the floats Venetian fishers know, Where in dull marshes stands the settling Po ; On such to neighboring Gaul, allured by gain, The bolder Britons cross the swelling main." The Saxons also, we learn from Sidonius Appollinaris, crossed to Britain in these apparently frail barks, in which our ancestors fear- lessly ventured on the most stormy seas. The Britons went a dis- tance of six days' sail in them to Mictis, when pursuing the trade in tin. Saints Dubslane, Machecu, and Manslunum, left Ireland in one, and after having been seven days at sea, they landed in Cornwall, a very fortunate voyage, considering that they took neither oars nor sails with them. |! Saint Cormac also made a voyage from Orkney to lona in a similar vessel, but he appears to have had less faith than the others, for he provided himself with oars. IT Wicker boats continued in use by the innabitants of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales long after they were able to construct vessels of stronger materials. Dr. Mac Pherson says it was not above thirty years since such a boat was employed in the Isle of Sky. In some parts of Ireland they are still to be found, and in Wales they are more common. One Robert Leeth, who made a survey of * Campbell's History of the Admirals. t Lib. xvi. 40. J Strabo. Virgil Lib. iv. v. 130. || Marianus Scotus. HAdomnan. CURACHS. 363 Ireland in 1572, states, in his expenses, " item for a lethere boat, with three men and a gyde, to serche the said greate ryvere of May ore."* The Gaelic name for this boat is curach in Cumraeg, it is called cwm, and corracle. The Spanish euro, applied to small vessels used on rivers, is evidently a relic of the primitive language. In this wide spread tongue, bare, which Pelletier acknowledges to be genuine Cel- tic,"! ls a general name for shipping, and is to be found, with little alter ation, in most European languages. In the English, Armoric, French, German, Swedish, and Danish, the sound is similar the Dutch have boork, and the Spanish have barca. The curachs must have been strongly built, and often of a large size: there is a tradition that the one in which Columba made his voyages was forty-feet in length, but from its dimensions preserved in an earthern mound at lona, it appears to have been sixty-four feet. The curach, in which the above three holy men performed their voyage, was composed of 3| ox hides. J One of the heroes of Morven, in Dr. Smith's Gallic Antiquities, says, " my father wove a bare of the branches of trees." It is well known that the British tribes excelled in the formation of wick- er work. The modern corracles in Carmarthenshire are only five feet and a half long, by four broad, forming an oval shape. ^ The hides are pitched, and they are furnished with a seat, the men being accustomed to paddle with one hand, and fish with the other; they are so small and slight, that, when brought ashore, the owners carry them home on their backs. It appears from Eumenius and Caesar, that, on the descent of the lat- ter, the South Britons had not one vessel of war,|| their shipping con- sisting solely, according to antiquaries, of the small skin covered boats, the reason of which appears to be that their navy was lost in the defeat of the Veneti, to whose assistance it had been sent; and to encourage the subdued tribes to improve their navy, the Romans held out consider- able advantages. Certain rewards were offered to those who would fit out vessels capable of containing 10,000 rnodii of corn.1I Although it is, perhaps, impossible to ascertain when the Britons acquired the art of building vessels of timber, it must have been known very anciently. The Caledonians had certainly numerous fleets in distant ages, and it is evident that they were not all curachs. The long and perilous voya- ges which they made to Scandinavia and other parts, are celebrated in bardic lore. Their skill and. dexterity in working their vessels, and the intrepidity with which they encountered the storms of a Northern ocean, are celebrated in a description so striking, that it is to be regretted the tianslator of Ossian did not meet with the poem. Those adventurous Warriors, like the Ligurians described by Diodorus, made long voya- ges in their skiffs, daring the most tempestuous seas, and guiding their * MS. in Brit. Mus. t Diet, de la Langue Bretonrie. J Mathceus Westmon. Tour in Wales, 1775. || Panes', ii- Huet du Commerce. Tt Cod. Theod v. 1. 13. Campbell, in his Naval History, however, says, the Roman* confined them to the use of the curach. 364 BIORLINS. SHIPS OF THE CALEDONIANS. course by the reul;* yet some of their vessels must have been stoutly built, and of a goodly size. The Gaelic biorlin, the term for a ship or boat, is said, by some etymologists, learned in that language, to signify the deep or still water log, showing its original application to a rude float; but it appears, with much more reason, to be a corruption of bar- lin, the top of the waters, and in some parts the word is still so pronounced. We know less of the form of these ships, and the manner in which they were built, than of those used by some nations on the continent, a de- scription of which may not be uninteresting or unconnected with the subject. The ships of the Suiones were so built, that either end became the prow as circumstances might require, and they were consequently im- pelled in any direction without the trouble of being put about. They had no sails, and the oars were not fixed, but the rowers plied in all parts of the ship, changing their position from place to place as they were led to alter their course. f The Veneti, we learn from Cresar, had a great navy, and excelled in nautical science; their ships, with which the Roman fleet had an engagement, this accomplished writer considered superior to his own galleys. They were entirely formed of oak, very strongly put together, their bottoms were flat for the purpose of clearing shallows, and the prow and stern were high to resist the waves. The benches of the rowers were a foot in width, and were fixed with inch-thick iron bolts. The cables were of iron chain, and the sails were of skins and of soft leather.^ The Gauls, in general, however, manufactured canvass for sails. Stones, sand-bags, &c. were first used for anchors; they were afterwards made of wood, and the invention of the double flue is ascrib- ed to Anacharsis, the celebrated Scyth.|| From the figures on ancient monuments in the West Isles, and a sculpture at lona, the prow and stern of the Caledonian ships were equally high. A single mast placed midship sustained a square sail, as represented in the vignette at the commence- ment pf this chapter, IF and the flag was borne on a mast fixed at the prow. The cordage was formed of thongs. There were anciently a number of galleys, of twenty oars, in the Hebrides, the service for many lands being to provide and maintain a certain number; hence the longfad, or lyrnphad, in the arms of the Campbells and others. In the twelfth cen- tury, Symerled's fleet amounted to fifty-three sail, but they were after- wards augmented to 160, which enabled him to shake off" the Danish yoke, and contend with Malcolm IV. Hailes relates, on the authority of Mathevv of Westminster, that, in 1249. a large vessel was built at Inverness. The ship that was discov- ered in the ancient bed of the river Rother, and exhibited in London some jears ago, is believed to have been one of those used by the Sa^on * Guiding star, from ruith, course, and iul, star. \ Tac de Mor. Germ. | Bello Gall. iii. 8, 13. See page 182. Some of the vessels on the Po had sails of rushes. Pliny. The Spaniards made cables and other tackling of genista, or broom. Ibid. xix. 2. || Reloe on Herod. If The distant vessel is modern, but the anachronism will be pardoned. SHIPS OF THE CALEDONIANS. 365 rovers. This singular hulk was clinker-built, long and narrow, ; n the form of a barge or canal boat, and was caulked with a vegetable substance said to be moss. We find that the people of Picardy bruised certain reeds, with which they filled the seams of their vessels, and for this pur- pose it had no equal.* In a manuscript account of Dumfriesshire, written more than a century ago, is an account of a ship, or part of one, dug up at Stranraer, in a place to which the tide had long ceased to flow; nay, the remains lay under a spot of ground that, from time immemorial, had been a cabbage- garden. In this instance, the planks were fastened with copper nails, in a manner very different from that in use now, or at the period of the discovery.f As the greater part of this vessel, which appears to have been of a considerable size, remains undisturbed, it is to be hoped that an opportunity may hereafter occur of making more accurate observa- tions. As there was an incentive to battle among the Highlanders, there was also an incentive to seamen, or stimulating address to the crews of the Biorlins.J One of these curious poems, the composition of Alexan- der Mac Donald, and recited to animate the crew of the Lord of Clan Ronald, is a work of considerable merit, and an analysis and a few quota- tions, for which I am indebted to a literary friend, whose favors I have before had to acknowledge, will show its character. It commences with a benediction thus: " Now the ship of Clan Ron- ald is launched, I fervently implore God's blessing upon her, on the chief, and on his crew; acrew unmatched in bravery and courage: And, O God! render thou the breath of the sky propitious, that it may urge us over the waters uninjured to a safe haven. Almighty Father, who hast, by thy word, called forth from nought the ocean and the winds, bless our lank bark, and our stout heroes all, and take them under thy pro- tecting power. Do thou, O Son! bless our anchor, our sails, our shrouds, and our helm, our tackling, yard, blocks, and mast, and be our pilot o'er the waves! Our stays and haulyards keep sound. Preserve us from all dangers free. Let the Holy Ghost be around us, who knows every harbor under the sun. We submit ourselves to his protection." The benediction on their arms then follows: "May God bless our swords our keen, blue, Spanish blades, our heavy coats of mail, proof against the soft edge of an ill-tempered weapon, our cuirasses and bossy shields. Bless all our armour, offensive and defensive; the bows of bright and polished yew, that we bravely bend in the strife; our birchin arrows, (hat will not splinter, and the badger's rough spoil that contains them; and whatever other warlike stores are now on board of Mac Donald's bark." * Pliny, xvi. 3(r. t Trans, of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1893, p. 52. t Called Prosnachadh fairge. The Gaelic liturgy, composed by John Kerswell, afterwards Bishop of Argyle. I5G6, contains the form of blessing a ship when going to sea. The steersman says, " Let us bless our ship," the crew responding < ; God, the Father, bless her '" Repeating 366 PROSNACHADH FAIRGE. Addressing the crew, the bard says: " Be not deterred by womanish softness from acting like the hardy and the bold. As long as the sides of our biorlin are unrent, as long as four boards of her keep together, as long as she can swim under your feet, be not appalled by the angry ocean. The pride of the sea will submit to the brave. If thy foe on land finds thy courage increase with thy danger, he will the more readily yield. T is even so with the great deep; its fury will yield to the efforts of the fearless and the bold." Address to the Rowers, or the Prosnachadh Uimrai: "That you may urge on the long, dark, brown vessel, man the tough, long, polish- ed oars; keep time, strike quick, and deeply wound the heaving billows, and make the surges fly like sparkling showers of living flame. Send her, swift as an eagle, o'er the deep vales and mountains of the sea. O, stretch, bend, and pull the straight sons of the forest! And see how the stout conquerors of the ocean bend their muscular forms like one man! Behold their hairy, sinewy arms! See how they twist their oars in the bosom of the deep! Now the pilot's song inspires them with fresh vigor see how they urge the swift courser of the ocean, snorting o'er the fluid plain. Lo! how her prow cuts the roaring waves! Her strong sides creak amidst the dark heaving deep, while the sons of the forest, wielded by the strong arms of the crew, impel her against the storm. These are the fearless, unwearied, unbending rowers, whose oars can shut the very throat of the whirpool."* As soon as the sixteen rowers were seated at their oars, and ready to row the vessel into the fair wind, Callum Garbh, Mac Ronald of the ocean, the fore oar's-man, sung the loram, which consists of fifteen stanzas. Having got into the fair wind, they hoist their sails, and Clan Ronald orders his officers to appoint every man to his station, the bard address- ing each separately respecting his particular duty, in which great nautical knowledge is displayed. The steersman is first addressed; next the man who manages the main sheet, then he at the jib sheet, then the pilot, then a person who is called Fear Calpa na Tairne, then the describer of the waters, or the man on the outlook, and next the thrower out of the water. There were also two who assisted in a storm or when need- ful, and four who were in reserve, lest any of the others should be disabled, or, as the bard expresses it, "lest the sea in its fury should pull any of them overboard." Every thing being now prepared, and every man at his post, they set sail at sunrise from Lochainart', in South Uist, on St. Bridget's day, and his request they rejoin, " Jesus Christ bless her !" and, to the same observation, the third time, "The Holy Ghost bless her!" The steersman then asks them what they fear, if God, the Father, be with them, &c.; to which they reply, " We do not fear any thing." They did not, however, altogether rely on the assistance of the Trinity, for they were careful to suspend a he-goat from the mast to insure a favorable wind. * Probably alluding to the Coire bhreacain, a remarkable whirpool between the Isles of Jurah and Scarba. SHIP BUILDING. ORIGIN OF MONEY. 367 the voyage, which proved rough, is described in the most picturesque and poetic strains. They had scarcely " stretched the well-shaped yards to the tall masts of sound red pine, and fastened the sails and rigging through loops of iron," than a storm arose, and " the awful world of waters drew on its rough mantle of thick darkness, swelling into moun tains, and sinking into glens; the dreadful monsters of the deep express their terror by their terrible bellowing and roaring. By the agitation of the waters, and by the blows of our sharp prow, their brains are scatter- ed on every wave the sea is red with the gore of its inhabitants, and our ship is damaged by coming in contact with the monsters of the ocean. 'T was deafening and maddening to listen to the roaring of the monsters, and the awful voice of the demons of the deep." As night approached, the storm increased, accompanied by thunder and lightning, " until the ocean beheld our invincible spirit with admiration, and hush- ed his fury into peace. But there was not a mast unbent, yard unsnap- ped, or sail unrent. Half her planks were sprung, and all her carcass was loosened, and groaned with distress. It was at the cross of the Strait of Isla, that the ocean made peace with us, and dismissed this host of winds to the upper regions of the air, leaving the waters smooth as a polished mirror. We returned thanks to the King of kings for having delivered the good Clan Ronald from the fearful death that had threatened him. We then laid her mast along the deck, and stretched out on each side the smooth polished oars, made from the good red pine, cut by Mac Varas, in the Isle of Funen. We rowed with strong arms, as if one man moved all the oars, until we came to port near Carrie Fer- gus. We cast anchor, took food, and the cup went unsparingly round, before we laid ourselves down for rest." The art of ship building was brought to great perfection in Scotland, and this subject may be concluded with an account of a ship of a re- markably large size, built by King James IV., which consumed so much timber, that she is said to have wasted the woods of Fife. This vessel was one hundred and twenty feet long, and thirty-six feet wide within the sides, which are said to have been no less than ten feet thick! " This great ship cumbered Scotland to get her to sea." She was provided with 300 mariners, 120 artillerymen, and 1,000 men of war, and cost 30,000. " If any man," says Pitscottie, " believe that this description be not of verity, let him pass to the gate of Tillibardine, and there afore the same, ye will see the length and breadth of her, planted with haw- thorn by the wright who helped to make her."* Before the precious metals are adopted as the medium of exchange, commercial transactions are simply the barter of different commodities. Cattle is the property which most uncivilized people possess, and which they can part with to others, and it consequently becomes a standard of value among primitive nations. The armor of Diomede, Homer tells us, cost only nine oxen, while that of Glaucus cost a hundred. From this * Chronicles, p. 108, fol. ed. 368 COIN OF THE BRITONS. commodity, which regulated the traffic and indicated the wealth of the Celts until a late period, is derived the name which the Romans gave to .heir coined money. Pecunia is deduced by Varro from pecus, a flock, pointing to the time when domestic animals were the only means by which all other necessaries were procured. The inconvenience of this sort of traffic becoming much felt on the advance of civilisation, it natu- rally led to the adoption of precious metal, as a more convenient article to exchange for whatever might be wanted. Gold, silver, brass, and iron, are therefore adopted as money, and are bought and sold in a state of roughness, by weight. The system of trading by the exchange of commodities may, however, continue long among a rude people. The inhabitants of the Silures, or rather Cassiterides, we are told, adhered to their old customs, and refused to buy or sell for money, continuing the primitive method of exchange. It was for the convenience of this trade of barter that fairs were anciently instituted. In Ireland the) were denominated aonachs, and one was held near Wexford, much cel- ebrated by the native historians, who assert its existence in an era of improbable antiquity. In that country, and in Scotland, the want of coined money long rendered an exchange of goods the only means of supplying reciprocal wants. Tacitus, speaking of the Germans, says, silver and gold the gods had denied them, whether in mercy or wrath he could not venture to say. They formerly disregarded these metals, although they had silver vessels, but when he wrote, the Romans having made them acquainted with its use and value, they had learned to receive money. Tacitus informs us, that those on the frontiers of Germany placed most value on coins that bore the impress of a chariot with two horses. " In Britain, I hear," says Cicero, writing to Trebatius, " is neither gold nor silver." Iron appears to have been so scarce and valuable, that it was adopted for money, and passed by weight. With this and copper, the subdued tribes paid the imposts which the Romans exacted.* The iron money of the Britons was in the form of rings, j but the de- scription has not enabled antiquaries to agree concerning their precise shape and size. In Oudendorp's edition of Caesar's works, J it is sup- posed that they resembled the money of the Chinese, who perforate their coin for the convenience of carrying them on a string, as here represented; but quantities, amounting to some horse loads of iron pieces, of the other form, have been found in Cornwall, that very probably once passed for coin. In a barrow that was opened in the parish of Kirk-patrick-flem- ing, in Dumfriesshire, a stone chest was discovered, which contained an * l-luj't, Hist, du Commerce, p. 204. t Caesar. Herodian. i Vol. i. p. Ji24 f ed. 1737. Lhuyd, in a letter to Mr. Tomkir? COINS. 369 urn and several iron rings, about the size of a half-crown, and much cor- roded. Those singular articles, called Kimmeridge coal money, are believed to have been used in place of coin. It is not improbable but their appearance would lead to the conclusion that they were rather employed in some game, the indentations with which they are marked varying in number. At all events they are not perforated like the ring money.* The rudest of the Britons soon acquired a knowledge of the value of more precious metals than iron. In 198 we find Lupus purchasing peace of the Meatoe, by paying them a large sum of money, and long before this time it wpuld appear, coins and medals, composed of tin and lead, rudely formed, were current among the Southern tribes. The coins of the Britons bear the impression of the heads of their princes, with various figures on the reverse, either symbolical, or representing articles, the uses of which are now unknown; but the figure of a horse, the mystical symbol of Ceredwen or Ceres, as here shown, is frequently introduced. The British coins usually present the inscription Tascio, concerning which there has been so much conjecture. It has, with much appearance of reason, been said to be the native appellation of the nobles, being the same as the Gaelic toshich, which signifies chief, and hence it meant no more than the Rex of modern coin. It is to be noticed, however, that tasgaidh, in Gaelic, is the treasury, and taisg, is to hoard or treasure up; hence Dr. Pettingal thinks it signified the tascia, the tax or tribute paid to the Romans, who, on their establishment, prohibited the native princes from coining. In this opinion he seems borne out by others, who trace tax from task, and that from tasgia; but Peggef believes it is the name of the Mint-master, who was a Gaul. It is observable that "not any coin bearing the head of a Welsh prince, or which can in any respect be supposed to have issued from the mint of a prince of that country, is known to be extant. "J Ceiniog, or denarios, is the only coin that has a name in Welsh. The Gaelic boun is applied to coin, and signifies any thing round, and of a portable size, whence probably the English bun. The Caledonians had no coins for nearly 1000 years after Caesar. || The Irish appear to have long "The opening of the Deveril Barrow by Mr. Miles, contains some observations on these articles. t On the coins of Cunobeline. t Introduction to the Beauties of England and Wales, p. 313. Robaris' Early History of the Cumri. || Dr. Mac Pherson. 47 370 COMMERCE. RICHES OF THE CELTS. remained destitute of money. Campion says there was no coin in any great lord's house. The ancient money of Man was formed of leather. Of the commerce of the Celts, and of the state of the arts, both ne- cessary and ornamental, it is proper in this place to take notice. The spirit of enterprise which this people displayed, when, after their subjugation to the Romans, their manners became altered, and their mercantile advantages were discovered, was no less remarkable than their warlike propensities. Caesar bears testimony to the industry of the Gauls, their ingenuity and success in imitating any thing manu- factured by others, and Diodorus, who praises the diligence of the wo- men in their household matters and attention to their personal appearance, extols the acute understanding and aptitude to learn, so conspicuous in the race. They supplied their conquerors with various articles, which were found both useful and ornamental in the refined society of Italy; and the Romans, who never hesitated to copy the barbarians in any thing really worthy of imitation, derived from the Gauls the knowledge of many useful inventions. The policy of the Romans, however, ap- pears from Tacitus to have restricted the advantages of commerce to the Hermandures, and the stern Nervians prohibited the pursuit alto- gether, from an apprehension that it was subversive of their pristine valor and hardihood, and inimical to their independence. The Celts were reputed very affluent,* and their riches consisted of gold and cattle, articles easily moved about. | There were no silver, but numerous gold mines in Gaul, and this precious metal was often found without the labor of mining, being washed down by the rivers. It was so plentiful, that both sexes covered themselves with ornaments of it rings on their fingers, bracelets on their arms and wrists, massy chains, pure and beaten, about their necks, and heavy croslets upon their breasts.^ The better sort were accustomed to scatter great quan- tities of gold in their temples and sacred places, on which no one ever laid a sacrilegious hand, except the Romans, to whom it is said the riches of these fanes offered the great temptation for hostilities. When Claudius Caesar rode triumph for the conquest of Britain, he had with him a crown of gold weighing nine pounds, presented by Galliacomata. Spain paid annually 20,000 pounds of gold, and one mine yielded of silver 100,000 pounds yearly. || The above enumeration of ornaments shows that the Celts not only possessed the precious metals in abundance, but were excellent artifi- cers. The gold, whether procured from the rivers or by mining, in which the Aquitani were particularly skilful, IT was melted in a furnace, and subjected to the process of refining, and the articles fabricated were finished with great care and ingenuity. * Tacitus' Annals, iv. Agrippa asks the Jews if they were " richer than the Gauls.' t Polybius, ii. } Diodorus. Pliny, xxxiii. 3. || Gibbon, i. c 7. U Bello Gall. iii. 22. BRITISH EXPORTS. TIN. 371 The prevailing use of brass in the formation of weapons of war has been noticed. This metal is sooner discovered and easier wrought than iron, and in ancient times it was more valuable than gold. It was a favorite metal with the Celts, and was held in particular esteem by the Pythagoreans, a sect whose doctrines were analogous to those of the Druids. The ancients appear to have been in possession of a method of indurating brass by a process now unknown, their alloy being found different from that which is at present used. Aristotle assigns to Lydus, the Scyth, the invention of the art of melting and tempering brass.* The Britons imported this metal, and in smelting it they used a consid- erable quantity of lead. In Ireland some weapons were found formed of brass, containing a proportion of gold. Copper, in its pure state, was also a metal in much esteem by the Celts, and was particularly abund- ant in Aquitain. Lead was procured with difficulty from the mines of Gaul and Iberia, but was easily found in Britain, where it was indeed so abundant, that there was an express law among the natives, prohibiting more than a certain quantity from being dug up. Britain, says Strabo and others, produces corn, cattle, gold, silver, and iron; besides which were exported wicker work, copper, tin, lime, pearls, skins, slaves, and dogs, excelling all others, and much used by the Gauls in war. The Romans, we are told, laid no heavy duties on British exports or imports. In Strabo's time they made more of the customs, small as they were, than they could raise by the exaction of tribute. Tin is the metal for the production of which ancient Britain is most celebrated. It is erroneously supposed that no other country then pro- duced this metal, an opinion which in the second Chapter of this work has been proved untenable. It is remarkable that Polybius, speaking of the Spanish tin, and alluding to Britain in the same sentence, says nothing of this metal, for which it is said to have acquired so much celebrity. The Britons, according to Diodorus, dug the tin in the pro- montory of Baleriurn, or Cornwall, and melted and refined it with much care and labor. They beat it into square pieces, like a die, and carried it in carts to an island called Ictis, which was only insulated at high water; whence the merchants, by whom it was bought, transported it to Gaul in boats covered with skins, and carried it on horses' backs to the Rhone, a distance of thirty days' journey. The Briton, like his continental ancestor, was no doubt long unac- quainted with the art of working metals, the knowledge of which is forced on barbarians by the necessity of fabricating arms for their pro- tection, but it may be presumed that instruments of stone continued in occasional use among the Celts after the discovery of so useful an art as forging brass or iron, and until these materials became sufficiently plen- tiful to admit of general adoption. Arms of brass or copper were more * Pliny, vii. 56. 372 MANUFACTURE OF IRON. easily formed than those of iron, of which besides the Britons had but little. The uses of this metal, and the art of rendering it malleable, are not easily discovered, and it is believed that it was only a short time previous to the first arrival of the Romans that mines of iron ore had been opened and imperfectly worked, on a very limited scale. That the ancient Caledonians were acquainted with the manufacture of iron appears from the testimony of historians. " The hundred ham- mers of the furnace" are alluded to in a Bardic composition, and a sim- ile is drawn from the art " fire pours from contending arms as a stream of metal from the furnace."* The uniform tradition is, that the Gael anciently made their own iron, in corroboration of which, heaps of iron dross are found in many places among the mountains, that are confidently believed to be the remains of their founderies.f Thereis still to be seen in Glenturret a shieling, called Renna Cardich, the smith's dwel- ling, with the ruins of several houses, and heaps of ashes, with other indications of an iro-n manufactory. Old poems mention it as a work where the metal, of which swords and other arms were made some miles lower in the valley, was prepared. J In Sutherland also are distinct marks of the smelting and working of iron with fires of wood.^ Peats were the usual fuel, and they are yet in general use. The smith's fire is made of turf, first half burned, and then soaked in water, by which process it is hardened and made sufficiently solid to stajid the heat to which it is subjected. In muirs, deep narrow pits are frequently to be seen, where it is said the peats were thus prepared, but the practice at present is to dig holes three or four feet deep, in the form of a bowl or basin, which are filled with peats that are set fire to, and extinguished when sufficiently charred, by being covered with turf. Charred peat is still used in Germany, and it answers all the purposes of smelting, weld- ing, &c. The Rev. Mr. Macqueen, of Kilmuir, describes, from tradi- tional record, the famed Luno, the son of Leven, who made the swords of Fingal and his heroes, as a wild savage, going on one leg, with a staff in his hand, notwithstanding which he was remarkably fleet, and clad in a mantle of black hide, with an apron of similar materials. Tie was no inapt personification of Vulcan. Ccesar represents the Gauls as perfectly skilled in the manufacture of iron, || but the Celtiberi must be allowed to carry the palm in this art. Their method of purifying and tempering the iron was by burying it under ground until the weaker and less useful part was consumed by rust, when the remainder was found much improved both in strength and solidity. Of this they made their weapons, and their swords were celebrated even among the Romans, for they cut so keenly, that neither shield, helmet, nor bone could with- stand them. The worth of Spanish blades has been acknowledged in later ages, and they were always preferred by the Highlanders. The * Report on the Poems of Ossian, Appendix, p. 245. i Agric. Report of Argyle, &c. I Newte's Tour. Sir Robert Gordon, &c. || Lib. vii. 21. WORKING IN METAL. 373 plates and chains of iron with which the Caledonians and Picts ornament- ed themselves, satisfactorily prove their knowledge of the manufacture. In 1719, a bushel of those implements called celts, each inclosed in a mould, were found at Brough, on the Humber; and at Skirlaugh a large quantity of celts, spear heads, blades, &c. was found, along with several cubes of the same metal, and some masses evidently fitting into the neck of the moulds in which the celts were cast. The whole was wrapped in coarse strong linen, and inclosed in a case of wood.* On Easterly moor, twelve- miles northwest of York, in 1735, there were found one hundred celts of copper, with some pieces of rough metal and much cinders. The colony celebrated in Irish history under the name of Danans, carried from Britain a large brass vessel, or caldron. j" It would appear, from some ancient poems, that the Highlanders had metal mirrors. J The reader who is curious, has been referred to works containing plates and descriptions of the remarkable variety of ornaments in use among the British tribes. The discoveries in Ireland are often so singular, that an antiquary is at a loss to determine the era to which they belong. Articles of solid gold and silver, and of elegant and unique workmanship, are so often found, as to incline us to doubt the truth of those accounts which represent the people as formerly in a state of barbarity. Among other things crowns of gold are not unusual! These relics are often dug from considerable depths, and it seems impossible either to account for their numbers, or for their deposition in such places. The distractions with which that unhappy island has ever been disturb- ed, may have induced the petty kings and nobles in their adversity to bury their diadems and other valuables,^ but still we are surprised at the existence of so many. The Irish regal crown was called asion from assian, plates, it being composed of folds or ribs. At the Tain bo, an event that occurred eight years before Christ, Maud, the queen of Connaught, rode in an open chariot, four others being at a distance to keep off the crowd, and pre- vent the dust from staining her golden asion. || It was by his diadem of gold, according to Marianas Scotus, that Brian Boroimh was discover- ed after the battle of Clontarf. Some of the articles which formed the exports of the ancient Britons have been noticed in a preceding page. Insignificant as their commerce may have been, they nevertheless carried on a regular trade with the continent, and the produce of the interior was conveyed in cars along the tractways that extended throughout the island. The fourteenth Triad commemorates Beli as a constructor of roads from the southern shores even to the extremity of Caithness, at the same time affording * Poulson's Beverlac, p. 5. t Trans, of Highland Society, i. 334. | Keating. O'Conner. Nen. Brit. Sir Henry Radcliff writes, in 1576, that on a report that all pewter and brass ves- sels were to be taken from the Irish, they immediately buried and concealed them. Ij Harris, ed. of Ware. 374 EXPORTATION OF SKINS. ART OF TINNING. protection to those found on them.* The Watling street, running from Chester to Dover, appears to have been called by the Britons, Gwydd elin sarn, the road of the Irish. "f The trade of slaves seems to have been common in Britain; but who the miserable beings disposed of were, does not clearly appear, for slavery was unknown among the Celts Some Gauls are indeed said to have been so fond of Roman wine, that they bartered children for it, and the Germans sold buffoons as slaves,J but the bondmen must have been those captured in war. The Irish re- sorted to Bristol for the purchase of slaves. The exportation of skins was a branch of commerce in both islands from the most remote times, and it is believed that Scotland was long unable to part with any thing else. From the abundance of game great quantities were formerly disposed of; and in Ireland, at the close of the seventeenth century, we find the revenue was chiefly derived from hides.^ In the fabrication of many of the articles described, other implements must have been employed. Those formed of stone could only have been moulded into shape by patient exertion, but other means must have been employed to bring the metal weapons to an edge. The Celts must have possessed whetstones, not only to sharpen their swords, daggers, spears, scythes, &c. but the razors with which they shaved the lower part of their face. The Romans had long made use, for this purpose, of stones procured from the island of Crete and other places which could not be used without oil; but about the period of their first visit to Britain, they discovered that the Gauls used a sort which they called passernices, that they were much superior to the others, could be used with water, and were to be procured in Italy. The hones used by the Roman barbers were procured in Hispania citeriore, and required only to be moistened with spittle. || British whetstones three inches and up- wards in length, some much worn and others apparently unused, have been found in various places. They are often discovered in barrows, and are sometimes accompanied by those implements, in the manufac- ture of which they were necessary. The Gauls, who were noted for always having plenty of pots and pans for dressing their meat, invented the art of tinning these utensils and all others formed of brass and appropriated for domestic purposes; and the Bituriges, or people of Bourges, were most celebrated for this work, which was commonly called incoctilia.lf It is probable that they cover- ed other articles with tin as an ornament. The Romans, who repaid nations for the loss of liberty by the encouragement which their luxury and voluptuousness gave to the exertion of the manufacturer and artisan, could not fail to estimate the value of covering their copper and brazen utensils with a substanr.e so innocuous, nor overlook the beauty which * Robert's Early Hist, of the Cumri. t Hoveden, p. 432. t Amm. Mar. xxix. State of Ireland, 1673. H Pliny, xxxvi. 22. U Ibid, xxxiv. 17. FURNITURE AND UTENSILS. HIGHLAND BEDS. 375 could, by such a process, be imparted in many different ways. The Gauls, on their part, were not insensible to the advantages to be derived from a prosecution of the art, and began about half a century after Christ, to silver and gild over the harness of horses, and particularly to decorate all kinds of chariots in this way. The people of Alise, a town of the Mundubii, in Burgundy were the most celebrated artificers in this line, and the Roman extravagance led them, in a very short time, to distribute their ornaments in the most lavish expenditure. It is curious to find that the Gauls were the inventors of soap. Their solicitude to preserve the yellow color of their hair, or to deepen its tone, led to the invention of an article used in -washing their bodies, com- posed "ex sevo et cinere." This was much used in Germany, chiefly by the men; it was either solid or liquid, and the best was made of the ashes of beech wood and goats' suet.* The utensils and furniture of the Celtic dwellings were suited to the wants of the hardy inmates, but these articles were not, however, by any means so inartificial as might be supposed. Polybius does not lead us to think very highly of the acquirements of the Gallic nations who lived in Italy, when he says they dwelt in villages without mclosure, and had no furniture, but lay on the ground, living also on flesh, and making no profession but those of war and tillage, their wealth consist- ing of gold and cattle. That the Celts did not sleep on the ground, but on beds of grass or straw, he elsewhere informs us, and also says they slept on mattrasses.| In this he is borne out by other authors, who af- firm that they were the inventors of flock beds, a manufacture which they taught the Romans. They were usually made from the refuse of the wool after dying; a superior sort was formed of the Cadurcian flax, but all the different kinds retained their original Celtic names. J The Britons spread the skins which they wore during the day, under them at night, and this practice of sleeping on skins continued until very lately among the common people of Germany. The Celtiberians made their mattrasses of the herb genista, a sort of broom, peculiar to that country. The Highland practice of sleeping on heath nicely put together on the ground, with the green tops uppermost, was reckoned very condu- cive to health. Reposing on a bed of this sort, " restored the .strength of the sinews troubled before, and that so evidently, that they who at evening go to rest sore and weary, rise in the morning whole and able." The Gael, to whom it was matter of indifference whether they reposed on the heath as it grew on the hill, or stretched on it when prepared in their cottage, were so strongly prejudiced against any thing tending to effeminacy, that, according to the chronicle from which the preceding quotation is made, "if they travelled to any other country they rejected the feather beds and bedding of their host, wrapping themselves in their own plaids, and so taking their rest, careful indeed lest that barbarous * Pliny, xxviii. 12. t Lib. xi. t Pliny, *ix. i- Cluvenus. 376 BRITISH ARTIFICERS. delicacy of the mainland, as they term it, shcAild corrupt their natural and country hardness." The heather bed was certainly well adapted for the camp, both from the expedition with which it could be prepared, and the excellence of the materials. Sir John Dalrymple remark?, that this mode of preparing their beds, was " an art which, as the beds were both soft and dry, preserved their health in the field when other soldiers lost theirs."* The Highlanders naturally viewed the introduction of luxury and refinement as calculated to sap their independence, and they were not long in observing that the members of the Freiceadan dubh, or black watch, became less hardy than their other countrymen. What- ever may be said as to the. ultimate advantage of civilizing the Highland- ers, it must be allowed that the old chiefs acted wisely in discouraging the premature introduction of conveniences and improvements, the want of which was not felt, and the adoption of which could only be partial. The inconsiderate countenance of innovation could only produce dis- comfort and dissatisfaction throughout the Highlands. " The happiness of Highlanders," says Sacheveral, the historian of Man, " consists not in having much, but in coveting little." Simplicity of life was not con- fined to the vassals, but extended to the houses and tables of the great- est chiefs, who equalled their retainers in manly qualifications and har- diness of frame. O'Neal, who vaunted that he would rather be O'Neal of Ulster than Philip of Spain, sat on a green bank under a bush in his greatest majesty.! Adverting to the ancient Celts, Pausanias bears a reluctant testimo- ny to their ingenuity, an$ the avowal of a Greek can be easily appreci- ated. Brennus, says he, was not unskilled in the art of war, but, for a barbarian, sufficiently acute, and he tells us that his troops constructed bridges over the rivers, compelling the nearest inhabitants to rebuild them, when they were destroyed by the Greeks. J The Gauls appear to have made greater progress in civilisation than the Germans, who longer retained their stern and unyielding dispositions. Tacitus dwells with pleasure on the docility and capacity of the Britons, who so cheerfully received the instructions and followed the precepts of his father-in-law, who did not hesitate to declare them superior in intellectual ability to the continental Celts. The Briton was, no doubt, at one time in a state of cheerless barbarism, ignorant of the arts of the first necessity; but his natural ingenuity enabled him rapidly to attain a state of comparative civilisation and comfort, not only providing for his own wants, but ex- porting his surplus productions to other nations. Their abilities recom- mended them to the Emperor Constantius, who, in 296, carried a great number of British artificers to the continent, where they were employed to adorn his favorite city Autun.^ The art of the potter must be known to a people occupied in pastur- age, who require vessels to contain the milk of their flocks; but al- * Memoirs of Great Britain, pt. ii. p. 53. i Riche, p. 9. t Lib. x. c. 20. Eumenius Paneg. viii. EARTHENWARE. AMBER. PEARLS. 377 though the ancient Britons were not unacquainted with the manufacture, but certainly made urns and other vessels of forms not inelegant, and ornamented sometimes with considerable taste, they appear to have been unable to supply themselves without other assistance; earthen- ware being one of the commodities they received in their barter with others. Perhaps those vessels imported were superior to the native workmanship the sepulchres disclose many varieties of urns and other vases. Adomnan says the Picts used vessels of glass for drinking, and it is recorded of St. Patrick that he used a chalice of this material. We also find that 'Rederch, king of Strathclyde, possessed gold, precious stones, &c. and a cup made by Guielandus, of the town of Sigenius. Turgot says of Queen Margaret that she caused the king, Malcolm, in 1093, to be served in dishes silvered and gilt. The ingeniously-formed and prettily-ornamented wooden and horn vessels of the Gael have been noticed in a preceding page. Saguntum, in Spain, was famous for the manufacture of earthenware cups,* but Gauls, Lusitanians, and Celtiberians were accustomed to use vessels of wax. "f The Celts sometimes used cups made of the skulls of their enemies, and ornamented with gold.J The Scyths were also accustomed to use these cups, and among the Isedones it was the skulls of their relations that were so appropriated. The old Irish are accused of a similar practice, but there may be a misapprehension of the term, for skull was formerly applied to a drinking cup.^ It seems originally to have signified any capacious vessel, and is, in the present day, appli- ed by the fishermen in the north to a sort of basket. The Thracians used wooden platters and cups of the same materials, and also of horn, according to the manner of the Getes.|| In Gaul there were a sort of vases for travellers to carry their wine, made of yew tree, which, in Pli- ny's time, had lost their repute from the poisonous nature of the wood, by which some had lost their lives. IF The Britons had some vessels of amber, and it was believed by the ancients that it distilled from the trees in Great Britain.** This curious substance, which was called glessum,"fj* was gathered in the territories of the Suevi, who were the only people who dealt in it, and who carried on a considerable trade in it, taking it by the way of Pannonia to Rome. The women in the villages around the Po wore collars of it, as a pre- ventive of the goitre. Jl Lapis specularis was originally found in Cel- tiberia, and formed an article of export to Rome. 5$} It appears to have been the glass of the ancients, and different from Mica.|j|j The British pearls were anciently very famous. The hope of obtain- * Pliny, xxxv. 12. t Strabo, p. 107. t Silius, xiii. v. 482. Livy. Jamioson's Scots' Etymol. Dictionary. || Diod. Fragmenta, xxi. 4. IT Lib. xvi. c. 10. y ** Sotacus, in Pliny, xxxvii. 2. tt Pliny, xxxvii. 3. X The Scyths called it sacrium, as one would say, " ecoulemenl du pays des saces." Note on ditto, xii. 202. ed. 1783. It Pliny ut sup & Ibid, xxxvi. 22. |||| Note on Pliny, xii. p. 76, ed. 1782. 48 378 ARTICLES OF ORNAMENT ing a rich booty of them is said to have been a chief motive for the Ro man invasion, and when Caesar returned to Rome, he dedicated a mili- tary ornament, embellished with British pearls, to Venus. Tacitus and Marcellinus, however, do not speak highly of their value. Pearls are found in many rivers in Scotland, but they are said to be more rare than formerly. In 1120, Nicholas, an English ecclesiastic writing to the Bishop of St. Andrews, begs a number of pearls, particularly four large ones, and if the Bishop had them not, he requests him to procure them from the king, who had, he knew, an abundant store.* Sir Thomas Menzies, of Cults, procured a famous pearl in the water of Kellie, in Aberdeenshire, which, having been informed was of great value, he went to London and presented it to the king, who rewarded him with twelve chaldrons of grain and the customs of Aberdeen for Jife.j The Gauls formed precious stones into ornaments for their persons, and even sometimes employed them for hatchets and other implements. They were soon taught by their conquerors the value of such articles, and when they discovered how advantageously they could dispose of such articles, they established a prosperous trade, and began to impose on their credulous customers many articles of little value as wonderful productions. J The old Highlanders set precious stones in their rings, ^ and, in treating of their costume, many of their other ornaments have been noticed. The most ingenious and beautiful article that has, per- haps, ever been discovered in these islands, is that supposed to have been the handle of a dagger, richly embellished with innumerable mi- nute gold pins, described and engraved in Sir Richard Hoare's splendid work on ancient Wiltshire. That the Celts, and particularly the Britons, were able to construct very ingenious works in carpentry, is evinced by their chariots and agricultural implements. On some of the coins of Cunobeline, struck between the first and second Roman invasion, seats or chairs, with backs, four feet, &c., are distinctly represented. The Irish are said to have been anciently much celebrated for their skill in working of wood, great quantities of which they exported. The Celtic artisans were hereditary, like all other professions. Much has been said in favor of and against this system; if it is calculated to prevent improvement, which is not apparent, it must be remembered that Celtic civilisation was long stationary, and there was no stimulus to invention. An Englishman was astonished to find that every employ- ment passed by descent, not excepting the Rhimer. " Every profes- sion," says Riche of the Irish, "hath his particular decorum their virtue is, they will do nothing but what their fathers have done before them." The case was the same with the Scotish Gael. * Hailes's Annals, i. 58. t Survey of the city of Aberdeen, 1685. This pearl was reported to have been placed m the crown. J Pliny, xxxvii. 11 I>. Smith, in Trans. High. Soc. i. 340. HIGHLANDS ADAPTED FOR MANUFACTURES. 379 The Britons were particularly ingenious in the manufacture of osier utensils, or basket work, which they executed so neatly, that it became an article in much demand at Rome, to which large quantities were ex- ported. In a Gaulish monument, discovered at Blois, in 1710, a female figure is seated in a chair of wicker or straw plaited,* with a high back, similar to those I have seen for sale in Dublin. The Highlanders are naturally ingenious, and of a mechanical turn of mind. It has been stated that they make their own agricultural and other implements; they also carry their simple but useful manufactures to fairs for sale, by which they are able to procure those articles which their own country does not produce. Besides the exportation of cattle and wool, with much kelp, the manufacture of which is a late introduc- tion, hames of hair, and sometimes of twisted thongs of raw hides, brak- ings, and collars for horses and oxen, made of straw, waights, caises, sumacs or fleats, 8tc; sacks formed of skin, tartan cloth, kersey, blank- ets, carpets, and woollen yarn, and the produce of their dairy, are all disposed of, and carried occasionally in some quantities out of the coun- try. The short wood in the glens is worked into various useful articles, and disposed of in the Low country. In the month of August there is a timber market held in Aberdeen for several days, which is of ancient origin, and to which the Highlanders bring ladders, harrows, tubs, pails, and many other articles; those who have nothing else, bringing rods of hazle and other young wood, with sackfuls of aitnach or juniper and other mountain berries. There is a market somewhat similar in Edin- burgh. It seems with reference to this, that a proclamation, llth of August> 1564, commands that in Aberdeen, Banff, Elgin, Inverness, Forres, and Nairn, " nane sell timber but in open market." The wooden locks of the Highlanders are so ingeniously contrived by notches, made at unequal distances, that it is impossible to open them but with the wooden key that belongs to them. In a former chapter, when treating of costume, the abilities of the Highland dyers and weavers were noticed with some attention, and sev- eral of the excellent coloring substances produced in the country were enumerated. It is matter of much regret that the adaptation of the Highlands for the establishment and successful pursuit of manufactures is so unaccountably overlooked, for it is evident that they could be car- ried on to much national advantage. The Scotish mountains afford an abundant supply of various articles, capable of imparting the most beau- tiful dyes, and which can be procured without trouble, and at the least possible expense. A command of water for any machinery is in most places at all times to be found, and the cheapness of living would keep wages very low. It is surprising that Highland proprietors have paid so little attention to so obvious a means of enriching themselves. With how much advantage could the carpet manufacture, for instance, be carried on, where the wool is always at hand, as well as the materials * Montf. x. pi. 136. 330 SPECIMENS OF EARTHEN WARE. for dying it. Mr. Cuthbert Gordon, before mentioned, declared that he had made a discovery which would lead to the incalculable benefit of Scotland, but as he unfortunately did not meet with sufficient encourage ment to mature his plans, which I believe related to dye stuffs, the val- uable secret was never communicated to his countrymen. There can be no doubt but that the Highland weavers, who indeed, as it is, occa- sionally make carpets of great beauty of design and goodness of fabric, if properly encouraged, would soon rival, if not much surpass, the man- ufacturers of Kidderminster. The vessels represented underneath are selected from various discov- eries as specimens of the earthenware manufactures of the ancient Cel- tic tribes of Britain, and must be allowed to be not altogether deficient either in beauty of form or ornament. That in the centre is the most usual form of the funereal urn. CHAPTER XIII. POETRY AND MUSIC. THE estimation in which poetry was held by the ancients is well known. It is the original vehicle in which the knowledge of past events is carried down to posterity, and the medium through which laws are at tirst promulgated. Legislation and religion are at first intimately con- nected, and poetry is the excellent auxiliary of both. Hesiod and other Greek poets lived ages before Pherecides, who, according to Pliny, was the first who wrote in prose, and the compositions of Homer were pre- served in detached pieces by oral tradition, long before they were col- lected and embodied in the regular form which they now present. In the first stages of civilisation the characters of priest and legislator are combined, whence arises the connexion of poetry with the first in- stitutions of society, for the ministers of religion are both poets and musicians, and the service of their gods and precepts of morality are equally rendered in verse. Before the era of written record, the Greeks preserved their laws in traditionary rhymes, the same word in their lan- guage signifying a law ana a song.* The statutes of this people continued * Walker's Irish Bards, who quotes Wood on the genius of Homer. 382 ORAL RECORD. long to remain in oral record, before it was permitted to reduce them to writing. The progress of civilisation softened the reluctance, so strong in that enlightened race, especially among the Spartans, to commit to the preservation of letters, the laws which were inculcated in popular verse, but when inscribed on tablets in the public streets, the poetic form was rigidly adhered to. This veneration for oral record strongly pervaded the Celtic race, and it regulated society among the Gael of Albin, while their ancient insti- tutions remained entire. The principle does indeed exist to this day in the British kingdom, where the common law of the land is a certain un- written but recognised code, emanating according to the opinion of the best antiquaries, from the Druidical system of legislation. The well- known practice by which the Recorder of London is obliged to make his report to the King by word of mouth, is, with every appearance of probability, referable to the same institution. The chief object aimed at in poetic composition being the assistance of recollection, no pains were spared to improve the memory. The Py- thagoreans, a sect resembling the Celtic Druids exercised their memory with the greatest care and diligence, the first thing they did in the morn- ing being to call to mind whatever they had done the preceding day, from morn to night, and if time permitted, they were accustomed to re- count the actions of the day previous, the third, the fourth, and even farther.* In no shape could the traditions of an illiterate people be pre- served so effectually as in verse, which in ancient composition was very simple, a character applicable to the early poetry of all nations. The song of Moses consists of a certain number of words in every sentence, an arrangement eminently conducive to the mental retention of the sub- ject. The Celtic poetry is remarkably forcible, and from its peculiar con- struction is easily remembered, and it was an object of great solicitude to teach the rising generations the traditions of theirfathers. It was not only a national care, but was esteemed a sacred duty in parents to make their children perfectly acquainted with the ancient poems. The expres- sion of an American chief, in a parallel state of civilisation with the old Highlanders, is here applicable: " While I was yet young, my father taught me the traditions and laws of the nation, day by day and night by night." Columba is said to have retained the Celtic practice at lona, and delivered his precepts in verse; it would even appear that in Ire- land, historical relations were not written in prose before the twelfth century."j" The influence of poetry over the nations of antiquity is evinced by many signal instances. Tyrtseus, by chanting his verses, so inspirited the Lacedemonians, that they turned the tide of prosperity and came off victorious. The Celtic bards stimulated their hearers to war, or *'.,- dued them to peace by the mere recitation of their poems. Witti this * Diodorus, Fragmenta. Valesii, vi. 36, 37. t Walker's Jrish Bards. INFLUENCE OF POETRY. 383 race the gift of poesy was highly honored: " the mouths of song" were a sacred order. When Ovid, in his banishment, wrote poems in the Getic language, the admiring people crowned him with laurel, and con- ferred on him many honors and immunities.* The ceremonials of Pagan theology were conducted in verse, the meaning of the poems being wrapped up in allegory and mysticism. It is probable we have not lost much that would have been useful if known, from this secrecy, which rather appears to have been intended to keep the vulgar in awe than to preserve information of past transactions or know- ledge of useful arts, | the historical records were not concealed from those who could study and understand them. The priests of antiquity were national historiographers. Josephus' Antiquities of the Jewish nation were published from the sacred books, and in the stories of Greek and Roman theology, relating the adventures of persons, deified in sub- sequent times, we have only fragments of vague and traditional, but in most cases, if divested of fable, real history. The old poems of the Germans, according to Tacitus, were their only registers. The songs of the bards are represented as consisting chiefly of hymns to their gods, and poems in praise of their ancestors, but in these were contained their national annals, for the origin of all nations is connected in their fabu- lous history with that of their gods. The Celtic bards were members of the priesthood, and no class of society among the ancients have been more celebrated. Whether we consider the influence which they pos- sessed, their learning or poetic genius, they are one of the most inter- esting orders of antiquity, and worthy of our entire admiration. The favorite songs of the bards are said to have been those celebra- ting the renown of their ancestors. The praises of great men were accompanied with a sort of religious feeling. It was not only useful to the living to extol the virtues of former heroes as an excitement to their imitation, but was reckoned extremely pleasing to the deceased it was indeed thought the means of assisting the spirit to a state of happiness, and became consequently a religious duty. But even where this super- stition has no influence, an elegy on a deceased friend continues to grat- ify the human mind, and the example of virtue seldom fails to inspire youth with a generous spirit of emulation. Eginhart celebrates Char- lemagne for committing to writing and to memory the songs on the wars and heroic virtues of his predecessors, and Asser bestows similar praise on the great Alfred. With how much effect the Celtic bards pursued the practice of inflaming their hearers with a spirit of freedom is uni- versally acknowledged. So influential were they, that national enter- prises were directed and controlled by them; and the Roman policy so cruelly carried into effect by Suetonius in Anglesea, was imitated by * Clark. 1 The Orphic verses are believed to have been the very hymns sung by the initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries. " He that has been initiated in the mysteries of Eleusis or has read the poems called Orphic, will know what I mean." Pausanias, i. 36. 384 BARDIC POEMS. Edward the First in his sanguinary wars with the Cumri. Even Queen Elizabeth thought it necessary to enact some laws to restrain and dis- courage the bards both of Ireland and Wales. The Bardic compositions, commemorating the worth and exploits of heroes who had successively figured in the different states, were a sort of national annals which served the double purpose of preserving the memory of past transactions, and of stimulating the youth to an imitation df their virtuous ancestors. The lives of the upright Celtic statesmen and heroes were handed down to posterity, and exhibited as illustrious examples for the youth to follow. Their virtues were detailed in verse so forcible, and national calamities were portrayed in language so af- fecting, that the hearers were excited to the most daring heroism. On occasion of an embassy from the Romans to Attila, two bards recited to him a poem celebrating his victories, and so powerfully were the audi- ence affected, that whilst the young men exulted in rapture, the old shed tears of regret that their vigor was gone.* The effusions of Ne- lan, a bard of Erin, more powerful than the wise council of the Chris- tian primate, stimulated to precipitate rebellion Lord Thomas Geraldine, in the reign of Henry VIII. The sublime strains in which the virtues of the chiefs of Morven are celebrated, continued to animate the Gael until the decline of bardism and subversion of their institutions, and they still remain, even in translation, specimens of most admirable composi- tion. Diodorus informs us, that the bards had power to prevent an en- gagement, even when the spears were levelled for immediate action. This strong influence was probably increased by their religious charac- ter, in which they were able to determine when it was expedient to fight, in reference ,to which, the Irish tell us the shaking "the chain of silence" was the signal to prevent or to put a stop to the battle. The practice of animating troops by the chanting of heroic poems is of most ancient origin. Tyrtseus, the Lacedemonian, who flourished 680 years before our era, composed five books of war verses, some frag- ments of which it is believed yet remain. Tacitus speaks of the old poems of the Germans, some of which related to the origin of the people, and the collection continued to increase, for it was the duty of the priests or bards to commemorate events, to celebrate the virtues and denounce the vices of successive heroes. One poem, celebrating the worth of Ar- minius, a hero famous for his struggles for freedom, was composed in the days of Tacitus.j It was not only in actual war, and previous to an engagement, that the bards rehearsed their spirit-stirring compositions; each chief was con- stantly attended by a number of these poets, who entertained him at his meals, and roused his own and his followers' courage by their powerful recitations. The liberal manner in which this order was provided for, shows how indispensable their services were reckoned, and, in return for so much respect, the bards were most assiduous to please their pa- * Friscus, quoted in Robertson's Charles V. t Annals. BARDIC EDUCATION. 385 trons, and blazon their renown. The profession, even in rccer. times, was by no means one of easy acquirement. It was indeed heicJitary, but a long course of study, and a life of continual practice, were neces wary for proper qualification and due success. In a publication, by Cambray, member of the Celtic Academy at Paris, it is said that Dru- idic learning comprised 60,000 verses, which those of the first class were obliged to get by heart.* The Irish bard, according to Walker, was obliged to study for twelve years, before he was admitted to the or- der, the Ollamh, perfecting himself by a probation of three years devot- ed to each of the four principal branches of poetry. Campion says they spent sixteen or twenty years at their education, and talked Latin like a vulgar language. "I have scene them," says he, " where they kept schoole, ten in some one chamber, groveling upon couches of straw, their bookes at their noses, themselves lying flat postrate." This refers to a comparatively late period, but it shows that their acquirements were not superficial, and that a common education was by no means sufficient for an aspirant to poetical fame.| When a student was admitted to the profession of bardism, he was honored with the degree of ollamh, or doctor, and received an honorary cap, called barred. In 192, the law- ful price of the clothing of an ollamh, and of an anra, or second poet, in Ireland, was fixed at five milch cows. Concovar Mac Nessa, King of Ulster, is represented in Irish history as establishing seven grada- tions in the order of Fileas,^ which is said to have originally combined in one person the offices of seanachaidh and breitheamh. These were the Fochlucan, who was obliged to repeat, if asked, thirty tales; the Macfuirmidh, who had to repeat forty; the Doss, who repeated fifty; the Canaith, whose name seems derived from canadh, to sing; the Cli, the Anstruth, so called from an, good, and sruth, knowing; and lastly the Ollamh, who required t store his memory with seven times fifty sto- ries. An account of their various duties, real or supposed, maybe seen in Walker's History of the Bards. The Irish authorities are extremely questionable, but it appears from other proofs that the different prov- inces of the profession were committed to separate individuals. The Scots of both countries had originally their Ferlaoi, or hymnists; the Ferdan, who sang the praises of the good and valiant; and the Sean- achaidh, or Seanachies, to whom were submitted the registration of events and preservation of family history, but on the declension of the system, the offices were often necessarily held by one person. The Caledonian bards officiated as a sort of aides-de-camp to the chief, communicating his orders to the chieftains and their followers, an office that tends to confirm my explanation of the beum sgiath, or strik- ing of the shield. When Fingal retires to view the battle, " three bards attend to bear his words to the chiefs." Each chief appears to have * Mac Arthur's Observations on Ossian's Poems. t The last Filean school was kept in Tipperary, in the time of Charles I., by Boethi- ua Mac Eaoran. { Walker's Irish Bards. 49 f 386 BARDIC DUTIES. had a favorite or principal bard, similar to the Welsh domestic bard, who rlosely attended the person of his master. The bards animated the troops in battle, and amused them by their songs during the hours of darkness " song on song deceived as was wont the night." Nor was this part of their duty confined to the field; they solaced their master after the fatigues of the day, and composed his mind for rest by their mo- ral and entertaining recitations. The bard was an important member of the Comhairlich, or counsellors presiding over and directing in his professional character their deliberations. " Though it was every man's duty to fill the ear of his chief with useful truths, it was more particu- larly the duty of the Filea, for to such only do princes lend an ear." Some curious particulars of their duties may be found in Ossian. When a bard brings a challenge to battle from Torlath, he refused to raise the song himself, or listen to the bards of Cuthullin, who had invited him to partake of their cheer, but as he withdrew, he sings an extempore poem, which, in mystical language, alludes to the slaughter that is to ensue. " The meteors of death are there," says he, as he looks towards the hill, "the grey watery forms of ghosts." This must be considered a coro- nach in anticipation over the Gael, who were to fall, and it is curious that Cuthullin's bard joins in it. An important part of the bardic duty was, the preservation of the gen- ealogies and descent of the chiefs and the tribe, which were solemnly repeated at marriages, baptisms, and burials. The last purpose for which they were retained by the Highlanders was, to preserve a faithful history of their respective clans. Lachlan Mac Neil, mhic Lachlan, mhic Neil, mhic Donald, mhic Lachlan, mhic Neil more, mhic Lachlan, mhic Donald, of the surname of Mac Mhuirich declared,* that according to the best of his knowledge, he is the eighteenth in descent from Mhuireach, whose posterity had offi- ciated as hards to Clan-Rannald, and that they had, as the salary of their office, the farm of Staoiligary, and four pennies of Drimisdale, during fifteen generations. That the sixteenth lost the four pennies, but the seventeenth retained the farm of Staoiligary for nineteen years. That there was a right given to them over these lands as long as there should be any of the posterity of Mhuireach to preserve and continue the gene- alogy and history of the Mac Donalds, on condition that the bard, fail- ing of male issue, should educate his brother's son or representative, in order to preserve their title to the lands, and it was in pursuance of this custom that his father had been taught to read and write history and poetry by Donald Mac Neil, mhic Donald his father's brother. This last of the race, who, according to Doctor Mac Pherson, was " a man of some letters, and had, like his ancestors, received his education in Ire- land, and knew Latin tolerably well,"* was bard, genealogist, and sea- nachuidh. * Before Roderick Mac Leod,J. P. and in presence of six clergymen and gentlemen t Letter to Dr. Blair. RESPECT FOR THE BARDS. 387 From their antiquarian knowledge, the bards were called seanachaidh, from scan, old, a title synonymous with the Welsh, arvydd vardd, an offi- cer who latterly was of national appointment, and whose heraldic duties were recognised by the English College of Arms. They attended at the birth, marriage, and death of all persons of high descent, and the marwnod, or elegy, which they composed on the latter occasion " was required to contain, truly, and at length, the genealogy and descent of the deceased from eight immediate ancestors to notice the several col- lateral branches of the fa.nily, and to commemorate the surviving wife or husband. These he registered in his books, and delivered a true copy of them to the heir, See., and it was produced the day after the funeral, when all the principal branches of the family and their friends were assembled together in the great hall of the mansion, and then re- cited with an audible voice."* He also made a visitation called the bard's circuit, once every three years, to all the gentlemens' houses, where he registered and corrected their armorial bearings. Many of their books still exist, distinguished by the name of the bard or the house whose honors it records, and some of their awards of arms are of so late a date as 1703. One of the Triads commemorates the three golden robed heralds, Caswallon, son of Beli, &c. The bard had a stipend paid out of every plough land, and the chief was called " King of the Bards." Much has been done to restore the order of bards in the Principality, or at least to encourage the effusions of Cumraeg poesy and music, and many meritorious individuals have met with flattering encouragement. I believe the kings of Great Britain have always maintained a Welsh minstrel. In the laws of Hvvyel Dha, it is said that at an entertainment the bard ought to commence singing in praise of God, and then in praise of the king, and the fine for insulting him is six cows, and one hundred and twenty silver pennies, his value being estimated at one hundred and twenty-six cows. He was assigned a place at table suitable to his rank.f In the reign of Harald Harfager, the bards, or scalds, sat next to the king. The Aois dana of the Gael, mentioned in the end of the seven- teenth century, who appear to have been a certain class of bards, sat in the sreath or circle, among the chiefs, and took precedence of the ollarnh or doctor, the title which was bestowed on completion of the bar- dic studies. Their persons, houses, and villages, were sacred. J A re- spect for the bards continued after the introduction of Christianity, the precepts they inculcated being unobjectionable, and the early missiona- ries appear to have held them in considerable esteem. Columba had a particular regard for them, and actually became their advocate at the celebrated council of Drumceat, in 580, mediating successfully between those of Ireland and the King who threatened their extirpation, for their insolence had become insupportable, and they at last insisted on receiv- ing the royal buckle and pin of gold, too audacious a demand to be un- * Preface to the History of Cardiganshire. t See p. 337. J: Armstrong. 388 POEMS OF OSSIAN. hesitatingly complied with. The honors which were heaped on this body made them forget themselves. Their arrogance in Wales arose to such a height, that in the time of Griffyth ap Cynan, it was necessary to con- trol them from asking the king's horse, greyhound, or hawk. No event in the annals of literature has excited so much wonder and curiosity as the publication of those ancient Gaelic poems, usually dis- tinguished as Ossianic, from the name of that most distinguished of the Caledonian bards. To those unacquainted with the state of society in the Highlands of Scotland, and lamentable until lately was the igno- rance concerning that part of the kingdom, the existence of traditional poetry of such antiquity appeared impossible, and skepticism, confirmed by the unaccountable reserve of the translator, bestowed on him an honor, and imputed to him a merit, of which *he was by no means wor- thy that of being the author of the poems in question. Public opinion was indeed divided as to the authenticity of Ossian's poems, but the general belief at first was, that they were an impudent forgery, and the talents of many learned individuals were exerted to expose the impost- ure. Their writings, as might be expected, had for some time great weight, while the only satisfactory answer to their objections was not returned. The regret of the admirers of this sublime bard, and vindica- tors of his poems, was at last relieved by the publication of the origin- als, by that truly patriotic body the Highland Society. A reference to these most interesting relics might be sufficient, but, consistent with the design of this work, I shall endeavor to display the manners by which their preservation was effected manners which no longer exist in Eu- rope, and which, after a continuance from the earliest dawn of record, expired with the system of social government, which received its mortal blow in the Act of 1743. The history of the Celts, their laws, and usages, were preserved in their poems, which were their only registers. It has been shown that traditional verse was the only medium by which the early Greeks trans- mitted their most important statutes, and the memory of past transactions, and that it was by no means a " feeble instrument" is very evident. The oral registers of the Germans were ancient in the days of Tacitus, and, in spite of the fluctuations and reverses of that people, they were not forgotten even in the eighth century. The Lusitani had poems, which they maintained were two thousand years old. When we consider that the preservation of these national annals was entrusted to the Druidical order, and was a point of the utmost public solicitude, and when we consider that the vanitv of individuals, whose own exploits, or those of their ancestors were celebrated, was flattered by the record of their fame, we perceive strong motives acting in aid of the preservation of these singular historical monuments. It is not to be forgotten also, that this personal feeling pervaded the whole nation, for if the memory of a chief was consecrated to fame in the impressive strains of the bards, his followers, from the ties of consanguinity, felt closely POEMS OF OSSIAN. . 389 interested in the glory of their clansman. That the Celts preferred oral record to that of writing may be regretted, since to this prejudice the loss of much information, which would probably have been highly curious and instructive, is to be attributed; but as both the principles and prac- tice of the Druids were hostile to literature, we can only pursue the investigation of the peculiar system which they chose to follow, and al- lowing the above causes their united effect, added to this other powerful one, that the chief amusement, both public and private, was the recitation of their poems, much of our wonder at the long preservation of bardic compositions must cease. Many of those who believe it impossible for poems or prose relations to be preserved for any length of time without being committed to writ- ing, do not advert to the ancient state of society. To instruct the youth in the traditional knowledge of their country was then a branch of the most careful education, and that knowledge was couched in verse. If a novitiate in Druidism spent twenty years in getting by heart the knowledge necessary for his profession, some idea may be formed of the amount of learning which the sons of the better classes found it ne- cessary to acquire. The choicest pieces of ancient poetry have come down to us in the same manner as Ossian's productions. The poems of Horner were preserved in detached parts, called Rhapsodies, as, the bat- tle at the ships, the death of Dolon, Etc., long before they assumed their present form; and the Athenians found it necessary to offer rewards to those who could furnish the most authentic fragments of the Iliad or Odyssey, before they were able to produce the works as they now appear.* Even since the Christian era, the ability to repeat traditional poetry was reckoned a qualification not unbefitting the highest princes. Charlemagne is praised for his talents this way, and he had made a large collection of most ancient poems, which in barbarous style related the actions of the first kings, j That poems of great antiquity existed at the period when Ossian sung, is evident from the frequent allusion he makes to " the songs of old," and bards of other years. " Thou shall endure, said the bard of ancient days, after the moss of time shall grow in Temora; after the blast of years shall roar in Selma."^ The Tain-bo, or cattle spoil of Cualgne, commemorating an event that occurred 1838 years ago, is believed to be the oldest poem in the Gaelic language. The Albanach Duan, a poem of the time of Malcolm III., 1056, which is an indisputed relic, must have been composed from poems much anterior to its own age, and this is admitted by those who have been most noted for their skepti- cism as to Celtic literature.^ The lengthened discussions on the authenticity of the poems ascribed to the Caledonian bard, relieve me, in a great measure, from the task of advocating at length their antiquity. "The poems of Ossian," says Gibbon, " according to every hypothesis, were composed by a native * /Elian. i Eginhart. t Smith's Gallic Antiquities. Pinkerton, &<5. 390 POEMS OF OSSIAN. Caledonian." The era of that Caledonian was the end of the third cen- tury. When accounts of Mac Pherson's publication of these poems and the controversies which it engendered had reached the Highlands, the natives were equally surprised at the doubts concerning their genu- ineness, at the scanty collection which had been made, and their imper- fect translation. Finding so much interest excited, they were not a little displeased that more justice was not done to the memory of their venerated poet.* " There is infinitely more," says Mac Donald, of Killepheder in his deposition, "to be found among us, than what Mac Pherson is said to have translated of the works of Ossian; and that to many persons who never saw that man, who never heard of his name, and who are totally ignorant of the English language." The Rev. Don- ald Mac Leod of Glenelg writes thus to Dr. Blair, in 1764. " Mac Pherson took too little time to be able to have collected the whole of them; for as the works of Ossian are dispersed all over the Highlands, there is not a clan through whose lands you travel, but you will find some one of these poems among them, which is not to be met with any where else." The knowledge of these poems was not confined to the Highlands. From the history of King Robert Bruce, written by Barbour, Archdea- con of Aberdeen, about 1380, we find that they were well known in the Lowlands. In the third book we are informed, that when the Lord of Lorn saw that his troops durst not follow the enemy, he was "rychtan- gry in his hert," and said " me think Marthokys son, Rycht as Gaul Mac Morn was won, To haif fra Fingal his menzie, Rycht swa all hys fra us has he." Boethius | calls the King of Morven, concerning whom fabulous sto- ries were sung, Fynnan filius Cceli; and Gawin Douglas speaks of Gow Mac Morn and Fyn Mac Coul, " My foir grand syr hecht Fyn Makoull, That dang the deil and gart him yowl."J Fingal and Ossian are mentioned in Mac Geoghagan's Ireland, 1627. A MS. in the British Museum, noticed by Pinkerton, also alludes to them; and Buchannan, in his History of the Buchannans and other clans, mentions " rude rhimes on Fin M'Coel." * Ewen Mac Pherson, aged 73, who made a declaration in 1800, that he accompanied the translator to several of the. Isles, relates the following anecdote of his travelling com- panion. Having met with Mac Codrum, a descendant of a race of bards, he asked him, " a bheil dad agad air an Fhein ? " This question, it would appear from the incorrect- ness or inelegance of the Gaelic, could bear another construction, viz. Are the Fin galians indebted to you ? of which Mac Codrum, being a man of humor, took advan tage, and answered, that " really if they owed him any thing, the bonds and obligations were lost, and he believed any attempt to recover them at the present day would be unavailing ; " which sally of Mac Codmm's wit offended Mac Pherson, who cut short the conversation and proceeded towards Benbecula. \ Lib. vii. I Evergreen, p. 259. Ayscough's Cat. 4817. POEMS OF OSSIAN 391 All this indisputably shows that the poems now before the world were formerly well known throughout Scotland and Ireland; and it must be declared, that however much we are indebted to Mr. Mac Pherson, the obligation must be shared with others; for besides the partial translations of Jerome Stone and Mr. Hill, who published portions of these poems some time before Mac Pherson, a large collection of them were made long previous by Doctor Smith, of Campbelltown, which he afterwards gave to the public, under the title of " Gallic Antiquities." This gen- tleman was a native of Glenurchy, and heard an old man called Doncha rioch Mac Nieol, who was famous for his knowledge of traditional lore, repeat many of the Ossianic poems. The Fletchers of Glenforsa were also famous for their recitation. Mr. Mac Donald, a priest in Moidart, knew a whole poem that had escaped the research of Mac Pherson; and *' Cath Benedin," the Rev. Donald Mac Leod says, was recovered after the collection was published, and he thinks it superior to any of the others. A Mr. Mac Diarmid, of Weem, in Perthshire, got Ossian's Addresses to the Sun, as they appear in Carthon and Carricthura about 1770, from the repetition of an old man in Glenlyon, who had learned them in his youth from people in the same glen. It may be here observ ed that this beautiful address was particularly pointed out as a glaring forgery! Captain John Mac Donald, of Thurso, who was formerly of Breakish, in Sky, and furnished Mac Pherson with some of the pieces in his col- lection, declared at the age of seventy-eight, on the 12th of March, 1805, that when a boy of twelve, or fifteen, he could repeat from one to two hundred poems, which he learned from an old man of about eighty, who used to sing them to his father at night when he werit to bed, and in spring and winter before he got up. Niel Mac Mhuireach repeated to the Rev. Mr. Mac Niel the whole of the poem of Clan Usnoch, called by Mac Pherson, Darthula. Malcolm Mac Pherson, in Portree, Isle of Sky, son of Dougal Mac Pherson, who had been tenant in Benfuter, in Trotterriish, and was an eminent bard, declared on oath before two justices of the peace, that his brother, who died in 1780, recited four days and four nights to Mac Pherson. What has been said, it is hoped, will show that there was nothing to render the preservation of poems for so many centuries impossible; nay, that under such circumstances they could scarcely be lost, and convince the skeptical that such poems have been fortunately saved from oblivion and brought down to our times in great purity. Nothing has yet been said of Gaelic MSS. t which Dr. Johnson and many others believed could not be found except of modern date. The Highland Society has now in its possession various MS. versions of Ossian's poems, of different ages, the oldest of which the late Mr. As- tle, keeper of the records in the Tower, a competent judge, pronounced to be of the ninth century. This, to be sure, does not reach the period when the bard flourished, but it disproves the assertions of those who 392 POEMS OF OSSIAN. maintained that there never were any written poems. I think Dr. Mac Pherson speaks very reasonably, when he says, " we have among us many ancient MSS. of detached pieces of Ossian's works, and these may have been copied from MSS. still more ancient." A tradition is noticed by Dr. Smith, that Mac Alpin took down all Ossian's poems as he repeated them; and another tradition, which need not be repeated, informs us of the cause of their destruction. The Scots, as may be seen in another part of the work, were very early acquainted with the use of letters, and were distinguished throughout Europe for their learning. A few of the depositions of those persons examined on the subject will prove more satisfactorily that MSS. did exist, and show the means by which the interesting and beautiful compositions of the Gaelic bards were preserved, more satisfactorily than any argument of mine, while it will, at the same time, elucidate the former state of that celebrated order. Hugh Mac Donald, of Killepheder in South Uist, before-mentioned, says, in his testimony as translated, that the last bard of the Mac Don- ald family " was John Mac Codrum, who had lands and maintenance from Sir James Mac Donald, and from his brother and immediate suc- cessor, the late Lord Mac Donald. John Mac Codrum's predecessor was Duncan Mac Ruari, who possessed, as bard and by inheritance, the lands in the district of Trotternish, in Sky, called Ach na' m'Bard, (the bard's field,) and his descendants, as well as the collateral branches of his family, are to this very day called Clann 'a Bhaird." He ob- serves, that the bards of Clan Rannald held their lands on the express condition of transmitting in writing the history and poetry connect- ed with the family; and continues, " there is still extant a poem com- posed by one of them, Niel Mor Mac Mhuirich, to the Mac Donalds, immediately before the battle of Gariach, called the Prosnachadh cath Gariach. As a proof of the estimation in which the bards were held, I need only mention, that when the chief of the Mac Leods dismiss- ed Mac gilli Riabhich, his family bard, Mac Donald received him hospitably, and gave him lands on the farm of Kilmorey, in Trotternish, which retain to this day the name of " Baile gilli Riabhich." Mac Mhuireach, part of whose testimony is given in p. 386, remem- bered well, that works of Ossian, written on parchment, were in the cus- tody of his father, as received from his predecessors, some in the form of books, and some loose and separate, which contained the works of other bards besides those of Ossian. He affirmed that the leabhar dearg, or red book, was long in his father's possession, and was receiv- ed from his predecessors. It was of paper, and contained a good deal of the history of the clans, written by different hanojs. He remembered well that Clan Rannald made his father give up the red book to James Mac Pherson, from Badenach. Several parchments, he believed, were taken away by the Rev. Alexander Mac Donald and his son Ronald, POEMS OF OSSIAN. 393 but he saw others cut up by the tailors for measures.* He having no longer any lands, and not being taught to read, he set no value on them. This declaration he signed before Roderick Mac Leod, J. P., in pres- ence of six other clergymen and gentlemen. Dr. Mac Pherson knew the lust of these bards, who had been in the service of the Lords of the Isles before they entered that of Clan Rannald. He was a man of some letters, understood Latin, and, like his ancestors, received his ed- ucation in Ireland. He travelled through the country about 1735, and read as well as repeated poems from a MS. Malcolm Mac Pherson, in Portree, gave to the translator of Ossian a 4to. volume about 1| inch thick, containing the works of that bard, which he had procured at Loch Carron when an apprentice. Lord Kames, in his Sketches of Man, mentions four books of Fingal that Mac Pherson got in Sky. Mrs. Fraser, of Culbokie, had a MS. volume of Ossian's poems, that was written by Peter Mac Donell, chaplain to Lord Mac Donell, of Glengary, about the time of the Restoration, as well as others which her son carried to Canada. It is said that Dr. Watson, author of the Lives of Fletcher and Gordon, discovered at Rome a MS. of these poems, which had been brought away after the rebellion in 17 15."!" A MS. once in the Scots' college at Douay, much of it written before 1715, by a Mr. Farquharson, contained all the pieces given by Mac Pherson, besides many more. Mr. Farquharson left another similar collection at Brae-Mar before he went to Douay, which was unfortunately destroyed, but he thought it would be easy to make another collection. " He was not sensible of the rapid, the in- credible, the total change which had taken place in the Highlands of Scotland.''^ " Thirty or forty years back," say the authors of the Re- port on the Poems of Ossian, in 1803, " the number of persons who could recite tales and poetry, and could write Gaelic, was very much greater than at the present time." Since 1745 the amusement of list- ening to recitation is scarcely known. It was usual for the young women of a baile, or hamlet, which con- sisted of from four to twenty families, to carry their work to the houses of each other's parents alternately. In these societies oral learning was attained without interrupting industry, and the pleasure of instructing and receiving knowledge was mutual. The matron, visited on one eve- ning, perhaps excelled in genealogy, while another was well versed in general history; one may have been an adept at poetry, and another an able critic, See. The Highlander, after his daily occupations, has- tened to join the society of the young women, where he met his belov- ed, or had the pleasure in her absence, of repeating the last sonnet he had composed in her praise, for which he either received applause or * The Rev. Angus Mac Niel, of South Uist, said in 17G3, that Clan Rannald told him a volume was carried to Ireland by some worthless person. Ewan Mac Pherson attested the delivery of the above volume to the translator, which appears also to have been lost. t Literary Journal, i. p 458. t Letter from Bishop Cameron to Sir John Sinclair on the subject. 50 394 POEMS OF OSSIAN. encountered disapprobation. With us, fools will publish what impartial criticism may condemn; but with the Highlanders it -vas otherwise, 'what could not be published in the above societies could not be pub- lished at all: they were to them what the press is to us; a song that was learned by a few out of mere compliment to its author was soon forgot- ten. It may be readily supposed that local circumstances sometimes gave a temporary existence to very indifferent compositions, but their popularity being confined to the districts where the subjects of them were best known, with those subjects they generally expired. I have spoken in the past tense," continues the writer, "because, within a. few years, the manners of my countrymen have suffered a total revolution, very little to the advantage of the present race who are neither so hos- pitable, so learned, nor so pious as the generation they have succeed- ed."* What has been a very great means to preserve the Ossianic poems is this, that the greatest number of them have particular tunes to which they are sung, the music of which is soft and simple. Duan Dearmot, an elegy on the death of a celebrated warrior so called, is held in much esteem among the Campbells, who trace their descent from that hero. In Lord Rea's country is a tribe of this name, and the following anec- dote of an old member is here appropriate. The Rev. Alexander Pope having got this veteran to sing the poem, he commenced his performance by reverently taking off his bonnet; but, says the writer, " I caused him to stop, and would put on his bonnet; he made some excuses; however, as soon as he began, he again took off his bonnet. I rose and put it on he took it off 1 put it on; at last, as he was like to swear most horribly, he would sing no more unless I allowed him to be uncovered. I gave him his freedom, and so he sung with great spirit. I then asked him the reason: he told me it was out of regard to the memory of that hero. I asked him if he thought that the spirit of that hero was present; he said not, but thought it well became them who were, descended from him to honor his memory."! Of the music adapted to these poems, a specimen furnished by the Rev. John Cameron, of Halkirk, in Caithness, from the recitation of a very old man in his parish, is given by Sir John Sinclair, in his excellent dissertation prefixed to the Highland Society's edition of Ossian. One of superior merit is given in the musical part of this work, and several others of undoubted antiquity are noticed. That Fingal fought and Ossian sung there can be no rational doubt The names of places all over the Highlands testify the existence of such persons, and the manners described in the poems suit no other period in history but that of the ancient and unmixed Celts. J When General * Notes on the Superstitions of the Highlanders, by Mr. Donald Mac Pherson, 1524. t Letter to the Rev. Alexander Nicholson, of Thurso, 17G3. t Mr. Rosing, the Danish consul, in reply to a letter from Sir John Sinclair, finda Ossian's recitals corroborated by Suhne's History of Denmark. OSSIANIC POETRY VINDICATED. 395 Wade, in the operation of forming the military roads, hud to remove Clachan Ossian, or the monumental stone of this revered bard, about four score indignant Highlanders, in becoming solemnity, carried off' his bones, with pipes playing, and deposited them within a circle of large stones on the summit of a sequestered rook, in the wilds of western Glen Amon, where they are not likely evermore to be disturbed. That the Highlanders are disposed to receive any thing alluding to those remote times as productions of Ossian is fal c corresponding to the black keys of the piano forte; a scale, from its natural simplicity, singularly well adapted for the composition of an air. This is the enharmonic scale, used by the Egyptians, and other Eastern nations, and similar to that of the ancient Greeks Whether, from the possession of this system, or peculiar organization, the Celts were proverbially musical; and the music of the Scotish Low- landers, which they think their own, being genuine Gaelic, they prob- ably have preserved from the time when they retained the same language and manners as their brethren in the mountains. Those who believe that Pictish invasions rendered the Eastern Scots a Gothic people, and altered their language, are obliged to confess that the music underwent no such change. The diatonic scale used by the Gothic nations pro- duces melodies of a character completely different from that of the Celts. Cambrensis contrasts the slow modulation in Britain with the rapid notes of the Irish. He says the Welsh did not sing in unison, but had SCOTISH MUSICAL SCALE. 411 as many parts as there were performers, and that they all terminated in B flat; the treble part also began soft, and produced, at last, a wild melody; and, speaking of the natives of Cumberland, he says, they sung in parts, in unisons, and octaves. Although the Welsh were not previously ignorant of music, it is relat- ed that Gryffith ap Cynan, or Conan, being educated ip Ireland, brought its music, musicians, and instruments to his own country about 1100, and having summoned a congress of the harpers of both countries to revise the music, the twenty-four canons were established. It is diffi- cult to account for the fact, that the Welsh music, some of it of consid- erable antiquity too, differs from the Gaelic airs, being composed in the diatonic, or perfect scale. This modern style predominates, although not to the exclusion of the ancient, but the circumstance proves that the Welsh have materially swerved from their ancient simplicity. In a small degree, this has been the case with the Irish also, but that which is considered their proper harp music is of the Scotish character. Mu- sicians and antiquaries seem to have found a bone of contention in the subject of thesp airs, some maintaining, that in the Highlands there are no harp melodies, while others assert that the luineags, or singing tunes, are composed for the harp only, and are unfit for the pipes. I am not a sufficient musician, perhaps, to discuss this subject with due ability, but I venture to say that both opinions are erroneous. Harp music is abundant in the Highlands, although not generally of the refined sort now so termed, and the old vocal melodies can certainly, with only a few exceptions, be performed on the pipe. The old harpers, who performed airs in the diatonic scale, appear to have tuned the instruments without knowing on what principle. It has excited the wonder of some, that the ancient Scots' airs are usually in the minor mode; some are not in it, because the flat series is never constituted as a key note by means of its sharp 7th, as it invaria- bly is in modern music.* The most ancient vocal tunes had only one measure, and by attending to this, perhaps, one could lorm a tolerably accurate collection of genu- ine melodies, for it is my opinion, that the fiddlers added 2nd, 3rd, and sometimes 4th parts to the original strain, which additions may be detect- ed by being above the compass of the pipe chanter. Thus the beautiful Strathspey, for instance, called Callum Brogach, given as a specimen of this delightful music, is admirably adapted, in the first part, for the bagpipes. From this practice, however highly we esteem the merits of the individuals, we must regret the vitiation of some of our ancient pieces by Gow, Mac Intosh, and others. The simple harmonies, as given by Clarke, Fraser, and Mac Donald, are preferable to those put forth in characters unsuitable to the Celtic, and dressed up to please corrupt- ed tastes; the airs are altered indeed, but they can scarcely be said to * Essay on the Influence of Poetry and Music upon the Highliuiders, in the Preface* to Mac. Donald's Collection of Gaelic Airs. 412 SCOTISH MUSIC. STRATHSPEYS AND REELS. be improved, and the collection cannot claim to be one of genuine Scots' melodies, or aid in assisting to preserve these interesting relics in purity. There is another remarkable feature in the Gaelic school, and a cri- terion by which to judge of the age of tunes : the old airs, however slow and plaintive, are generally, with good effect, convertible into a quick, or dancing measure, and vice versa. Of this conversion, the dancing airs of modern times do not admit, at least, with any propriety. The appogiaturas in modern music, are usually the next in degree to the chief note, and any great departure from this rule is accounted a barbarism. In Scots' music they are some degrees distant, and appear very graceful. This is most remarkable in pipe tunes, to which instru- ment they are indispensable. There are certain differences very perceptible to a musical ear, in the style and character of the music of certain districts. The Caithness and Sutherland people are noted for playing in quick time, and the peo- ple of Strathspey, or rather the part of Scotland in which that valley is situated, are celebrated for their partiality to slow time, and the perfec- tion in which they have composed and play the airs, which are known by the name of the place where they originated. The Strathspey is in simple common time, and it has been described as being to the common reel what a Spanish fandango is to a French cotillion.* Many assert that Strathspeys are so essentially different from reels, that they can never be transposed; to me, it is evident that Strathspeys can be played in reel time with perfect facility, if not always with good effect, although I shall not say that reels can be made Strathspeys. The people of this district liked their music of a slower turn than others, and produced that style now so much and so justly admired. Of the first composers or performers of Strathspeys, there appears to be no certain accounts. According to tradition, the first who played them were the Browns of Kincardine, to whom several of the ancient tunes are ascribed. After these, the Cumn^ings of Freuchie, now Cas- tle Grant, were the most celebrated. Of these musicians there were a hereditary succession, the last of whom, John Roy Gumming, who was very famous, died between 1750 and 1760. His descendants in London inherited the musical genius of their ancestors, and are known by many ingenious works in mechanics.* The Reel of Tulloch, given as a specimen, is a popular tune among pipers, from whom it receives the appellation Righ na m Porst, or king of airs. It is stated by Mac Donald, that this reel was composed at Tulloch, in Aberdeenshire, a tradition that I have often heard repeated, detailing the particular circumstances connected with its production, but in Mac Gregor's Collection of Poems, where the song is given, it is confidently asserted to be the composition of John Dubh Gear, a Mao Gregor of Glenlyon. * Newte. I MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 413 Some affect to discover a striking difference between Scots and Irish jig tunes. I confess I cannot so easily perceive it, although I am aware that each have their characteristic style. A frequent distinction, though by no means a general rule, is, that the first is most frequently in 6, 8 time, the last 9, 8. The specimen given is a lively Highland air, but if sung or performed slowly, it is a very beautiful melody. Of the Pastoral Melodies many others might have been selected, perhaps superior to the one given, but amid so great a variety of beauti- ful airs, it is not easy to fix on one that will be admired by all. In looking over Fraser's Collection, I hesitated whether I should substitute "Nigean doun na Gobhair," The Maid that tends the Goats; " JBha- narach dhoun achruidh," The Dairy Maid; or others of the same char- acter. The Lament of Ossian may not be received by the skeptical as the production of that bard, but it must be allowed to be, like the Druid's song, a fragment of merit, which bears undoubted marks of great* anti- quity. > The MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS of the ancient Celts were simple; that of which we read most is the harp, but they also had others. When the Gauls sacked Rome they had trumpets with which they sounded the charge,* and which were employed to assemble their council; they made a most horrid noise, and were at times blown to terrify the enemy.* The horn of battle was used by the old Caledonians to call the army to- gether, and sounded for a retreat; " The horn of Fingal" was, proba- bly, his attendant trumpet. The Cornu was blown by the Druids, and their Christian successors appear to have retained the practice. St. Patrick is represented as carrying one. The wind instruments of this sort in use among the ancient Irish, were the Stuic, a brazen tube, used as a speaking trumpet. The Corna, in its rudest form, was a cow's horn, and was sometimes sufficiently powerful to be heard at a distance of six mites. The Dudag is not certainly known, but is believed to have been a semi-circular horn. Some of them were found near Ar- magh, and are engraved in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Society ;t when blown they are said to have made a tremendous noise. The Buab- hal, Beann, and Adharc, are not precisely known, but are conjectured to be only different names for cornua. O'Conner says, that particular clans had horns of peculiar tones, and Froissart describes the Scots at Otterburn as blowing them in different notes. The Irish also speak of Gall trompa, the stranger's trumpet, and the Blaosg, or concha marina, resembling the buccinum of the Latins. The Cibbual, or corabas, was composed of several small plates of brass, or shingles of wood, fastened with a thong, being held in one hand while it was struck with the palm of the other The Corabasnas consisted of two circular plates of brass, connected by a twisted wire, which, on being struck, produced a jing- ling sound, and was used to mark time. The Corna'n, or crona'n, was named from cor, music, and anan, base, an instrument to which the * Diodorus. f Vol. viii. 414 THE HARP. lachdar cliannus was similar. The readan, fideog, or lonloingean, are supposed to have been a sort of flutes.* The HARP, that most ancient and esteemed of stringed instruments, was a favorite of the Celtic nations, and was retained in the British Isl- ands when it had become almost unknown on the continent. The Hy- perboreans, who are believed to have been the Aborigines of Britain, were celebrated performers on it, accompanying their hymns with its music, and carrying their offerings to Delos with both flutes and harps. The Irish have, in all ages, been noted for their excellence in harp music, and many proofs could be adduced of their proficiency. It is re- lated of the Xing of Munster, so early as 489, that he had the best band of harpers of any in his time, who accompanied their music with sing- ing ;"f but the most flattering testimonial to the national merit is paid by Giraldus Cambrensis, who resided in Ireland for some time in the latter part 'of the twelfth century. His eulogium is certainly high, and its jus- tice is confirmed by his countrymen, who acknowledge, that to the Irish they owe not only the improvement of the harp, but that of their music also.J Powell, in his History of Cambria, says, that in 1078, " Gryf- fith ap Cynan, or Conan, brought from Ireland cunning musicians, that devised in a manner all the instrumental music now used, as appears by the names of the tunes and measures." That their harp may have been improved by the Irish is probable, but it was used by them from the remotest ages. The harper was a distinguished member of the royal household; none were permitted by their laws to play on this instrument except freemen; and it was reckoned disgraceful for a gentleman not to have a harp and be able to play on it. Buchannan is adduced as testifying that the harpers in Scotland were all Irishmen, but as the pas- sage refers to a king, whose existence is denied, it is unfair to press it into the service, or lay any weight on it. Ireland at one time does ap- pear to have obtained a superior reputation for skill in harp music; but Giraldus who extols them so highly, says, when he had made himself better informed, that it was the opinion of many that the Scots far sur- passed the Irish in musical science, and that Scotland had become the resort of those who were desirous of perfecting themselves in it. Al- though there is not, I believe, at present in the Highlands any profes- sional harper, and although it had been so long disused, that its former existence in these parts was doubted, it is easily proved, from other au- thorities than the above, to have been common to the Gael. Buchan- nan speaks of their delightful playing on it; and Major tells us, James I., who died in 1437, excelled all the Irish and Scots' Highlanders, who were the best of all harpers. In short, harpers were hereditary attend- ants on the Scots' kings and the Highland chiefs, from whom they had certain lands and perquisites; and this is confirmed by a hundred names of places throughout the Highlands, and by numerous traditions. One instance, apparently the latest, of a harper attending a Highland * Walker's Irish Bards. t Life of St. Kieran. t Caradoc, ap. Wynne, Walker, e Mac Donalds and the Mac Leods, and another composed on Blar leinne, or the shirt battle, fought at Kinloch Lochy, between the Frasers of Lovat, and Mac Donalds of Clanrannald, and so called from the parties having stripped to their shirts. There is a fine lament, called " The Chieftains," to which words are sung on the unfortunate death of the colonel of Glengarry's regiment, who fell in the streets of Falkirk after the victory, by the accidental dis- charge of the gun of one of Clan Rannald's men. The horrid murder of the Keppoch family was lamented, besides the piobrachd, in a slow and pathetic song of three unequal measures, called Keppach na fasich, or " Desolate." " The Spraith of the Lowlands now graze in the Glen" must have been sung with joy on the celebration of many a successful descent, and " the Fiery cross" was admirably expressive of the effects of its appearance. Of Ossianic music, several pieces are attributed to the bard, or bear his name, and have been sung to the poems and native songs time imme- morial. Dan Ossian; Ossian an deigh nam Fion; Dan Fraoich; Tha Sgeul beag agam air Fion; Dargo; Bas Dhiarmid a 'Duine; Maol Don aidh; Oscar's Ghost; Manus, and others, may be enumerated; many of which were collected between 1715 and 1745, by Mac Donald, Fraser, and others. The following is a list of the piobrachds and other military music of the Mac Kenzies, still preserved and entered, I am assured in the or- derly book of the 72nd regiment, the first that was raised from the clan: Day Break Cruinnoachdh, gathering, or turn out Salute when the Chief comes on the Field .. Slow Mnrch Quick March The Charge While Engaged .. Coronach played when burying the Dead .. Sunset Tattoo .. .. .. .. Warning half an hour before Dinner When Dinner is on the Table Surachan. Tulloch Ard. Failte mhic Coinnich. An Cuilfhionn. Caisteal Donnan. Caber Feidh. Blar Strom. Cumhadh mhic Coinnich. Siubhal clann Choinnich. Ceann drochait Aelin. Blar ghlinn Seille. Cath sleibh an t' Shiora. 42O P1OBRACHJS. li is remarkable that the Gael of Ireland have no music of ihe descrip- tion of piobrachd. That singular piece called Mac Allisdrum's March, which has latterly been connected with Cath Eachroma, or the battle of Aghrim, has been deemed a genuine Irish piobrachd; but the intelligent Mr. Croker, in his " Researches," has shown that it is a Scots' compo- sition. Alexander Mac Donald, or Allisdrum, commanded a party of Highlanders in the Irish service under Lord Taafe, at the engagement with the Parliament army, near Mallow, 13th Nov. 1647, where they fought manfully, but were all cut to pieces, or, as some say, murdered in cold blood, their skulls and bones being yet to be seen piled up in the ruins of a neighboring abbey. This composition is still popular, and may be partially seen in the works of Walker and Croker. After the urlar, or air, is played, the four provincial cries are performed: the Gair Chonnachtach, Gair Muimhneach, Gair Olltach, and Gair Laighneach; after which the Gall na mna' san ar, lamentations of the women while searching the Held for their husbands and relations, succeed, the whole concluding with a loud shout, as supposed from the auditors. The Irish certainly used our national instrument in war, at least in Derrick's time, who says that when the pipers perceived defeat inevitable, they sounded a retreat, and in another passage we 6nd that " the bagpipe then insteade of tromp, did lull the backe retreate." The Scots had, however, so much to do in the then affairs of Ireland, that he may in this case be speaking of them. Other airs of great antiquity and beauty they possess in sufficient number, among which may be mentioned Cumh leinn, Ailein a ruin, Gramachree Molly, &c., and in those called Speic, or humors, they excel. The Welsh are also destitute of this peculiar style of music, although they have military airs of high antiquity and interest: the " Monks' march," and " Come to battle," are powerful. Besides warlike melo- dies and coronachs, they have much of a peculiar cast, and their Penyl- lion singing with the harp seems peculiarly their own. The Gorleg yr Halen, or " Prelude of the salt," played to the renowned King Arthur, is yet performed in the Welsh school, Gray's-inn-lane-road. The Scots have been from the beginning of history celebrated for musical genius, and of that sort which Geminiani declared could not be otherwise found on this side the Alps, and as poetry and music are inseparably connected, they were consequently renowned for both. The knowledge which the bards possessed of these sister arts was cultivated by the Christian priests, and a reference to Bale, Leland, Dempster, and others, will show the very great numbers of those who excelled. The whole nation was in fact declared to be musical, and the Scots' min- strels were much superior to English writers, there being not one poem which can with certainty be ascribed to an English poet previous to the time of Chaucer.* An old author declares with much naivete, that a great many of both sexes in the Highlands had a gift of poesy, and could * Ellis's Metrical Romances, i. 130. FACILITY OF COMPOSITION. 431 form a panegyric or satire extempore, without any thing stronger than water to raise their fancies. They had certainly a strong propensity to turn every thing into rhyme, which they could as easily adapt to music, as has been before shown: many tunes, and even long pieces of music having been composed in a short space of time, and under unpropitioua circumstances. The harpers were so noted for this facility, that it pass- ed into a proverb: "where would be the melodies the harpers could not find? " A piper of St. Kilda composed a tune of the notes of a bird called the Gawlin, which was reckoned a very fine piece of music, and we have the swan's mournful ditty: Luineag na h Ealui' Gui eug i, gui eug o, Sgeula' mo dhunach, Gui eug i Riun mo Here, Gui eug o, &c. We have even the mermaid's song, and perhaps those of other sirens nave been composed, with the fisherman's song for attracting seals, &.c. Music has at times produced effects on the Highlanders, in some degree, like the lyre of Orpheus. The celebrated Mac Pherson, who has been mentioned in the first part of this work, composed his " Farewell," and played it, when proceeding to the place of execution; and some other Highlanders have requested, as a last favor, permission to play their pipes. When old Lovat was taken by Captain Campbell, of Achacrosan, it is said that, unaffected by his situation, it afforded him the highest delight to hear the pipers playing his family march, as he was conveyed across the country. The bagpipes seem to charm even the brute creation. Deer will be arrested by their sound, and stand listening with evident pleasure; and cattle that are otherwise unmanageable, will be rendered calm by a spring on the shepherd's pipe. The story of the piper of Hamelin, whose instrument had such power, is well known; on one oc- casion, he charmed an immense number of rats into a river where they were drowned, but not receiving the stipulated reward, he speedily col- lected as many and carried them to the same place. About the beginning of the sixteenth century, Mac Lean, of Coll, had been carried off by Allan Mac Lean, who received the appellation of na sohp, or "of the wisp," in allusion to his burnings. Coll was a poet and musician, and when in prison he composed a tune, still, I believe, preserved, under the name of" Allan na Sohp's march," which having sung with much grace, his stern enemy was so moved that he immedi- ately gave him his liberty. The following " Ode to Scotish Music, "by a poet who is now almost forgotten, but whose merit deserves commemoration,* displays, in beau- tiful lines, the effect of the national melodies: * Mac Donald, better known as Matthew Bramble, the author of Vimonda, &c. 432 ODE TO SCOTI3H MUSIC " What words, my Laura, can express That power unknown, that magic speli Thy lovely native airs possess, When warbled from thy lips so well, Such nameless feelings to impart, As melt in bliss the raptured heart. No stroke of art their texture bears, No cadence wrought with learned skill, And though long worn by rolling years, Yet, unimpaired, they please us still : While thousand strains of mystic lore Have perished, and are heard no more. Wild, as the desert stream they flow, * Wandering along its mazy bed ; Now, scarcely moving, deep and slow, Now, in a swifter current led ; And now along the level lawn, With charming murmurs, softly drawn. Ah ! what enchanting scenes arise, Still as thou breath'st the heart-felt strain . How swift exulting fancy flies O'er all the varied Sylvan reign ! And how thy voice, blest maid, can move The rapture and the wo of love ! There, on a bank by Flora drest, Where flocks disport beneath the shade, By Tweed's soft murmurs lulled to rest, A lovely nymph asleep is laid ; Her shepherd, trembling, all in bliss, Steals, unobserved, a balmy kiss ! Here, by the banks and groves so green, Where Yarrow's waters warbling roll, The love-sick swain, unheard, unseen, Pours to the stream his secret soul ; Sings his bright charmer, and, by turns, Despairs, and hopes, and fears, and burns. There, night her silent sable wears, And gloom invests the vaulted skies. No star amid the void appears, Yet see fair Nelly blushing rise ; And, lightly stepping, move unseen To let her panting lover in. But far removed on happier plains, With harps to love forever strung, Methinks I see the favored swains Who first those deathless measures sung ; For, sure, I ween no courtly wight Those deathless measures could indite. COGADH NA SITH. A PIOBRACHD. 3313 No. 1. 3 3 *. SE=S5* 33 3 _J 3 3333 ft-fr 33 33 33 33 33 33 3 m 3 3 3 3 33 33 33 33 33 3 3 3 3 3 3 ^ J J JJ- JJ| J 444 33 33 33 3 3 3 4 3 343 3_43 54A D. C. 2 131 1313 1313 13 13 *5 1313 1313 1313 1313 1313 1313 1313 1313 1313 131 ft D. C. 1313 1313 1313 1313 9^ 1313 1313 1 313 1313 131 4 3413 '99 4 34 34 13 34 34 D. C. 34 34 34 34 84 34 34 ^J=i D. C. 3 1 3 31 31 3_L 3 333333 3131 3_1_ 3 1 3 1 3,j_ * ft L__J I I I _e - *-fi s _e j j if if i. 3 33333 31 3 1 31 31 31 SfeiESitiEitfei D. C. 33 333333 3 31 31 3 1 31 31 31 31 31 3 D. C 3 1 3231 323 1 3 23 1 3 2 1 3 3 2 1 3 3 2 1 3 3213 3213 3213 I 3213 3213 3 2 1 3 3 2 1 3 3213 3213 3 2 1 3 3213 3213 3 2 1 3 3213 3 2 1 3213 3213 3213 32 1 3 3 2 1 3 CUILFHIONN. D. C. A SLOW MARCH. m Safeggrtffi +-? Fttto ff^s- CALLUM BROGACH. SLOW. A STRATHSPEY. No 3. WMBtaflB 9BKBEohv RIGHIL THULAICHEAN. LlTKLT. A REEL,. w No> CRO NAN GOBHAR. A JTG. SPRIGHTLY. No. 5. -^- 1st. ^B x ^\ -^- FHIR A BHATA. SLOW. AN IORRAM. No 6 T - J J3 I ^ J -^- J-J GU MO SLAN A CHI MI MO CHALLIN DILEAS DOUN. TBNDERLT. P A PASTORAL MELODY. No. 7. 8 MAC MO RIGH S'DOL EIDEADH. SLOW. A SONG OF THE DRUIDS. * # NO. a. CUMHADH FION. OSSIAN'S LAMENT FOR HIS FATHER. VERT SLOW AWD EXPRESSIVE. DESCRIPTION OF THE BAGPIPE 433 No ! from the pastoral cot and shade Thy favorite airs, my Laura, came, By some obscure Corelli made, Or Handel, never known to fame I And hence their notes, from Nature warm, Like Nature's self, must ever charm. Ye spirits of fire, forever gone, Soft as your strains, O be your sleep ! And, if your sacred graves were known, We there should hallowed vigils keep, Where, Laura, thou shouldst raise the lay, And bear our souls to heaven away ! The FIOB-MHOR, or great Highland bagpipe, is different from the com- mon sharp pipes of the Low country, and both are very unlike the Irish or flat pipes. The first, which is accurately represented in the frontis- piece, is by far the most noble and warlike instrument, and produces the most clear and ear-piercing notes. The various pipes are separate- ly inserted in the bag, and the drones or burdens are connected by rib- ands of different colors. When the bag is inflated, they are steadily supported over the shoulder, and the tallest displays a flag, on which is richly embroidered the arms of the chief, colonel of a regiment, gentle- man, or society, in whose service the piper may be. In the figure in- troduced for illustration in the frontispiece, the arms of Scotland are the insignia. These arms have been alluded to in page 196, and the Lion is there shown to have been a general badge of the Celtic nations. It is asserted by all heralds and historians of authority, that the tressure of fleur-de-lis was added to the arms of Scotland by Charlemagne, to indi- cate his regard for the nation; but when the Unicorns were adopted as supporters, is not ascertained. They bear up the royal banner, and that of St. Andrew, and stand, as here shown, on a compartment, and not on an escrol, as often represented. For the " lacesset" in the motto, I have the authority of Sir George Mac Kenzie and other competent anti- quaries, and the difference from lacessit is certainly of some importance in this very nicely regulated science. The Scots, as is well-known, paid great attention to heraldry, and the whole achievement, as a speci- men of their skill, must be allowed to have a good effect, even pictori- ally. The ensign of Scotland, that is, a thistle of gold imperially crown- ed, is represented on the title-page. The Highland Society of London have a pipe flag of beautiful workmanship and rich effect. Those who have no flag usually display party-colored ribands, which have a very pretty appearance streaming in the wind. They are often presented by the musician's sweetheart, and are of course exhibited with becoming pride. Several pipers carry their instruments on the right side, and some are of opinion that it is necessary for those who have to play with others, because it would neither look well, nor be convenient, on a march, for 55 434 DESCRIPTION OF THE BAGPIPE. pipers to have their drones all over the same shoulder. Surely, if other- wise, it would look as awkward as if the soldiers carried their muskets on opposite sides. We do not know the rule which prevailed in Sky, but a learner would most assuredly be taught to use his right hand m tuning. The pipe through which the wind is conveyed is also kept in its posi- tion by the tension of the bag, but the performer does not allow it to slip from his mouth, but retains it in an easy manner, the end being tip- ped with horn to prevent its being injured by the teeth. It has a joint, and is provided with a leather valve, which prevents the egress of air. The Chanter, or pipe on which the tun,e is performed, is like the others fixed in a head stock, which is sufficiently large to contain the reed. This is formed of two thin slips of common reed or cane, fixed with much nicety to a small metal tube, and produce the sound by vibration. Those of the other pipes are formed of a joint of the reed, one end close, the other open, with an oblong slit for the passage of the air, as here shown. The sharp Lowland pipes have the same tone as the Highland, but are less sonorous, and are blown by a bellows, put in motion by the arm opposite to that under which the bag is held. This is the manner of giving wind to the Irish pipes, like which they also have the three drones fixed in one stock, and not borne over the shoulder, but laid horizontally over the arm. The Union pipes, that have been called the Irish organ, are the sweetest of musical instruments; the formation of the reeds, and the length of the pipes, increased by brass tubes, pro- duce the most delightful and soothing melody, while by the addition of many keys, and the capability of the chanter, any tune may be performed. One George Mackay was the reformer of the Scots' Lowland pipes, but I cannot precisely tell the nature of his improvements; he, however, studied seven years at the college in Sky. There is a miniature sort of bagpipe, called the Northumberland, the advantage of which is that they are conveniently portable, and are much less noisy than the others. None of these sorts resemble the rude in- struments of the same kind used on the continent. The pipes are commonly formed of black ebony or lignum vitae; but woods loss valuable, and less excellent for the purpose, are sometimes employed. The joints are handsomely tipped with ivory or bone, and silver ornaments and precious gems are often placed on the headstock of the chanter. Northumberland pipes are often wholly formed of ivory, and richly ornamented with silver. The bag is covered with cloth or tartan, sometimes fringed, and otherwise adorned. DESCRIPTION OF THE BAGPIPE. 435 A stand,* or set, of Highland pipes sometimes cost a considerable Bum, especially if made by a celebrated tradesman, of which there ure several in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth, Aberdeen, and Inverness. The drones are tuned by means of the movable joints to the E of the chanter, the two small ones being a fifth below, and the larger an eighth, and this preparation, called the Ludh, is what often needlessly occupies so much time, giving rise to that saying in the Low Country applied to one who procrastinates in a small affair: " You are langer o' tuning your pipes nor playing your spring." To be sure, the pipes must be put in tune; but it is the piper's duty to have them in as good order as possible before he is called to perform, and thereby avoid that monoto- nous noise and unmeaning rhapsody of notes which many feel so unpleas- ant. I am afraid some pipers think there is a deal of grace in those flourishes called " preludes of tuning,""!" f rms of which are actually taught; but I can say, that although Scotsmen may bear with them, to Englishmen they have no charms. On the chanter are nine notes, G, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A, and a JB may also be produced by " pinching," that is, striking the thumb nail in a peculiar manner in the hole of the upper note A; but Highland pipers do not admit this addition, but despise its assistance as much as they do the keys and other attempted improvements. They seem inspir- ed with the same feeling which led the Spartans to banish Timotheus for presuming to add to the strings of the lyre; and amusing anecdotes are told of their concern to think that the pipes should be taught by notes, or that they should be fettered in learning by book rules. The C and F in the chanter scale are sharp; and if they were omitted it would be the ancient Scotish scale of C major, agreeing with that of the black keys of the piano, but these sharps are not noticed by the per- former. Although the pipe can imitate different keys, they are not real, as in other instruments. As the tone of the bagpipes is continuous, the monotony is broken, and the notes divided by warbling, beating, or battering, as I have heard some call it, which is done by a sudden movement of the fingers on cer- tain other notes. Thus, in running up the scale, the effect is given to low G by smartly striking the hole under No. 1, or the fore-finger of the upper hand, and on sounding A the third finger counting downwards performs the same office. This will explain the figures inserted, accord- ing to the plan of Capt. Menzies, in his Pipe Preceptor, to show the warbling of Cogadh na sith, a sort of expression peculiar to the bagpipe, and productive of that indescribable thrilling in the performance of a good piobrachd, or of many of the other pipe tunes. There is an ancient and celebrated pipe in the possession of the chief of Clan Chattan, known as the Feadhan dubh, or black chanter, con- cerning Avhich various curious particulars are recorded. * The absurd term, " pair of pipes," perhaps arose from many of the poorer sort, hav- ing formerly but two drones. It may be observed, pipers often have but two that are furnished with reeds. i Deachin Ghleust. 436 FE \DHAN DUBH, OR BLACK CHANTER. It is believed to possess some charm or supernatural virtue, which ensures prosperity to its owners and their connexions. It is this instru- ment which Sir Walter Scott mentions as having fallen from the clouds during the conflict on the North inch of Perth in 1396. It appears to have been taken from the vanquished party at that fiercely contended battle. Three Mac Donalds, of Glenco, had, on one occasion, taken a creagh from Strathspey, but were overtaken by a strong party of the Grants near Aviemore, when they thought themselves out of danger; and while asleep the two elder Mac Donalds were surprised and bound, but the younger escaped to the woods. The Grants, on their return home, stop- ped about two miles from the place, and while they were refreshing and enjoying themselves in apparent security, the three dauntless heroes, who had recovered themselves and come together, attacked their ene- mies, sword in hand, with such daring and resolution, that they drove them clean off with confusion and slaughter, killing seven and wounding sixteen, and rescued the whole of the cattle! The cry of the two elder Mac Donalds was " A mhic, a mhic, luathich do laimh 's cruadhich do bhuille," i. e. My son, my son, quicken and harden thy blows. The Laird of Grant, vexed in the highest degree at the shameful con- duct of his men, compelled the delinquents, for three successive Sun- days, to walk round the church in presence of all the rest of the clan, carrying wooden swords suspended by straw ropes, exclaiming, " we are the cowards that disgracefully ran away." The whole clan were disheartened by this affair, and to reanimate them, the chief sent to Cluny for the loan of the Feadhan dubh, the notes of which could in- fallibly rouse every latent spark of valor. Cluny is said to have lent it without hesitation, saying his men stood in no need of it. How long it remained with them at this time does not appear; but after it had been restored, the Grants again received it, and it remained with them until 1822, when Grant of Glenmorriston presented it to Ewen Mac Pherson, Esq. of Cluny, the present worthy chief.* It is probable that the last loan of this wonderful chanter was made to the Grants of Glenmorriston, who had no do.ubt observed the happy effects of its possession among their brethren in Strathspey. This clan had, however, an opinion of their own prowess, that would seem to render it improbable they should require such aid, and had, besides, some particular charm by which they rendered themselves invulnerable; in which belief they fearlessly engaged in war, and, in truth, acted like heroes; although the writer of a MS. history of the clan, which I have seen in the King's Library, sneeringly says, they prevented their charm from working at the battle of Sherifmuir, by making a speedy retreat. The Mac Phersons assuredly, whether in consequence of their fortu- nate talisman or their own bravery, have never been in a battle which was lost, at least where the chief was present. Before the battle of Culloden, an old witch, or second seer, told the Duke of Cumberland, * Hia letter to the author. DANCING. 437 that if he waited until the bratach uaine, or green banner, came up, he would be defeated. The cultivation and practice of poetry and music are chief amuse- ments of the Gael, and connected with both is DANCING. If the Scots excel in the former, they certainly of all nations are preeminent in par- tiality to the latter. Their passion for this pleasing and healthy exer- cise is indeed so strong, that it seems part of their nature. The art of dancing, which a person without a musical ear can never attain, is a harmonious adaptation of the bodily powers to time and measure, accom- panied with grace, ease, expression, position, &.c. ; yet the Scots have been said to be "entirely without grace" in their dances. Their agility may surprise, without pleasing, those who do not understand the national system, but that a person should be able to execute the most intricate and complex steps with the utmost ease, keeping the justest time, with- out "a particle of grace," is surely impossible. Grace, in dancing, is described as " fitness of parts and good attitude," and that the Highlan- ders possess these necessary qualifications cannot be denied; indeed, their aptitude for music is not more striking than their fondness for the national reel. Dancing has been practised by almost every people; it formed, in fact, part of the religious ceremonies of almost all nations, and the gods are not only said to have been pleased, but were themselves emulous in the dance. Pindar represents Silenus as " Strenuous in the dance to beat Tuneful measures with his feet." It was also encouraged as a useful and elegant amusement, and the Athenians reckoned those unpolite who refused to dance at a proper time.* Its importance as an innocent and healthful recreation rendered it an object of attention to the legislator. Lycurgus instituted dancing from a conviction of its utility in making the youth strong, agile, and ex- pert in the use of their weapons, and in the evolutions of warfare. This particular sort was accompanied with the singing of certain heroic verses, and was performed by the old men, the youth, and children. Homer mentions the art as a diversion at entertainments; and Merion, one of his heroes, was known among the Grecian chiefs by a grace- ful carriage and superior agility, acquired from his long practice of dancing. The effect of dancing and music in a moral point of view, is certainly considerable. Polybius attributes the hospitality and piety of the Ar- cadians to the care with which these two arts were cultivated, the youth being instructed in them at the public expense; and this influence he proves from contrasting those happy people with the Cynrethians, a neighboring nation, that neglected so salutary regulations. Dancing promotes health, cheerfulness, and the kindly affections between the sexes, and Locke says it ought always to be taught to children, as it * Note in Beloes' Herodotus, vi. 438 DANCING. gives graceful motions to all their actions, and, above all things, manli- ness and a becoming confidence; for this effect he cannot account, but his good opinion entirely coincides with that of the wisest of the ancients Socrates became so sensible of the good effects of this exercise, that in his old age he sedulously practised it; and Lucian, Plato, Aristotle, Athaeneus, Xenophon, Plutarch, and others, have written in praise of it. Some of the ancient philosophers were excellent dancers, and thought it not unbecoming to perform in public; Lucian even goes so far as to say that dancing works all the wonders ascribed to the caduceus of Mer- cury, being able at the same time to soothe and animate the soul. Among the Jews, it was a solemn religious discipline; and, as an exercise of di- vine worship, was of no less importance among the Greeks and Romans. Nor was the performance confined to the men; when Moses had con- ducted the Israelites across the Red Sea, he and his sister Miriam per- formed a grand chorus and accompanying dance. Pliny calls the sa- cred dances " mediatorial." Of the ancient Celtic dancing we find some curious particulars. The Lusitani, says Diodorus, have a light and airy dance which they prac- tise in peace, and which requires great dexterity and nimbleness of legs and thighs. In war, they march, observing time and measure, arid sing their triumphal songs when they are ready to charge the enemy. The passion for dancing was strong in all the Celtic race, and it was employed in the services of religion, some remains of which practice long continued among the Welsh, who were accustomed to dance in the church-yard. Rincefada, or field dance in Irish, shows its relation to Rineadoir, a musician. This was performed to the Cuisley Ciuil, a simple sort of bagpipe before described, and used to conclude all balls. When James II. landed at Kinsale, his friends received him with the rincefada, by which he was much gratified. The manner of its execu- tion was thus; three persons abreast, holding the ends of a white hand- kerchief, moved forward a few paces to the sound of slow music, the rest of the dancers following in couples, and holding also a white hand- kerchief between them. The music then changing to a quicker tune, the dance began, the performers passing successively under the hand- kerchiefs of the three, in front, and then wheeling round in semi-circles, they formed a variety of pleasing evolutions, interspersed with occasional entrechats, finally uniting and resuming their original places. The Manx are much addicted to dancing jigs and reels, in which four or five couple join to the music of a fiddle. English country dances are un- known among them. We are told that the military dances of the old Irish were conducted by the Curinky, or dancing-master, a surname that yet exists in many families. The ancient Caledonians had a sort of Pyrrhic dance over swords, which is not yet entirely unknown, but the Gilli-Callum, which gener- ally terminates a ball, is supposed to have but a faint resemblance to the ancient sword-dance. The same observation may be applied to the dirk- DANCING. 439 dance. Both of them are, indeed, still executed by a few, and were exhibited in London some years ago by one Mac Glassan; but a gen- tleman informed me that he knew a person who at the age of 106, saw the dirk-dance performed, and declared it was not at all like that which he had formerly known. Besides these, it is evident from the words of an old Isle of Sky dancing song, Bualidh mi u an sa chean, " I will break your head," that the parties in the performance went through the evolutions of attack and defence. The chief art in the modern sword- dance consists in the dexterity with which the dancer escapes touching one or more swords or sticks crossed on the ground, the tune to which it was performed being called Gilli-Callum, and that appropriate to the dirk, Phadric Mac Combish. There was a dance called Rungmor, of which little is now known; from the only description I could get of it the dancer appeared in some manner to touch the ground with his thighs, without losing his balance. In Lochaber there was formerly a gymnasium for teaching all sorts of athletic exercises and graceful accomplishments, the scholars eating at a common table, being allowed a certain time for their meals, and submitting to other regulations; but, without tuition, the Highlanders excel in dancing. A perfect judge thus expresses himself: "This pleasing propensity, one would think, was born with them, from the early indications we sometimes see their children show for this exer- cise. I have seen children of theirs, of five or six years of age, at- tempt, nay, even execute, some of their steps so well, as almost to sur- pass belief. I once had the pleasure of seeing in a remote part of the country, a reel danced by a herd boy and two young girls, who sur- prised me much, especially the boy, who appeared to be about twelve years of age. He had a variety of well chosen steps, and executed them with so much justness and ease, as if he meant to set criticism at defiance;" and, speaking of the colleges of Aberdeen, where he was long established as an elegant and accomplished teacher of dancing, he adds, "they draw hither, every year, a number of students from the Western Isles, as well as from the Highlands, and the greater part of them excel in the dance; some of them indeed, in so superior a de- gree, that I myself have thought them worthy of imitation." After the toils of a long day, young men and women will walk many miles to enjoy a dance, which seems to have the effect of banishing fatigue, and, instead of adding to the sensation of weariness, it becomes really a recreation. This delight in dancing is diffused throughout Scotland, and the strongest efforts of the kirk to put down " promiscu- ous dancing," with the bitter reproofs of the more rigid covenanteis, have failed in repressing the " ungodly" exercise. The reel and strathspey are the dances common to all the Scots, and those of which they are most passionately fond. They are either a quartett or trio, " a foursome or a threesome reel;" and those who are ignorant of this species of dance "will find the principal steps used in it plainly described by Peacock, the intelligent writer already mentioned. 440 DANCING. SINGLE STICK. It will be observed that the difference in time between the two soils of music produces a corresponding difference in the steps or evolutions. I shall here present the reader with a list of those most in use by the Highlanders. Ceum-siubhail, pronounced kemshoole, the forward step, is the com- mon step for the promenade or figure. Ceum-coisiche, or kemkossey, is the setting or footing step, and is divided into three sorts: first, where one step is equal to a bar; second, where two steps are required to a bar; and third, where two bars are required to a step. Leum-trasd, or cross springs, are a series of Sissonnes. Siabadh-trasd, chasing steps or cross slips, is like the ballotte. Aiseag-trasd, or cross passes, is a fa- vorite step in the Highlands. Ceum-Badenach is another step much used, and requiring considerable agility. Fosgladh, or open step, and Cuartag, or turning step, are also very becoming movements. All these, and many more are combined in one dance, and the association depends on the taste of the party. That called the back step, in which the feet are each alternately slipped behind, and reach the ground on, or close to, the spot occupied by the one just removed, is of difficult acquire- ment, and severely exerts the muscles of the calfs of the legs. So much dexterity can some persons display in this, that they will go through the* setting time of the music without moving beyond a space marked by *.he circumference of their bonnet. SEAN TRIUS, or old trowsers, from the name of the accompanying ah, is the native Highland hornpipe, and is danced with much grace. I have seen two brothers of the name of Grant, who were good violin players, exhibit feats of great agility. Part of their performance con- sisted of dancing the Highland fling, in that style called the Marquis of Huntley's, Strathspeys over a rope, and Gilli-Callum over a fiddle bow; and one of them danced a Strathspey, played the fiddle, played bass on the bagpipe, smoked, spoke Gaelic, and explained it in question and answer at the same time! Dancing, among the Gael, does not depend on the presence of musical instruments. They reel and set to their own vocal music, or to the songs of those who are near; people, whose hearts are light and respon- sive to their native melodies, will find their limbs move in consonance to its music, however produced. SINGLE STICK, or cudgel play, was formerly taught the youth from an early age, as a necessary preparation for the management of the broad- sword, and they used in certain dances to exhibit their dexterity. They are still partial to this amusement; in the higher parts of Aberdeen- shire " the young farmers," says the Rev. Skene Keith, " like their fathers, are very expert in dancing and managing a cudgel without a master." The delight which the Gael had in the recitation of their traditional history was extreme. The duty of preserving and relating their legends was properly the province of the bards, who were supported for the purpose, but the whole population were accustomed to acquire the sgeu GAMING. 441 lachds, or historical narrations, and when there was no bard, the teller of tales, sometimes called the rhymer, a character much respected, sup plied his place. The Irish had their cleasamhneagh, or jesters, and druith righeadh, or royal mimics.* We find there were in the Scots' army, in 1138, buf- foons and jesters, both male and female. A curious amusement is described in p. 400, and it has been stated elsewhere that little dramas and ludicrous interludes from the ancient poems, were often performed. An idle people are naturally prone to gaming. Tacitus, speaking of the Germans, says they were passionately given to play at games of chance, at which they continued not only until their whole substance was gone, but would even stake their lives, and, if they lost, would patiently suffer themselves to be sold, calling it honor! The brother- hood of Carrows, a sort of common gamblers in Ireland, resembled these Germans. They did nothing else but play cards all the year round, staking their mantles, shirts, and every thing to the bare skin, when they trussed themselves in straw or leaves, and in that state would wait on the highways with unabated desire, and invite passengers to play on the green. "For defaulte of other stuffe, they pawn portions of their glibe, the nails of their fingers and toes," and other members of their body, which they lose or redeem, at the courtesy of the winner. "j* One of the Irish games, called " short castle," is played by two persons, with three counters or pebbles on a board marked by a cross and two diagonals, the game being won by getting the three on a straight line. Chess and drafts were favorite amusements of the Highlanders. A passage from a poem of Mary Mac Leod, given in p. 402, mentions the delight which her chief took in these games. Martin describes a set of" table men," carved with different figures, which he saw, that were made of a blue sort of stone found in Lewis, and relates a curious occurrence of sec- ond sight that happened when Sir Norman Mac Leod and some others were playing at a game of tables called Falmer-more, where three of a side cast dice in turn, for the disposition of the pieces. Hunting, which has been already described, was a favorite diversion of the Celts; their other amusements were chiefly of a martial charac- ter, and on several occasions there have been opportunities of showing their propensity to display their courage and address in single com- bat. The amusement described in page 92, so popular among the Germans, strikingly shows the military character of that people. The rude Celts had no taste for the refined pleasures of other nations, their only enjoyment being in those manly sports which cherished their M ar like and independent spirit. For this purpose chariot-racing and otl er sports were apparently enjoined as a religious duty, and to inspire tne people with due ardor, the services of the bards were consecrated. Some Frisian ambassadors, it is related, having visited Rome, they were taken to the theatres, as the most attractive exhibitions, but, to the * Coll. reb. Hibernica. I Campion. Riche, p. 38. 56 442 ATHLETIC EXERCISES. HIGHLAND GAMES. astonishment of the Romans, those men took not the smallest interest in the amusements. The Caledonians practised a sort of tournament, which is spoken of in old poems as " the honor of the spear," and in their encounter, they only asked cothrum na Feinne, " the equal com- bat of the Fingalians." Athletic exercises were the delight of the Gael, and from the chief to the lowest clansman, they vied with each other in generous contention, the highest individual being often the strongest and most accomplished in feats of prowess. An anecdote is related of a wrestler, who, presuming on his great strength and skill, had insulted a whole clan, none of whom would venture to encounter him, except the chief, who accepted his challenge, and succeeded in vanquishing him, but in the exertion he burst a blood-vessel, and shortly afterwards died. Besides Gleachd, or wrestling, the Highlanders contend for a short stick or rachd, which they endeavor to wrench out of each other's grasp. They also, sitting on the ground, feet to feet, and mutually holding a stick, endeavor each by main strength to force his opponent from the ground. The Clach-neart, literally stone of strength, or the putting stone, ia a favorite and ancient amusement, and consists in projecting a large round stone to the greatest possible distance. It was formerly the cus- tom to have one of these lying at the gate of every chieftian's house, and on the arrival of a stranger, he was asked as a compliment to throw. Indeed, when chiefs or gentlemen called on each other, their followers always diverted themselves in wrestling, fencing, putting, running, 8tc., and sometimes resorted to the more serious amusement of breaking each other's heads in good earnest. The throwing of the stone requires both strength and skill, to which practice alone can give effect. Clach cuid fir is lifting a large stone two hundred pounds or more from the ground, and placing it on the top of another about four feet high. A youth that can do this is forthwith reckoned a man, whence the name of the amusement, and may then wear a bonnet. Throwing a heavy sledge hammer is a popular trial of strength, which often leads the blacksmith and his customers to forget their business for some time. A fine trial of strength is by endeavoring to turn a heavy bar of iron fairly over, by placing the foot under it. Swiftness of foot was reckoned a very considerable accomplishment, and was often of much importance in their military transactions. We have seen the Highlanders able to contend with cavalry in running, and their ability in this way had a double advantage if they put the enemy to flight, it was not possible to escape their pursuit, and if themselves routed, it was scarcely possible to molest their retreat. The Geal ruith, or racing game, which comprehended the running leap, to the High- landers so useful an accomplishment, was sedulously practised, and the gilli ruith, or running footman, was capable of performing astonishing feats of pedestrianism, both in distance and velocity. Boat racing and Geal-snamh, or contests in swimming, were also. HIGHLAND GAMES. 443 popular, and a native of Isla was not reckoned a man if he could not catch a seal when in the water. A truly Highland sport is Cluich-bhal, or Camanachd, called in the Low Country hurling or shinny, and in Ireland bandy. Great numbers collect on a plain, chiefly about Christmas, and dividing into parties of welve and upwards on a side, endeavor, by means of sticks, crooked at the lower end, to drive a ball to a certain goal. This is a very animated game, and is enlivened by numerous spectators, plenty of whisky, and by the presence of pipers. The balls in Argyleshire are often of wood ; in Badenach they are formed of hair, hard and firm- ly twisted. The Golf, called Cluich-dhesog, is a Highland game, but is more simple than as played in the Lowlands. Two or more persons, by means of clubs of a certain form, strike a small hard ball, the contest being to decide either who shall reach a distant spot, or put the ball into a hole with the fewest strokes. Two parties kicking a ball with the feet in opposite directions is anoth- er game, where much agility is required. Grand matches were formerly played in the Northern counties on Fasten's even, and other festivals. " The Christmas ba'in' of Monymusk," in Aberdeenshire, has been described in a poem by the Rev. John Skinner, 1739, which is wor- thy of comparison with the " Christ's Kirk on the Green," of King James I. or the productions of Allan Ramsay. As a humorous description of this popular diversion, which at the above place was formerly held in the churchyard, and, as a specimen of the singular dialect of that part of Scotland, which, to most readers, will require a glossary to be understood, a few verses, taken at random from the poem "*y be thought worthy of insertion. Has ne'er in a' this country been Sic shouderin' an' sic fa'in', As happen'd twa three days sin' seen, Here at the Christmas ba'in'. At even syne the follows keen Drank till the neist days dawin'; Sae snell that some tint baith their een, An' could na' pay their lawin' For a' that day. R6b Roy, I wat he was na' dull, He first leit at the ba', An" wi' a rap, clash'd Geordy's skull Hard to the steeple wa'. Wha was aside but auld Tarn Tull, His frien's mischance he saw, He briend like ony baited bull, An' wi' aye thud dang twa, To the yird that day. In cam' the inset Dominie, .. ust riflin' frae his dinner, 444 CHRISTMAS BA'ING. A young mess John, as ane could see, Was neither saint nor sinner. A brattlin' band unhappilee, Drave by him wi' a binner, An' heels-o'er-gowdy couped he, An' rave his gued horn penner In twa that day. A stalwart stirk in tartan claise, Sware mony a sturdy aith, To bear the ba' thro' a' his faes, An' nse kape muckle skaith. Rob Roy heard the friksome fraise, Well browden'd in his graith, Gowph'd him alang his shins a blaise, An' gart him tine baith faith, An' feet that day. The prior's man, a chiel as stark Amaist as giant could be, He kent afore o' this day's wark, For certain that it would be. He ween'd to drive in o'er the park, An' ilk ane thought it should be ; What way it was he miss'd the mark, I canna' tell, but fou't be, He fell that day Ere he wan out o' that foul lair, That black mischance had gi'en him, There tumbled an' unlucky pair O' mawtent lowns abeen him. It would hae made your heart fu' sair, Gin ye had only seen him; An't hadna' been for Davy Mair, The rascals had outdeen him, Belyve that day. When Sawney saw the Sutor slain, He was his ain half brither, I wot mysel he was right brain, An' how could he be ither ? He ran to help wi' might an' main, Twa buckled wi' him thegither, Wi' a firm yowph he fell'd the tane, An' wi' a gowph the tither, Fell'd him that day. In Monymusk was never seen, Sae mony well beft skins. O' a' the ba' men there was nane But had twa bleedy shins. Wi' streinzit shouders mony ane Dree'd pen nance for their sins ; An' what was warst, scowp'd hame their lane, May be to hungry inns An' cauld that day. STRATH- FILLAN GAMES. QUEEN MARY'S HARP. 445 The Strath-fillan Society, lately established by Lord Gwydir, on his Drumraond estate, in Perthshire, is for the purpose of encouraging all sorts of games and amusements peculiar to the Highlands. The annual meetings are held in a romantic spot, and are attended by numerous noblemen, gentlemen, and ladies, with a large assemblage of Highland- ers. The effect of their gaudy costume, the bagpipes, and the various sports exhibited amid highly picturesque scenery, is extremely fine. A beautiful lake affords the pleasure of a boat race, and a recital of Gaelic compositions relieves the fatigue of the athletic exercises, while prizes of bagpipes, dirks, suits of tartans, snuff mulls, SLC., send the competi- tors home in high delight. Two of the Druidical order are shown at the commencement of this chapter. As the poets and musicians of the Celts, they occupy an ap- propriate place; and as a highly interesting specimen of the peculiar instrument which belonged to the order, the harp of Mary Queen of Scots is here introduced. " CHAPTER XIV. RELIGION, MARRIAGE CEREMONIES, AND FUNERAL RITES. DRUIDISM is one of the most ancient systems of religion. It is sup- posed by many to have been derived from Pythagoras, but is certainly of much more remote origin. According to Clemens Alexandrinus, Pythagoras was but an auditor of the Gauls. Valerius Maximus asserts that his opinions were those of the Celts, and lamblichus says he heard that his learning consisted of the Gallic and Iberian mysteries. Druid- isrn must be a more ancient system than the time of this philosopher., who appears to have borrowed his tenets from it. He was, perhaps, a reformer of a religion that had begun to lose its original simplicity, but it must be borne in mind that there was a near resemblance among an- cient systems of religion, as there was an affinity of language and simi- larity of manners. Eumolpus, the Thracian, introduced the Eleusinian mysteries to the Greeks, who subsequently revered them so deeply. At this period the Athenians were beginning to distinguish themselves from their neighbors, and their fertile genius soon produced, from the simple dogmas of their ancestors, a peculiar system of theology; hence Lucian thought it strange that the barbarians, who introduced those mysteries, should be afterwards excluded from them. The religious connexions which the Greeks had in the most distant ages formed with the Hyperborei, proves that the primitive mythology was at first universally respected. Those people, who are believed to have been the inhabitants of Britain, were in the practice, from a period before all record, to transmit their first fruits to Delos. Eratosthenes relates that Apollo deposited the arrow with which he slew the Cyclops ; RELIGION. 447 with the Hyperborei; that their high priest Abaris carried it to Greece, and at last presented it to Pythagoras. This story is too mysterious for elucidation; it is probably allegorical, but it shows the veneration whicn was in those ages paid to one religion. The secrecy with which the mysteries of ancient religion were preserv- ed is remarkable. The, priest and other members concealed their know- ledge from the uninitiated with the most scrupulous care, which, in most cases, arose from feelings of real piety. Those who did not value their oaths of secrecy must have been deterred from divulging their secrets by the fear of detection and consequent execration and punishment. The dark allusions to the mysteries of pagan theology occasion a rep^et that they are now unknown. " I shall not relate what I know," says Pausanias, "from the mysteries of the mother of the gods, concerning Mercury and the Ram;" again, "who the Cabiri are, and what the ceremonies performed in honor of them and the mother of the gods, I must beg those who are desirous of hearing such particulars to suffer me to pass over in silence;" farther he adds, Ceres deposited something with Prometheus, one of the Cabiri. What this deposit was, and the cir- cumstances respecting it, piety forbids me to disclose.* It was the invariable practice of tho ancient priests and philosophers to teach by enigmas, lest strangers should be able to understand them. The Druids committed none of their theological secrets to writing, a principle which has involved their system in peculiar obscurity. The singular practice of committing their doctrinal learning to memory was a severe and tedious probation for a student, but it was well calculated, in the particular state of Celtic society, to preserve in purity their ancient traditions. The care with which this race cultivated the memory has. been shown in the previous chapter. The youth spent twenty years in acquiring the knowledge necessary to the Druidic profession, and, it is said, stored their minds with no less than 60,000 verses. It seems strange that the extensive prevalence of this religion should be denied. It has been inferred from Cyesar, that it was confined to a limited portion of Gaul, but it has been remarked by a zealous antiqua- ry, that, although Ceesar says of the Germans, that they had no Druids, he does not say they were without religion or priests. He mentions some of the gods they revered, and these were the same as the Gauls worshipped. Tacitus also does not appear to have found Druids among the Germans, but he mentions their gods, their sacred groves and altars, their songs and their ceremonies, all which resembled those of the Gauls. The religion of both people was, therefore, alike Druidism, although its ministers may have had different appellations, and its mysteries been somewhat differently solemnized. Druidism is said to have been only partially cultivated in part of South Britain, and perfectly unknown in Ireland : these assertions are certainly rash and unwarrantable. This "system of religion was cherished in Britain as its most ancient and hal- Lib. ix. c. 25. 448 DRUIDISM. lowed seat, and should the remarkable passage in Diodorus, concerning "the round temple in an island of the Hyperboreans, opposite Celti- ca, where was a magnificent grove, and where the people were harp- ers," be considered inapplicable to Albion, yet the fact is evident from the express testimony of Caesar, corroborated by Pliny, that the youth of Gaul resorted to Britain for instruction in the sacred religion, that they spent twenty years in its acquirement, and that it was believed to have originated there. Mela, indeed, describes the Irish as extremely barbarous, and devoid of all religion; but this is too improbable to be cred- ited, especially when he allows them to have had those he calls magi- cians, whom Ware considers Druids. That they could be no other is evident, for dry is the Gaelic term for a magician, a philosopher and prophet; and Alfric, in his Saxon glossary, says magi were so called even by the Angles.* On the conversion of Edwin, king of Northum- berland, he summoned all his counsellors, among whom appeared the high priest Coefi. There is a proverb still in use by the Highlanders, which extols a person as being " as dextrous as Coefi, the Arch Druid; " and Doctor Mac Pherson observes, that coifi-dry, is well known to mean a person of extraordinary sense and cunning. Druidh is still used in Gaelic for wise men, from which is Druithnich or Drui, servants of truth, and the Teutonic Druid or Druthin.j" The usual etymon of this word is attended with some difficulty. It is derived from dgvc, an oak, in Welsh derw, in Gaelic darach, &c. It is improbable that the Celts should have distinguished their magi by a Greek word, and the Gaelic derivation is not very plain. Menage believes it came from the old British word drus, a magician, and Keysler says draoi is a magician or enchanter. Mr. Grant, of Corrimony, will have the name Draothian, which shows the root of a series of words. Draoneach is an improver of the soil, and this being the first way in which man exerted his inge- nuity, it came to signify an artist or clever person, in which sense the Irish still use it. The rational belief is, therefore, that the name of this celebrated order imported their abilities, and is one of that class of words formed on the D and R, which seem to have conveyed the idea of dex- terity and superior qualifications. The Druidic religion does not appear to have been either " a late in- vention, or confined to the South of Britain and North of Gaul," but is maintained to have been observed and taught throughout the Island, contrary to the assertion of Pinkerton, who charges those who say there were Druids in Scotland, with speaking "utter nonsense." The Druids taught their disciples, and performed their religious rites in the deep recesses of woods and in caves. The Germans consecrated whole groves and woods, which were named from the gods, and amid the gloom and quiet of this seclusion, they contemplated their divinities in deep reverence. J Within these groves, which were generally on * Waldron's History of the Isle of Man. i Doctors Smith and Mac Pherson. J Tacitus. REPRESENTATIONS OF GODS 449 conspicuous situations, were raised their rude but impressive (emples, whero, on festivals, the people met in great numbers.* The practice of surrounding places of worship with trees was uaual among aJl pagan nations, hence the Jews were particularly enjoined not to plant a grove of any kind near unto the altar of the Lord.f In 2nd Kings we find menlion of the " women who wove hangings for the groves.*' They were the places where the statues of the gods were set up. Pausanias mentions the sacred grove of Apollo, called Carneus, and many others; part of which were inclosed by a bulwark of stones, being the most sa- cred spot where the statues of the divinities were placed, and which is always distinguished from the " uncovered part." There was a grove and temple at Pergamos; and that of Jupiter Ammon was surrounded by trees J There seems to have prevailed among all rude nations a predilection for circular formed temples, and it is difficult to say whether the upright stones which composed them were simply viewed as the boundary of the sacred precinct, or were considered representations of gods. From the following observation of Pausanias, and other passages in ancient au- thors, it would appear that there was a peculiar sanctity attached to them. " Near Pharoe are thirty quadrangular stones, which the Pha- renses venerate." It was anciently held unbecoming by the Celts to represent the gods under any other form than that of a rude and shape- less obelisk, and this feeling was common to the early Grecians, it being formerly the custom with all the Greeks to reverence rude stones, m place of statues of the gods. The Thespians preserved an ancient statue of Love, that was but a rude block. A square unpolished stone was also a symbol of Bacchus, and a round one that of the earth. |! The Celts did not presume to represent any of their deities under the human form, but typified them by various articles. The images of wild beasts and other animals, as well as inanimate objects, the symbols of their gods, they were accustomed to bring from their sacred groves, and use as insignia during war. After their subjugation to Rome they ap- parently imitated their conquerors, and allowed their gods to be repre- sented under terrestrial forms; those Gallic and other statues that have been discovered being referable to an era subsequent to that event. Gildas speaks of some of the statues of the British deities being to be seen in the sixth century, when he wrote. That of Isis, the tutelary goddess of Paris, remained in the Abbey of St. Germain des Priz until 151 1, when it was removed by the order of the Bishop of Meaux.lT The circular form of the Celtic temples was probably typical of eter- nity, and of the deity. It was religiously adhered to as the general plan, and has given rise to names by which places of worship have been distinguished even to our own times. The Gaelic cearcal is evidently ihe origin of the Latin circus, the old English chirch, and the Scot- * Florus, iii. 10. , Deuter. xvi. 21. J Diod. xvri. 5. Pausanias, lib vii. 22. ix. 27. || Beloe. If Religion des GauU x 57 450 ABURY AND STONEHENGE. ish kitk, which is spelt according to its pronunciation. In like man ner, as the primitive temple was composed of large stones, it was term- ed clachan by the Gael, from which the Latin ecclesia is apparently de- rived; and the Highlanders to this day use the expression, calling the church " the stones! " The most astonishing temple, in point of magnitude, in Britain is that of ABURY, or Avebury, in Wiltshire. The area of this astonishing work contained upwards of 28 acres, and was surrounded by a wide and deep ditch, and rampart measuring about 70 feet in height from the bottom One hundred stones of amazing size formed an outer circle, within which were two others not concentric, formed of double rows of stones. Of these the outer contained thirty, and the inner twelve. In the centre of one were three stones, and in the other was a single obelisk which mea- sured twenty-one feet in length, and eight feet nine inches in breadth. Besides the circles, which we thus see contained the number of 188 stones, there were two extended avenues which are supposed to have contained 462 more, making a total of 650! STONEHENGE, in the same county, must yield in magnificence to Abu- ry, but if much less in size, it is greatly superior in the architectural science which it displays. This wonderful structure, as shown in the vignette, where it is represented as it is supposed to have appeared when in its pristine grandeur, was circular, but much smaller and of much more ingenious construction, than Abury. A consideration of this has given rise to an opinion first, I believe, expressed by Mr. Warner, that the latter being the rudest and apparently the most ancient, was the grand temple of the original Celts, whilst Stonehenge was erected by the Belgians, when they obtained possession of the Southern parts of the Island, and was intended as a rival to the other; the deep ditch cal- led Wansdike, supposed to be the line of demarcation between the two people, passing between these two astonishing monuments. This is very ingenious, but it is, of course, entirely suppositious. We do not find that the Belgians were better able to raise such a temple than the Celts, and we do not find that the two people had different forms of their places af worship. It is, besides, conjectured, with much probability, that Stonehenge was reared at different periods, the outward circle and the inner oval of trilithons being one erection, and the smaller circle and oval of inferior stones being another. This opinion is borne out by the fact that the latter are granite whilst the others are not; but antiquaries have come to opposite conclusions respecting the priority of erection, some believing that the outward circle was the original work, and others that the inner, and more simple design, must have been the first formed. This last idea appears reasonable; and although the granite stones must have been brought from a considerable distance, with such a people it was no obstacle to their adoption at any era. It is against the hypo- thesis of Stonehenge having been erected by a nation in hostility with the Celts, that the outward stones must have been brought from the CLASSERNLSS. 451 Northern part of the country, beyond the frontier line of the Belgian territory. When the light of history fails us, we may indulge our fancies, and form plausible and delightful conjectures, but as there is an illimitable field for the imagination to wander, it is evident that it may run some- times into the wildest conceits. The state in which Stonehenge is found, and in which it has remained with apparently little alteration from time immemorial, has left ample room for antiquaries to exert their ingenuity in endeavoring to determine its original plan and appearance. The restoration of this wonderful pile is, according to Waltire, an en- thusiastic old philosopher, who actually encamped and remained on the ground beside this temple for several months, to satisfy his curiosity ana complete his investigations concerning its appropriation. It is much to be regretted that the papers of this deep-thinking and veracious antiqua- ry were lost after his death. Some account of his opinions concerning it may be seen in Mr. Higgins' work; it need only be here observed that the view gives an idea of this work which could not be done in words. According to Waltire's plan the outer range of uprights consists of/thirty. The inner trilithons, according to all, were five, to which he adds six smaller stones, as a continuation towards the entrance. The intermediate circle consists of thirty-eight, and the semi-circular range inside he makes nineteen. Thus with the altar, and reckoning the im- posts, the whole number is one hundred and thirty-nine.* The height of the outward stones is in the highest about thirteen feet, and six or seven in breadth, and, contrary to what we find in similar erections, the stones have been formed by the tool, the imposts being secured by ten- ons, and one stone is found formed with a rib, or moulding. The most remarkable character of Stonehenge consists of the imposts, no similar structure in Britain appearing to have ever been erected in this way, and except a circle at Drenthiem, and another on a mountain near Helmstad, represented in Keysler's work on Northern Antiqui- ties, there is perhaps no other instance of the trilithon style. In these examples the incumbent stones appear heavy, partaking more of the character of cromleachs, and the temples are by no means equal to Stonehenge either in design or execution. The remarkable temple at Classerness, in the Isle of Lewis, is repre- sented at the end of this Chapter. This singular monument is placed north and south, and consists of an avenue five hundred and fifty-eight feet long, eight feet wide, and composed of thirty-nine stones, generally six or seven feet high, with one at the entrance, no less than thirteen At the south end of this walk is a circle of sixty-three feet diameter, that appears to have been composed of either thirteen or fifteen stones, six to eight feet in height, the centre being occupied by an obelisk thirteen feet high, and shaped somewhat like a chair. Beyond the circle seve- ral stones are carried in right lines, producing a cruciform appearance. * Plan in the " Celtic Druids.' 452 CARNAC. The length of this cross part is two hundred and lour feet, and the total of stones appears to have been sixty-eight or seventy. Borlase, it may be noticed, makes them fifty-two, and Mac Culloch forty-seven. The magnitude and singularity of this work has led several antiquaries to believe that it is the very Hyperborean temple spoken of by the ancients. Conjecture seems to lie between Abury, Stonehenge, and Classerness, except we think with D'Alton, the late writer on Irish History, that the round temple of the Hyperborei means the round towers of Ireland. It is remarkable that Eratosthenes says, Apollo hid his arrow where there was a winged temple. The cross parts, resembling the transepts of a cathedral, are, I believe, peculiar to Classerness, and may very well bear the appellation of wings. The plain of Chlara, a mile eastward of Culloden, in Inverness-shire, is remarkable for being full of circles, surrounded by " rows of immense slabs of sandstone. " Some account of remarkable objects of this sort, with original drawings made to the Society of Antiquaries of London by the author, have been thought worthy of being engraved and printed in the twenty-second volume of the Transactions of that learned body. There are many other curious monuments of the same kind scattered throughout Scotland, Ireland, and England; but all Celtic monuments now in existence must yield to that stupendous work at Carnac, in Brit- tany. This truly astonishing memorial of a distant race, exhibits a tract of not less than five or six miles, on which are placed, at distances of 18, 20, or 25 feet, eleven rows of stones, chiefly planted on the smallest end, forming ten avenues, or walks, of 12, 24, 18|, 18J, 30, 30, 36, 36, 30 J, and 36 feet in width respectively, the whole resembling a huge serpent, as shown in a plan engraved in the above volume. This vast assemblage of stones is so astonishing that many have considered it impossible for human hands to arrange them, and believe it to be the effects of some convulsion of nature; but however much we may be amazed at the mag- nitude of Carnac, it is assuredly an artificial erection. The reason for a departure from the usual circular form it seems impossible to discover, but the hypothesis of Cambray, Penhouet, and others, are ingenious. The authors of the "Celtic Druids" and " Hermes Britannicus" sug- gest the idea that the number of stones indicated the years which, accord- ing to the Druids, had passed from the creation. The number of stones now remaining being about 4000, is found to agree very nearly with the age of the world, but it must be observed that in its original state they are believed to have equalled 10,000. Whatever credit may be attach- ed to it, the tradition is, that a stone was added every year at Midsum- mer, on which occasion the whole pile was illuminated, a practice that points to the worship of Belus. That it was consecrated to this deity also may be inferred from the tradition that it was the work of the Cri- ons, surely a name derived from Grianus, the Celtic term for the sun. On this subject the opinion of Olaus Magnus may be stated, which appears to savor too much of fancy. If stones are arranged in a circle, they denote CELTIC DEITIES. 453 a family burial-place; if in a right line, the battle of heroes; in a square, troops of warriors were represented; and in a wedge form, they imported that on or near the spot, armies of horse or foot were victorious. That the Celts worshipped in circular temples formed of rude stones is indisputable; because we find the circular inclosures used until late times for courts of law as well as places of worship, and although the time when some of them were actually built be known, we are not, there- fore, justified in denying their original appropriation. As the Celtic priests were legislators, the temple was the place whence they promul- gated their laws, and on the abolition of paganism, although discouraged, the use of the circle for this purpose, and for worship, was long retained. Christianity did not at- first deny the use of the place of worship for judi- cial purposes; but, gaining ground, an express canon of the Scotish church prohibited courts from being held in churches, for they were usually erected on the sites of temples; and I am convinced that when the Christian edifice ceased to be the place where civil matters were decided, as had been the practice in pagan times, the laws or moot-hills were substituted, and hence it is that these mounts are so generally found in the close vicinity of churches. Where, however, zeal for Chris- tianity did not lead to the destruction of circles and their condemnation as places of meeting, they continued to be used as courts, especially by the Northern nations, until very late times; and from the circumstance of surrounding the circle, after the meeting had assembled, the term of " fencing a court," in all probability, is derived. One of the latest in- stances of this appropriation of " the standing stones" occurs in 1380, when Alexander Stewart, Lord of Badenach, held a court at those of the RathofKingusie. ^f^4^ *?*> ~h\* f> ***-**- The chief seat of Druidism on the continent, Caesar tells us, was in the country of the Carnutes, supposed to have been where the city of Chartres now stands. It appears to me that the principal Celtic deity was the sun, Belus, Belenus, or Baal. Herodian* says, the Aquileians worshipped this god, whom they considered the same as Apollo, whence we see why the Hy- perborei especially venerated him, for he was the personification of that luminary. The Caledonians worshipped this deity under the name of Baal, or Beil, and to his honor they lighted fires on Midsummer-day, or the 1st of May. This festival, which is not even yet discontinued, was called Baal-tein, or beltain, signifying the fire of Baal, and was former- ly commemorated so generally that it became a term in Scots' law, which is yet in use. This practice of lighting fires on Midsummer, arose from the circumstance of the Druids having at that time caused all fires to oe extinguished, to be rekindled from the sacred fire that was never allow- ed to expire. It is surprising that this sacred flame, like that in the temple of Vesta, should be preserved for ages after the extinction of the religion, by Christian priests. It was no earlier than 1220, that Loun- * Lib. viii. 454 SACRED FIRE. dres, Archbishop of Dublin, extinguished the perpetual fire, which was kept in a small cell near the church of Kildare; but so firmly rooted was the veneration for this fire, that it was relighted in a few years, and ac- tually kept burning until the suppression of monasteries!* This fire was attended by virgins, often women of quality, called Inghean an Dagha, daughters of fire, and Breochuidh, or the fire-keepers, from which they have been confounded with the nuns of St. Brigid. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1795, says, being in Ireland the day before Midsummer, he was told that in the evening he should see " the lighting of the fires in honor of the sun" at midnight; and Riche describes the preparation for the festival in these words; "what watching, what rat- tling, what tinkling upon pannes and candlesticks, what strewing of hearbes, what clamors, and other ceremonies are used," and all this apparently in Dublin itself. Spenser says, on kindling a fire the Irish always made a prayer. A practice of the cooks at Newcastle, who light bonfires on Midsummer-day, may be derived from the Beltain rites; and the chimney-sweeps of London and other parts who go in procession and dance in grotesque dresses, appear to represent the ancient fire worship- pers at their holiday amusements. Graine, Grein, or Grannus, was a term for this god among the Cale- donians, and an inscription to him was found in the ruins of Antonine's wall. | The word is gre-theim, the t being quiescent, and it signifies the essence or natural source of fire. Camden says, Grannus is of similar import with Gruagach, a supernatural being, latterly distinguished among the Scots as a Brownie ; and he quotes Isodore to show that the long hair of the Goths was called granni, which it is apparent is neither more nor less than th'e* Gatnic word. The sun, distinguished as the source of fire, became known by a natural change, as the yellow, or golden haired, and the libations of milk were always offered on the granni, or gruagach stone, of which there was one in every village, on days consecrated to the sun. The singular method of raising the tein-egin, or need-fire, has been described, and the virtues which it is supposed to possess, in page 293. The Highlanders passed through the fire to Baal as the ancient Gentiles did; and they thought it a religious duty to walk round their fields and flocks with burning matter in their right hands, a practice once universal throughout the country. The Northern nations had an equal veneration for fire, preserving it continually on their altars. Pio- run was the chief god of the Poles, and two places where bfi was wor- shipped are known. At Wilna, where one of them was situated, the altar is still preserved in the cathedral; and it is related that his image stood under an oak with a fire constantly burning before it. The Poles became Christians only in the end of the fourteenth century. J It appears to have been in imitation of the sun's course that the Gael religiously observed, in their rites and common occupations, to make * Archdall's Mon. Hib. ap. Anth. Hib. iii. 240. t Mac Pherson's Diss. xvii. \ Letters from Polajid. CELTIC DEITIES. 455 the deisal, or turn to the right hand. Pliny, it is to be observed, says that the Gauls, in worshipping, contrary to the practice of other nations, always turned to the left, but Possidonius and others expressly say to the right, a reconciliation of which apparent inconsistency is attempted by D. Martin, in his Religion des Gauls. Between Badenach and Strathspey is Slia-grannus, the heath of gran- nus, called by the inhabitants griantachd, which has undoubtedly been a magh-aoraidh, or field where Druidical worship was performed. The sun was believed to be propitious to the high minded warrior. In the work of Dr. Smith, Grian is thus addressed: "Thou delightest to shed thy beams on the clouds which enrobe the brave, and to spread thy rays around the tombs of the valiant." It was also a belief that the world should be consumed by this deity: and la bhrath, the day of burning, now understood of the last judgment, came, from the improbability or re- moteness of the catastrophe, to be translated " never." Connected with this belief seems the clachan bhrath, a globular stone, still viewed with superstitious feelings in the Islands of lona and Garveloch. A fire having originated among the luhones, and consumed the woods to the walls of Cologne, the people collected and attacked the devouring element first with stones at a distance, which appearing to check its rage, they ventured closer, and, using clubs, they ultimately repulsed and sub- dued it. Finally, we are "told, they smothered it entirely by means of their clothes. All this apparent madness must have arisen from their belief that they were contending with supernatural beings, and it is not more absurd than many actions of the old Highlanders. Caesar has said that the Gauls paid their highest veneration to Mer- cury ; to which opinion he may have been led by having a better oppor- tunity of observing his wors-hip, for his attributes being numerous, he must have had many devotees, as the Virgin Mary, among the ignorant Catholics, receives often more attention than the Saviour himself. The god whom Caesar calls Mercury, was Teut, or Theuth, Dhu taith, or Teutates, i. e. the god Taute, who was no other than the Taatus of the Pho3nicians. The word bears a strong resemblance to the Armoric Tad, or Tat, a father. The Gallo-Belgic name for Teutates, Schoepflin says, was Wodan, who was worshipped by the Saxons. They also adored Hermes, or Mercury, under the name of Irmin, or Ermensul, a statue of whom was found at Eresburg, by Charlemagne. 1 he Gauls derived their origin from Dis, a god that has been assimi- lated with Pluto, but who is with more reason believed to have been the earth, or its elements, and the same being as the German Tuisto, or Tuitos, from whom that people alleged themselves to be sprung. We learn from Tacitus, that the Aviones, Angles, Varinians, Eudoses, Sec., universally worshipped Herthum, Hertie, or Mother Earth; believ- ing she visited countries, and interposed in human affairs. In an island of thn ocean was the wood Castum, where was a chariot dedicated to the goddess, covered with a curtain, and not permitted to be touched 456 CELTIC DEITIES. but by the priest, who watched the time when she entered the car, which was always drawn by cows, and with profound veneration attended its motions. In all places which she deigned to visit were great leasts and rejoicings, and every warlike instrument was then carefully put out of the way, and peace and repose were then proclaimed. When tired of conversation with mortals, the same priests reconducted her to the tem- ple. Then the chariot and the curtains, and even the deity herself, if you believe it, adds the historian, were washed and purified in a secret lake. In this office slaves officiated, who were doomed to be afterwards swallowed up in the same lake; hence all men were possessed with a mysterious terror, as well as with a holy ignorance, what that must be which none see but such as are immediately to perish. " The Truce of God," so often and so effectually proclaimed by the clergy about the eleventh century, was an obvious imitation of the procession of the god- dess-Earth, which in pagan times took place in the territories of present Mecklenburg. The appeal to Hertha was made by passing under a strip of green sod, as before described. Mannus was celebrated among the Germans as one of their founders, being the son of Tuisto. Mannus, according to Clarke, is the same as Manes, which Menage on Laertius says was used by the Greeks for a servant. The JEstii, says Tacitus, worship the mother of the gods; and, as the characteristic of their superstition, they wear the images of wild boars, by which every worshipper of the goddess is secured from danger even amid his foes. The Germans also wore, in veneration of their gods, a shackle round their leg.* Of the Suevi we are told the Semnones reck- oned themselves most noble and ancient, and the belief of their antiqui- ty was confirmed by religious mysteries. At a certain time of the year all the people descended from the same stock, assembled by their depu- ties in a wood, consecrated by their fathers, and by superstitious awe in times of old, and began there their worship by sacrificing a man. To this grove another sort of veneration was paid; no one entered it unless bound; from that circumstance evincing his own subordination and mean- ness, and the power of the deity. If any one fell down he was not per- mitted to rise or be lifted up, but grovelled along on the ground. They believed that in that place God resided, that from this place they drew their origin, and that all things are subject to the deity. Mars is placed by Caesar the third in the list of five gods, which, he says, the Gauls adored. This god, to whom the Scyths paid the high- est honor, is believed to be the Esus, or Hesus, of the Gauls, mentioned by Lucan, who was called, according to Leibnitz, Erich by the Germans; and a sculpture of whom was to be seen in the cathedral of Paris in 1711. The Britons called this being Belatucadro, or, according to Richard of Cirencester, Vitucadrus. The first appellation is derived from Beladuw, the god, Cadwyr, of Wars. There was also Malaeen, * Nen. Brit. p. 41. CELTIC DEITIES. 457 the Goddess of War. Before a battle, the spoils of the enemy were de- voted to the gods of destruction;* and Porevith was the German god of spoils. On one occasion the Gauls vowed to Mars a chain made of the plunder of the Roinans.f To this deity they devoutly offered up the cat- tle and other spoils which were deposited in consecrated places throughout their provinces, where might be seen vast stores piled up, for no one con- cealed any part of the plunder, or presumed to touch that which was thus disposed of. Those temples were at last rifled by Caesar. The Gauls worshipped Taran, or Tanar, who was the god of thunder, and corresponds to the Jupiter Tonans of the Romans. Torran signi- fies, among the present Highlanders, the low murmur of distant thunder; taruinach is applied to the loudest peals; and torneonach is an uncom- mon noise. Doctor Mac Pherson thinks the name may be Nd' air neo- nach, or wrathful father. In Cheshire an altar was found inscribed D. O. M. TANARO, to the great Jupiter Tanarus. The British god of justice was called Andraste, according to Richard of Cirencester, who tells us he had his information from a dux Roman- orum; but he seems to make two gods out of one, when he says that An- dates was victory. This last was the Andate, or Andraste of Dio, to whom four places of worship were consecrated in the Isle of Sky. J Nehelania, supposed to have been the new moon, was a goddess wor- shipped by Gauls and Germans, and at Brittenburg, near the Rhine, a stone was found, dedicated to Nehelania Creta, which would make it appear that she presided over agriculture, in which case, Nehelenia of Marl would correspond to the Anu of the Irish, and Anactisofthe Scots, to whose immediate care the productions of the earth and waters were confided. Mona, or Mena, who was worshipped by the Sequani, was the moon. The Gael blessed the beams of this luminary that saved them from the danger of precipices, &c. St. Augustine says, that the Gallic peasants in- voked Mena for the welfare of their women. The influence which this lu- minary is supposed to have over the human destiny is a remarkable relic of pagan superstition. The old Germans, who thought when the moon was in eclipse, it had become angry with them, were little less credulous than the Scots, who, in some parts, will neither marry nor engage in any undertaking of importance until that planet is full. The special god of waters was called Neithe, an appellation derived from a word signifying to wash or purify with water. The Celts ven- erated lakes, rivers, and fountains, into which they were accustomed to throw offerings of gold and silver.^ The Britons entertained the same superstitious feeling concerning water; and Adomnari mentions it among the Picts. It is well known that it prevailed among the Highlanders and Scots in general, until very lately, and the common people yet re- tain some peculiar notions of this element quite unconnected with Chns- * Tacitus' Annals, xii. 57. t Florus, ii. 4. t Dr. Mac Queen. Religion dea Gauls, i. 128. 58 458 CELTIC DEITIES. tianity The people of Lewis anciently sacrificed to a sea god called Shony. In Strathspey is Loch nan Spioridan, or the Lake of Spirits, being the residence of two, namely, the horse and water-bull, which sometimes make their appearance. The mermaid is seen before floods, and the Marcach sine, or rider of the storm, blows the waters of a river or lake into violent waves or whirling eddies.* Well-worship is a super- stition that is not yet entirely eradicated, it being customary to visit cer- tain fountains on particular days, and leave on the margin or adjoining bushes bits of party-colored rags, pebbles, or pins, the representatives of the more valuable offerings of more distant times. The same super- stition exists in Ireland; and statutes expressly prohibiting the practice were passed by Edgar, by Canute, and even by Anselm at London, in 1102. The dedication of fountains to saints, after the introduction of Christianity, perpetuated the veneration instilled by the Druids, who certainly employed water in their ceremonies. Pope Gregory writes to Boniface, the German apostle, that those who had received the pagan baptism only should be rebaptized.j" The rock basins seem very proba- bly designed for the performance of this rite. A fountain was often found near a circle, as it afterwards was in the vicinity of a Christian church ; and the noise of a distant river was desirable. What is related of some of the Celts, who are represented as rushing into the floods and attacking the billows sword in hand, must be referred to their peculiar mythological notions. From this must be deduced the ordeal, to which malefactors were subjected, by being committed to the water, there to be judged by the presiding deity, who, if guilty, would refuse to receive them, but if otherwise, would, by allowing them to sink, show that they were accepted by the god. It is not to be wondered that divine honor should be paid to woods, when the temples were surrounded with them as a sacred precinct. Cer- tain beings called Dusii, were supposed by the Celts to have the dominion of certain forests; the partiality of this race to hunting, for success in which they sacrificed to Diana, and the Uses of trees as a system of letters, also increased their veneration to forests. The Brit- ons appear to have had some consecrated to victory. The Gauls rever- enced the winds, and gave thanks when Circius, or the N. N. W. blew.J In an island called Sena, opposite to the Loire, are the wives, says Stra- bo, of the Samnitoe, possessed with Bacchic fury, who sell the winds which they can raise by songs, to mariners.^ The deep and melancho- ly sound, well known by the inhabitants of a high country, that precedes a storm, is called by the bards " the spirit of the mountain;" and it was customary for a Highlander, when roused by a sudden blast of wind, to search it with his sword, and he sometimes imagined he discovered the corpse or spirit of a relation just dead. * Stat. Account, xiii. t Keysler, Ant. de Celt, p. 313. t Seneca, v. 17. Mela, iii. 6. The Druids and Druidesses of this island were burnt by Conan, Duke of Bretagne. Rojoux' Dues des Bretagne, i. 135. CELTIC DEITIES. 459 From the annals of Tacitus we find, that among the Naharvali, a sa- cred and extremely ancient grove was shown where a priest hahited like a woman presided. The deity which was there worshipped was called Alcis, and as the followers of this being addressed themselves to young men and to brothers, the Romans believed that they worshipped Castor and Pollux. Hercules, or Ogmius, was worshipped by the Gauls, who had a sin- gular opinion of his attributes, which will be spoken of presently. He was reckoned the founder of the city of Alise, now Arras, and to this day, says Diodorus, the Celtoe have a great respect for it on that account. Tacitus says, the Germans, believing he had been in their country, chiefly extolled him when they were singing the Barditus, or chant with which they advanced to battle: a decisive proof, by the by, I apprehend, of the identity of their religion with that of the Gauls. Vulcan is also said to have been worshipped by the Celts, and the names of several other gods and goddesses may be seen in Montfaucon's Antiquities and elsewhere. On a hill at Framont, near Lorraine, there seems to have been a sort of Gaulish pantheon, from the number of statues and other singular antiquities that are from time to time discovered. It is probable that the different nations had their tutelary deities, for the Celts, although originally possessing a pure religion adoring one supreme god, appear in time to have brought it to as much complexity as their neighbors of Greece and Rome. Adomnan speaks of the Picts as having their own gods and magi, or priests, and it is not unlikely that each people placed themselves under the protection of certain beings, as nations afterwards adopted their different saints, champions, and media- tors. Besides the circular temples, the Celts had Cromleachs, that is, huge stones raised on several others, one of which is represented at the com mencement of Chapter III. These sometimes form a rude sort of cell, as at Maen Cetti, or Kit's Cotty house, in Kent, and the superincum- bent block is sometimes of very large dimensions. One at Plas Newydd, in Anglesea, measures twelve feet by thirteen feet two inches where broadest, its greatest depth being five feet; so that it cannot weigh less than thirty tons seven cwt. Constantine Tolmosn, in Corn- wall, contains at least 75 tons. Tolmaen is usually applied to a stone that is perforated, the object of which does not seem to be well known. Cromleach is said to be a punic word, signifying the bed of death, by others it is believed to signify sloping or bending stone. It is said to have been originally called Botal, the house of God; and Bethel, a name of similar import, was the very term applied by Jacob to the pillar which he set up. Ponderous rocking stones, masses that are either naturally or artificially poised on so small a point that a slight effort will make them vibrate, are considered druidical works, and it is not improbable, that they were; but a mind heated with bardic enthusi- asm, will refer every thing curious of this kind to the Celtic priesthood. 460 DRUIDS BARDS, AND OVATES. SKILL IN AUGURY. The Druids were unfortunate in not having met with historians to hand down to posterity their singular manners. The measures they took have been too successful in preventing their secrets from being divulged. Large and rude obelisks, sometimes single, and sometimes several together, may have been erected by them. The religious order among the Celts was divided into three classes; namely, the Druids, the bards, and the ovates, vates or faidhs. The first were the chief priests, and the second were those to whom the com- pilation and preservation of the oral chronicles of the nation were espe- cially committed, and whose duties as poets and musicians have been already dilated upon. The third class, sometimes called Eubages, were prophets, arid had the immediate care of the sacrifices. They contem- plated the nature of things, as the ancients expressed themselves, and were highly respected by the people, who universally resorted to them for information on all subjects. It was not lawful to sacrifice without one of these philosophers, and it was devoutly believed, that through those who were acquainted with the nature of the deity, all supplications and thanksgiving should be offered.* The Archdruid, called Ard- dhruid in Gaelic, who had a casting vote in all questions, was chosen by the others, but rivals sometimes contended for preeminence in arms. The Celts, according to Justin, were skilled in augury above any other people, and the Germans are represented by Tacitus as equally prone to it. Their method of divining by lots was simple; they cut a twig from a fruit-tree, and divided it into two pieces, which they distin- guished by marks, and threw them at random upon a white garment. If the affair was of a public nature, a priest, or if private, the father of a family, having solemnly invoked the gods with uplifted eyes, took up each of the pieces thrice, and formed a judgment according to the marks. If the conclusion was unfavorable, they consulted no more that day; when favorable, they confirmed the appearances by auguries. They also divined events from the flight and notes of birds, and it was peculiar to the Germans to draw presages from horses, which were kept in uncontrolled freedom, in the sacred woods and groves, at the public Jft expense. They were milk white, and were yoked in a holy chariot, at- tended by the priest and chief, who carefully marked their actions and neighing. This was the augury in which most faith was reposed by the nobles and people, for they thought the animals privy to the will of the gods. Pliny says the Gauls made much use of vervain in divination. When the Celts were to consult concerning any important matter, they sacrific- ed a man, by striking him with a sword across his breast, and judged of the event by the mariner in which he fell, the convulsion of his members, and the flow of blood; in all which they had great faith, from ancient practice and observation. In Sena, now L'Isle De Sain, opposite * Diodorus. DIVINATION. TAIBHSEARACHD, OR SECOND SIGHT. 461 Brest, was a celebrated oracle, with nine priests, called Sena), or Sam nitas, who professed celibacy. In the Silures, or Silina, the Durnnonii worshipped the gods, and had knowledge of futurity,* and a British Druidess foretold the fate of Dio cletian. On Bonduca's revolt, women, transported with oracular fury, chanted denunciations. One method of divination is recorded which was practised by this heroine. At the conclusion of her harangue, she let slip a hare which she had concealed, and from its course having drawn a favorable presage, the whole army shouted for joy. The religion of the Britons did not permit them to eat either a hen, a goose, or this animal, and it was reckoned unlucky if one of the last should cross one's path. Fingal is celebrated, among other qualifications, for his knowledge of futurity. The Highlanders had several methods of consulting the fates, some of which are not yet disused. One of the most remarkable was when a number of men retired to a lonely and secluded place, where one of the number was, with the exception of the head, enveloped in a cow's hide, and left alone for the night. Certain invisible beings then came, and answering the question which he put to them, relieved him. Martin tells us of one Erach, who had been a night in this situation in North Uist, and declared that he felt and heard such terrible things as could not be expressed, that the terror he was in had disordered his mind, and that "for a thousand worlds he would never again be con- cerned in the like performance." The Taghairm nan caht was another method of seeking for information, and consisted in putting a live cat on a spit, and roasting it until other cats made their appearance, and an- swering the question, in Gaelic of course, obtained the release of the unfortunate animal. In order to get oracles, the Celts would pass whole nights at the tombs of brave men,j~ a frequent practice of the old Cale- donians. The Taibhsearachd, or second sight, is a faculty in some Highlanders that has excited the surprise and the doubts of the learned. A person, without any previous warning, sees something that is to happen, both at a distance of time and place, and consequently can foretell death or accident, and many other circumstances. That the Gael have been and still are subject to this impression, is too well ascertained to be denied; and it has been attempted to account for it without admitting supernatu- ral agency. To suppose that the seers are impostors, and the people deluded, is rather too much, for no gain is derived from it, but, on the contrary, the second sight is, by the persons who possess it, considered a misfortune, and the people cannot consult them as they would fortune- tellers. The presages also are usually unfortunate, and the prophets are found to be temperate and well living. That this faculty can be communicated to another, as a correspondent informed Aubrey, is not true, neither is it hereditary, but affects those of all classes and ages * Solinus. t Nicander. Tertullian. 462 RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. Dr Johnson could not satisfy himself that the Highlanders were deceiv- ed in this impression; and so many instances of well authenticated foresights are recorded * as appear sufficient to silence the skeptical. The second sight is not indeed so prevalent as formerly, which, accord- ing to a writer in some work which now escapes my memory, who attempts to account for it on rational grounds, may arise from the alter- ed state of society in the Highlands, the people not being obliged to lead that solitary life which they formerly did, when the imagination was affected b.y the loneliness, the wildness, and seclusion of the country. A German predicted the good fortune of Agrippa from observing an owl perched on a tree on which he leaned, affirming that should he see it again he had but five days to live."f A female Druid foretold, in her na- tive language, the death of Alexander Severus; and a story is related by Vopiscus, of a Druidess who predicted that Diocletian, while a private, should become Emperor, after killing a boar, which happened to prove true by his slaying Aper, who had killed Numerianus. This is thought by Rowland, in his Mona Antiqua, to be an instance of second sight. The Manx possess this faculty; and a story is related by Sacheverel, of a magistrate of Belfast, who had been wrecked, and was told by the natives, who could not of themselves have known the fact, that he had lost thirteen men. Waldron, the historian of that island, says he could not bring himself to believe the inhabitants could see funerals, &.c. until he had on several occasions, when he visited families, found the table spread, and the people prepared to receive him, having had this super- natural warning that he would come. Martin also relates, that in some of the isles which he visited, they had made preparations for his com- pany, telling him they had been informed by appearances that he was to visit them. Fauchet remarks, that all the ancients agree that the Gauls were re- igiously inclined. With whatever ceremonies the Druidical religion was accompanied, or however the doctrines of its professors were disguised mder superstitious and, in some cases, very objectionable practices, idapted for the gratification of the vulgar, it appears to have been really i belief in one supreme being. The purity of this religion, when strip- ped of its mysteries and unmeaning observances, is acknowledged. The Druids, besides teaching all sorts of useful knowledge, disputed of mor- als, of which justice, says Strabo, was the chief sentiment; and it has been shown in another place, that Celtic society was regulated under their government with the strictest regard to equality and independence, both personal and national. The grand doctrine of the immortality of the soul was taught by this people, and it was one of the strongest in- citements to the practice of virtue. This is expressly said by Diodorus to be the Pythagorean system; a proof of the identity, or at least strong resemblance, of both religions, and a refinement of the doctrine of me- tempsychosis, or transmigration of the souls of human beings into the * See Martin's Western Isles, p. 300, &c. t Josephus' Antiquities, xviii. 6. 7. RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 463 bodies of other animals. The Celts are said not to have had an evil prin- ciple, which the Scandinavians admitted.* By the Edda this people had a fixed elysium and a hell; and the dead were believed to carry their bodies into bliss, but the Celtoe held that the deceased were unsubstantial, although they continued to be inspired with the same feelings which an- imated them on earth: they were as immaterial as the clouds on which they were borne, and were subject to the same impression of the wind; " often has the blast whirled his limbs together, but still he seemed like Curach." The women appear to have been excluded from the Valhalla of the Northern nations, apparently to prevent brawling, except in cases where they voluntarily killed themselves; on the contrary, the Celts admitted them as their most agreeable associates, and believed that in the second state of existence their charms were much increased. The works of the bards abound in beautiful allusions to this belief, which long subsisted among the Gael. A poem, quoted by Mac Pherson, and supposed to be one thousand years later than Ossian, has these remark- able words. "Hark! the whirlwind is in the wood! alow murmur in the vale! it is the mighty army of the dead returning from the air." Dreeug is the meteor on which, says Dr. Smith, the Highlanders yet believe they ascend to heaven. A general belief of the Gael was, that the future state of permanent happiness was in Flath-innis, a remote Island in the West; but they also thought that particular clans had certain hills to which the spirits of their departed friends had a peculiar attachment. Tom-mhor was that appropriated to the house of Garva, a branch of Clan Pherson; and Ore, another hill, was regarded by the house of Crubin, of the same clan, as their place of meeting in a future state, and their summits were supernaturally illuminated when any member of the families died. It was the opinion formerly, and it is believed at this day, that the souls of the deceased continued to hover round the places they loved to haunt when in this world, and kept near their friends, and sometimes appeared when they were to engage in any important business. The popular belief also was, that the Druids continued to frequent the oak trees, for which they had so much respect when alive. It was no very irrational persuasion, that the spirits of the good should exist in a state of happiness hereafter, should ride on the clouds, and, in addition to the pleasures of their own state, should enjoy the songs of praise which those who were left on earth composed to their memory. Less ferocious than the Scandinavian heroes, they did not place their delight in quaffing wine from the skulls of their foes, but their chief enjoyments were the careful protection of their earthly friends and the refined pursuit of aerial hunting and feasting. There the passions which disturbed the tran- quillity of a sublunary life were hushed; " side by side, "says an ancient bard, "they sit who once mixed in battle their steel." There were however, bad as well as good spirits, and the distinction which the an * Mac Pherson's Introduction to the Hist, of Great Britain. 464 MISLETOE AND SERPENT'S EGG. cient Scots made between them was, that the latter sometimes appeared by day; and although the place was usually lonely and unfrequented, it was never in those dismal and gloomy parts where the evil genii* present- ed themselves, and invariably during night. As teachers of morality, the Druids, by their own example, enforced their precepts; their austerity and contemplative habits inspired the pop- ulace with reverence and awe, while enjoying an exemption from war, and immunity of all things, many were brought up to the profession.* What is related of the Pythagoreans is equally applicable to the profes- sors of Bardism; they were particularly careful to guard against all sorts of intemperance; and to inure themselves to abstinence, they had all sorts of delicacies prepared, as if for a banquet, which they spread out and feasted their eyes with for some time, when, having sufficiently tried their resolution, the whole was cleared away, and they all withdrew without tasting any thing. The attachment of these philosophers to each other was an admirable example of brotherly affection. They often travelled great distances to relieve the distresses of each other, the whole sect being animated with a desire to assist those who had, through misfortune, become reduced; and instances are recorded of their even offering their lives for each oth- er.']" In this there is a striking resemblance to the philanthropy of Free- masons, the traditions of whom, scriptural and oral, are, I apprehend, referable to the institutions of Druidism. The Pythagoreans, like their brethren the Celtic Druids, were fond of an enigmatical way of speak- ing. Their injunction to refrain from eating beans, involved a command to abstain from unlawful love.J The Druids were, like the priests of other nations, obliged to clothe religion with ceremonies calculated to excite the wonder and awe of the common people, but the opinions of the better informed were not so gross as the externals of their religion might indicate. The respect which the Druids had for the oak was a characteristic of the profession, and was only exceeded by the veneration which they had for the Misle- toe; they Jiad also a mysterious regard for the number 3, and the Py- thagoreans knew each other by it. Vallancey has remarked that the misletoe, in its berries and leaves, grows in this number, but it is to be observed that it was that which was found on the oak only, that the Druids considered sacred, and which they gathered with so much cere- mony. It seems that this veneration pervaded the Greeks a)so, and by the Edda it would appear to have been the forbidden fruit. The vene- ration which the Celts had for vervain and other plants, with the super- stitions accompanying their gathering and preparation, have been spoken of in Chap. XI. The Ovum anguinum, described by Pliny, was thus formed. Innu- merable serpents, entwining themselves together, produced an egg, * Ctesar. t Diod. Frag. Valesii, vi. sec. 36, 37, &c * Beloe, note on Herod, iv. c 131. Lib. xviii. 3. HUMAN SACRIFICES. 465 which being forced into the air, was caught in a robe before it touched the ground, and borne off instantly on horse-back, the intervention of a river alone stopping the pursuit of the serpents. Those only which were procured at a certain age of the moon were valued, and their goodness was proved by their swimming against the water, even when bound with gold. This egg was the ensign of a Druid, and the virtues ascribed to it were numerous. I truly, says Pliny, have seen it, about the size of a moderate round apple, with a shell like the claws and arms of a poly- pus. For success in lawsuits, and interest with kings it was wonder- fully extolled; and I know that a Roman knight of the Vocontii, was put to death, because, while pleading a cause, he had it in his bosom. This is the glain nadir of the Welsh, who still regard it with supersti- tious feelings. The sacrifices of the Celts, as we have seen in their auguries, were not always bloodless. Hei.-.ules and Mars were appeased with beasts, but to Mercury, on certain days, it was lawful to offer even human vic- tims. The shocking practice of immolating human beings is so repug- nant to modern feelings, that many have become skeptical as to its exist- ence among the ancient Celts. It certainly was in use by those people on the continent and in the British Isles, particularly in Anglesea.* The principle of life for life may account for the apparent frequency of these horrible rites, for those convicted of crimes were preferred. They keot malefactors and prisoners sometimes five years, and then im- paled them on stakes, and presented them as a burnt offering for the honor of the gods. It must, nevertheless, be admitted that guiltless in- dividuals were often doomed to fall as a propitiation to the Celtic deities. The Galatians, when successful in war, sacrificed their prisoners, and we read that they prepared for battle with Antigonus, by sacrificing many of their children and relations."!" Some, we are told, were shot with sacred arrows; but let us not conclude that the Celtas were more sanguinary and cruel than other nations. Human sacrifices were not abolished in the refined "city of the world" ninety-seven years before the appearance of Christ. J A male and female Gaul, and a Grecian man and woman, we are informed by Livy, were buried alive after the battle of Canna3, but not by the Roman rites, it is added! a distinction which doubtless altered the case.^ In the time of Caesar, two men were publicly sacrificed, and human victims were offered to Jupiter Latialis even in the fourth century. The history of Rome affords a few instan- ces of individuals devoting themselves to death for the purpose of avert- ing an impending evil. The Massilians, or rather the Gauls around them, were accustomed to sacrifice a voluntary victim, who was deli- cately fed and sumptuously treated for a year previous to his death. He was then dressed in holy garments ; and, crowned with a wreath of vervain, he was thrown headlong from a precipice. || * Tac. Annals, xiv. t Justin, xxvi. 2. Strabo, iv. p. 195. J Pliny, xxxi. Dio. xliii. 24 || Petronhw 59 466 GROVE AND TEMPLE DESCRIBED. The colossal figure, formed of osier and described by Caesar, was certainly used by the priests of Druidisrn as the vehicle in which numer- ous human beings were occasionally immolated. Strabo says that it was chiefly filled with sheep, but it cannot be denied that the sacrifices were not always of so innocent a nature. Dr. Milner, in his History of Win- chester, says that at Douay and Dunkirk there is an immemorial custom of constructing huge figures of wicker work and canvass, that are filled with men and moved about to represent a giant that was killed by their patron saint. In Paris, there used to be a custom, which is not yet abolished in some small towns, and that seems evidently to derive its origin from the barbarous practice of the Druids. The Mayors, on the eve of St. John, put into a large basket a dozen or two of cats, which are thrown into the bonfires kindled on that festival.* Between the Seine and the Loire, where Chartres now stands, it is believed, was that famous establishment of the Druids, "where rustics pled and private persons decided." At this place all who had contro- versies met together, and, from an ancient comedy quoted by Ritson. it appears the " sentences of the oak" were here pronounced and writ- ten on bones. At a certain time of the year the Druids sat down in a consecrated grove of Mona, or Anglesea, whither all went to have their disputes settled.f A beautiful description, by Lucan,of a consecrated grove of the Gauls near Marseilles, has been thus translated: Not far away, for ages past had stood An old, inviolated, sacred wood; Whose gloomy boughs, thick interwoven, made A chilly, cheerless, everlasting shade : There, not the rustic gods, nor satyrs sport, Nor fawns and sylvans with the nymphs resort ; But barb'rous priests some dreadful power adore, And lustrate every tree with human gore. If mysteries in times of old received, And pious ancientry may be believed, There not the feathered songster builds her nest, Nor lonely dens conceal the savage beast: There no tempestuous winds presume to fly, Even lightnings glance aloof, and shoot obliquely by. No wanton breezes toss the wanton leaves, But shiv'ring horror in the branches heaves. Black springs, with pitchy streams, divide the ground, And, bubbling, tumble with a sullen sound. Old images of forms misshapen stand, Rude, and unknowing of the artist's hand; With hoary filth begrimed, each ghastly head Strikes the astonished gazer's soul with dread. No gods, who long in common shape appeared, Were e'er with such religious awe revered ; But zealous crowds in ignorance adore, And still, the less they know, they fear the more. * St. Foix, Essay on Paris t Richard of Cirencester, b. i. c. 4. 13. DRESS OF THE DRUIDS. 467 Oft, as fame tells, the earth in sounds of wo, Is heard to groan from hollow depths below ; The baleful yew, though dead, has oft been seen, To rise from earth, and spring with dusky green ; With sparkling flames the trees unburning shine,* And round their boles prodigious serpents twme. The pious worshippers approach not near, But shun their gods, and kneel with distant feir The priest himself, when or the day, or night, Rolling, have reached their full meridian height, Refrains the gloomy paths with wary feet, - Dreading the daemon of the grove to meet; Who, terrible to sight, at that fixed hour Still treads the round about his dreary bower. This wood, near neighboring to the encompassed iown Untouched by former wars remained alone ; And, since the country round it naked stands, From hence the Latian chief supplies demands. But lo ! the bolder hands that should have struck With some unusual horror, trembling shook ; With silent dread, and reverence they surveyed The gloom majestic of the sacred shade : None dares, with impious steel, the bark to rend Lest on himself the destined stroke descend. Caesar perceived the spreading fear to grow, Then, eager, caught an axe, and aimed a blow. Deep sunk, within a violated oak, The wounding edge, and thus the warrior spoke : " Now, let no doubting hand the task decline ; Cut you the wood, and let the guilt be mine." The trembling bands unwillingly obeyed, Two various ills were in the balance laid, And Caesar's wrath against the gods was weighed. With grief and fear, the groaning Gauls beheld Their holy grove by impious soldiers felled ; While the Massilians, from the encompassed wall, Rejoiced to see the sylvan honors fall : They hope such power can never prosper long, Nor think the patient gods will bear the wrong. The two Druids forming the vignette, to the last Chapter are from an engraving in Montfaucon's splendid work, who appears to have copied them from Auberi's Antiquities d'Autun. The mace, or sceptre, car- ried by one is the drudical ensign of office. The Highlanders retain a tra- ditional knowledge of the slatan drui'achd, which they say was a white wand. The other carries the crescent, or first quarter of the moon, call- ed cornan by the Irish, of which some, formed of gold, have been found in that country. The robe of a I>ruid was pure white, indicating holi- ness and truth. The Pythagoreans held it improper to sacrifice to tho gods in gaudy habits, but only in white and clean robes, for they main- * The Gaelic Druilinn, or Druidhlann, the flame of the Druids, denoted a sudden gleam produced in their ceremonies. They appear to have bern the inventors of gun- powuor, or something similar. 463 DIVISIONS OF TIME. tained that those so engaged should not only bring bodies free from gross and outward wickedness, but pure ana unuefiled souls.* The bards More a robe of sky blue color, the emblem of peace and sincerity. The robe of the ovydd, or ovate, was a bright green, the emblem of true learning, as being the uniform clothing of nature. Strabo describe* the Druidesses as clothed in white linen cloaks fastened by clasps and girdles of brass work.f The knowledge of the Druids was profound. They taught, says Cae- sar, of the stars and their motion, the magnitude of countries, the nature of things, and the power of the gods. Talliesin, a Welsh bard of the sixth century, said, he knew the names of the stars from north to south; and his opinions, which must have been those of the order to which he be- longed, were, that there are seven elements fire, earth, water, air, mist, atoms, and the animating wind; that there were seven sources of ideas perception, volition, and the five senses, coinciding in this with Locke. He also says, there were seven spheres, with seven real plan- ets, and three that are aqueous. The planets were Sola, Luna, Mar- carucia, Venerus, Severus, and Saturnus; and he describes five zones, two of which were uninhabited, one from excessive cold, the other from excessive heat.J The Druids reckoned by nights and not by days, and held thirty years an age. The Gael call the spring ceituin, or ceuduin, literally the first season, or May, the Druidical year commencing at that time, an expres- sion that corresponds with the French printems and Italian primavera. The civic or artificial year began the 25th of December, on which occa- sion the lul feast, in honor of the sun, was held; and when it became a Christian festival the heathen fires were permitted, it being a practice, but lately discontinued, even in England to burn the Christmas log. The Highlanders call the year Bheil-aine, the circle of Bel, or the Sun. The days of the week are thus named: Sunday Dies Solis .... Di Sol. Monday Dies Lunre. . . . Di Luain. Tuesday Dies Martis . . . Di Mairt. Wednesday . . . .Dies Mercurii. . Di Ciadoin. Thursday .... Dies Jovis . . Di Taran. Friday Dies Veneris . Di Haoine. Saturday Dies Saturni . . Di Sathuirne. The affinity of the English, Latin, and Gaelic, is here plain, and cor- roborative of the observations in former pages. The knowledge which the Druids possessed of mathematics must have been great. The erection of their astonishing temples is, alone, proof of their skill, but the mode in which those immense stones were brought together, and piled up, cannot well be conceived, unless we admit the * The Irish say that, by the Brehon laws, a Druid had six cofors in his robe ; a re- markable difference from the Britons. t Douglas's Nen. Brit. p. 40. \ Roberta's Early History of the Cumr DRUIDICAL KNOWLEDGE. 469 use of machinery. A traveller in Greece, whose work T recently read, gives an account of a very ingenious manner of detaching large masses of stone from the native rock. In Bakewell's Travels, when speaking of the dissolution of the Alpine rocks by Hannibal, the writer supposes that the expansive power of vapor might be the means adopted. Count Rumford ascertained that a drachm of water, inclosed in a mass of iron the size of a solid 24-pounder, was sufficient to burst it, with a violent explosion, by the application of heat; and freezing, as is well known, will split the hardest rocks. It is, however, said that Hannibal used vinegar, a story that could scarcely have originated without some foun- dation in fact. The vinegar of the ancients, which could dissolve pearls, as in the case of Cleopatra, must have been very different from any kind now known. Whether the Druids used the above methods, or by what other means they procured the enormous blocks which they used, we cannot ascertain. It is no less difficult to conceive how they could have been poised on their ends. The natural supposition, which is, in- deed, corroborated by the description of an ancient author, is, that they were placed in the proper position by means of an inclined plane of earth, up which they were rolled, and at the highest end were slipped into their place. They were set on so true a perpendicular that, al- though some of the largest are not deeper in the ground than 1| or 2 feet, they tiave never swerved from the upright. Considering the trou- ble with which they must have been procured, it can scarcely be sup- posed their height would have been needlessly lessened. It is a tra- dition among the Highlanders, that the Druids worked at night and rested during the day. The Druids were physicians, and their medical knowledge, which was by no means small, has elsewhere been spoken of. The Feryllt of Talliesin was skilled in every thing requiring the operation of fire, and this comprising botany, from the duty of selecting plants for the mystical caldron, the name in time came to signify chemists. It is not surprising that a religion so venerated and universal should be long, ere it finally gave way to the establishment of Christianity. " Under the specious pretext of abolishing human sacrifices, the Em- perors Tiberius and Claudius suppressed the dangerous power of the Druids; but the priests themselves, their gods, and their altars, subsist- ed in peaceful obscurity till the final destruction of paganism."* "The latest mention of CllJllsOIl 11 green 4 black 1 azure 8 blue 8 black 4 blue 1 black DOUGLAS. 4 black 8 green 6 blue \ white 2 yellow 1 black 9 black 4 blue 4 black 2 yellow Li white 4 green 2 yellow i black 1 black 8 green A 1 green 1 red 1 azure 1 black 1 azure 4 black 8 black 1 blue 7 green i white 1 azure 4 green 8 red 1 black 9 black 4 blue 1 white 1 blue 6 blue 4 white CAMERON. 4 blue 1 black 1 hlup DRUMMOND. 4 yellow This is worn by 1 Ul livJ white 4 blue 11 red 8 blue 4 red the Duke of Ar- yyle and the Campbells of Lo chaw. The Ear 1 CUMMIN. 1 azure 1 black 1 azure 14 blue 4 red 8 green 8 black 8 green 14 red 4 green A red of Braidalban and his clan, wear the following pattern. 2 blue 1 black 2 azure 5 black 4 orange 5 green 2 red 4 yellow 14 blue 4 white 17 red 4 white 4 green 4 re< ^ 1 blue 1 black l white 2 red 11 blue ^ yellow | green l^ red 1 blue 7 black l white 2 red 8 green 4 ved 8 green 8 black 4 re d 4 yellow 1 1 green 4 yellow 5 green 4 orange 5 black 11 blue 1 azure 1 white 8 blue 14 red 7 black 6 blue 2 azure 1 black FARQJJHARSON. 4 blue 1 black 2 azure 4 red 2U1.-. f% 1 yellow 1 blue $ DALZEL. blue 4 black CAMPBELL. CHISHOLM. 6 red i blue 4 blue 24 red 1 white 1 black 1 black 8 green | blue 4 blue TABLE OF CLAN TARTANS. 603 d 1 red 3| red 18 red 11 dark green ifttf) 8 blue H red 61 green 4 black i azure i red ax u re blue 3 azure 7 blue 16 rrd \ red & red 1 red \ azure i rod 5 blue J red MAC FARLANE. 9 green 2 red 11 dark green \ red f blue 11 red 101 r ed | black J azure 2 red 1 azure 8 blue 6 green 1 blue 51 red i red 1 white | white 1 red 4 blue 8 black 8 green 11 red 11 red 1 black 11 red MAC GREGOR. 12 red 1 red 1 white 1 green k red 1 white 1 green 6 green 21 red 2| red 3 dark green 1 light green 2 red 5 green 6 purple 2 black 11 red 2 white 3 green J black 1 white 1 black MAC DOUGAL. 3 red 1 light green 3 dark green 6 green 1 red 1 1 green 2 white 3 green 21 red | red l blue 11 red 6 green \ white 18 red 2 black 24 red * There is a white stripe introduced for distinction by the Glengary Clan, and Lord Mac Donald wears a pattern composed of red and green. TABLE OF CLAN TAATANS. 505 tof an ( , * of an Co , ora iof an * of an Co , org inch. inch. inch. inch* MAC INTOSH. * 7 green 1 black 6 crimson 12 red 7 black 1 .red green 1| blue crimson 6 blue 2| red ll black MAC LEAN. green 101 green 4 red 11 blue ll black r*t 11 black 1 red crimson green -1 blue 7 blue 1 azure crimson 4 red 11 red green 10| green 21 red MAC KINNON. ^ white 5 green 1 black crimson green 6 blue ll red 1^ white 6 crimson 4 red 1 green 1 black 6 red o 1 v 11 1 crimson MAC KAY. 3 red 2 2 black 6 red | green 7 corbeau 1 green 8 green 1 red 2 blue 3| azure 2 black \ yellow 6 crimson 6 green 1 crimson 7 black 7 green ll black 1 green 8 red 4 green 1 black 1| white 1 black MAC N A UGH TON. I black 7 green 7 black 1 white 2 red 5 green 11 red 2 azure 8 red 1 green 7 corbeau 1^ green 1 white 2 red 1 white 4 srreen 1 azure ll red 1 black 8 green 6 black 4| azure 8 red MAC KENZIE. 3 * v '^" 8 red MAC LEOD. \ azure 3| blue 1| black 1 green 2 blue 1 red 1 yellow 1 black 6 blue \ black azure 8 red if black 1| blue 7 black 8 green 3 red 1 blue 1 green 6 black 6 green 1 black 2 red 41 azure 6 black 8 gree 8 red 7 green 1| black 1| white li red 1 white 1 black 6 green 6L 1 I- | azure l black ll black MAC LACHLAN. DiacK 6 blue MAC NEIL. 7 black 7 blue 4 red 1 black l black 2 yellow 1 white 6 smalt ll black 1 red 6 black ll red 1 black MAC NAB. 6 green \\ black 1 red 1 green 21 black 7 blue 8 black 1 crimson \ yellow 7 black 8 blue 6 green 21 black 7 green 1 1 green 6 crimson 6 green 1| black 8 blue 6 red 6 black 11 white 8 black 1 crimson 6 smalt 4 black 8 red 6 red \ white * The chief also wears a particular tartan of a very showy pattern. 64 506 APPENDIX. ilr c *ii?cJf n Colors. 'tad, Colors - MAC PHERSON.* k red 4 black 24 red 3 azure 1 white 6 blue 1 black 2 blue 1^ green 1 yellow 3 black ^ white 9 green OGILVIE. \ white 11 l 51 red 2 azure MUNRO. 1 rod blue \ white 4 black 61 red \ white 3 black 4 a/ ure f yellow l black 2 red 1 black l blue 4 yellow \ white 2 a/i ire 11 red 1 purple 2 red 3 black 13 green 4 yellow 4 white ^ yellow 4 green 54 red 11 red 4 blue 4 yellow 14 green 4 yellow 1 black 2 red l black \ yellow 1 azure 14 red 4 red 31 green 51 red 3 blue 4 black 1 black A \ azure 11 red 4 red 3| green 51 red 4 yellow \ black 1 black 4 green 4 yellow 4 blue 13 red l red 1 black 3| green 4 yellow 3 black 14 green 1 yellow l black 2 azure 11 red 2 green 2 red 4 black 1 4 green 1 yellow ^ white ^ azure if red 1 black 2 red 4 black l| green 2 red 4 white 2 azure 13 red \ white 2 red 54 red 4 white MURRAY. l black \ yellow l black 1 blue \ yellow 2 green 4 red 1 black 2 green 1 white 6 blue ^ white 2 green MAC QUARRIE. 21 red 12 blue 6 black 6 green 2 red 6 green 2 green -| yellow \ purple 1 red -^ yellow | black 2 red | white 15 red 6 black l black 2 red \ azure blue 31 red 1 white 2 red black | white 2 red J azure blue | blue 1 black 15 red black \ white 1 yellow 12 blue blue 31 red 3|- green 5 red black \ white 1 black 16 green blue 1 blue 1| green 7 red 11 f 31 _j D 3CK 2 reo. 1 Kla/^L- ROBERTSON. blue ^ DiacK MENZIES. 6 black 1 red l red 12 red 6 green l green 1 green 9 green 2 red 1 yellow 81 red 1 white 6 green 11 green 1 blue 3 a/ ure 6 black l yellow 1 red * The chief has recently dressed in a different pattern, which is said to have been formerly worn by his family. TABLE OF CLAN TARTANS. 507 *b" <** tfcT Co " ra - *" <** V/cr ">"<" 8 green 1 red Ross. * 4| green 5 black 3 azure 1 R roA 1 black 11 blue 2 g ic ^ 1 red 1 green 8| red 1 green 1 red 1 green 8* red 1 green 1 red 8 blue 1 red Ql p-rpen 1 red 9 green 9 red 1 green 2 red 1 green 9 red 9 blue 1 red 9 blue 9 red i blue ID red 3 azure 5 black yellow J black 3 white i black 8 green 4 red 1 black 11 red 1 white URQUHART. 4 green 1 black 1 green 1 black 1 green 8 black 8 blue 1 red 8 blue 8 black 2 g'ccii 1 red 1 blue 8i red 2 re d 1 blue I red 1 Hint* SUTHERLAND. 5J blue 1 black 8 green 1 black 1 green green red 9 red 1 blue 1 black Breacanna'nCle- g-een 8 red blue red 8| green I red SINCLAIR. 9 red 10 green 2| black | white 1 blue 8 black 8 green 1 black 8 green 8 black 8hliiP the Clergy. J white 2J black J white 2 gray ROSE. i ,_ j 18 red 1 black 1L1 5 black 2 recl 5 blue 5 black 5 green | white 2 black } white 5 green 5 black 5 blue 1 red STEWART. white 1} red 1 black 4 red 8 green 1 black 1 white 1 black yellow Dlue 1 black 8 blue 8 black 8 green 1 black 8 green 8 black 1 blue 1 black 1 blue 2| gray 1 black 21 gray 5 black | white 13 black white 2 gray | white 21 black | white riSIDEX ABPWTIOW cf womi n, 474. Abeidsen, old, axes of the guard of, 204. - shire, flint arrow heads in, 226. --- anciently noted for sheep, 288. -- abundance or fish in, 330. Abernethy, palace at, 2fiO, tower at, 266. Abury, temple, described, 450. Achindoer, earth houses at, 260. Acts against Highland dress, 184. - " --- repealed, ibid. Adultress, how punished, 149. Aeduans, their mode of government, 132. Agincourt, battle of, 229. Agriculture, 294 Welsh laws respecting, 298 respect of the Romans for, 299, n. ancient marks of, 303 in Hebrides, 304. Agrippiua, its siege, 252. ^Aireach, 105. Airisaid, an ancient habit, 179. Alarm, methods of giving, 103. Albanach, 4ti, 50. Duan, an ancient poem, 390 Albani, orieiu of the name, 21, n. the Scotish war cry, 198. Albania, 50. Alee, a singular animal, 272. Alcis, worship of, 459. Aldborough, ruins at, 257. Ale, Pictish, 345 herb, ibid. Alesia, a Celtic town, 243. Alia, defeat of the Romans at, 90 Altacholihan, battle of, 213. Alting, 144. Alves, discoveries at, 480. Amber, vessels of, 377. Amida, heroism of the Celts at, 97. Amusements of the Highlanders, 400. Anecdotes of heroism, 95. Anspach, Margrave of, 422 Arsyle, Duke of, 211, 415, Assynt, laird of, 350. Athol, Duke of, 280. Boiscalus, 477. Breusa, William de, 22L Campbell, John, 211. Cameron of Locbiel, 324. . Cl m Rannald, 135. Clark, George, 421. Kennedy, 424. Clovis, King of France, 105 Coote, Sir Eyre, 420. A Frenchman, 137. Dionysius the tyrant, 323. Gordon, Duke of, 425. Mac Bane, Gillies, 95. Mac Codrum, a bard, 390. Mac Donald of the Isles, 110. _ Captain, 211. of Keppoch,82, 110, 140 Donald, of Aberarder Anecdotes of Mac Gregor, of Glenslne, 333. - Mac Intosh, James, 417. - Mac Kenzie, Roderick, 12& - Mac Lean, of Coll, 431. - Mac Lean, John Garbh, of Coll, 41 MacLeod, Donald, 211. Mac Pherson, of Cluny, 212. Ewen, 390. Mac Rimmon, 423. Mar, Earl of, 211. Munro, of Culcairn, 126. Nelan, an Irish' bard, 384. Robertson, of Lude, 211. Steuart, 218. Stratherne, Earl of, 186, &e. Anglesea, its formation, 42. Angli, painting of their bodies, 153. Animals, extinct, 271 Anna clough mullach, cave at, 259, n. Annals, preserved by bards, 388. Ansibarians, their hard fate, 31, 477. Aonachs, or fairs, 368. Apple trees, 69. Aquitani, 32. Arable land, how estimated, 300. Araradh, 313, 321. Archers, royal Scotish, 227. Archery, trial of, between Scots and English, 222 laws to encourage, 223. Architecture of the B'ritons, 249, 254. Ard na soeur, ruins at, 257. Areopagus, court of, 144. Argyle, etymology of, 291, n. Arie, employment at, 291. Arkel, its peculiar deer, 274. Arms of the Celts ; number collected by M. Wade, 240 custom of exchanging, ibid time of fix- ing, ibid of Scotland, 433 deposited with the dead, 480. Army, how commanded, 111 how drawn up, ibid. Arrows, a signal of war, 104 sent to assemble a ting, 145 how pointed, 224, 227. Arthel, or arvel dinner, 483. Arthur's oven, a curious building, 263. Artificers, British, their skill, 376. hereditary, 378. "< Arvydd Vardd, a Welsh herald, 387 Arymes prydain, Welsh war song, 116. Asion, Irish regal cap, 176, n. Assemblies, their speedy convocation, 103. Assythments, 147. Athol, men of, their numbers, 77. Atticots, 55. Augury, skill in, 460. Auris Batavorum, 84. Auxerre, cave at, 259. Avaricum, a Celtic town, described, 243 * nobl* defence, 95, 250. Azores, 40. B Baal, or Beil, the chief god of th Celt*, 453- ceremonies respecting, 477. 510 INDEX. Baal tein, feast of the sun, 453. Bachul Murry, J07. Badenach, a gymnasium at, 211 cave at, 259. Badges, 19t> 1 ist of, 197. Baggage, how disposed, 109. Bagpipe, known to Greeks and Romans, 420 origin among Scots, 421 Highland, the only national instrument, 420 its effects, 420 to 422 its use encouraged, 425 used at fune- rals, 488. Baking, how performed, 321. Balearic Isles, 901. Banchory, Laird of, 415. Band, the hundred, 104. Banff, the supposed residence of Andrea Ferrara, 210. Bannockburn, field of, 223. Banquet, Highland, account of, 342. Baptism, a Pagan rite, 458. Bards, 126 their duties, 115, 116, 117, 385, 386, 387, 460 their portion, 326 education, 385, 389 their compositions, 383 persecuted, 383. Bark of trees, a manufacture, 155. Barmekin, a hill fort, 244. Barns, used for drying corn, 311. Barra hill, a Caledonian fort, 244. Barritus, 112. Barrows, sepulchral, their varieties, 482. Bass, of Inverury, 145. Battle axe, 204. shout,! 12, 198. Bear, a natural product of Britain, 271. Beaver, once found in Britain, ibid. Beds of the Highlanders, 375 flock, invented by Gauls, ibid. Bees, their culture, 342. Belgae, 30 arrival in Britain, 44 possessions, ibid. agriculture, 294 dress, 155, 156. Belt, 219 how ornamented, 177, 219 worn by women, 179. Ben Nevis, mountain, its height, 262. Beothach an Fheoir, a singular animal, 275. Bernera, duns destroyed to build, 262. Bidag: see Dirk. Birch, a native tree, 68. Birlaw men, a rural jury, 300. Bituriges, their towns burned, 251. Black, used by Gauls for mourning, 485. Bladair, the chiePs spokesman, 126. Blood, drinking of, 106. Blue, the favourite color of the Britons, 158. Boars, 273 hunting of, 279. Boat racing, 443. Bod, hut or cottage so called, 256. Bodies, burning of, 478. Boined, 175. Bonagh, an Irish exaction, 131 beg, do. ibid. bur, ibid. Bonnaughts, the pay of Galloglasses, 215. Bonnet, forms of, 176. Boots, origin of, J71. Boundaries, 22, 298. Bow and arrows, 220 Scotish, 223 when last used, ibid. how made, 224. Braccae, a vestment, described, 170. Brae mar, famed for deer, 274. Brahan Castle, arms of the Highlanders delivered up at, 240. Braidal!>an, men of, their numbers, 77. Braonan, used as food, 319. Brass, its manufacture, 371. Bratach shi, of Mac Leod, 195. Breacan, a sort of coat armor, 161 feile, described. 167 its usefulness, 183. Bread ,32 1. Brechin, round tower at, 267. Breeches, derivation of the word, 171 mistake of a Highlander concerning, 175. Brehon, the Celtic judge, 144. Breith a nuas, 148. Brettanui, first mention of, 43. Britain, suppositions, 39, 43 etymology of, ibid. first inhabitants, 41, 42, 43 intercourse with the Continent, 44 its products, 371. Britannia, Romaiia and barbaria, 49. British army, its arrangement, 110 horses, 228 town described, 241, 242. Pritons, 44 ardent in cause of liberty, 98 cor- rnoti by Roman luxury, 99 defensive ar- mor, 185 offensive do. their retreats, 255 259, 267 their grain, 302 manures, 304 cookery, 322 deities, 453 statues of do. 449 stature, 78 swiftness of foot, 82 painted their bodies, 152 expert charioteers, 231 their management of the car, 236. Broe, or shoe, 172. Brooch, its use, 167 of Bruce, 180 of Glenlyon.. ibid. Browns, of Kincardine, musicians, 412. Brynly's Castle, a British work, 250 Brython, 45. Buffaloes, 275. Builg, the Highland knapsack, 177 Burkes, the, plundered, 294. Butter, how made, 319. Cairns, sepulchral, 481. Caledonia, etymology of, 46. Caledonian ox, 274, 286. Caledonians, first mention of, 45 their territories 47 warlike renown, 93, 99 oaths, 107 dress, 154 swords and spears, 206 arrows, 227 cavalry, 228 houses, 255, 257, 267 agriculture, 294 food, 318 prejudice to fish, 329 ships, 362, 364 ancient dancing, 439 modern do. 440 tournament, 442 Calpich, 147. Camanachd, a game, 443. Camerons of Lochiel, their numbers, 77. Campbells, their respect for Duan Diarmid, 394 some funeral observances among, 484. Cane, 147. Cannae, battle of, 171. Cannibalism, 323. Canoes, remains of, 361. Caoine, or Cine, Irish, 399. Cappeene, 176. Capercailzie, a mountain bird, 276. Carnac, temple at, 452. Carnbre, a British work, 250. Carriages, 314. Carrows, Irish gamesters, 441. Carthaginians, their tents, 254. Carucate, 300. Cascrom, an implement of agriculture, 309. Casdireach, do. ibid. Cashed, round tower at, 266. Cassiterides, islands of, 40. Castell Corndochon, a British work, 250 Castles of the Pictish kings, 260. Catharn ; see Cearnach. Cath dath, a sort of cloth, 158. Catherthuns, Caledonian strongholds, 244. Cathghairm, Highland battle shout, 112. Cath tei, a fiery dart, 205. Cats, wild, 273. Catti, manner of wearing their hair, 84 contend for a salt river, 328. Cattle, their ancient numbers, 285 folds, 289 diseases, how treated, 226, 292, 293 spoil of, how divided, ibid. the first article of traffic, 368. Cavalry, 228 how attacked by the Highlanders, 029 mode of fighting with, 230, 235 Irish, 229. Caves of the aborigines, 259. Cearnach, Highland light infantry, 108 their du ties, 108,214. Celtaj, etymology of, 20 their territories, 30. Celtiberi, 32 famous sword makers, 208 tneir drink, 343, 372. Celto-scyths, 29. Celts, armies of, their numbers, 75 how raised, 103 how drawn up, 109 personal appearance, 78 dispositions, 88, 89 exploits, 89, 94 to 96 contempt of death, 94, 477 method of washing and dressing their hair, 86 method of attack, 112 councils, 136, 137 fought naked, 166 treatment of malefactors, 148 pride of dress, 154 splendor of do. 178 armor, 186 ambassadors, their reply to Al- exander, 98 chief, how supported, 122 holdings, 135 final struggle for indepen- dence, 100 costume, 151 shields, how orna- mented, 195 methods of defending and at- tacking a town, 250, 251 their towns, 248. INDEX 511 258 manner of hunting, 278, 281 prejudice to fish, -2/7 cookery, 3.27 aversion to pork, 023 their gods, 419, 453 drank little at meals, 341 recipes, 353 surgical knowledge, 357 tlieir affluence, 370 manufactures, 371, 376 to 380. Celts, stone weapons so called, 202 curious dis- coveries of,. 137. Cemetery, druidir.al, at lona, 483. Cetra, a sort of shield, 189. Chaff", how separated from grain, 312. Chain mail, a Celtic invention, 186. Chains, golden, a common ornament, 178. Chariot, for war, described, 231 to 234 races, 236. (,'harioteers, their importance, 231. Chattan, clan, fight at Perth, 214 their gathering, 427. Chanting at funerals, 486. Cheese, 291,320. Chenerotis, a favorite British dish, 329. Chief, his authority, 103, 105 his body guard, 107 his election in Ireland, 105 duties in war, ibid. 106, 111 inauguration, 138 his name used as an oath, 107. Children, how reared, 81, 476. Chirin, clan ; see Clan. Uhisholnis, the, their strength, 77 gathering, 427. Christinas ba'ing of monymusk, 443. Churches, of wattle, 2">5 covered with heath, 268. Churn, invented by the Celts, 319. Cimbri, their situation, 24 power, 26 theirdaring exploits, 37 invasion of Italy and defeat, 90. Cimmerii, their situation, 24, 2(5 lived in caverns, 259. Cincogish, law of, 123, 142. Cine, or Keen, Irish funeral lament, 399. Circus, a place of worship, 145. Cisalpine Gaul, a Roman province, 33. Cities, their numbers in Britain, Gaul, and Spain, 242. Clachan Ossian, the bard's monumental stone, 395, 482. Clach cuid-fir, a trial of strength, 442. Clans, their numbers, 76 to 78 oaths, 107 Clan na Faker, 197 Chattan, fight at Perth, 214 Chirin, war cry, 199 Connan, 133 Munter- casduff, ibid. Rannald, war cry, 199 chief of, anecdote, 135 his cavalry, 228 gather- ing, 427 Ricard war cry, 200. Clanship, 118. Classerness, temple at, 451. Clechda, 300. Clergy carried arm^ 214. Cliar, or sling, 201. Clodh, 158. Cloghadh, or round tower, 266. Club, a military weapon, 201. Clubbar, an agricultural implement, 314. Clubbing hair, a mode of dressing it, 85 Cnag, a singular bird, 277. Coals, when first used, 326. Coil annor, origin of, 193, 197 Cocherell, discoveries at, 480. Ccenas, a vestment, 155, 166. Coffin, how carried by the Gael, 485. Coin of the Britons, 388 Gaelic name of, 369. Colda mo run, a piobrachd, 429. Colors, in cloth, how regulated, 158. Comhairlich, or councillors, 136,386. Commanders, how elected, 105. Commerce of the Celts, 370. Common holding, its origin, 296 ad vantages, 297. Common law, of druidic origin, 382. Complexions of Celts, 86. Connau, c!:m, 133. Cookery, 81. Corn, varieties, 3'.2 how preserved, 311 Cornwall, ruins in, 249, 257. Coronach, or funeral lament, 399. Coronation stone, of Scotish kings, 137. Corpulence offensive to Celts, 317. Coshering feasts described, 335. Costume of an:;ient Celts, 165 to 170 of the High- landers, 183 of the Irish, 157, 181. Cota, H Ce'tic vestment, 166. Collage*, Highland, 267. Cottars, their situation, 299. Coul, castle, described, 254. Councils, general, 102 of officers, 105 of eldera, 136. Countries, districts so'called, 121. Courts transferred to churches, 145 removed, 453, Covinus, a sort of chariot, 231. Crantaraidh described, 103. Creach explained, 141. Crests, or badges, 19(3. Crimes, how compensated, &c. 146. Cromleach described, 459. Crowns, golden, found in Ireland, 373. Croy, curious sculpture at, lt>7. Crubban, an agricultural implement, 314. Cruinneachadh, or gathering, 422. Cruit, a musical instrument, 415. Crutheni, Picts so called, 53. Cuaran, a sort of shoe, 172. Ciicullus, a sort of cap, 166. Cudgel playing, a favorite Highland game, 211 Cuidoich, a servitude, 147. Cnirtan, a sort of cloth, 180. Culbin hills, discoveries at, 225. Culdees, primitive clergy, 471. Culloden battle, anecdotes of heroism at, 95, &e. Cults, discovery at, 2-25. Cumhiulh, or lament, 399. Cumminas slain by the Mac Phersons, 263 of Fre- uchie, musicians, 412. Cumri, 43. Curach, a Highland boat, 363. Curmi, malt liquor, 344. Curragh of Kildare, 237. Cursus described, 236. D Daci, where situated, &c. 28 their symbol, 196. Dagger, 215; see Dirk. Dairy, how managed, 319. Dalm.-Ek, ruins at, 258. Dalriada, settlement in, 52. Dalriads, account of, 53. Dancing, 437 Highland steps in, 440. Davach, a measure of land, 300. Days of the week, their Gaelic names, 468. Deals:, 177. Death, disregard of, 477. Deemsters, law officers in man, 144. Deer, 274 formerly domesticated, 286. Deities, Celtic, 453. Devana, its site, 258. Diet of the Highlanders, 324. Dining, ancient Irish mode of, 339. Dirk, 216 its usefulness, 217 carried by the 42nd regiment, 218 ornaments of the hilt, 219 dance, 220, 439. Dis, a Celtic god, 455. Dishes, various Scotish, 325 to 330. Divination, modes of, 461. Divisions of territory, 121, 122, 29?, 298. Dogs, excellence of the British, 237 of the Scots, 277, 278. Dorlach, the Highland knapsack, 177. Doiiay, singular custom at, 466. Doune, manufacture of purses at, 177 of pistols, 239. Dower, marriage, 474. Draonaich, name of the Picts, 295 their agricul- ture, 303. Drenthiem, temple at, 451. Dress, 155 of the Gauls, 153 to 155 Highland, 157, &c. prohibited, 174 manner of putting on, 167 Irish, 157, &c. prohibited, 174. Drinking, manner of, in the Highlands, 348 to 3i>0 among the Irish, 349. Drinks of the Celts, Britons, Picts, and Gael, 34.), 344. Drovers, Highland, 393. Druid dubh, a bird, 277. Druidism, 446, &c. believed to have originated in Britain, 448 how taught, ibid. its chief seat, 453, 466 its abolition, 469 mixed with early Christianity, 470. Druids, their duties, 1 16, 144, 297, 460 their dress. 159, 467 their physical skill. 353 variety of knowledge, 468, &c. mode of reckoning. 4,18 their predictions, ibid. last mention of, 470 512 INDEX Drurnceat, council of, 387, 470. Drumlanrig, wild cattle at, 286. Duan, a sort of poem, 397. Duffhouse, arms at, '213. Duine nasals, an order of society, 124. Dumnonii, their worship, 4(50. Duns, Celtic forts, 246, 25'J dun creich, 247 dorfijrhil, -2 3 statfnage, 267 deer, 247. Dundee, bonnets made at, 177. Dun vegan Castle, shield at, 191. Dyjstuffs, liii), )5. Farqnharsons, their strength, 77 war cry, 199. Fascines, use of, in battle, 109. Fast-brotherhood, lOii. Farms, management of, 314. Feadhan dn'.ih, or black chanter, 435. Feasts of the Celts, :t:, 77 revolt of. 103 punished for inoiiiiting their badge, 197 effects of the pipes on, 420. French, their war cry, 199. Frenchman, anecdote of, 137. Funeral rites, 477. Funeral monuments, 480. Funerals, of the Uauls, 478 Highland, 481,, remarkable circumstance at one, 486. Furniture of houses, 375. Gaesi, lance bearers, 205. Gael, inhabitants of Scotland, 46 47 their curiou* arts, 1B3, 357, 379, &.c. Gaelic MSS., 391, 393. Gallatians, or Gallogreeks, 20. Gallerus, ruins at, 2c5. Galli, or CelUe, 19, &c. See Gauls. Crests of, 196. Galloglach, a sort of military, 2.5 axe of, 204. Gallovie, sheep farm, its extent, 209. Galwegians, 58 their adherence to tanaist law. 137. Games, Highland, 441 Irish, ibid. Garters, 173. Gatherings of Clans, 427 of sheep, 287. Gauirconrigh, an frish fort, 244. Gauls, their invasion of Italy, 90 military re- nown, 91, 94, 98, &.C. how ordered for bat- tle, 103 their oaths, 106 conduct previous to an engagement, 112 despised defensive armor, 185 their arms, 186 their hunting, 278 their delight in fine rattle, 286, 29 their longevity, 134 were religious, 4< 2. Gavel kind, law of, 352 abolished "in Wales, 135 in Ireland, ibid Geese, not eaten by the Britons, 276. Gentleman, Welsh, indispensibles of, 131 Geone, a Pictish cohort, lit. Gergovia, a Celtic town, 243. German ia, its ancient extent, 32. Germanni, 30, 31. Germans, mode of coloring hair, 86 their stature, 91 their only public diversion, 72 never laid aside their arms, 102 methods of re- cruiting armies, 104 their oaths, 10i arms, 185 houses, 258 agriculture, 259, respect for their females, 297, 473 their funerals, 479. Getre, or Goths, 27, 29. Gilli-casfluich, comh strathainn, coise, more, pio- baire, ruithe, trusarneis, 126, 127 callum, 439, 440. Glacach, a disease, 353. Glaslig, a supernatural being, 303. n. Glastum, a dye, 152. Glenelg duns" in, 261. Glenlivet, war cry of, 144 battle of, 415. Glenlyon, brooch of, 180 famous for archers, 223. Glibes, manner of dressing hair, 85. Goats, 275, 286. Code, or godordsman, 145. Gods of the Celts, 453 to 459 of the Gael, 458. Golden ornaments, Celts loaded with, 178. Golf, iiame of, 443. Golspie, subterraneous buildings at, 260. Goths, 27, -29, 44, 45 Graddaning, 313. Grain, 301 how separated from the straw, 3l3> - reduced to flou.-, ibid. Graine, a Gaelic god, 454. Grampians, battle of, 99. Granaries of the Britons, 311, 312. Grants, their force, 77 of Moynes, defeat Hi* Camerons, 141 their gathering, 427, apility of two 440 defeated by the Mac Donalds, 436 of Glenmorriston, their charm, ibid- Greek inscriptions, in Scotland, 41 Grenestede, wooden church at, 256. Grove, sacred, 448 near Massylia, described, 466 Guanacum,a garment of the Britons, 15G Guns, 238 Earl of Mar's, ibid. Guinneach cath, an order of battle, 111 INDEX. 51? H Hair of the Celts, its color, 83 modes of wearing, ibid, to 86 garments of, 157. Halbert, a Scot's weapon, 2J7. Halidown Hill, battle of, 222. Hamden Hill, discoveries at, 232. Hamelin, piper of, -131. Hammers, deposited in Celtic graves, 203, 479. Hardihood of the Celts, 82, 101, 182, ,stc. Hare, not eaten by the Britons, 275 used in divi- nation, 4iil. Harp, 414 Irish, ibid Welsh, ibid. 416-Caledo- nian, 415, 41(5 of Queen Mary, 415 of Brian Boroitrih, 41G key of, 415 curious history of one, 418. Harper, last Highland, 414. Harvest, its management in the Highlands, 310. Hats, beaver, used by the ancient Welsh, 175 adopted by the Highlanders, 176. Hawking, 2rf4. Hawks, master of, his duties and perquisites in Wales, 2d4. Hawthorn den, caves at, 259. Hebudte islands, king of, 123, 131. Helmets, 187. Helvetii, 31 their forces, 75 law of 130 their muster roll, 420. Hens, not eaten by the Britons, 276. Herald, anecdote of one, 19ii. Herbs, their imputed virtues, 355. Herefordshire beacon, a British strength, 244. Herrings, how cured in Sky, 331. Hertha, a deity, worship of, 107, 455. Hiberni, or Hyberni, Scots formerly so called, 52. Hibernia, the ancient name of Scotland, 47. Highland, companies, their degeneracy, 101 knights errant, 140 regiments, their uniform, 168 garb described, Iti9, &.c. nobleman, portrait of, 193 club of Edinburgh, 239 farm described, 299, 301 tenantry, former state of, 315 banquet, 341. Highlanders, their native denomination, 46 per- sonal appearance, 81 hardihood, 82, 101, 182, &c. conduct in 1745, 100 order of march, 111 manner of fighting, 1 >6 dress restrained, 181, restored, ibid. armor, 186 fought with clubs, 21)1 their onset, 212, attack with fire arms, 239, 24!) at the battle of the Standard, 110 their horses, 229 dis- armed, 184,240 dexterity in hunting, 280 mode of pastu rage, 291 agriculture, 304 to 307 superstitions respecting, ibid. contempt for delicacies, 317 hospitality, 331 temper- ance, 3 19 longevity, 359 manufactures, 373 to 379 talent for rhyming, 431 excel in dancing, 439 modes of divination, 461 their religious feelings, 471 anxiety for a decent interment, 483. Highlands, favorable to frnit trees, History, preserved in verse, i Hobblers, Irish horsemen, 229 Honey drink, of the Gael, 343. Horse soldiers, of Inverness and Moray, 77 Cel- tic, their, dress, 230 racing introduced from Scotland, 237. Horses, method of breaking, 229 wild, 278. Hospitality, Celts remarkable for, 33 1. Houses, Highland, 255, 25ti of the Britons, 268. Hunting, 270, 279 Highland, ibid., 281, 282 Welsh, laws respecting, 280 Scots' do. ib. of King .lames V. 281 royal 283. Hybrasil, island of 42. Hyperborei, >23 their island, 41. Hubbub, Welsh, 104. I farflath, a title of honor, 133 Jctis, island of, 40. Icrn, ancient name of Ireland, 48 Implements of husbandry, 307 Inheritance, modes of, 134. Interment, modes of, 479 to 483 Inverlochy, castle of, 2~7. Inverness, large ship built at, 364. 65 lona, first church at, 255 the retreat of the Dru- ids, 470. Ireland, its ancient nnme, 48 Gaelic of, its sup- posed introduction to Scotland, 62 woods, 6ti subterraneous buildings in, 25D stone do. 2 >4. Irish, theirstature, 81 glihes, 85 order of march- ing, 111 bond of friendship, 106 wore hair garments, 157 war cries, 199 dress, 179, 183 prohibited, Ibid armor, 187 dexterous stone throwers, 145, archery, 221 pride in horses, 229, 233 cannibalism, 324 mode of living, 316 music, 430 dancing, 438 jest- ers, 441 manner of espousal, 475 waking the dead, 487. Iron, chains and plates of, worn by the Picts and Caledonians, 178 manufacture of, in the Highlands, 372. Isis, goddess of Paris, her statue, 449. Isla, celebrated for manufacture of swordhilts,210. Islands, formed by inundations, 4S. Italy, its inhabitants, 33. luhones, singular conduct of the, 455. Jacket, how made, 163. Jedworth staff, 201. Jigs, Scots and Irish described, 413. Judge, Celtic, 144. Jurah, cottages in, 256. K Kale, or Cole, first used by the Grants, 319. Kent, its peculiar customs, 134. Keppoch, family murdered, 405 lament for, 429 Kern, 108,214. See Cearnach. Keys, civil officers in Man, 144. Kil'drummie, eird houses at, 260, 311. Killicrankie, battle of, 217. Killin, a remarkable plain, 301. Kilmarnock, famed for manufacture of bonnets, 177. Kimmeridge coal money, 3G9. Kincogish, law of, 123, 142. Kineigh, singular tower at, 266. n. Kingusie, ra'h of, 453. Kinkynell, law of, 133. Kismul, island, castle in, 252. Knife and fork, 219, 340. Knighthood, its origin, 140. Knockferrel, a vitrified fort, 248. Lachdan, a sort of cloth, 157, 158. Ladies, Highland, their dress, 180 German do. 182. La mas uhhal, feast of, 338. Laments, Gaelic, 428. Languages, 3! to 37 British, Scotish, Saxon, &c. 58 to 62 Gaelic, to what extent changed, 395 its adaptation to poetry, 399. Lankia, a lance, 205. Largo, singular interment at, 479. Largs, battle of, 201, 219, 237. Larignum, seige of, 245. Launceston Castle, a British work, 249. Laws, 143 codes of, ibid. of colors, 159 pre- served in oral rhyme, 381. Lead, its manufacture, 371 balls of, used for mis- siles, 201. Leaders of armies, how chosen, 105 controlled by their troops, 106. Lenicroich, or saffron shiit, 181. Leslie among tlie Lieths, origin of the tune of, 217. Leudus, a Celtic hymn, 397. Lewis, inhabitants, celebrated for archery, 223. Lights of the Gael, 341. Linen, a Celtic manufacture, 182. Lint, its management in the Hishlan-K ,'10 Lion, the badge of the Celts, 196, 432- iaughao* mistake concerning, 196. Liturgy, Gaelic, 365. Loam, a division of Argyle, 54. Loch'iber, gymnasium in, 4^9 axe, 80S Lochenlour, ancient iron works at, 204 Lochow, garters made at, 161. 514 INDEX. Locks, wooden, of the Highlanders, 379. Logan, moss of, discovery in, 71. Loh-dubh, a singular animal, 272. Lords of the Isles, manner of crowning, 138 mode of conveying lands, 140. Lothian, where situated, 60. Luatliadh, described, 158. Luchdtachk, 108, 1-26. Lusitani, their military ardor, 108 dancing, 438 marriages, 474. Lychlyn, the ancient name of the Baltic, 32. n. Lyric compositions, prevail in the Highlands, 402. M Macaladh cattle, 125. Mac Carters, pipers to the lords of tue isles, 425. Mac Donalds, their strength, 76, 77 led the right wingofan army, 110 of Slate, their strength, 77 of Gleneary, do. ibid. of Keppoch, do. ibid. of Moidart, do. ibid. Mac Dulothes, their strength, ibid. Mac Euens, their strength, ibid. Mac Farlane's, gathering of the, 427. Mac Gregors, clan na sgeulachd, 425 their pio- brachd, 427. Machsera, a sort of sword, 220. Mac Intoshes, their strength, 77 their descent, 132. Mac Kenzies, their strength, 76 crest, 103 pun- ished for mounting their badge, 197 military music, 429. Mac Leans of Coll, their gathering, 427. Mac Leods, their strength, 76, 77. Mac Niels of Barra. 131. Mac Niels, harpers to the Mac Leans of Duart, 418. Mac Phersons, their strength, 76, 77 their military success, 436. Mac Swineys, famed for hospitality, 336. Magistrates, their election, 136. Magnentiffi, Celtic legions, their daring exploits, 97. Malefactors, how punished, 148 Manchester, ruins at, 257. Mannus, a German god, 456. Mantle, the Irish, 173. Manufactures, 370 to 374,376 to 378 adaptation of the Highlands for, see Costume. Manures, 304. Manx, their laws, 144 dances, 438 funerals, 485. March ; see Boundary. Marl, 304. Matadh achalaise, a dagger, 220. Meals of the Highlanders, 338. Meats, 56. Medical knowledge, 352. Medicines, ancient MS. on, 357. Merched mulierum, 149. Metal, manufacture of, 372. Mhona liath, its famous deer, 274. Mictis, island of, 40. Milk, substances for curdling, 291 how used, 344. Mill, hand, 313 horizontal, ibid. Minstrels, superiority of the Scots, 430. Miri-cath, 117, 126. Mirrors, metal, 373. Misletoe, veneration for, 464. Moars, offirers in the Isle of Man, 145. Mona, or M*na, adeitv, 457. Mona, the retreat of the Druids, 466. Moniegaflf, discoveries at, 203. Moose deer, 272 garment formed of the skin, 157. ' Moothills, their origin, 145, 453. Monsa, bursr of, 263. Muc, a military machine, 252. Multures, 313. Mungret Abbey, its celebrated choir, 408. Munroes. their force, 77 overthrow the Mac In- toshes, 143. Murrain, how averted, 293. Music, its origin and progress, 40fi, &c. ita use in religion, 407 howtausht, 409 terms in, ibid. Irish, 410 Welsh, 411 Military of the Mac Kenzies, 429 Scotish, ila peculiar scale, 410. Musical instruments, 413. N Naharvali, their singular worship, 459. Nations of Europe, their origin, 2 noithern, 104. Neckcloths, 178. Needrire, how produced, 29? Nehelania, a Celtic goddess, 457. Nervii, their force ? 7u their cities. 242 their for tificationa, ibid. manner ot fortifying a camp, 244 their temperance, 348. Nightingale, its Gaelic appella ion, 272. Nobility, indicated by the' number of vassals, 120 Nomades, 26. Notation, musical, 409. Noth, a vitrified fort, 247. Oak, a native of Scotland, 67. Oatcakes, Scotish soldiers' method of making, 329 Oaths, Celtic, lOfi Highland, 107. Obelisks, sepulchral, 482. O'Calinanes, famous physicians, 358. Ocean, its encroachment, 64. Oigtliierna, a title, 133. Ollainh, his course of study, 385 qualification and value, 386. Oral record, veneration for, 382 history commit- ted to, 388. Order, in assemblies, singular mode of preserving. 137 observed in Highland armies, 127 or the mountain eagle, 198 of the Thistle, ibid. n. Ossan, 173 preasach, 180. Ossianic music, 429 poetry, 399. Ovates, a religious order, 460. Oxgate, its extent, 300. Painting the body, 151, 153 prohibited, ibid. Parishes, size of, in Scotland, 471. Pastoral state, 285 melodies, 413. Pasturage, 290. Patterns of tartan, how given, 161. 501. Paupers in the Highlands, 335. Pearls, British, 377. Peltae, a shield, 189. Pen pits, singular excavations, 312. , Personal appearance, 80. Perth, battle of, 213, 4% Gaelic poem on, 404. Pharmacy, 35H. Phoenicians, the supposed discoverers of Britain, 39. Physicians, Scots, hereditary, 357 their prescrip- tions, ibid. Picardy, excavation at, 259. Picts, 53 their native appellation, 258 identity with Scots, 5:< last mention of, 57 their houses, 257 ale, 345. Piobmhor, 433 to 434. Piobrachd, 422 to 426 list of, 427. Pipe, 418 lowland, 434 Irish, ibid. Northum- berland, 434 scale of, 435 how performed on, ibid. 436. Piper, his duties, 423 of Mac Leod, 425 of Mac Donald, ibid. Pipers, competition of, 425. Pistols, 238. Plaid, how worn, 168 by women, 181. Plough, Gallic, 307 Scots, &c. 308. Poems, their antiquity, 388 how preserved, 393. Poetic history, of what extent, 404. Poetry and music, 381. Poetry, its influence, 383 to 385 its construction, 396 to 398 Gaelic specimens, 400 to 404 manner of composing, 407. Pope, his ambassador hunts in Athol, 281 obser- vation on his entertainment, 342. Poplar tree, a native of Fcotlam., 68. Population, causes affecting, 73 of Britain, 74 of Wales, 45)8 of Scotland, 76 favored by the patriarchal state, 78. Pork, antipathy to, 289. Pots, &c of the Highlanders, 327. Potter, art of, among the Britons, 376 INDEX. 515 Proscriptions, medical, 357. frosnaoliadh cath, 11-2, 116 its effect, 398 gari ach, 117, 401 fairge, 305. Purse, 177. Pythagoreans, their cultivation of the memory, 382 their tenets, 462, 468. Quarter-master, Highland, 258, 326 Quern, or hand mill, 313. Quivers, how formed, 227. R Rabbits, 275. Rallying shout, its effect, anecdote, 200. Ranz des vaches, tune of, its effect, 408. Rapparee, his house, 256. Raths, 145. Rats, unknown in some parts, 275. Rawdikes, a race course, 266. Rechailar.h, 314. Recitation, now almost unknown, 393, 399, 440. Recipes, Celtic, 353 Highland, 358. Red shanks, 171. Reels, of the Scots, described, 412, 439. Regiments, Highland, theirdress, 162 Royal Scots, carried how and arrows, 223. Religion, Druidical, 4tiO, 462 to 464. Rents, how paid, 301. Residence, places of, their names, 256. Rhapsodies, 389. Rhapsodists, 397. Rhi, a royal title, 133. Rince-fada, an Irish dance, 438. Rings, Highlanders set stones in, 378. Roasting, manner of, 325. Robertsons, of Slruan, their force, 77. Roses, of Kilravock, their force, iliid. Rosses, their force, ibid. of Balnagowan, their force, ibid. Rother, river, ancient vessel discovered in, 364. Round towers,' 2i>5 opinions concerning, 452. Roxburgh, conduct of Ilisihlanders at, 93. Royal race, of Ficts and Welsh, 130. Rulers of the war, 105. Running, contentions in, 442. Rungmor, a Highland dau-e, 439. Rulhven, the rendezvous of the Highlanders after Culloden, 101. Sacrifices, human, 465. Saddles not in use by Irish or Welsh, 229. Saguin, 155, 165, 179. St. Andrew's, English archers worsted at, 223. Salisbury plain, massacre at, 216 antiquities on, 4.5:), 480. Salt, superstitions concerning, 328. Salute, sword, 212. Salute, or faille, 428. Saxons, their dress, 167, 183 imitation of Celtic manufactures, 157. Scilly islands, 40. Scotland, its original inhabitants, 46 formerly called Hibernia, 50 difference of ancient inhabitants accounted for, 58 its former ap- pearance, 62 singular geographical features, 65, 301. Scots, 47, 48 to 58 etymology of, 55, 5G their warlike education, 92 their struggles for lib- erty, 10 ' law founded chiefly on Celtic usa- ges, 143 abstemious, 324 their cookery, 327 music, ode to, 43J -invented a method of building, 255 excel in poetry and music, 430 mode of interment, 480 burial places, 489. Sculpture, in Glasgow Museum, 216 on obelisks, 492. Scythe, a Gallic invention, 310. Scythian, anecdote of one, 182. Scyths, 2(5 to 28 their symbol, 196. Seaforth, Highlanders, their tartan, 162. Keal, eaten by the Highlander*, 330. Seanachadh, his duty, 35, 386. rius, the Highland hornpipe, 440. Semnones, their worship, 456. Sena, singular priesthood of, 458, 460. Serpents' egg, the Druidical badge, 465. Services, 147. Sets of tartan, 161, 501. Sheep, 275, 287 shearing, ibid. farming, 288. Shepherds, 289. Shields, 188 how used as a signal of war, 104 striking of, 105, 191. Ships of the Celts, 361 of the Britons, 362 an- cient, discovered, 364 large one of James IV. 367. Shirts, 181 regulations of, 183. Shoes, of the Highlanders, 172 buckles, 178. Shooting, a favorite diversion, 239, 280. Shot pouch, 178. Signals of battle, 118. Singing, Highland manner of, 408. Single stick, a favourite Highland amusement, 440. Skean dubh, 229. Skelig isle, ruins at, 265. Skellater, anecdote of a Highlander at, 218. Skins, used as clothing, 154 exported from Brit- ain, 374. Skull cap, 176 of the Highlanders, 188. Sky, Isle of, ruins in, 258. SkythiE ; see Scyths. Slagan, the war cry, 112. Slaves, unknown in the Highlands, 131 Irisk trade in, 374. Slia-grannus. a place of worship, 455. Sliga crechan, 336. Slings, 201. Snuff, partiality of Scots to, 350 an ancient man- ufacture, 351 horn described, ibid. Soap, a Gallic invention, 86, 370. Soldurii, Celtic soldiers, 108, 126. Souls, their supposed state, 42, 463. Spanish swords preferred by the Highlanders, 210. Spear, 205 how denoting war, 104 ditto peace, 110 length of the Scotish, 206. Spoil, its division, 105. Staff, St. Murran's, 107. Stalking deer, 283. Standard, battle of, 110. Standards, of Fingal, 118 of the British tribes. 194 of Mac Leod, 195 of Mac 1'herson of Cluny, 436. Stature, causes affecting, 79. Stewarts, of Appin, their force, 77. Stirling, celebrated for manufacture of tartan. 104. Stockings, 173. Stonehenge, temple of, 450. Stones, thrown by hand, 230 weapons formed of, 232 rude, first symbols of the gods, 449. Stranraer, ancient vessel discovered at, 365. Strath-Connan Fillan, Society of, 455. Strathspey tunes, 412 dances, 439. Suessiones, their cities, 242. Suevi, manner of dressing their hair, 84 of agrt culture, 297. Sun, worship of, 453. Swearing ; see Oaths. Swine, 288. Sword, 2f)7 of the Britons, 208 basket hilt, 2H exercise, 211 anecdotes of Highland ex pertness in, ibid. dance, 2i2 two-handed. 213 of silver, lands held by, 216 names of, 241. Tabhal, 201. Tacksmen, 124. Taibhsearachd, or second sight, 461. Tail of a chief, 108, 127. Tain-bo, a most ancient poem, 389. Taini, persons so styled, 133. Taipli, their capital, 258. Talisker, sword preserved at, 213. Tanaist, 108 law of, 13! revenue, 134. Taran, the god of thunder, 457. Target, Highland, 188, 169 manner of fighting with, 190. Tartan, its antiquity, 158 its manufacture, 100 to 163 of the 4-7nd, 78th, 79th, 92nd and terd regiments, lf>2 worn by His Majesty and Royal Family, 163 by H. R. H. the Duke les, driiidical, 450 Tencieri, their advice, 251 Tenure by the straw, 135. Teut, or Teu tales, 455. Teutones, their contempt of death. 478 Thane, 133. Three, respect for the number, 464 Thirlage, 313. Thracians, where situated, 29. Thule, Island of, 41. Thighearna, a title of honor, 133 Timber markets, 379. Tin, isles of, 40 its manufacture, 371. Tings, 145. Tinning, invented by the Celts, 374. Tinwald of Man, 139, 145. Tokens of the kings of Man, ibid. Tolmsen, 459. Tongue, subterraneous work at, 260. Tonnag, a Highland garment, 179. Toscheodarach, 133. Toshich, a title of honor, 132. Towns, Celtic, 241 to 243, 258. Tracery, a favorite ornament, 193. Triads, 400. Tribes, ancient Scotish, 147. Tricastines, their order of battle, 111. Triughas, or trius, 170, 174, 175. Troddan, castle, 261. Tuisto, a god, 19, n. 456. Tunic, 166, 178. Turf, how cut, 327. Turnips, used by the Gauls, 318. Tyrebachar, circle at, 144, n. u Udal, inheritance, 135. Uist, horse races at, 237 Umbrians, 33. Urquhart, fortalice of, 244 glen, ruins in, 257. Utensils, household, 377 osier, 379. i, their agriculture, 297 Vegetables, 317 to 319. Veneti, their shipping, 364 Verse, its importance, 32 varieties of 400. Vervain, its properties, &c. 355. Vessel, ancient, discovered at Stranraer, 3G5 Vessels, drinking, 348. Vitrifications, 246. Voice, 88. ' w Waking a corpse, 483. Wales, its ancient buildings, 257 the royal palae* Wansdike, 122 its design, 450. War, customs in, 102 &c. War cries, 198. War song, 116. Water mill, its invention, 313 Waulking cloth, 158. Weapons, 200 legal, by Welsh law, 209 Weddings, 474. Welsh, their struggles for liberty, 100 hubbub, 104 royal attendants, 127, 337 their arms, 186 their archery, anecdotes, 221 their mode of life, 321 agriculture, 306- temperance, 338 system of versification, 398 military airs, 430 their weddings, 475 funerals, 483. Whales, used as food, 330. Wheat, 302. Whisky, 346 varieties of, 347. Wife, Welsh laws respecting the, 149. Wilsford, discoveries at, 479. Winds reverenced, 458. Wine, 347 berry of the Gael, ibid Wolf dogs, 273. Wolves, 272. Women, Gallic, 86 how affected by tanaist law, 133 Highland, head dress, 179 occupation!. 322. Wood, its use in architecture, 254, 255 Woods of Britain, 63 venerated, 458, 470 Wool, Celtic, 155. Woollen, manufacture, 155, 158. Wrestling, 108. Yeast, how preserved, 346. z Zythus, a malt liquor, 344 INDEX OF NAME S. Camillus repulses the Celts, 22, 90. Campbell, Sir Archibald, of Clunes, his follower*, 77. of Glenlyon, his brooch, 180. - of, 197. badge war cry, 199. tartan, 502. John, his bravery, 211. pistol maker, 239. Alexander, his great age, 360. Archibald, of Melfort, 485. Caol-mhal, a female name, 87. Caracalla, whence derived, 166. Caractacus, or Caradoc, his military fame, 102, 110 his spoils, 178 his fortifications, 243. Carrick, Karl of, charter of, 257. Roland de, civcrter to, 133. ABARIS, priest of the Hyperborei, 156. Abercrombie tartan, 502. Achadh, or Aclmius, Scots' king, 54, 57. Adams, Mr. and family, destroyed by wolves, 273. Adcantuan, his followers, 108. Adomnan, 143 his life of Columba, Introd. JEmilius, defeats the Gauls, 75. Agamemnon, his arms, J9o. Alastair, ruadh na cairnach, 303. n. Albany, Duke of, his Highlanders, 162. Alcuin, Intrud. Alexander the Great, anecdote of, and the Celts, 98. his method of avoiding the chariot attack, 235. Alexander I., 169,229. Alexander 11., his forces, 76. Alfred, his laws, 14-2, 143 his songs. 383. Ambiorix, his stronghold, 242. Anacharsis, the Scyth, 28. Anne,dueen, 227. Aaspach, Margrave of, 422. Aodh, his laws, 143. Aonghas a choile, his murder, 497. Argachacoxus, or argentocoxus, 153. Argyle, Duke of, his followers, 77. ' anecdote of, 211. defeated in Glenlivat, 213, 415. his barns, 311. his hunting, 281. his harper and witch, 415. Ariamnes, his liberality, 331. Arnot, David, his archery, 459. Arthur, his prelude of the salt, 328. Ashburton, Lord, 3(50. Assynt, Laird of, 353. Athol, Duke of, 145, 231 his hunting, 282 his banquet to .'ames V. 341, 342. Attila. his bards, 384. Aurinia, a German heroine, 115. B Baillie, Alexander, his archery, 223. Baird, Lady, her remarkable cure, 355. Balloch, black Donald of the Isles, his piobrachd, 427. Barwick, his defence of gunnery, 224. Beaton, Neil, a physician, 358. Beli, a construction of roads, 373. Belovesus, his expedition, 21. Berkeley, Lord, 305. Bissel, a pistol maker, 239. Boadicea, or Bonduca, her army, 76, 252 ditto, how drawn up, 111 her defeat, 128 her dress, 156, -166, 178, 179 her influence, 115 her death, 478. Boroimh, Brian, his diadem, 373 harp, 416. Bothwell, Earl, 237. Boulle, Marquis de, 239. Bourke, war cry of, 200. Braidalban, Lord, his gathering, 427. tartan, 502. Brennus, invades Italy, 22, 89 his forces, 75 his body guards, 107. Breusa, William de, 221. Brinno, 105. Britannia, first mention of, 43 how represented, 15-i, 139 Romana and Barbaria, 49. Bruce, King Robert, 13'v his coronation, 139 his brooch, 18'") his bnde, I9R. Brunswick, hereditary prince of, 239. Buchanan, badge of, 197. war cry, 199. tartan, 502. Duaald, a bard, 40S. Burnet, Sir Robert, of Crathes, 283. Butler, war cry of, 199. c Caddel, Thomr.s, pistol maker, 239. Dall, Rory, a harper, 417 Csesar, his invasion of Britain, 44, 98 dread of i Dalrumpil, Duncan, grant to, 134. the chariot attack, 235. Cairbre Riada, settles in Argyle, 53. Caligula, fury of his Celtic guards, 92. Cameron, the chief, anecdote of. 82, 141, 324. badge of, 197. tartan, 502. Sir Ewen, killed the last wolf in Set*. land, 272. Hugh, his great age, 359. Cartismandua, a Britisli princess, 133. Cassivelaunus, number of his cars, 235 Casswalon, 38 7 Cathmor, his shield, 191. Ceraint ap Grediawl, 257. Chandos, Duke of, purchases Gaelic MSS. 357. Charlemagne, his dress, 167, 183 laws respecting archery, 221, 227 league with, 51. Introd. his collection of songs, 383 his law concern- ing tombstones, 482. Charles the Bold, his dress, 167. Charles Stewart, Prince, 110 his welcome and salute, 428. Chevalier, his muster-roll, 78. Childeric, King of France, his grave, 480. Chisholm, badge of, 197. tartan, 502. Chonodomarius, his dress, 187. Civilis, a German prince, his exploits, 84, 101. Clan Ronald, Lord of, his prosnachadh fairge, 3C5 Clark, badge of, 198. George, anecdote of, 421, 423. Kennedy, a piper, 424. Claudia Rufina, a British lady, her beauty, 87. Clovis, anecdote of, 105. Coefi, a Druid, 448. Coel,3l3. Coll ap coll frewi, 303. Colquhon, badge of, 197. tartan, 502. Columba, his curach, 363 his altercation with the Pictish king, 408. Comontoire, a Gallic king, 91. Conan, his grave discovered by a bardic song, 395 Conceun, 498. Conloch, a famous warrior, 207. Coote, Sir Eyre, anecdote, 420. Correus, his bravery, 96. Cormac, Saint, his voyage, 362. Cranston, war cry of, 199- Cristeed, Sir Richard, his account of the Irih kings, 339. Cromarty, Lord, 162. Cromwell, his opinion of the Scotish soldiers, 324. Cronan, a bard, 407. Crothar, his hall, 256. Cuchullin, or Cuthullin, tradition rejecting, SOS his chariot, 233. Cumberland, Duke of, 239. Cummin, badge of, 197. tartan, 502. Gumming, John Roy, a musician, 412. 518 INDEX OF NAMES. Dalrymple, Sir John, his opinion of the Highland- ers, J01. Dalzel, tartan, 502 Darius, his expedition, 27. Darthula, a female name, 97 David I. his gardening, 70 judged for the poor, 144. Davidson, badge of, 198. Davy, Sir Humphry, on destruction of forests, 70. Dempster, George, letter on vitrification, 247. Derby, Earl of, 135. Desmond, Earl of, attachment of his followers, 107. his rent, 131. war cry, 200. Divitiacus, a Celtic chief, 44. Donald of the Isles, at siege of Roxburgh, 94. order of battle at Harlaw, 111. his bards, 117, 392 his form of harter, 140. Donn, John, a bard, lament for, 428 Robert, a bard, 406. Douglas, Earl, 172. war cry of, 198. tartan, 502. Drummorid, badge of, 197. tartan, 502. H. Home, 286. Dumnonx, his horsemen, 281. Dunbar, 259. Dunwallo, an agriculturist, 307. Dyonisius, his Gallic mercenaries, anecdotes of, 92, 323. E Edgar, Atheling, his alliance with Scotland, 61. Edi, laws of, 143. Edward I. his devastation of Scotland, 68, 71. cairies off the " fatal stone," 138. Elder, badge of, 198. Elizabeth, warrant of, in favor of archery, 223. Kltud, an agriculturist, 295, 308. Erach, his adventure, 461. Erectheus, 29. Errol, Eari of, fights at Glenlivat, 213. Etas, killed in a tumult, 103. Ethfin, the laws of, 143. Eumolpus, his treaty with Erectheus, 29. F Farquharson, of Invercauld, his opinion of the fir- tree, 67. badge of, 198. war cry, 199 tartan, 502. Mr. his Gaelic MSS. Ferrara, Andrea, celebrated sword maker, 210. Ferdinand, Prince of Brunswick, 239. Fergus Mac Eire, Kinc of Argyle, 54. Ferguson, badge of, 197. tartan, 503. Ferns, his belt, 219. Fife, Earl of, his armory, 213 his deer forest, 274. Fin Mac Coul, his dress, 157. Finan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, his mannei of build- ing, 255. Fingal, his dogs, 278 his hunters, 279 his so- norous voice, 87 his shield, 192 liis stand ard, 194 his sword, 2-11 his medical cup, 353 his remark on drinking, 350. Finlay, 471. Fitz Maurice, war cry of, 199. Flanders, Count of, war cry, 199. Fleming, war cry of, 200 Fletcher, John, "his singular death, 486 Peter, his funeral, 486. Forbes, badge of, 197. war cry, 199. tartan, 503. Sir Charles, curious sword, fntrod. of Cuiloden, his followers, 77. his hospitality, 336. of Brux, anecdote of, 217. Forjreson, James, his mission, 222. Fiaooh, his sword, 209. Fraser, badge of, 197. war cry, 199. tfirtan, 503. Mrs. of Culbokie, her Gaelic MSS. 393 G Gardyn, Beatrix, her harp, 415. Gairden, Peter, anecdote, 209 his great age, 359 Galba, a Celtic prince, 105. Galgacus, a Caledonian prince, 106 Callus, killed in a tumult, 103. Gaul, his war song, 116 his banner, 195 nil war cry, 200. a physician, 353. Geraldine, Lord Thomas, incited to rebellion by a bardic song, 384. Gibbon, his opinion of Ossian's poems, 389. Gildas, Albanius, his learning, 143. Gilderoy, a cearnach, 108. Gillescpp, his ravages, 255. Gillespie, More, his tenure, 216. Gillo,TancouIard Mac Tuathal. Gaelic MS. of, 92. *. Gordon, Duke of, his woods, b7 his followers, 77 anecdote of, 426. badge of, 197 war cry, 198. tartan, 503. Lord Lewis, his troops, anecdotes of, 119 of Bucky, his sword, 210. Cuthbert, his dyestuffs, 161, 380 Alexander, a wizard, 303. n. Graham, badge of, 197. tartan, 503. Grant, badge of, 197. war cry, 199. tartan, 503. Laird of, his woods, 67. of Balindalish, his followers, T John, of Freuchie, charter to, 244. his great age, 3bO. Gregory the Great, his death, 248. Gryfyth ap Cynan, a Welsh translator, 130 recu- lates the bards, 388 introduced Irish music into Wales, 411, 414. Gunn, badge of, 197. tartan, 503. Gwendollen, a Caledonian Druid, 470. H Halkston, of Rathillet, anecdote, 324. Hamilton, Duke of, lament for, 429. Hannibal, his usage of the Celts, 88, 93 deference to, 88 dissolution of rocks, 409. Hay, badge of, 197. tartan, 503. Henry II., his observation respecting the Welsh, 100 entertainment at Dublin, 255. Hepburn, war cry of, 199. Herod, his Celtic guards, 92. Hertha, her worship, 107. Hifternan, war cry of, 201. Hill, a translator of Ossian's poems, 391. Hoath, Lord, his accident, 475. Howard, Lord, his company defeated, 222. Hungus, a Pictish king, 57. Huntly, Earl of, defeats Earl of Argyle, 213 huntt with the king, 281. Hussey, war cry of, 200. Hwyell, Prince, his invocation, 469. I Ida, King of Northumberland, invades Scotland, 60. Innes, Margaret, her great age, 359. Irvine, of Drum, his arms, 196. J James I., an excellent harper, 414. James III., his use of tartan, 159. James, IV., his immense ship, 367. James V., his hunting, 281. James VII., his reception in Ireland, 438 hi* a- lute, 427. Jean Petit, a pistol maker, 239. John, Pope, letter from the Scots to, 100. Bishop of Glasgow, disbursement for tartaa, 159. Johnstone, war cry of, 199. Josephus, his opinion of the Celts, 91. K Kennedy, James, chnrter to, 133. Kerry, knight of, war cry, 200 INDEX OF NAMES. > 1 9 Kiannan, St. his domliag, 2liJ>. Kildare, Earls of, war cry, 199. Kins, Mr., his opinions respecting architecture, 249 Lachlanson, John, grant of, 134. Lainont, badge of, 197. tartan, 5l)3. Lain! of, his harp, 415, 416. of Cowal, anecdote, 333. Leeth, Robert, his survey of Ireland, 362. Leinster, Duke of, motto, 199. Leitch, Mr., observation* on the Highlands, 69. Lenogh, Tirlogh, Lord of Ulster, 174. jLennox, Duke of, his war cry, 198. Loarn, a king of Argyle, 54. Logan, badge of, 197. war cry, 503. tartan, 503. Loundres, Archbishop, extinguishes the sacred fire, 454. Lovat, Lord, his followers, 77 his purse, 177 his pipe-march, 431 his hospitality, 337 ac- cused of raptus, 475. Lucullus brought cherry trees to Italy, 69 Liunsden, of Clowach, his rent, 301. Liiernius, his profusion, 331. Luno, son of Leven, description of, 372. Lycurgus, his observation on long hair, 84 M Mac Ailean Oig, Raonuil, 42 lament for, 429. Mac Alastair, badge of. 197 tartan, 504. Mac Allisdrum, his march, 480 Mac Alpin, 39'2. . Kenneth, 57, 39, 143. Mac Aoidh, or Mac Kay, badge of, 197 tartan, 405. Mac Aongis, Alastair, 405. Mac Art, Cormac, 313. Mac Aulay, badge of, 197 tartan, 504. Mac Bane, Gillies, his heroism, 95. Mac Bean, badge of, 198. . John, 218. Mac Beth, Fergus, 357. Mac Carthy, war cry of, 199. Mac Codruin, anecdote of, 390, 392. Mac Connal, Angus, 105. Mac Grain, Gilour, his great age, 359. Mac Donald, badge of, 197 war cry, 199 tartan, 504. Sir, Alexander, 70. of the Isles, 110. of Barisdale. 88. 108. of Boisdaie, his salute, 428. of Clan Rannald, 9f>, . of Keppoch, anecdotes, 82, 110, 140, 303. 7i. of Killepheder, 390, 392. Alexander, 1 17, 179, 430, 430. Sir, 70. Donald, Sir. of Slate, 194. of Aberarder, 333. Flora, her age, 359. Captain, anecdote of, 211. Do. of Moy, :3. Do. John, 391. . lohn, his age, 360. . John Breac, 9 i. . John Loin, 28, 405. Murdoch, Clarsair, 417. . Shelah, 404. Mac Donell, 315. war cry of, 199. n. tartan, 504. piohrachd, 427. the Irish piper, 424. Peter, 393. Mac Dougal, Allan, 270. : of Lorn, 180. . bad ire of, 197. tartan, 5'M. Mac Druivel, his bratnch, 195. Mac Duff. K badge of, 198 tartan, 504. Mac DufTaidh, ensign staff, 195. Mac Farlane, badge of, 197 war cry, 199 tartan. 504. Mac Gilli Riabhach, 392. Mac Gillivray, badge of, 198 tartan, 504 Mac Gillpatrick, war cry, 200. Mac Glassan, his dancing, 439. Mac Gregor, badge of, 1 97-war cry, 199-tartan, 502 of GlenstrEE, 333. Captain, 207 John, 405. John Dubh Gear, 405 Rob Roy, 108. Mac Guire, 147. Mac Hardy, Mrs. 213. Mac Intosh, badge of, 198 war cry, 199. tartan, 505. lament, 428. defeated by the Munros, 143. by Keppoch, 140. James, Anecdote, 417. Sir Eneas, funeral of, 488. Mac Intyre, Duncan, a bard, 395, 406. - John, a piper, 428. Mac Kay, charter to, 140. piper to H. R. II. the Duke of Sussex, ' George, a piper, 434. Mac Kennedy, John, charter to, 133. Mac Kenzie, badge of, 197 war cry, 199. tartan, 505. Earl of Cromarty, 162. Kenneth, a bard, 406. Lord Sealbrth, lt>2. : Roderick, his heroism, 126. Mac. Kinnon,badge of, 197 tartan, 505. Mac Lachlan, badge of, 197. tartan, 505 salute, 428. Ewen, 406. Mac Lean, badge of, 197 tartan, 505. Laird of, 111. of Coll, 43 1,471. Allan na sohp, 431. JohnGarbh, of Coll, 417. Mac Lennan, 220. MacLeod, badge of, 197 tartan, 505 salute and lament, 428. his ensign, 195. -- Lord, 162. -- Donald, anecdotes, 211. Rev. 214, 390. --- Mary, a bard, 403, 404. -- Sir Norman, deed of. 125. Mac Mhuireach, Lachlan, 117 --- Niel, 391, 332. Mac Milcon, Bruidhi, 470. Mac Murrogh, his horse, 229. Mac Nab, badge of, 197 tartan, 505 --- burial place, 489. Mac Naughtan, badge of, 197 tartan, 505 Mac Nessa, Concovar, king of Ulster, 385. Mac Nicol, Doncha Rioch, 391. Mac Niel, badge of, 197 tartan, 505. --- his castle, 252. --- James, 133. --- Lachlan, 386. ---- Niel, 133. Mac Pherson, badge of, 198 war cry, 199 gatb ering, 427 tartan, 506. ___ of Cluny, 212, 2(9. _____ his chanter, 436, --- his tartan, 506. - of Crathy, 213. Alexander the revengeful, 259. Donald, his sword, 213. - letter on clanship, Intrc I Ewen, anecdote, 390. James, 230. his armor, 212. his lament, 431. Malcolm, a bard, 391, 393. of Strathmasie, 405. Mac Quarie, badge of, 197 tartan, 506 Mac Queen, badge of, 198. Mac Rimmon, anecdote, 423 Captain, 425. Mac Ronald, Callum garbh, 366. Mac Ruari, Ailen,395. Mac Swein, war cry of, 200. 520 INDEX OF NAMES. Mac Tyre, Paul, his Dun, 247. Mac Varas, 367. Malcolm, 123. Ceanmore, 61. Malmutius, a legislator, 295. Mannus, the parent god of the Germans, 30. n. mrtnos, a Caledonian, 106. Mar, Earl of, his targe, 191. his gun, 238. anecdote, 211. Margaret, Queen of Scotland, 61. Marius defeats the Celts, 90. Mark, Provost of Banff, 212. Marriajje ceremonies, 472. Mary, Queen, her hunting, 283 her harp, 415, 445. the virgin, partial to the bagpipes, 419. Maud, Queen of Connaught, her procession, 373. Menander, a Scyth, 29. n. Menelaus, his arms, 196. Men/ies, badge of, 198 tartan, 506. Sir Thomas, his pearl, 378. Mercers, their war cry, 199. Mercldyn, a Caledonian Druid, 470. Meyrick, Dr., his armory, 204. Moelmus, a legislator, 295. Moina, 179. Molloy, Dr., hospitality of his ancestor, 336 Montgomery, Arntilph de, 55. Montrose, Duke of, obtains repeal of law against Highland dress, 184. Morddal Owr Gweilgi, 257. Morrison, Roderick, a harper, 417. Munich, Count, 240. Munro, badge of, 198 war cry, 199 tartan, 506. of Culcairn, anecdote, 126. John, defeats Mac Intoshes, 143. Murdoch, John, 239. Murray, badge of, 198 tartan, 506. Lord, 103, 162. Regent, his portrait, 173. honnie Earl of, 210. Elizabeth, her longevity, 359. N Nechtan, his literary correspondence with Ceol- frid, Introd. Nehelania, a Celtic deity, 457. Nelan, an Irish bard, anecdote, 384. Nennius, his history, Introd. Nicholas, his letter to the Bishop of St. Andrews, 378. Nigel, Earl of Carrick, 133. o O'Brian, war cry of, 199. of Thomond, 136. Murcertach, 146. Murrough, hi? execution, 124. his horse, 229. O'Carrol, war cry of, 200. O'Daly, Doncha, a bard, 407. O'Duff, Brian, his lament, 429. O'Kane, a harper, 415, 417. Ogilvie, badge of, !98 tartan, 506. Oliphant, badge of, 198. O'Neal, war cry of, 199. his oath, 107. Sir Arthur, plundered, 294 solicits aid to expel Scots, 303. hospitality, 336. his sitting in state, 376. Orgetorix, 133. Oscar, 188, 189. Ossian, his poems, vindicated, 388. eteq. known to the Lowlanders, 390. performed in dramas, 399. bis grave, 395. O'Sullivan, war cry of, 200. Oswy, King of Northumberland, 60. P Palladius, first bishop of the Scots, 51. Patrick, St., his dispute with Ossian, 470. Perth, Highlanders of, their numbers, 77. Polybius, his observation on the Gallic wars, 91. Porevith, god of spoil, 207. Ptolemy, overthrown by the Celts, 22. Pytheas, the discoverer of Britain, 41. R Ramsay, Alexander, 259. Rea, Lord, 140. Rederch, king of Strathelyde, 284, 377 Reuthamor, 179. Robertson, badge of, 198 tartan, 506 of Lude, anecdote of, 211. harps of, 416, 417. Captain, 2i2. Roderick, last king of Ireland, 146. Rose, badge of, 19s tartan, 507. of Kilravock, his followers, 77. Ross, badge of, 197 tartan, 507. - William, a bard, 406. Roy, Rob, his funeral, 488 his son hanged fo* abduction, 475. Ruthven, presumed origin of the name, Introd. s Samuel, a piper, lament for, 428 "Sam, big," 81. Scot, of Buccleuch, war cry of, 199. Scott, provost of Banff, 212. - Sir Walter, 212, 213. Introd. -- Michael, a wizard, 303. n. Scotland, kings of, war cry of, 199. ^ Seaforth, Lord, his followers, 77 his regiment, 162. Shaw, badge of, 198. - James, a bard, 471. Shiel, pistol maker, 239. Sinclair, badge of, 197 tartan, 507. Sigovesus, a Celtic chief, 92. Sithama, a Druid, his speech, 88, n. Smyth, Sir John, 223. Stanley, Sir John, his duties as king of Man, 145 Stewart, badge of, 198 tartan, 507. -- General, on the origin of clanship. 121. -- Mary. 133. -- John Roy, a bard. 405. Alexander & Donald, their poems, 406. Steuart, in Avenside, anecdote of, 218 of Appin his followers, 77. Stone, Jerome, a translator of Ossian 's poems, 391. Stratherne, Earl of, anecdote of, 186. Sussex, H. R. H. the Duke of, his tartan, 163. 501 Sutherland, badge of, 198 tartan, 507. - Lord, his troops, 77. Tabourner, Stephen, his archery, 223. Talliesin, a Welsh bard, 468 his grave, 482. Taylor, his description of a Highland hunting, 281 Thompson, John, 223. Titus, his opinion of the Germans, 91. Turner, John, 212 his poems, 413. Tyrconnel, his regiments, 81. Tyrone, his troops, 105, 111 plundered, 294. Tyrtaeus, effect of his songs, 384. u Umad, his lamentation, 278. Urguist, a Pictish princess, 57. Urquhart, badge of, 198 tartan, 507. V Veleda, a heroine, 115, 133 her habitation, 265. Vercingetorix, a Gallic chief, 110. Veremundus, an ancient historian, Introd. Vergasilanus, ditto, 194. Viriathus, curious account of, 109. w Wade, General, his list of the Highland forces 77 receives the arms of the Highlanders, 240 Wallace, 139, 176,210 portrait, 159. Wedderburn, John, his archery, 223. Wemys, David, of that ilk, his archery, ibid. Wet, Sir Benjamin, his opinion of tartan, 161, 165 William the Lion, his portrait, 159. Williams, his notice of vitrifications, 246. Y York, Duke of, his, " Own Highlanders," z Zamalxis, a learned Scyth, 29, n. DA 880 H6L6 1850 Logan, James The Scotish Gael 5th American ed. PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY