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The origin of the city of
Brechin, like that of most other burghs, is involved in much obscurity. The
oldest document belonging to the burgh, of which we have the exact words, is
a charter by William the Lion, who reigned between 1165 and 1214, confirming
to the bishops and Keldeis of the church of Brechin a right of market on
Sundays, as formerly granted by David I., and that “ as freely as the Bishop
of St Andrews holds a market” The original of the charter by King William is
lost, but the precise words of it are found in various attested transumpts,
and we give a copy of the deed in our Appendix, No. I. Now, as David I. died
in 1153, we may fairly infer that Brechin was a place of some note, if not a
royal burgh, as we think it was, in the twelfth century. Authorities differ
considerably as to what constitutes a royal burgh. The late Mr Thomas
Thomson, advocate, the famous antiquarian, Deputy-Clerk-Register for
Scotland, and to whom mainly we owe our present excellent arrangements for
the keeping of the public records, in his introduction to the report of the
commissioners appointed to inquire into the state of municipal corporations
in ‘Scotland in 1835, says, (page 9): “The origin and state of the burghs of
Scotland, in common with those of our other political establishments, are
unfortunately involved in all the obscurity arising necessarily from the
absence or loss of contemporaneous and authentic documents.” And again:
“David I., whose reign of nearly thirty years terminated in 1153, has been
commonly regarded their chief, if not their first founder.” “And although
there is not now to be found any charter of erection granted by that monarch
in favour of any burgh royal, there exists in the chartularies of religious
houses, and in other authentic records, numerous grants of property to
bishops and abbots, which are described as situated in particular burghs.”
Mr Cosmo Innes, advocate, one of the principal clerks of the Court of
Session, and Professor of History in Edinburgh College, in his preface to
the first volume of the folio edition of the Scots Acts, page 6, says:
“Among the marks of rapid improvement and civilisation which distinguished
the reign of David I., the most important was the recognition of the
privileges of free burghs. There can be no doubt that communities existed in
the towns of Scotland, supported by mutual confederation, at a much earlier
period ; and indeed here, as in other countries, a part of our burghal
institutions can be traced up, with much probability, through the free towns
of the Continent, to the Municipia, which survived the downfall of the
empire. But it was under this wise prince that the burghs of Scotland took
their place as recognised members of the body politic of a feudal kingdom.
Their voluntary incorporation was legalised They became tenants in capite of
the Crown, and from that period yielded a large proportion of the revenue of
the country, whether as rent of the tenements within burgh, or as custom
levied on their merchandise. Their increasing consequence was aided by the
organisation of an assembly for treating their common affairs. Long before
the principle of representation can be distinguished elsewhere, the burghs
of Scotland sent delegates to a court of their own, where they framed laws
for their common government, and reviewed decisions of individual burgh
courts; a burgher parliament, which, though now become insignificant, long
continued under its successive characters of the Court or Convention of
Burghs, one of the most remarkable of the peculiar institutions of Scotland.
In that assembly probably were voted and assessed the taxes which the burghs
contributed to the necessities of the state. We know, indeed, that they
joined in the aids and public contributions from a very early period; and it
seems more probable that the burgesses met for that purpose in their own
court, than that their attendance in the national councils during a whole
century should have been unnoticed by the contemporary chroniclers, and in
all the vestiges of parliamentary proceedings that remain to us.” The
regular series of the records of the Convention of Royal Burghs does not
commence till 1552, and even then the records are very incomplete ; but we
find Brechin represented at a meeting of the Convention held at Dundee on
18th September 1555, and although Brechin, like many other burghs, was
negligent in sending representatives regularly to the Convention, and in
October 1572 was, along with other absent burghs, fined in £10 for contumacy
in not attending a meeting held at Stirling, still Brechin continued from
time to time to send representatives to Convention, as the volume of records
of that body, edited by Mr J. D. Marwick, the learned town-clerk of
Edinburgh, and lately pub* lished by the Convention, proves. Brechin also
was regularly assessed in its share of the public assessments; thus in 1535,
Brechin has to pay £56, 5s. as her proportion of the 5000 merks allocated on
the burghs of the extent of £20,000 granted by the three estates for
sustaining James V.’s expenses in France, and bo on downwards, as is shown
by extracts from the Council Records of Edinburgh, printed by Mr Marwick in
the Convention volume alluded to. A royal burgh, then, does not appear to
have been a corporation constituted by any special grant raising it to that
dignity, but a place of some importance in itself, recognised by a royal
grant of some peculiar right, as the right of market granted by David I. to
Brechin. Previous to 1153, Brechin was undoubtedly a place of some
importance. Kenneth III. is said in 990 to have given Brechin to the Church,
and is described as “Hie est qui tribuit magnum civitatem Brechne domino.”
Hector Bcece, under the reign of Malcolm II., (1001-1031,) represents the
Danes as assailing “Brethenum vetua Pictonrum oppidum,” and states that
their leader, having failed in taking the citadel, “infesto agmine in
oppidum et sanctissimum templum ruit; que ccede, ruinis ac incendijs ita
diruit, ut oppidum exinde pristinum dccus nunquam recuperarit. Veteris vero
fani prieter turrim quandam rotundam mira arte constructam nullum ad nostra
secula remanserit vestigium."— Scotorum Historice, lib. ix. All this, we
think, warrants our assertion as to the importance of Brechin in the twelfth
century, if not earlier, and we are decidedly of opinion that Brechin was
one of the royal burghs recognised as created by David I. in or about 1150,
as has been generally reported.
The Keldeis or Culdees
referred to in the charter by King William were Christian pastors brought
into Britain in the sixth century by St Columba. Of their origin, of their
name, their doctrine, or their church government, we know extremely little
on any authority. Dr Reeves in his essay on the Culdees, exhaustive and
learned, but possibly prejudiced, published in the volume of the
Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy for 1864, derives the name from
Servus Dei, the Servant of God, translated by the Irish into their Celtic
compound of Cele De and re-Latinised into Caledeus and Kele-deus. In Gaelic,
Gille Dhe means Servant of God, and is just as likely, we think, an original
for the word Culdee, as the twice Latinised words of Dr Reeves. The learned
doctor contends that the Culdees of Scotland were no particular body, but
clergy generally; the name “ sometimes/* he says, (page 120,) “borne by
hermits, sometimes by conventuals; in one situation implying the condition
of celibacy, in another understood of married men; here denoting regulars,
there seculars; some of the name bound by obligations of poverty, others
free to accumulate property; at one period high in honour as implying
self-denial, at another regarded with contempt as the designation of the
loose and worldly-minded.” Be all this as it may, it is certain that the
Culdees did not use images in their worship, and that their practices did
not accord with those of the Church of Rome. The Culdees are stated to have
had a convent in Brechin, and to have got a grant of the town of Brechin
from King Kenneth III., A.D. 990. We never saw the grant, nor any
satisfactory evidence that it ever existed; but we find that “Leod, Abbe de
Breichin,” is witness, along with bishops and other great officials, to a
grant made by King David I. to his new Abbey of Dunfermline, and it is thus
inferred that the Culdees had an establishment in Brechin at or prior to
1150. This convent is believed to have stood a little to the west of the
present parish church, in the gardens now belonging to the kirk-session,
still called the “ College Yards.” A small well of delightfully pure water
in these gardens receives the name of the College Well, and is reported by
tradition to have been the well of the Culdee convent. The last mention of
the Culdees in Brechin is in a deed granted about 1218; but Mr David Miller
in his “ Arbroath and its Abbey” tells us, (page 32,) that in 1219, “ John
Abbe, the son of Malise,” (whom he infers to be a direct descendant of Abbot
Leod,) “ made a grant to Arbroath of firewood from his woods of Edzell, for
the salvation of himself, his ancestors, and heirs,”—rather an ominous gift
We may mention that the Latin word translated “ salvation ” by Mr Miller is
by some held rather to mean “ safety.” Leod, the Abbot just alluded to,
appears to have left his property and his office (and probably the surname
of Abbot) to his descendants; for Donald, grandson of Leod, gifted certain
lands to the monks- of Arbroath for the good of the souls of his father
Samson, and of himself and his heirs, while the prior of the Culdees is a
witness to the grant—Miller, page 32. Mr Cosmo Innes, in his “ Sketches of
Early Scottish History,” says, page 156,—“ Towards the end of the reign of
William the Lion, we find an infusion of other clerks in the chapter, (of
Brechin,) the prior of the convent of Culdees, however, being still the
president In 1248, the last year of the reign of Alexander IL, the Culdees
have disappeared altogether, and the affairs of the cathedral are managed in
the ordinary modem form by the dean and chapter.” Dr Beeves states that the
Culdees disappeared from history in 1332. The Church of Rome was too strong
for the Culdees. David I., under the influence of Robert, the “English
Bishop of St Andrews, gave to the canons of St Andrews the Culdee island of
Lochleven, that they might establish canonical order there; and declared
that the Keledei who chose to live as regulars might remain, but that should
any of them resist, his will and pleasure was that they should be expelled
from the island—an injunction which the bishop was not slow in carrying out;
for he immediately placed the Keledei in subjection to the canons regular,
and took possession of their vestments and libraiy, of which a list is given
in the Register of the Priory of St Andrews, page 51. The persecution thus
begun at Lochleven Feems to have been systematically continued throughout
Scotland, till the Culdees disappear altogether. In Brechin, by 1248, as
stated by Mr Innes, we find the affairs of the diocese managed in the usual
Episcopal form by dean and chapter, and the Keldeis altogether gone out of
view.
It has been generally
reported that the Episcopal 8ee of Brechin was endowed by David I. in 1150,
but Dr Beeves is of opinion that he merely added a bishop to the existing
society of Culdees, and that previously the country was wholly monastic, and
dioceses and parishes unknown. Mr Cosmo Innes is of the same opinion; and in
his “ Sketches of Early Scotch History” says, page 86,—It was the fate of
the ancient Columbite foundations in Scotland to disappear under the
reforming vehemence of David I., the most zealous of Romanists, who raised
on the ruins of many a primeval monastery his grand establishments of
Augustinian canons or benedictines, or converted their convents into the
chapters of his new Episcopal dioceses.” It is certain, however, that
Samson, or rather Sansane, was bishop of the city of Brechin during the
reign of Malcolm IV., (1153-1165,) for the name occurs frequently in
charters granted by that monarch. Pope Honorius III. in a bull dated in
1218, arranges the Episcopal sees of the Scottish Church in this order, —“St
Andrews, Dumblane, Glasgow, Dunkeld, Brechin, Aberdeen, Murray, Ross, and
Caithness.” (See Chalmers's “Registrum Episcopatus Brechinensis,” vol. ii.
page 387.) We give a list of all the bishops of Brechin in our Appendix, No.
II.
Of the Druids, who preceded
the Culdees as the ministers of religion in Scotland, and who are said to
have had an establishment in Brechin, little is known that can be relied on,
and that little merely from the incidental mention of these priests by the
Roman generals in their Commentaries on the Roman Wars in Britain. The
Druids were of various ranks and orders, and over the whole there was one
supreme head or arch-Druid. They were not only the priests but the judges
and physicians of the people. They had two sets of religious doctrines; one
known to the commonalty, the other only to the initiated; and it is supposed
that they taught the immortality of the soul. The word
Druidh in Gaelic means wise
man or magician, and this character they appear to have kept up by all means
in their power. Considerable doubts now exist, whether the religion of the
Druids was of the bloody character once imputed to it, and whether the
circles called Druid circles—the immense one at Stonehenge in England, the
large one called the Standing Stones of Stennis in Orkney, and the smaller
ones found in almost every district of Scotland—were really temples, or in
any way connected with Druidical worship. Till within the last fifty years,
there was a circle of the description alluded to in the Muir of
Leighton-hill, the vestiges of which are still to be discerned from the
surrounding heath, by the smooth grass and wild flowers growing on the
gently rising slope, which overlooks a great extent of ground around, and
commands a splendid view of the Grampians and adjoining country. At
Colmeallie, in Edzell, there is such a circle, and at Gilfumman of Glenesk
there was a rocking stone, all imputed to the Druids. But whether these
stones and circles were connected with the worship of the Druids, or whether
the larger enclosures were not rather courts for the administration of
justice, and places of assemblage of the people when framing new or altering
old laws, like the Tings amongst the Norsemen, it is certain the Druids had
places of worship in groves, chiefly planted of oaks, and that they paid
great veneration to the mistletoe, a parasitical plant that fixes itself on
many, trees, but was only respected by the Druids when found growing on the
oak.
The Culdee teachers brought
to Scotland by Columba succeeded, in process of time, in expelling the
Druids, the priests of the ancient Scots; and if we allow ourselves to
believe that the Culdees did to the Druids, their predecessors, as was done
to the Culdees by their successors, the priests of the Church of Rome, and
subsequently to these priests by the teachers of the reformed doctrine,
then, without much stretch of imagination, we can conceive that the .site of
the present Presbyterian church of Brechin was the place of worship
successively of Druids, Culdees, Romanists, Episcopalians, and
Presbyterians. Nor is there anything in the situation of the church of
Brechin opposed to the idea that it was originally a Druidical temple. The
church stands on a sandstone rock, the sides of which are precipitous on the
south and east; and while the western side slopes more gently, the northern
side appears to have been a deep ravine; for every excavation made on that
side proves that the earth, to a very great depth, is forced or artificial.
Such an isolated rock presented a fit site for the worship of the Druids;
and the dells around may then have been clad, as some of them still are
clothed, with umbrageous trees, the castle and town of Brechin being, in the
days of the Druids, both alike unknown. Whether such a succession of
religious orders did or did not occur on the little mount which for ages has
been the burying-place of the inhabitants of Brechin, it is impossible
positively to say; but there is nothing in the supposition inconsistent with
what has occurred amongst other nations which have undergone changes in
their religious dynasties—the newly established order having generally
selected the places of worship of the expelled party for the site of the new
churches or altara
The derivation of the name of
the town, like the origin of the burgh, is the subject of much doubt. In the
oldest document which we have seen, the name is spelled exactly as it is now
written—Brechin; and .the various orthographies of Brychine, Brechyne,
Breychin, Brechyne, Brychin, Brichein, Brichine, Brechyn, Brechene, Brechine,
and Brichen, which may occasionally be found, do not throw any additional
light on the origin of the name.
From the connexion which
existed between the Culdees and the town of Brechin, and the probability
that this body succeeded a Druidical establishment at Brechin, an opinion
has been hazarded that the name of the place is to be looked for from some
such source; and as it appears that in the days of St Columba there was a
noted Druid of the name of Broichan or Boerchan, it has been suggested that
probably the Culdees, when they expelled the Druids, bestowed on the place
the name of the chief person previously connected with it. #The Druids have
furnished another theory equally plausible for the name of our burgh, and it
is this:—The island of Anglesey is well known to have been the principal
station of the Druids in the southern part of Great Britain, but from this
island the Druids were expelled by the Bomans in the year 61, while Nero was
emperor.' The Druids, who were thus driven from their principal station,
fled into Caledonia, Ireland, and the lesser British isles, carrying with
them, of course, the rites and ceremonies of their religion, as well as the
laws and customs of their community which they had formerly used. In
Anglesey there are yet the remains of a rude throne or tribunal, composed of
earth and stones, which belonged to the arch-Druid, and which is called
Bryngwyn or Breingwyn, that is, the Supreme or Royal Tribunal. The analogy
of this word Brein-gwyn to Bre-chin, leads the supporters of this theory to
assert that either the arch-Druid expelled from Anglesey had taken refuge
here, and hence given the name of a royal tribunal to this place, or that
Brechin was always the supreme tribunal of the Druids in North Britain—
Anglesey being their capital in South Britain, and Dreux the capital of the
sect in Gaul. Pretty nearly allied to this is still another theory, that
Brechin was the principal seat of justice to the Druids, and thence called
Brehon, or the Judger, a word identical with the name of those judges and
laws so often mentioned in the histories of Ireland. Certainly the numerous
Druidical remains still to be found in the vicinity of Brechin— the circle
at Easter Pitforthie—the temple at Barrelwell or Pit-pullox, of which only
one stone now stands—the erection at Vane of Fearn—the Law or Mound on the
farm of Hilton of Fearn, and several other similar structures—go to prove
that the Druids were a powerful body in this quarter—independent of the
conclusions arrived at by Mr Huddleston in his edition of Toland's History
of the Druids, that the three farms close upon Brechin called Pittendriech,
are identical with Pit-an-druach, the burial-place of the Druids.
The apparent similarity of
the words Brechin and Brein-gwyn, royal tribunal, has given rise to another
speculation regarding the name of the town, founded upon a tradition—for it
scarce deserves a better name, if it is even entitled to that appellation—
that Brechin was the capital of Pictavia and the seat of the Pictish kings,
the round tower, so conspicuous an appendage of the church, having (as this
tradition bears) been built for a lookout by this nation, while the hill of
Caterthun, about four miles to the north of the town, surrounded with an
immense coronal of loose stones, is reported to have been a fortification
belonging to that ancient nation; and hence called Caither-Dun, the City
Hill or Fort. The same tradition states that the parish of Men-muir, in
which this hill is situated, derived the name of Main-muir, the Stone Wall
or Fort, from the erection on Caterthun, and that Stracathro, the parish
immediately adjoining to Brechin on the east, was called from its locality
Strath-Cath-rach, the City-Strath. In the oldest charters the name of this
parish is spelt Strathcatherach, which some hold to imply Strath-Cath-Re,
that is, the Field or Valley of Slaughter of the Kings. Our Gaelic friends,
however, with whom we have advised, will not recognise any of the
translations we have given, except that of Strath, a valley, generally
taking its name from a river that runs through it; and we therefore dismiss
this Pictavian theory as altogether fanciful.
Other antiquarians pretend,
and certainly with as much apparent authority, to deduce the word Brechin
from a Gaelic term signifying a sloping bank, and descriptive of the site of
the town, which is placed on the face of a brae, and they give us Brica as
the Gaelic word which is thus so descriptive; but for our own part we must
admit we have never been able to find any Gaelic scholar who knew the word
Brica as a Gaelic term.
In the “Historical and
Descriptive Notes of the City of Cork,” published by J. Windele, Esq., in
1840, we find mention of a property called Ballybricken belonging to D.
Connor, Esq., and on page 329 we have this paragraph, “Brickeen Island,
i.e., Bric-in, the place of small trout, lies between Dinis and Mucross."
Our piscatory friends, we have no doubt, will adopt the Irish gentlemans
Bricin, and contend that Dinis is just Dun, and Mucross, Monros or Montrose,
and that Brechin derives its name from the par in the South Esk.
Amidst these contending
authorities, we think ourselves warranted, if not indeed bound, to offer a
theory of our own. Brechin lies on the banks of the Esk, where that river is
confined between the high grounds of Burghill on the south and the high
grounds of Brechin on the north and west-To the east the land on each side
of the river presents a gradual slope or fall with some excellent carse
ground dose on the banks of the river. Looking from Brechin down the Esk
towards Montrose, the observer has before him a beautiful little strath or
valley, of which the high grounds of Brechin are the head or western end
Brecon in Wales is, we have been informed, similarly situated at the head of
the vale of the Usk after it is joined by the river Hondey. Most readers are
aware that Usk, Uisk, Uisge, and Esk signify the same thing in Gaelic,
namely, water. Every person, we think, must be struck by the feet of two
towns so remote from each other, and yet approximating so near in name,
being so similarly situated as are Brecon in Wales, at the head and on the
sloping banks of a valley through which runs the river Usk, and Brechin in
Scotland, at the head of a strath through which runs the river Esk, and on
the side of a brae sloping towards it. Now we find that in Gaelic Bruach
Abhainne means the bank or brink of a river, and hence we are inclined to
infer comes the words Bruchaine, Brechin, and Brecon. We state this not on
our own authority, but on that of an old friend and shopmate—a true-born
Gael, and a person of education, having been intended for The Church. In the
parish of Livingston and county of Linlithgow there is a small river called
the Breich, with sloping banks, which would go still further to confirm this
theory of the origin of the name of Brechin. Mr Andrew Jervise, in his able
work the “ Memorials of Angus and Mearns,” published in 1861, says, in a
note on page 129,—“ The Gaelic Braigh-chein signifies a Hilly Brae, and is
quite descriptive of the situation of the town of Brechin.”
Some of our readers may be
inclined to cry with the love-sick Juliet, “What’s in a name?” but if these
will take the trouble to read the ingenious “Inquiry into the Origin of the
word Brechin,” furnished us years ago by a learned friend, and which is
subjoined in the Appendix, they will find that there is much in a name; and
if they are not instructed, we think they will be amused by the speculation
to which the name Brechin has given rise.
The town of Brechin was
burned by the Danes in 1012, during the reign of Malcolm IL Of course no
traces of this conflagration now exist, and little is known of the mischief
then done except the simple fact that the town was burned by the Danes.
But a natural inference
arises that the place was then of some consequence, otherwise the Danes
would not have wasted their time and attention upon it. In this view, it may
not be uninteresting to remark on the circumstances which led to this early
conflagration of the burgh. Sueno, son of Harold king of Denmark, being
banished from home, came to Scotland, where, having become, or pretended to
become, a convert to Christianity, he received a few forces, with which he
returned and regained his kingdom. Reinstated in power, Sueno immediately
invaded England; and because his old friends and allies the Scots opposed
this invasion, he sent Olave and Enick, two of his generals, with a powerful
army into Scotland. After various battles, in which sometimes the Scots,
sometimes the Danes, were victorious, Enick was slain, and Olave with the
remainder of his troops was driven into Morayshire. Upon the news being
carried to Sueno in England, he despatched a reinforcement under the command
of Camus, who landed his troops at the Redhead, and pitched his camp at
Panbride or St Bride. There he was attacked and defeated by the Scots. The
Danes then attempted to retreat in three divisions to join their friends
under Olave in Moray. One division under Camus was cut off, and he and all
his followers were destroyed near the village of Carnoustie, where an
obelisk still serves to preserve the memory of this victory, called Camiston
Cross; and where the traces of a camp may yet be seen on the side of a burn,
by some called a Roman camp, by others a Danish camp, but popularly styled “
Norway Dikes.” Another division of the defeated army retreated by Brechin,
and in their progress northward burned that town, but they too were attacked
and cut off, and the “standing stones/' as they are called, in the parish of
Aberlemno, are supposed to record this event, and to mark the grave of the
general who led this second division. The third division, again, which had
retreated to their ships, landed on the coast of Buchan, where they also
were destroyed by Moman, Thane of the county. Sueno, not disheartened by his
repeated calamities, sent his son Canute with a new army into Scotland, who,
after fighting a severe battle in Buchan, concluded a treaty with Malcolm,
the conditions of which were that the Danes should leave Scotland, and that
neither of the nations should make war on the other, or give assistance to
the enemies of the other, during the lives of Malcolm or Sueno. One most
important result seems to have attended this contest. Upon its conclusion,
Malcolm divided all the royal lands amongst his nobles, and established
various new titles of nobility,— “magis ad vanam ambitionem quam ad ullum
usum,” Buchanan observes.
This digression may be
pardoned, because slight as the connexion of Brechin is with this Danish
invasion, it is an important era in early history. Perhaps it is only
continuing the digression to add, that Malcolm, as alleged, was afterwards
murdered in the castle of Glammis, in consequence of his avarice and unjust
exactions from the nobles he had created, and that the murderers flying,
during a snow-storm under night, became bewildered and were lost in the loch
of Forfar, the ice on which broke beneath the weight of their horses. In the
castle of Glammis, the room where Malcolm was murdered is still shown, and
the attention of the visitor is regularly called to the stains of blood on
the floor, although, if we mistake not, when Malcolm died, the tree was not
planted out of which the boards thus stained are made, nor was the castle
built for three hundred years afterwards.
Tradition also points out
Brechin and its vicinity as the site of the contest between the Homans under
Agricola, and the Caledonians under Galgacus. The South Esk, which passes
Brechin, is said to have been the iEsica of the Romans, upon which they had
a station, mentioned in the Itinerary of Richard of Cirencester as being in
the province of Yespasiana, twenty-three miles distant from the Tay. In the
parish of Oathlaw there are the remains of a Roman camp at Battledikes, on
the side of the river Esk, supposed to have been the principal station
alluded to by Richard of Cirencester; and at Keithock, near Brechin, there
were, some fifty years'ago, the remains of another camp supposed to have
been connected with the former. In the woods of Slate-ford are still to be
seen marks of what are supposed to have been a Roman camp; and on the farm
of Eastertown of Dunlappy, immediately adjoining Slateford, a Roman sword
was dug out of a moss in 1838; while near the railway station there were
found in 1853 two bronze swords and scabbards, now in the Antiquarian Museum
of Edinburgh, and marked E 137,138 in the catalogue of the museum, which are
exactly identical with those described by Dr Daniel Wilson, in page 228 of
his “ Prehistoric Annals of Scotland.” Indeed some of our friends are
clearly of opinion that the battle between Agricola and Galgacus must have
been fought on the sloping ground immediately south of the two hills of
Caterthun. We are told by a popular rhyme that
“Between the Killivair and the
Buckler Stane
There lies mony a bluidy bane
or, as another edition of the
same rhyme has it,
“’Tween the Blawart Lap, and
the Killivair Stanes,
There lie mony bluidy banes; ”
and as the “Killivair Stane”
is on the farm of Barrel well, and the “Blawart Lap” on the farm of
Langhaugh, something more than half a mile north, and both are opposite the
western hill of Caterthun, our antiquarian friends presume that the
principal struggle had taken place at these points, where the Homans, being
defeated, had been driven eastward on their camps at Keithock and Slateford,
from which they retreated to the Meams. The “Killivair Stane” is a plain
upright stone, without any trace of the hands of a mason having touched it,
exactly similar to those used in Druidical structures; and most probably the
stone is the remains of a Druidical temple, at which place, it may naturally
enough be concluded, the onset of the Scots had begun. The “Buckler Stane”
is said to have been a large broad stone lying in the muir on the farm of
Langhaugh, near the Blawart Lap, about half a mile east by north of the
Killivair stone, but removed by the farmer of Langhaugh when the ground was
improved some forty years ago. Other antiquarians would have all these
traditions and monuments to apply to the Danish expeditions just noticed. On
a subject like this, which Monkbarns has left undetermined, and which has
divided antiquarians for ages, it would be presumptuous for us to hazard an
opinion.
Our friends possibly may
think we have bestowed too much time on these ancient matters; but we cannot
imagine we have done so when we find our researches so far behind those of
David Mitchell, Esq., A.M., who, in his History of Montrose, published in
1866, states (page 95) that, “ In the year 156 b.c. the mariners of Montrose
were a daring set of savages, who in their prows put to sea, and robbed the
Fife shore. They lived on shore in rather a primitive state,—just dug a hole
and shoved in. Only think of a family or tribe lying on the ground to rest
all night! Brechin at this period was the hunting ground of the ancient
Celtic marauders’'!! The learned author does not quote his authority, and we
own we have been unable to discover it. |
