Part 4

What is the signification of the so-called "crescent" and "spectacle" ornaments, and of the other unique symbols that are so common upon the 150 and odd ancient Sculptured Stones scattered over the north-eastern districts of Scotland?

What is the true reading of the old enigmatic inscriptions upon the Newton and St. Vigean's stones, and of the Oghams on the stones of Logie, Bressay, Golspie, etc.?

Had Solinus Polyhistor, in the fourth century, any ground for stating that an ancient Ulyssean altar, written with Greek letters, existed in the recesses of Caledonia?

Who were Vetta, Victus, Memor, Loinedinus, Liberalis, Florentius, Mavorius, etc., whose names are recorded on the Romano-British monuments at Kirkliston, Yarrow, Kirkmadrine, etc., and what is the date of these monuments?

By what people was constructed the Devil's Dyke, which runs above fifty miles in length from Loch Ryan into Nithsdale?

When, and for what purpose, was the Catrail dug?

Was it on the line of the Catrail, or of the Roman wall between the Forth and Clyde, or on what other ground, that there was fought the great battle or siege of Cattraeth or Kaltraez, which Aneurin sings of in his Gododin, and where, among the ranks of the British combatants, were "three hundred and sixty-three chieftains wearing the golden torcs" (some specimens, of which might yet perhaps be dug up on the battle-field by our Museum Committee, seeing three only of these chiefs escaped alive); and how was the "bewitching mead" brewed, that Aneurin tells us was far too freely partaken of by his British countrymen before and during this fierce struggle with the Saxon foe?

Is the poet Aneurin the same person as our earliest native prose historian Gildas, the two appellations being relatively the Cymric and Saxon names of the same individual? Or were they not two of the sons or descendants of Caw of Cwm Cawlwyd, that North British chief whose miraculous interview with St. Cadoc near Bannawc (Stirlingshire?) is described in the life of that Welsh saint?

Of what family and rank was the poet--Merddin Wyllt--or "Merlin the Wild," who, wearing the chieftain's golden torc, fought at the battle of Arderydd, about A.D. 573, against Rhydderch Hael, that king of Alcluith or Dumbarton, who was the friend of St. Columba, and "the champion of the (Christian) faith," as Merlin himself styles him? And when that victory was apparently the direct means of establishing this Christian king upon the throne of Strathclyde, and the indirect means which led to the recall of St. Kentigern from St. Asaph's to Glasgow, how is it that the Welsh Triads talk of it enigmatically as a battle for a lark's nest?

If Ossian is not a myth, when and where did he live and sing? Was he not an Irish Gael? And could any member of the deputation give us any accurate information about our old nursery friend Fingal or Fin Mac Coul? Was he really, after all, not greater, or larger, or any other than simply a successful and reforming general in the army of King Cormac of Tara, and the son-in-law of that monarch of Ireland?

From what part of Pictland did King Cormac obtain, in the third century, the skilled mill-wright, Mac Lamha, to build for him that first water-mill which he erected in Ireland, on one of the streams of Tara? And is it true, as some genealogists in this earthly world believe, that the lineal descendants of this Scottish or Pictish mill-wright are still millers on the reputed site of this original Irish water-mill?

The apostate Picts (Picti apostati) who along with the Scots are spoken of by St. Patrick in his famous letter against Coroticus, as having bought for slaves some of the Christian converts kidnapped and carried off by that chief from Ireland, were they inhabitants of Galloway, or of our more northern districts? And was the Irish sea not very frequently a "middle passage" in these early days, across which St. Patrick himself and many others were carried from their native homes and sold into slavery?

Was it a Pictish or Scottish, a British or a Roman architect that built "Julius' howff," at Stenhouse (Stone-house) on the Carron, and what was its use and object?

Were our numerous "weems," or underground houses, really used as human abodes, and were they actually so very dark, that when one of the inmates ventured on a joke, he was obliged--as suggested by "Elia"--to handle his neighbour's cheek to feel if there was any resulting smile playing upon it?

When, and by whom were reared the Titanic stone-works on the White Caterthun, and the formidable stone and earth forts and walls on the Brown Caterthun, on Dunsinane, on Barra, on the Barmekyn of Echt, on Dunnichen, on Dunpender, and on the tops of hundreds of other hills in Scotland?

How, and when, were our Vitrified Forts built? Was the vitrification of the walls accidental, or was it not rather intentional, as most of us now believe? In particular, who first constructed, and who last occupied the remarkable Vitrified Forts of Finhaven in Angus, and of the hill of Noath in Strathbogie? Was not the Vitrified Fort of Craig-Phadric, near Inverness, the residence of King Brude, the son of Meilochon, in the sixth century; and if so, is it true, as stated in the Irish Life of St. Columba, that its gates were provided with iron locks?

When, by whom, and for what object, were the moats of Urr, Hawick, Lincluden, Biggar, and our other great circular earth mounds of the same kind, constructed? Were they used for judicial and legal purposes, like the old Things of Scandinavia; and as the Tinwald Mount in the island of Man is used to this day? And were not some of them military or sepulchral works?

Who fashioned the terraces at Newlands in Tweeddale; and what was the origin of the many hillside terraces scattered over the country?

What is the age of the rock-caves of Ancrum, Hawthornden, etc., and were they primarily used as human habitations?

The sea-cave at Aldham on the Firth of Forth--when opened in 1831, with its paved floor strewed with charred wood, animal bones, limpet-shells, and apparently with a rock-altar at its mouth, having its top marked with fire, ashes adhering to its side, and two infants' skeletons lying at its base--was it a human habitation, or a Pagan temple?

What races sleep in the chambered barrows and cairns of Clava, Yarrows, Broigar, and in the many other similar old Scottish cities and houses of the dead?

By whom and for what purpose or purposes were the megalithic circles at Stennis, Callernish, Leys, Achnaclach, Crichie, Kennethmont, Midmar, Dyce, Kirkmichael, Deer, Kirkbean, Lochrutton, Torhouse, etc., etc., reared?

What were the leading peculiarities in the religious creed, faith, and festivals of Broichan and the other Caledonian or Pictish Magi before the introduction of Christianity?

When Coifi, the pagan high-priest of Edwin, the king of Northumbria and the Lothians, was converted to Christianity by Paulinus, in A.D. 627, he destroyed, according to Bede, the heathen idols, and set fire to the heathen temples and altars; but what was the structure of the pagan temples here in these days, that he could burn them,--while at the same time they were so uninclosed, that men on horseback could ride into them, as Coifi himself did after he had thrown in the desecrating spear?

Was not our city named after this Northumbrian Bretwalda, "Edwin's-burgh?" Or was the Eiddyn of which Aneurin speaks before the time of Edwin, and the Dinas Eiddyn that was one of the chief seats of Llewddyn Lueddog (Lew or Loth), the grandfather of St. Kentigern or Mungo of Glasgow, really our own Dun Edin? Or if the Welsh term "Dinas" does not necessarily imply the high or elevated position of the place, was it Caer Eden (Cariden, or Blackness), at the eastern end of the Roman Wall, on the banks of the Forth?

Did our venerable castle rock obtain the Welsh name of Din or Dun Monaidh, from its being "the fortress of the hill," and was its other Cymric appellation Agnedh, connected with its ever having been given as a marriage-portion (Agwedh)? Or did its old name of Maiden Castle, or Castrum Puellarum, not rather originate in its olden use as a female prison, or as a school, or a nunnery?

And is it true, as asserted by Conchubhranus, that the Irish lady Saint, Darerca or Monnine, founded, late in the fifth century, seven churches (or nunneries?) in Scotland, on the hills of Dun Edin, Dumbarton, Stirling, Dunpelder, and Dundevenal, at Lanfortin near Dundee, and at Chilnacase in Galloway?

When, and by whom, were the Round Towers of Abernethy, Brechin, and Eglishay built? Were there not in Scotland or its islands other such "turres rotundae mirâ arte constructae," to borrow the phrase of Hector Boece regarding the Brechin tower?