The archæology and prehistoric annals of Scotland

The result of these investigations is highly satisfactory and encouraging, giving promise of further information from the labours of future explorers. Meanwhile some important conclusions may be arrived at. It is not necessary that we should follow Cordiner in his learned arguments concerning King Dornadil, a successor of Fergus I., who ascended the throne A.D. 263, and signalized his reign by erecting the Burgh of Dun Dornadil on the north-west coast of Inverness-shire. With precise dates the archæologist can rarely, if ever, have aught to do while treating of primitive antiquities; but this at least seems established, that they are native erections, and belong for the most part to a period long prior to the era of Scandinavian invasion. Where the Teutonic and Scandinavian races ultimately prevailed they bear the name of Burghs; where the older Celtic race and language survive they retain the name of Duns: and Sir Walter Scott has pointed out, in an ingenious note appended to Ivanhoe, that the venerable Saxon stronghold of Conigsburgh is only a refinement on the older model of the Scottish burghs. This has been illustrated by drawings and sections in the Abbotsford edition of the novels, and the resemblance is certainly sufficient to carry much probability with it, though at the same time the complicated arrangements, and the provisions for aggressive operations against assailants in the burgh of the southern Saxon, cannot but add to the conviction that the Scottish strongholds of this class belong to a much earlier period. They are manifestly the work of an ingenious and patient race, who aimed far more at defence than aggression. Strongholds they undoubtedly are, but they retain no trace of features strictly adapting them to military posts. The Saxon burghs of England were rapidly superseded by the more efficient keep of their Norman conquerors; yet when we institute a comparison between Conigsburgh and Mousa or Dun Dornadil, it seems to present a contrast not unlike that which distinguishes the defensive operations of the wild-cat and the hedgehog!—a contrast which either marks a very great change on the character of the hardy tribes that withstood the Roman legions, or indicates a marked difference between the races which occupied the northern and southern regions of Caledonia.

Dr. Macculloch remarks of these Scottish burghs,—"From the expensive nature of their construction, or the power of hands that must have been employed on them, it might be supposed that they were the palaces or castles of the chiefs or kings of the days in which they were erected. But it seems an insuperable objection to this notion, that four should have existed within so small a distance from each other in Glenelg, or that so many should be found in Sutherland and in Shetland not far asunder. The limits of territory that surround any one are too narrow for any chief; and where all chiefs were in a state of general and constant hostility, it is not likely that they should have chosen to build so near to each other. It is equally impossible that they should have been the dwellings of the inhabitants in general, as the expense of erection bears no proportion to the limited accommodation they could afford." The expense of erection is, in other words, the labour, time being of small value in a primitive state of society; and when their number is taken into consideration along with their limited accommodation, it is difficult to evade the conclusion that they were the temporary places of shelter of a people liable to sudden inroads from powerful foes, like the palisaded log-house or fort which the first settlers in the backwood frontiers of America were wont to erect as a place of safe retreat on any attack of the treacherous aborigines. There is no period that we know of in early Scottish history to which this description so aptly applies as to that immediately preceding the conquest of the Orkneys by Harold Harfager, about the year 880. Prior to this the rude Norse Vikings were wont to make sudden descents on these islands, as well as along the whole Scottish coast, spoiling and slaying with the most remorseless cruelty. At such a period, therefore, we can most readily conceive the natives of a district combining to build a burgh, whither they could retreat so soon as the fleet of the northmen was espied in the offing, and driving thither their cattle, and carrying with them all their most valuable moveables, they could lie secure till the spoilers set sail again in quest of some less watchful prey. Experience would teach the necessary improvements requisite for rendering these structures effectual against such foes; while the improbability of the northmen abandoning their ships and attempting a regular siege of one of these burghs, may account for the absence of the very distinct provisions for offensive operations against assailants which are so characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon burgh.

The Burgh of Mousa, which is still the most perfect of these ancient strongholds, is the only one of which we have any distinct historical notice. Torfæus tells us that Erland, the son of Harold the Fairspoken, carried off the mother of Harold, a Norwegian jarl, who was famed for her beauty, and took shelter with his prize in the Castle of Mousa. Earl Harold followed and laid siege to the place, endeavouring first to take it by assault, and afterwards to reduce it by famine. But both means proved equally ineffectual, and the wrathful Jarl was forced at length to agree to terms by which his mother became the wife of her ravisher. This burgh is not only the most perfect, but also the best adapted for defence of any that now exist; and it is not improbable that it owes its projecting parapet, as well as the more effective repair which has secured its preservation, to its later Norwegian occupants.

Still it does not necessarily follow from the correspondence of the state of society in the north of Scotland in the ninth century, as a weak people, constantly liable to sudden inroads by powerful and merciless invaders, with the apparent indications of these strongholds, that we must therefore assume the origin of all of them to that period. The conquest of the Orkneys, and the occupation of the northern districts of Scotland by the northmen in the ninth century, marks the close of a period which is still involved in almost total darkness. How long before this the natives had learned to watch the horizon for the dreaded fleets of the northmen, or in what form the earliest migration of the Cruithne to the north took place, we have yet to learn; but the very fact of the frequent descents of the former on our coasts must be viewed as affording some evidence that the arts of civilisation had advanced far beyond the rude state indicated by such primitive relics as those which were discovered in the How of Hoxay. The "exactors of rings" could have found little to tempt a second visit to the barbarian Orcades of the Stone Period; for the wandering Vikings knew not the pride of conquest which could tempt a Cæsar to guide his legions to the Ultima Thule, that he might return to the proud honours of a Roman triumph. The disappointed Viking might indeed be not inaptly supposed to apostrophize the outlooking Orcadian, as the English poet Cowper has done the "Gentle Savage" of Tahiti:—

Without attempting to deduce from such evidence as is now attainable, more than it seems fairly to warrant, it is obvious that we have followed down the unwritten history of our island from that remote and imperfectly defined era in which we catch the first glimpses of its occupation by wanderers from the eastern home of our common race, to the period when definite history begins, and written records supply to some extent the information heretofore painfully sought amid the relics of older times. There still remains, however, some few pages more of these archæological annals to be deciphered before we attempt to sift the perplexing mixture of truth and fable which makes up our earlier written history.