According to this view, most of the Scandinavian settlements in the middle and northern parts of the Lowlands are to be referred at the earliest to the close of the eleventh century; and at so late a period an entire change of the ancient names of places then existing there, could not, of course, be effected. ---------- SECTION IV. Traditions concerning “the Danes.”—The Southern and Northern Lowlands.—Danish Memorials.—Burghead. We cannot venture to conclude, from the few Scandinavian names of places found in the Lowlands, that the immigrant Scandinavian population was but inconsiderable; nor can we presume to infer either the extent or the period of the immigration from the numberless traditions respecting the Danes preserved throughout that district. For, although the Lowlands were far from being conquered by the Danes and Norwegians so early as England was, still the number of alleged Danish memorials, even of a remote age, is proportionately as great in the former as in the latter country. Tradition has gradually ascribed almost all the memorials existing in the Lowlands which are of any importance to “the Danes;” nay, even the learned have, down to the present day, been too much inclined to recognise traces of the _bloody Danes_ in the much more ancient Pictish, Roman, and Scottish monuments. The traditions about the Danes have much the same character in the Lowlands as in England. They depict in vivid and touching traits the misery of the people and of the country under the repeated attacks of the wild sons of the sea, whose arrival, departure, and whole conduct, were as variable as the wind. When large bands of Vikings had landed, and the Scots had assembled an army to oppose them, it would sometimes happen that in the morning, when all was ready for the attack, the foreign ravagers were sought for in vain. In the darkness of the night they had taken the opportunity secretly to re-embark, and rumour soon announced to the army that the Vikings had again landed in quite a different part of the country, where they were spreading death and desolation. The Lowlander tells with horror of the many innocent women and children, not to speak of the numbers of brave men, who were slaughtered; of the churches, convents, and towns, that were destroyed by fire; and of the numerous herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, which, together with valuables of all sorts were carried off to the ships of the Vikings.