The archæology and prehistoric annals of ScotlandWilson, Daniel, Sir
History
The archæology and prehistoric annals of Scotland
Wilson, Daniel, Sir
Scotland -- Antiquities
"The massive stone,
Which still in memory is shown,"
affords one example of this. Mr. William Hamper, an ingenious English
antiquary, has elaborately elucidated the derivation of the name as
applied in England, and the use of the HOAR STONES,[108] the _menhars_,
or bound stones, as stones of memorial, like "the stone of Bohan,
the son of Reuben," and other ancient landmarks of Bible story.[109]
Probably we shall justly esteem the "Hare Stane" as the memorial of the
western boundary of the ancient chase, claimed from time immemorial
by the neighbouring capital; but if so, its name has long survived
all popular recollection of the meaning which it bore. The same term,
_hair stanes_, is applied to a circular group of stones near Kirkdean,
in the parish of Kirkurd, Peeblesshire. It would appear, however, to
have been more frequently used in Scotland in the most sacred sense of
a memorial, if we judge from the examples of its application as the
designation of cairns, some of which, at least, and probably all, are
sepulchral monuments. Among these are the Haer Cairns in the parish of
Clunie; the Haer Cairns of Blairgowrie and Kinloch, Perthshire; the
Hier Cairns of Monikie, Forfarshire; the Herlaw, a gigantic cairn in
the parish of East Kilbride, Lanarkshire; the more celebrated Harlaw of
Aberdeenshire; the Harelaw at Lochhore, Fifeshire, and another in the
same county, near Burntisland, where were found underneath the cairn a
cist containing a skeleton with a bronze spear-head lying beside it.
Not far from the Hare Stone on the Borough Moor of Edinburgh, formerly
stood another monolith termed the Camus Stone, but which, though it
gave name to a neighbouring estate, and formed the march stone of its
eastern bounds, was barbarously destroyed within memory of the present
generation, to furnish materials for repairing the road! This name,
whatever be its true derivation, is attached to numerous Scottish
localities. Both in the example here referred to, in the Camus Stone
of Kintore, Aberdeenshire, and in that near the village of Camustown,
Forfarshire, vague tradition associated the stones with the name of
a supposed Danish chief; but this is more probably the invention of
modern topographers, than a genuine heirloom of popular tradition.
The name of Combust figures among the list of Pictish kings as a
contemporary of Marcus Antoninus Philosophus,[110] but the authority,
though older, is not much more trustworthy; and we shall perhaps seek
the meaning of the term more correctly in the correspondence of local
peculiarities, as in Cambusbarron, Cambuslang, Cambusnethan, &c., where
it is understood to indicate a promontory or bank inclosed by a crooked
stream, from the Celtic, cam, crooked.[111] These Cambus-stones have
all probably served as landmarks, or hoar stones; though answering
also, it may be presumed, at times, like Laban and Jacob's Pillar, as
the memorial of some high contract between friendly or rival chiefs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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