1

bellorum). The first battle was in the mouth of the river which is called Glein. The second, and third, and fourth, and fifth were on another river which is called Dubglas, and is in the region of Lennox (Linnuis). The sixth battle was on the river that is called Bassas. The seventh was in the Wood of Caledon (in silva Caledonis)—that is, Cat Coit Celidon. The eighth was a battle in the fort (Castello) Guinnion, in which Arthur bore upon his shoulders the image of Saint Mary, perpetual Virgin, and the Pagans were put to flight on that day, and there was a great slaughter of them through the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of Saint Mary, His virgin mother. The ninth battle was fought in the city of Legion (in urbe Legionis). He fought the tenth on the shore of the river which is called Tribruit. The eleventh took place on the hill which is called Agned. The twelfth was the battle on the hill of Badon (in monte Badonis), in which there fell to the ground in one day nine hundred and sixty men in one onset of Arthur, and no one overthrew them but himself alone, and in all the battles he stood forth victorious. And they, while they were defeated in all the battles, sought assistance from Germany, and were augmented manifold without ceasing; and they brought over kings from Germany, that these might reign over them in Britain, up to the time when Ida reigned, who was the son of Eobba. He himself was the first king in Beornicia that is, in Berneich." 2 Ida, we know, began. to reign in 547.

1 Shoulder is probably a mistranslation of the original Welsh, which is shield.

2 Historia Britonum, Auctore Nennio, s. 56.

Now the sites of these battles have been long a matter of controversy. Were they fought against the Saxons of the south, or against the Angles and Picts of the north?

It is clear, I think, that in deciding such a question as this, we must have regard not only to the similarity of modern names with the historical sites of the battles as given by Nennius, but, as the battles were fought in succession and in one region, also to the natural succession or local connection of places. resent a campaign, not a series of isolated struggles, and that district which can show the names in the order in which the campaign was likely to be carried out has all the probability in its favour.

These twelve battles rep

No theory yet advanced of those localities can stand. this crucial test, except that first substantially propounded by a writer in the Gentleman's Magazine of 1842, and since adopted, elaborated, and confirmed by the learning and sagacity of Mr W. F. Skene. The theory is that these localities are in the kingdom of the northern Cymri, now the Lowlands of Scotland, and that the struggles at the various places were with Picts or Angles, or with both combined.

The first of these battles is said by Nennius to be fought "in ostium fluminis quod dicitur Glein.” Mr Skene thinks this Glen the river which rises in the hills that separate Ayr and Lanarkshire, and falls into the Irvine in the parish of Loudoun. Arthur was likely to march by the west, as Bernicia was held by the Angles; and he would naturally avoid meeting the enemy in their greatest strength until he had been able to attach to himself his own kindred as allies, and thus have some basis

of operations. Then the second, third, fourth, and fifth battles, said to have been fought "super aliud flumen quod dicitur Dubglas [Douglas], et est in regione Linnuis [Lennox]," are referred by Mr Skene to the two streams of the name of Douglas that flow into Loch Lomond. We know that Ben Arthur, at the head of Loch Long, overlooks this very district between the two rivers.

The sixth battle was "super flumen quod vocatur Bassas." Bass means a mound formed near a river, as if artificial, but really natural. This affix Mr Skene thinks is indicated in Dunipais, where there are two such mounds, near the Carron, where the river Bonny joins it.

Of special interest to us at present is the reference of Nennius to this seventh battle. It was fought, he tells us, "in the Wood of Caledon," "in Silva Caledonis"; it is spoken of as the "Cat Coit Celidon," "the battle in the Wood of Caledon." This is the one battle of which Mr Skene has not attempted to fix the precise site; but there are some data which, without absolutely determining the point, may, I think, help us to a probable conclusion. Arthur's previous, or sixth, battle was on the Carron. Immediately thereafter he is found fighting a battle in the Wood of Caledon, the very centre of the oppressed Cymric population. Names and circumstances alike point to the south of Scotland and to Upper Tweeddale as the scene of this battle. The Silva Caledonis, and even the Caledonii Britanni of the Romans, in the first century, referred vaguely to a district and to tribes north of the Brigantes. The most northerly boundary of the Brigantes was the Firth of Forth. They occupied towards the west the lands along the shore of the Solway, including

Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Wigton. But here they were bounded on the north by the wild range of mountainous country which runs, with little break, from the head of the Ettrick, and by the sources of the Yarrow, the Tweed, and the Clyde, and along the southern boundary of Ayr, well on to the Western Sea. It was only in his third campaign, in A.D. 80, that Julius Agricola penetrated through this mountain barrier into the Silva Caledonis, and encountered the new nations of the Damnonii, and others lying still farther north. And now, for the first time, these warlike tribes became distinctly known to the Romans. The phrase Silva Caledonis, or Caledonian Forest, has come popularly to be restricted to a district north of the Forth. But there is no historical warrant for this limitation. The Wood of Caledon, the Nemus Caledonis of Geoffrey of Monmouth, in the eleventh century included Upper Tweeddale; and Fordun, still later, uses it in exactly the same application. What was afterwards known as the Forest, or Ettrick Forest, was no doubt originally within the limits of the Wood of Caledon, as was also the Forest of Godeu or Cadzow. And Falkirk is spoken of as in the Forest in the thirteenth century.

From the scene of the sixth battle on the Carron, Arthur turned his march southwards to the Wood of Caledon. His aim was to strike a blow at the Angles. of Bernicia, and avoiding the great stronghold of Mynyd Agned (Edinburgh), now held by them or their allies the Picts, he proceeded by the valley of the Tweed to reach. their eastern boundary, which touched the river near Galashiels, and ran northwards, very much in the line of

the vale of the Gala. An old Roman road led him from the Carron to the opening of the Biggar Water, and thence he could pass readily through the district of the Cymri, for whom he was fighting, downwards to the Tweed. But here, in his way to the boundary of the Angles, he had to fight a battle. They had pressed westwards on the Cymri, and had obtained a footing in the district of the Gadeni. We have tracings of him on this march, though these are now almost forgotten. Just two miles below the traditional grave of Merlin, on the haugh of the Tweed, and exactly in the line of an ancient road that led from the Biggar valley down which I suppose that Arthur came, stood, until the beginning of this century, an almost perfect cromlech. It consisted of two

or more upright stones, and one flat stone laid across as a roof, all of remarkable size; and just above it is the height of the Lour, a green conical hill, crowned with the remains of a very formidable prehistoric fort. That cromlech was universally known in the district up to a recent period as Arthur's Table. It was, unfortunately, destroyed at the beginning of this century, along with the old peel-tower near it of Easter Dawyck, the tower of Posso, and the ancient kirk of St Gordian, that took us back to Roman times. The factor on the estate was no less a personage than the father of Sir Walter Scott, who (the father, not the son) was apparently "a hater of old stones," and preferred immensely to see them utilised in dykes and cow-byres to finding them standing as symbols of antiquated historic memories.

This hill-fort of the Lour, of great size and strength, might possibly have been the scene of the seventh battle.