Blair Collection > Critical dissertations on the origin, antiquities, language, government, manners, and religion, of the antient Caledonians, their posterity the Picts, and the British and Irish Scots

'tgo Momments of Antiquity
fides, two more in the ends, and another larger
one above. There is fometimes a kind of obehlk
which overtops tliC barrow, and flands at the head
of the coffin. The coffins are generally more than
fix feet long, and the urns which they contain are
half full of afhes and bones. The workmanfhip
of thefe vefl'eLs is rather coarfe than otherwife *.
It is a qiielVion whether the Cairns were reared
by the Norwegians or old Britains of Caledonia ;
there are Cairns in the different parts of the con-
tinent of Scotland, particularly in the Highland
diftricts of the counties of Aberdeen and Invernefs,
into which neither the Norwegians nor Danes ever
penetrated. Befides, the mountains of Carnarvon-
Ihire have many monuments of the fame kind. It
. is therefore evident, that the old Britains ereded
-fome of thefe fabrics •, nor can it be affirmed that
* It is not above fifty years fince the Idanders underflood
that the barrows were the repolltories of the dead. Much
about that time a gentleman in one of the ifles having occafion
for ftones lo build a houfe, broke doun one of thefe old fabrics,
and coming to the bottom of ii, near the center, lighted on
the large flat Aone v.hich formed the cover of the coffin. Up-
on comparing a current tradition with the contrivance of the
ftones, and the ound emitted from them, he immediately con-
cluded tha> here was a Itone chell which contained a quantity
of hidden treafure : ful' of this agreeable fancy, and dreading
much at the lame time that a perfon of much greater authority
in rhe country '.•. ould infallibly deprive him of the tiafure,
if the lecrer flionld once tranfpire, he obl'ge 1 the uorkmen,
by the interpofiion of a m'.lt folemn oath, to conceal the happy
difcovery. Alrcr ihis point was fettled, and a reafonable di-
vidend piomif.d to every one of the workmen, che c.fTin
was opened with >iut care : but rhe treafure foun i in It gave
verv little farisfadtioi. , being no more than a Imal; quantity
of afccs contained iii a ycilow-coloured earthen vclfel.
the