Scotland/Scots > Black's picturesque tourist of Scotland

326
Thirty-one
miles from Aberdeen is Charleston of Aboyi,*,.
ABERDEEN TO BALLATER, ETC.
\Inn: The Huntly Arms.] The village is surrounded by
wide stretches of forest-land and picturesquely broken ground.
Aboyne Castle, one of the seats of the Marquis of Huntly,
rears its many heads from the woods on the right. It is an
irregular structure, built apparently at different periods, and
though imposing in size, scarcely to be characterized as either
picturesque or elegant. There is a handsome suspension
bridge over the Dee at Aboyne, the road from which, on the
lower side, leads to Balfour House (F. J. Cochran, Esq.), Bal-
logie House (J. D. Nicol, Esq.), Church of Birse, etc., and, on
the upper side, to the Forest of Glentanner, and, by the south
side of the river, to Ballater.
spared to us, of the fortifications of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The cir¬
cular earthen mound, rising nearly 15 feet above the adjoining level, and about 40
yards in diameter, is surrounded, at a distance of upwards of 20 feet, by an earthen
dyke about 6 feet in height, and 10 or 12 in thickness. The object of the outer cir-
cumvallation was evidently to retain the water of the fosse or ditch which encircled
the mound, whereon the castle was raised. The fosse was supplied from the bum of
Lumphanan, and the course for the water may still be traced. To many, however,
more interesting relics may be found in Macbeth’s stone and Macbeth’s cairn. On
the farm of Cairnbathy, is the brae of Strettum, where Macbeth, according to tradi¬
tion, was wounded; and “Macbeth’s stone” remains to commemorate the event.
Proceeding eastward, the traveller passes the church and manse of Lumphanan,
and, diverging by the first road northward, with Glenmillan (Robert Smith, Esq.), on
the right, he will find “ Macbeth’s Cairn,” on the Perkhill, about a mile distant, alleged
to be the burial-place of the usurper. The cairn is now little elevated above the field
which surrounds it, the stones having been used for agricultural purposes, but the
present proprietor (Prancis Farquharson, Esq.) has caused a fence to he erected
around it, so that no farther change may be made. There seems small reason to give
credit to the conjecture of Lord Hailes, that Macbeth sought an asylum in the Peel-
bog, but it may readily be supposed that the cairns which crowd this neighbour¬
hood mark the place where his forces were encountered and overthrown. The
abours of the husbandman have here frequently unburied many memorials of strife, \
arrow heads of flint, stone battle axes, and sword blades of iron. Some such curious
relics, found in a cairn on Glenmillan, have been placed in the Museum of the
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The pursuit and death of Macbeth, transferred
to Perthshire by Boece and the other fabulous annalists whom Shakspeare read,
took place, according to the earlier and more credible chroniclers, in this district.
Wynton says,
“ And ower the mownth thai chast hym than
Til the wode of Lunfauan.
This Macbeth slewe thai there
Into the wode of Lunfanan,
And his hewyd thai strak off thare,
And that wyth thame fra thair thai bare
Til Kynkardyn, quhare the King
Til thare gayne come made byding.”