Ayrshire > Volume 1

EARLY AYRSHIRE 25
roasted. Here the fire stones are heated to boil the
water in the wooden goblets. Here, seated on the
ground, the crannog women and girls slowly turn the
upper stone of the quern on the lower, and grind the
grain to make their cakes, and the meal for their porridge.
Between the lake dwelling and the shore there stretches
a gangway, removable in the event of hostile attack.
Under the shelter of the fort the dug-out canoe rocks on
the waters. The men pursue the chase in the woodland,
with bows and arrows, with long-shafted spears tipped
with stone. They fashion to themselves weapons for
use in battle, and wherewith they may repel assault
upon their strong citadel.
And as all the world over, the women decorate
themselves with ornaments, with beads, with armlets,
with jet adornments. They tyre their hair with shining
gear of metal, they comb their locks with combs
constructed at infinite labour, crude to look at but
sufficient for their purpose. They enrich their store with
Samian wares, they use pigments of red and of blue for
their personal adornment, they enhance their charms
by many means so that these shall seem the greater in
the eyes of their lords and their suitors. It is a primitive
community this, and yet it can well be believed that
when the stranger, following the winding paths that
run through the forest, comes upon the crannog in the
evening, outstanding against the sky, with its life, and
its evidence of industry, and its sense of strength — a
home, a fort, a centre of influence, a triumph of skill —
he pauses to admire the completeness of its proportions
and recognises how admirably adapted it is for the
stormy life of the countryside, and what a sense of
security it must afford to those who are privileged to
enjoy its shelter.
It is probable that some of these crannogs endured
for centuries. They are known to have been in use
elsewhere in Scotland well within the authenticated
historical period, and the treasures revealed by the
careful examination of the middens and among the