Maitland Club > Works of Sir Thomas Urquhart

LOGOPANDECTEISION. 353
my progenitors bestowed all those lands in the parochin of Rose Marknie, which now
are in the possession of Robert Leslie of Finrasie, upon the Bishop, Dean, and Chap-
ter of Ross, and that others of them were at the cost of building the churches of Cro-
martie and Cullicudden, and many other monuments, betokening their zeal to the
Romish faith then professed : so amongst their forefathers were there severals of our
familie, who, before the days of Christ, in the same foresaid parishes, founded many
temples, delubres, and fanes, for sacrificing in the groves and high places to Jupiter,
Juno, Mars, Pallas, Mercurie, Venus, and Diana, the reliques whereof are as yet in my
land obvious to the eye of any curious antiquarie, and so much extant till this day as
by the circularie, oval, triangulary, or square figure, together with the various manner
in situation of the stones, will, to an intelligible Mythologist and well versed in rites
of old, make it easily discernible to which of the heathenish deities the respective dedi-
cation was made.
11. That in my bounds should be seen remainders of so great antiquity is much,
yet is it more to have them in a country so remote from the territories of the Theono-
mothets, and legislators of the divinity of the ancient poets ; but most strange of all it
is, that in my lands should be found of those who, though they can neither read nor
write, will neverthelesse be able to exchange discourse with any concerning the nature
of the heathenish deities, and afford pertinent reasons for the variety of sacrifices and
other circumstantial points usual to be performed in the days of old.
12. I asked them how they came by this knowledge; they told me that their fathers
taught them it, who had it from their progenitors, unto whom, say they, it was de-
rived from their first fore-fathers that accompanyed my predecessors Alypos, Beltistos,
Nomostor, Astioremon, and Lutork, in their aboriginarie acquest of the land of their
ancestors' residence, and in this their relation they were so punctually exact, that some
of them by nomenclature, in a lineall pedigree from father to son of above threescore
several! persons, instructed their dependence upon our family in one and the same land
three hundred years before the days of our Saviour.
13. That this is very probable, and that none hath a more ancient tenandrie then
my self, I doe the rather beleeve it, that both historie and the most authentick tradi-
tion we have, avoucheth the first labourers and manurers of the land to have come
along with my ancestors Beltistos, Nomostor, and Lutork, and for their good service
done, especially to the last of those three, received leases thereupon in the quality of
yeomans, who were so well pleased with what they got, that after they had most con-
tentedly spent the best of their age, when decrepit years did summon them to pay
their last due to nature, they bequeathed unto their children the hereditarie obedience
they did owe their master, to whom they left their blessing and best wishes.
14. Which proved so effectual in advancing obsequiousness on the one side, and
protection on the other, that in his posterity they were most fortunate from generation
to generation, and so deeply ingaged to each in the long continuate succession of our
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