Archaeological Essays Part 9

We are informed," continues Mr. Muckarsie, "by Buchanan and other historians, that there was a b.l.o.o.d.y battle fought near this place, on the banks of the Almond, in the year 995, between Kennethus, natural brother and commander of the forces of Malcolm II., King of Scotland, and Constantine, the usurper of that crown, wherein both the generals were killed. About two miles higher up the river, on the Bathgate road, is a circular mound of earth (of great antiquity, surrounded with large unpolished stones, at a considerable distance from each other, evidently intended in memory of some remarkable event). The whole intermediate s.p.a.ce, from the human bones dug up, and graves of unpolished stones discovered below the surface, seems to have been the scene of many battles."[132]

In the discourse which the Earl of Buchan gave in 1780 to a meeting called together for the establishment of the present Society of Scottish Antiquaries, his Lordship took occasion to allude to the Cat-stane when wishing to point out how monuments, rude as they are, "lead us to correct the uncertain accounts which have been handed down by the monkish writers." "Accounts, for example, have (he observes) been given of various conflicts which took place towards the close of the tenth century between Constantine IV. and Malcolm, the general of the lawful heir of the Scottish Crown, on the banks of the River Almond, and decided towards its confluence to the sea, near Kirkliston. Accordingly, from Mid-Calder, anciently called Calder-comitis, to Kirkliston, the banks of the river are filled with the skeletons of human bodies, and the remains of warlike weapons; and opposite to Carlowrie there is a well-known stone near the margin of the river, called by the people _Catt Stane_. The following inscription was legible on the stone in the beginning of this (the eighteenth) century; and the note of the inscription I received from the Rev. Mr. Charles Wilkie, minister of the parish of Ecclesmachan, whose father, Mr. John Wilkie, minister of the parish of Uphall, whilst in his younger days an inhabitant of Kirkliston, had carefully transcribed:--

IN HOC TUM JAC CONSTAN VIC VICT"[133]

Lord Buchan adduces this alleged copy of the Cat-stane inscription as valuable from having been taken early in the last century. The copy of the inscription, though averred to be old, is, as we shall see in the sequel, doubtlessly most inaccurate. And there exist accounts of the inscription both older and infinitely more correct and trustworthy.

The oldest and most important notice of the Cat-stane and its inscription that I know of is published in a work where few would expect to find it--viz., in the _Mona Antiqua Restaurata_ of the Rev. Mr.

Rowlands. It is contained in a letter addressed to that gentleman by the distinguished Welsh archaeologist, Edward Lhwyd. The date of Mr. Lhwyd's letter is "Sligo, March 12th, 1699-1700." A short time previously he had visited Scotland, and "collected a considerable number of inscriptions."

At that time the Cat-stane was a larger and much more imposing monument than it is now, as shown in the following description of it. "One monument," says he, "I met with within four miles of Edinburgh, different from all I had seen elsewhere, and never observed by their antiquaries. I take it to be the tomb of some Pictish king; though situate by a river side, remote enough from any church. It is an area of about seven yards diameter, raised a little above the rest of the ground, and encompa.s.sed with large stones; all which stones are laid length-wise, excepting one larger than ordinary, which is pitched on end, and contains this inscription in the barbarous characters of the fourth and fifth centuries, IN OC TUMULO JACIT VETTA F. VICTI. This the common people call the _Cat-Stene_, whence I suspect the person's name was _Getus_, of which name I find three Pictish kings; for the names p.r.o.nounced by the Britons with _G_, were written in Latin with _V_, as we find by Gwyrtheyrn, Gwyrthefyr, and Gwythelyn, which were written in Latin Vortigernus, Vortimerus, and Vitelinus."[134]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 15.]

Besides writing the preceding note to Dr. Rowland regarding the Cat-stane, Mr. Lhwyd, at the time of his visit, took a sketch of the inscription itself. In the _Philosophical Transactions_ for February 1700, this sketch of the Cat-stane inscription was, with eight others, published by Dr. Musgrave, in a brief communication ent.i.tled, "An Account of some Roman, French, and Irish Inscriptions and Antiquities, lately found in Scotland and Ireland, by Mr. Edward Lhwyd, and communicated to the publisher from Mr. John Hicks of Trewithier, in Cornwall." The accompanying woodcut (Fig. 15) is an exact copy of Mr.

Lhwyd's sketch, as published in the _Philosophical Transactions_. In the very brief communication accompanying it, the Cat-stane is shortly described as "A Pictish monument near Edinburgh, IN OC TUMULO JACIT VETA F. VICTI. This the common people call the Ket-stean; note that the British names beginning with the letter Gw began in Latin with V [and the three examples given by Lhwyd in his letter to Dr. Rowland follow].

So I suppose (it is added) this person's name was Gweth or Geth, of which name were divers kings of the Picts, whence the vulgar name of Ketstone."[135]

In the course of the last century, notices or readings of the Cat-stane inscription, more or less similar to the account of it in the _Philosophical Transactions_, were published by different writers, as by Sir Robert Sibbald, in 1708,[136]--by Maitland, in 1753,[137]--by Pennant, in his journey through Scotland in 1772,[138]--and by Gough, in 1789, in the third volume of his edition of Camden's _Britannia_.[139]

All the four authors whom I have quoted agree as to the reading of the inscription, and give the two names mentioned in it, as VETTA and VICTI.

But in printing the first of these names, VETTA, Maitland and Pennant, following perhaps the text in the _Philosophical Transactions_, carelessly spell it with a single instead of a double T; and Gough makes the first vowel in VICTI an E instead of an I. Sir Robert Sibbald gives as a K the mutilated terminal letter in the third line, which Mr. Lhwyd deciphered as an F. Sibbald's account of the stone and its inscription, in 1708, is short but valuable, as affording an old independent reading of the legend. It is contained in his folio essay or work ent.i.tled, _Historical Inquiries Concerning the Roman Monuments and Antiquities in Scotland_ (p. 50). "Close (says he) by Kirkliston water, upon the south side, there is a square pillar over against the Mannor of Carlowry with this inscription:--

IN OC TV MVLO IACIT VETTA K VICTI

This (Sibbald continues) seemeth to have been done in later times than the former inscriptions [viz., those left in Scotland by the Romans].

Whether it be a Pictish monument or not is uncertain; the vulgar call it the CAT _Stane_."

Mr. Gough, when speaking of the stone in the latter part of the last century, states that the inscription upon it was "not now legible." It is certainly still even sufficiently legible and entire to prove unmistakably the accuracy of the reading of it given upwards of a century and a half ago by Lhwyd and Sibbald. The letters come out with special distinctness when examined with the morning sun shining on them; and indeed few ancient inscriptions in this country, not protected by being buried, are better preserved,--a circ.u.mstance owing princ.i.p.ally to the very hard and durable nature of the stone itself, and the depth to which the letters have been originally cut. The accompanying woodcut is taken from a photograph of the stone by my friend Dr. Paterson, and very faithfully represents the inscription. The surface of the stone upon which the letters are carved has weathered and broken off in some parts; particularly towards the right-hand edge of the inscription. This process of disintegration has more or less affected the terminal letters of the four lines of the inscriptions. Yet, out of the twenty-six letters composing the legend, twenty are still comparatively entire and perfectly legible; four are more or less defective; and two nearly obliterated. The two which are almost obliterated consist of the first V in TVMVLO, const.i.tuting the terminal letter of the first line, and the last vowel I, or rather, judging from the s.p.a.ce it occupies, E in JACIT.

A mere impress of the site of the bars of the V is faintly traceable by the eye and finger, though the letter came out in the photograph. Only about an inch of the middle portion of the upright bar of I or E in JACIT can be traced by sight or touch. In this same word, also, the lower part of the C and the cross stroke of the T is defective. But even if the inscription had not been read when these letters were more entire, such defects in particular letters are not a.s.suredly of a kind to make any palaeographer entertain a doubt as to the two words in which these defects occur being TVMVLO and JACIT.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 16. The Cat-Stane, Kirkliston, _from a Photograph_.]

The terminal letter in the third line[140] was already defective in the time of Edward Lhwyd, as shown by the figure of it in his sketch. (See woodcut, No. 15.) Sibbald prints it as a K, a letter without any attachable meaning. Lhwyd read it as an F (followed apparently by a linear point or stop), and held it to signify--what F so often does signify in the common established formula of these old inscriptions--F(ILIVS). The upright limb of this F appears still well cut and distinct; but the stone is much hollowed out and destroyed immediately to the right, where the two cross bars of the letter should be. The site of the upper cross-bar of the letter is too much decayed and excavated to allow of any distinct recognition of it. The site, however, of a small portion of the middle cross bar is traceable at the point where it is still united to and springs from the upright limb of the letter. Beyond, or to the right of this letter F, a line about half-an-inch long, forming possibly a terminal stop or point of a linear type, commences on the level of the lower line of the letters, and runs obliquely upwards and outwards, till it is now lost above in the weathered and hollowed-out portion of stone. Its site is nearer the upright limb or basis of the F than it is represented to be in the sketch of Mr. Lhwyd, where it is figured as const.i.tuting a partly continuous extension downwards of the middle bar of the letter itself.

And perhaps it is not a linear point, but more truly, as Lhwyd figures it, the lower portion of a form of the middle bar of F, of an unusual though not unknown type. The immediate descent or genealogy of those whom these Romano-British inscriptions commemorate is often given on the stones, but their status or profession is seldom mentioned. We have exceptions in the case of one or two royal personages, as in the famous inscription in Anglesey to "CATAMa.n.u.s, REX SAPIENTISSIMUS OPINATISSIMUS OMNIUM REGUM." The rank and office of priests are in several instances also commemorated with their names, as in the Kirkmadrine Stone in Galloway. In the churchyard of Llangian, in Caernarvonshire, there is a stone with an ancient inscription written not horizontally, but vertically (as is the case with regard to most of the Cornish inscribed stones), and where MELUS, the son of MARTINUS, the person commemorated, is a physician--MEDICVS. But the inscription is much more interesting in regard to our present inquiry in another point. For--as the accompanying woodcut of the Llangian inscription shows--the F in the word FILI is very much of the same type or form as the F seen by Lhwyd in the Cat-stane, and drawn by him. (See his sketch in the preceding woodcut, Fig. 15.) The context and position of this letter F in the Llangian legend leaves no doubt of its true character. The form is old; Mr.

Westwood considers the age of the Llangian inscription as "not later than the fifth century."[141] An approach to the same form of F in the same word FILI, is seen in an inscribed stone which formerly stood at Pant y Polion in Wales, and is now removed to Dolan Cothy House. Again, in some instances, as in the Romano-British stones at Llandysilir, Clyddan, Llandyssul, etc., where the F in Filius is tied to the succeeding I, the conjoined letters present an appearance similar to the F on the Cat-stane as figured by Lhwyd.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

While all competent authorities are nearly agreed as to the lettering and reading of the first three lines, latterly the terminal letter of the fourth or last line has given rise to some difference of opinion.

Lhwyd, Sibbald, and Pennant, unhesitatingly read the whole last line as VICTI. Lhwyd, in his sketch of the inscription, further shows that, following the last I, there is a stop or point of a linear form. The terminal I is three inches long, while the linear point or stop following it is fully an inch in length. Between it and the terminal I is a smooth s.p.a.ce on the stone of five or six lines. Latterly this terminal I, with its superadded linear point, has been supposed by Mr.

Muckarsie to be an A, and by Dr. Wilson to be an R. Both suppositions appear to me to be erroneous; and of this one or two considerations will, I think, satisfy any cautious observer who will examine carefully either the stone itself, or the cast of the inscription that was made in 1824--copies of which are placed in our own and in other museums. Mr.

Muckarsie and Dr. Wilson hold the upright bar forming the letter I to be the primary upright bar of an A or R; and they think the remaining portions of these letters to be indicated or formed by the linear stop figured by Lhwyd. That the letter is not A, is shown by the bar being quite perpendicular, and not oblique or slanting, as in the two other A's in the inscription. Besides, the middle cross stroke of the A is wanting; and the second descending bar of the letter is quite deficient in length--a deficiency not explicable by mutilation from the weathering of the stone, as the stone happens to be still perfectly entire both at the uppermost and the lowest end of this bar or line. This last reason is also in itself a strong if not a sufficient ground for rejecting the idea that the letter is an R; inasmuch as if it had been an R, the tail of the letter would have been found prolonged downwards to the base line of the other letters in the word. For it is to be held in remembrance, that though the forms of the letters in this inscription are rude and debased, yet they are all cut with firmness and fulness.

The idea that the terminal letter of the inscription is an R seems still more objectionable in another point of view. To make it an R at all, we can only suppose the disputed "line" to be the lowest portion of the segment of the loop or semicircular head of the R. The line, which is about an inch long, is straight, however, and not a part of a round curve or a circle, such as we know the mason who carved this inscription could and did cut, as witnessed by his O's and C's. Besides, if this straight line had formed the lower segment of the semicircular loop or head of an R, then the highest point of that R would have stood so disproportionately elevated above the top line or level of the other letters in this word, as altogether to oppose and differ from what we see in the other parts of this inscription. This same reason bears equally against another view which perhaps might be taken; namely, that the straight line in question is the tail or terminal right-hand stroke of the R, placed nearly horizontally, as is occasionally the form of this letter in some early inscriptions, like those of Yarrow and Llangian. But if this view be adopted, then the loop or semicircular head of the R must be considered as still more disproportionately displaced upwards above the common level of the top line; for in this view the whole loop or head must have stood entirely above this straight horizontal line, which line itself reaches above the middle height of the upright bar forming the I. Immediately above the horizontal line, for a s.p.a.ce about an inch or more in depth, and some ten or twelve inches in length, there has been a weathering and chipping off of a splinter of the surface of the stone, as indicated by its commencement in an abrupt, curved, rugged edge above. This lesion or fracture of the stone has, I believe, originally given rise to the idea of the semblance of this terminal letter of the inscription to an R. Probably, also, this disintegration is comparatively recent; for in the last century Lhwyd, Sibbald, Maitland, and Pennant, all unhesitatingly lay down the terminal letter as an I. But even if it were an A or an R, and not an I and hyphen point, this would not affect or alter the view which I will take in the sequel, that the last word in the inscription is a Latinised form of the surname VICTA or WECTA; as, amid the numberless modifications to which the orthography of ancient names is subjected by our early chroniclers, the historic name in question is spelled by Ethelwerd with a terminal R,--in one place as UUITHAR, and in another as WITHER.[142]

Altogether, however, I feel a.s.sured that the more accurately we examine the inscription as still left, and the more we take into consideration the well-known caution and accuracy of Edward Lhwyd as an archaeologist, the more do we feel a.s.sured that his reading of the Cat-stane legend, when he visited and copied it upwards of a hundred and sixty years ago is strictly correct, viz.--

IN OC TV MVLO JACIT VETTA F.

VICTI.

_Palaeographic Peculiarities._

The palaeographic characters of the inscription scarcely require any comment. As in most other Roman and Romano-British inscriptions, the words run into each other without any intervening s.p.a.ce to mark their separation. The letters all consist of debased Roman capitals. They generally vary from two and a half to three inches in length; but the O in the first line is only one and a half inch deep. The O in TVMVLO in these ancient inscriptions is often, as in the Cat-stane, smaller than the other letters. M. Edmond Le Blant gives numerous marked instances of this peculiarity of the small O in the same words, "IN HoC TVMVLo," in his work on the early Romano-Gaulish inscriptions of France.[143] Most of the letters in the Cat-stane inscription are pretty well formed, and firmly though rudely cut. The oblique direction of the bottom stroke of L in TVMVLO is a form of that letter often observable in other old Romano-British inscriptions, as on the stone at Llanf.a.glan in Wales. The M in the same word has its first and last strokes splaying outwardly; a peculiarity seen in many old Roman and Romano-British monuments--as is also the tying together of this letter with the following V. In the Romano-British inscription upon the stone found at Yarrow, and which was brought under the notice of the Society by Dr. John Alexander Smith, there are three interments, as it were, recorded, the last of them in these words;[144]

... HIC IACENT IN TVMVLO DVO FILI LIBERALI.

The letters on this Yarrow stone are--with one doubtful exception[145]--Roman capitals, of a ruder, and hence perhaps later, type than those cut on the Cat-stane; but the letters MV in TVMVLO are tied together in exactly the same way on the two stones. The omission of the aspirate in (H)OC, as seen on the Cat-stane, is by no means rare.

The so-called bilingual, or Latin and Ogham, inscribed stone at Llanfechan, Wales, has upon it the Latin legend TRENACATVS IC JACET FILIVS MAGLAGNI--the aspirate being wanting in the word HIC. It is wanting also in the same way, and in the same word, in the inscription on the Maen Madoc stone, near Ystradfellte--viz., DERVACI FILIVS IVLII IC IACIT; and on the Turpillian stone near Crickhowel. In a stone, described by Mr. Westwood, and placed on the road from Brecon to Merthyr, the initial aspirate in "hoc" is not entirely dropped, but is cut in an uncial form, while all the other letters are Roman capitals; thus IN hOC TVMULO.

Linear hyphen-like stops, such as Lhwyd represents at the end of the fourth, and probably also of the third line on the Cat-stane inscription, seem not to be very rare. In the remarkable inscription on the Caerwys stone, now placed at Downing Whitford, "Here lies a good and n.o.ble woman"--[146]

HIC JACIT / MVLI ER BONA n.o.bILI(S)

an oblique linear point appears in the middle of the legend, after the word JACIT. The linear stop on the Cat-stane inscription, at the end of the fourth line, is, as already stated, fully an inch in length, but it is scarcely so deep as the cuts forming the letters; and the original surface of the stone at both ends of this terminal linear stop is very perfect and sound, showing that the line was not extended either upwards or downwards into any form of letter. Straight or hyphen lines, at the end both of words--especially of the proper names--and of the whole inscriptions, have been found on various Romano-British stones, as on those of Margan (the Naen Llythyrog), Stackpole, and Clydau, and have been supposed to be the letter I, placed horizontally, while all the other letters in these inscriptions are placed perpendicularly. Is it not more probable that they are merely points? Or do they not sometimes, like tied letters, represent both an I and a stop?

WHO IS COMMEMORATED IN THE CAT-STANE INSCRIPTION?

In the account which Mr. George Chalmers gives of the Antiquities of Linlithgowshire in his _Caledonia_, there is no notice of the inscription on the Cat-stane taken; but, with a degree of vagueness of which this author is seldom guilty, he remarks, that this monolith "is certainly a memorial of some conflict and of _some_ person."[147]

Is it not possible, however, to obtain a more definite idea of the person who is named on the stone, and in commemoration of whom it was raised?

In the extracts that have been already given, it has been suggested, by different writers whom I have cited, that the Cat-stane commemorates a Scottish king, Constantine IV., or a Pictish king, Geth. Let us first examine into the probability of these two suggestions.

1. CONSTANTINE?--In the olden lists of our Scottish kings, four King Constantines occur. The Cat-stane has been imagined by Lord Buchan and Mr. Muckarsie to have been raised in memory of the last of these--viz., of Constantine IV., who fell in a battle believed by these writers to have been fought on this ground in the last years of the tenth century, or about A.D. 995. In the _New Statistical Account of Scotland_, the Reverend Mr. Tait, the present minister of Kirkliston, farther speaks of the "Catstean (as) supposed to be a corruption of Constantine, and to have been erected to the honour of Constantine, one of the commanders in the same engagement, who was there slain and interred."[148]

In the year 970 the Scottish king Culen died, having been "killed (according to the Ulster Annals), by the Britons in open battle;" and in A.D. 994, his successor, Kenneth MacMalcolm, the founder of Brechin, was slain.[149] Constantine, the son of Culen, reigned for the next year and a half, and fell in a battle for the crown fought between him and Kenneth, the son of Malcolm I. The site of this battle was, according to most of our ancient authorities, on the Almond. There are two rivers of this name in Scotland, one in Perthshire and the other in the Lothians.

George Chalmers places the site of the battle in which Constantine fell on the Almond in Perthshire; Fordun, Boece, and Buchanan place it on the Almond in the Lothians, upon the banks of which the Cat-stane stands.

The battle was fought, to borrow the words of the Scotichronicon, "in Laudonia juxta ripam amnis Almond."[150] _The Chronicle of Melrose_ gives (p. 226) the "Avon"--the name of another large stream in the Lothians--as the river that was the site of the battle in question.

Wynton (vol. i. p. 182) speaks of it as the "Awyne." Bishop Leslie transfers this same fight to the banks of the Annan in Dumfriesshire, describing it as having occurred during an invasion of c.u.mbria, "ad Annandiae amnis ostia."[151]

Among the authorities who speak of this battle or of the fall of Constantine, some describe these events as having occurred at the source, others at the mouth of the Almond or Avon. Thus the ancient rhyming chronicle, cited in the Scotichronicon, gives the locality of Constantine's fall as "ad caput amnis Amond."[152] _The Chronicle of Melrose_, when entering the fall of "Constantinus Calwus," quotes the same lines, with such modifications as follows:[153]--

"Rex Constantinus, Culeno filius ortus, Ad caput amnis Avon ense peremtus erat, In Tegalere; regens uno rex et semis annis, Ipsum Kinedus Malcolomida ferit."

Wyntown cites the two first of these Latin lines, changing, as I have said, the name of the river to Awyne, almost, apparently, for the purpose of getting a vernacular rhyme, and then himself tells us, that

"At the Wattyr hed of Awyne, The King Gryme slwe this Constantyne."[154]

If the word "Tegalere" in the _Melrose Chronicle_ be a true reading,[155] and the locality could be identified under the same or a similar derivative name, the site of the battle might be fixed, and the point ascertained whether it took place, as the preceding authorities aver, at the source, "water-head" or "caput" of the river; or, as Hector, Boece and George Buchanan[156] describe it, at its mouth or entrance into the Forth at Cramond; "ad Amundae amnis ostia tribus pa.s.suum millibus ab Edinburgo."[157] A far older and far more valuable authority than either Boece or Buchanan, namely, the collector of the list of the Scottish and Pictish kings, extracted by Sir Robert Sibbald from the now lost register of the Priory of St. Andrews,[158] seems also to place the death of King Constantine at the mouth of the Almond, if we interpret aright the entry in it of "interfectus in Rathveramoen" as meaning "Rath Inver Amoen,"--the rath or earth-fortress at the mouth of the Amoen.[159]

Even, however, were it allowed that the battle in which Constantine perished was fought upon the Almond, and not upon the Avon, on the stream of the former name in the Lothians and not in Perthshire, at the mouth and not at the source of the river, there still, after all, remains no evidence whatever that the Cat-stane was raised in commemoration of the fall of the Scottish king; whilst there is abundant evidence to the contrary. The very word "Inver," in the last of the designations which I have adduced, is strongly against this idea. For the term "Inver," when applied to a locality on a stream, almost invariably means the mouth of it,[160] and not a site on its course--such as the Cat-stane occupies--three miles above its confluence. Nor is there any probability that an inscribed monument would be raised in honour of a king who, like Constantine, fell in a civil war,--who was the last of his own branch of the royal house that reigned,--and was distinguished, as the ancient chroniclers tell us, by the contemptuous appellation of _Calvus_. There is great reason, indeed, to believe that the idea of the Cat-stane being connected with the fall of Constantine is comparatively modern in its origin. Oral tradition sometimes creates written history; but, on the other hand, written history sometimes creates oral tradition. And in the present instance a knowledge of the statements of our ancient historians in all probability gave rise to such attempts as that of Mr. Wilkie--to find, namely, a direct record of Constantine in the Cat-stane inscription. But when we compare the inscription itself, as read a century and a half ago by Lhwyd and Sibbald, and as capable of being still read at the present day, with the edition of it as given by Lord Buchan, it is impossible not to conclude that the idea of connecting the legend with the name of Constantine is totally without foundation. For, besides minor errors in punctuation and letterings, such as the total omission in Lord Buchan's copy of the inscription of the three last letters VLO of "TVMVLO," the changing of VETTA to VIC, etc., we have the two terminal letters of JACIT--viz. the IT, changed into the seven-lettered word CONSTAN, apparently with no object but the support of a theory as to the person commemorated in the legend and the monolith. Most a.s.suredly there is not the very slightest trace of any letters on the surface of the stone where the chief part of the word CONSTAN is represented as existing--viz., after JACIT. It would be difficult, perhaps, to adduce a case of more flagrant incorrectness in copying an inscription than Mr.

Wilkie's and Lord Buchan's reading of the Cat-stane legend affords. Mr.

Gough, in his edition of Camden's _Britannia_ (1784), only aggravates this misrepresentation. For whilst he incorrectly states that the inscription is "not now legible," he carelessly changes Mr. Wilkie's alleged copy of the leading word from CONSTAN to CONSTANTIE, and suppresses altogether the word VIC.

GETUS, GWETH, or GETH?--I have already cited Mr. Lhwyd's conjecture that the Cat-stane is "the tomb of some Pictish King," and the opinion expressed by him and Mr. Hicks, that taking the V in the Latin VETTA of the inscription as equal to the Pictish letters G or Gw, the name of the Pictish king commemorated by the stone was Getus, "of which name,"

observes Mr. Lhwyd, "I find three Pictish kings." In the a.n.a.logous account sent by Mr. Hicks to the _Philosophical Transactions_ along with Mr. Lhwyd's sketch of the Cat-stane, it is stated that the person's name on "this Pictish monument" was Gweth or Geth, "of which name," it is added, "were divers kings of the Picts, whence the vulgar name of Ketstone."