OS1/19/10/115

Continued entries/extra info

[Page] 115
Parish of Fetteresso

[continued from page 114]
"discovered betwixt Perth and this place. It is not probable that a Danish army should have taken
that rout, neither are these camps formed like those of the ancient Danes. It is not likely that Edward I. or Edward III.
of England, made those camps, and we are pretty certain, they are not the work of any invader Since that
time. It has, indeed, been suggested, that the camp at Raedykes was the Station of a Scottish, army to oppose
the landing of the Danes, who afterwards encamped at B, and that they were attacked and defeated by the
Scottish army. Of this there is a faint tradition in the country, but blended with so many incredible
circumstances, as to render it very improbable. We have no historical account that an army of Danes
landed in this neighbourhood. Their piratical excursions did not commence till the ninth century
when they were taught navigation by the fugitive Saxons, who were forced across the Weaser by
Charlemange. Indeed, one or our Kings, who I think was called Indulph, is said to have followed a
Danish Squadron northward, which afterwards landed near Cullen, in the County of Boyn, where a
battle was fought, but no historian mentions, that those danes landed upon this part of the coast,
and it is very unlikely that Indulph, in his own dominions, should have taken the trouble to make
entrenchments in his way north. Several Roman weapons have been found in this camp particu-
larly a hasta and helmet, the hasta my grandfather presented to the Faculty of Advocates at Edin-
burgh in whose museum it now is. It can hardly be supposed, that a Scottish army who opposed the
the Danes, could have had Roman weapons, which must have been kept more than four hundred
years, as the last of the Romans left Britain in the fifth century, and there is no account of any landing
of Danes before the ninth century. Upon the whole, fairly stating all circumstances, particularly, that
this camp at Arduthie is situated upon the north-east end of the Grampian Hills, where these
mountains Could be easily crossed, and likewise near the Sea, where a land army could have "
communicated [continued on page 116]