OS1/34/22/16

Continued entries/extra info

[page] 16

[Earl Cairnie continued from page 15]
to the affect that it Stands 24 ft. [feet] in height on the top of a high Sea bank is composed of granite, Whinstone, quartz,
iron stone, and lime stone got from the neighbouring grounds has been implicitly followed by writers equally
reckless or equally uninformed. The circular heap is probably as represented 500 feet in circumference
occupying a secluded rather than an elevated site in the park of Barnbougle surrounded by the most aged
of its trees considerably removed from the Shore and though now not rising 12 ft. [feet] in its elevation was we
are assured by a gentleman of the neighbourhood at least 40 ft. [feet] in height within the memory of persons
not long dead. The Component moss grown boulders that remain of this remarkable tumulus far from
being correctly denoted by the enumeration already noticed do not appear to comprise several of the
Specimens mentioned but yet to embrace a far more extensive variety than is either stated or than the
neighbouring grounds would at all supply though carried by the hand from considerable distances.
The greater proportion of the stones are in fact perfect strangers to the soil. Yet there they stand piled
one over another encircled by the venerable forest trees and green with the antique mosses that cover them and
no man can tell whence or why they are there. The Country people Call this spot once courted by picnic
parties and still desecrated by the fragments of broken bottles and other marks of irreverence, - Earl Cairnie which
the gentleman to whom we alluded above suggests might possibly be interpreted Harold's Cairn, but then the
question arises would it be Harold the Earl, or Harold the Dane? That this country was much affected
by the Saxons the Saxon families of Dundas and Mowbray and the old dispute about the English
souzerainty of the Lothians might tend to Shew. But the besetting difficulty is that on the one
hand we have no Saxon tumili at all and on the other hand that we have no Danish tumili [continued on page 17]