12 Donald A. Mackenzie — Scottish Pork Taboo 



then returning and looking backwards, motioned to the 

 saint and to his companions, with such gesture as he could, 

 to follow him. On seeing this they wondered and glorified 

 God, who worked marvellous things, and things past finding 

 out in His creatures. Then step by step they followed their 

 leader, the boar, which preceded them. 



When they came to the place which the Lord had pre- 

 destinated for them, the boar halted, and frequently striking 

 the ground with his foot, and making the gesture of tearing 

 up the soil of the little hill that was there with his long tusk, 

 shaking his head repeatedly and grunting, he clearly showed 

 to all that that was the place designed and prepared by 

 God " (28, 75-6). 



A similar story is told regarding the Thane of Cawdor. 

 Before he erected Cawdor Castle he had a dream in which he 

 was instructed to place his treasure chest upon an ass and to 

 build the castle on the spot where the ass lay down. An iron 

 treasure chest and a hawthorn tree still preserved in the castle 

 dungeon are connected with the legend. Black Duncan of 

 Cowl, the laird of Glenorchy in Perthshire, erected Balloch 

 Castle (afterwards called Tavmouth Castle) on the spot where, 

 as he had been advised, he should first hear the blackbird sing 

 as he went down the strath. In the Indian Mahdhhdrata the 

 horse intended for the great horse sacrifice {Ashwamedha) was 

 set a-wandering for a year. It was followed by an army, 

 which conquered each state into which the animal wandered 

 or received the submission of the rajah. The extent of the 

 Maharajah's Empire was fixed by the wandering horse. The 

 British Queen Boadicea, it will be recalled, drew auguries from 

 the movements of a hare. The devil-pig and the god-pig are 

 met with on the sculptured stones of Scotland. 



On the Ruthwell Cross, Dumfries, Christ stamps on the 

 pig instead of on the asp or basilisk forms of the devil. 



The god-pig is represented on the '' Boar Stone " situated 

 at the margin of a field on the farm of Knocknagael (^^ Hill 

 of the Hostages"), near Inverness. A figure of a wild boar 

 with tusks and bristles on its back is finely incised in outline 

 on this stone. Above its head is the well-known sun symbol. 

 Evidently it was originally the '' Boar of the Sun " or the 

 " Boar of Heaven." The god boar was connected wnth the 

 Witham shield on w^hich '' coral is unmistakable and in 

 excellent condition " ; it originally had ^' a bronze badge of 

 that animal affixed to the front by rivets." Bronze boars in 

 the round have been found at Hounslow. '' It is possible," 



