Antiquities of Eskdalemuir. 23 



myself seen more than once a ploug-hman and liis team of liorses 

 busy at work within it. These so-called " Druidical remains " 

 (according to one authority) are simply the " standing stones," or 

 " stanin' stanes," which are to be found on hill-sides, moors, open 

 fields, and all manner of high and unfrequented spots : these 

 remains, however, are not always found in such perfect form as 

 we have them here, but consist very often of a single stone, with 

 one or two other and lesser stones that have fallen down by its 

 side, and are half covered in the moss. The well-known " Giant 

 Stone " in Tweedsmuir, standing on the Menzion Moss, answers 

 exactly to this description. These stones are unquestionably of 

 great antiquity, as they are often referred to in the earliest 

 charters, and accordingly utilised in them as boundary marks. 

 According to Professor Veitch, some of them were originally set 

 up as boundary stones, called " Har " or " Her." " Harstane " is 

 not infrequently the name of a place, as the Harstane in Tweeds- 

 muir. " Harstane " or " Herstan " simply means the stane by the 

 burn. In this month's number of the Sundaij Magazine for 1896 

 there is an exquisite piece of word painting descriptive of the 

 standing stones. In point of antiquity \hey are compared to the 

 sky itself, " they are, alike, so old — the ancient sky and the 

 pi-imeval stone — both the children of mystery." In another fine 

 passage we read — " Of the primeval forest no trace is left — the 

 eyes range to the everlasting hills— wide spaces are about the 

 mystic circle — the ancient rites are gone with the hoary forest — 

 their memory even is lost — and the stones are dumb — no record is 

 graven there." We now pass down the valley to Castle O'er, 

 with its splendidly preserved remains of what at one time must 

 have been an encampment of great strength, occupying (as it does) 

 by far the most commanding site in the parish ; its mounds and 

 ramparts we might almost call gigantic, and its trenches abysmal. 

 Its whole appearance, lofty situation, but above all, its marvellous 

 extent as shown by its lines of communication, extending not only 

 down the Esk to Netherbie, on the one hand, but also down the 

 water of Milk to Middlebie on the other, proclaim it to be the far- 

 famed Camp of Overbie, one of that celebrated trio of which the 

 names are— Overbie, Middlebie, and Netherbie. Mr Bell's mansion- 

 house of Castle O'er lies at the base of this camp, between it and 

 the White Esk ; but his property extends to the lands on the other 

 side of the river as well — rising up to the march dyke that divides 



