24 Antiquities of Eskdalemuir. 



his ground from the farm of Billhohu. Immediately over this 

 dyke, in what is called Airdswood Moss, there was discovered a heap 

 or pile of stones — (a " tumulus " would, perhaps, be the more correct 

 and classic name for it) — but whatever be its proper name, I was 

 told by Mr Bell himself that no fewer than 150 cart loads of stones 

 were taken from it to build a portion of the above-mentioned march 

 dyke between Billholm and Castle O'er. In the centre of this 

 heap was found a rude slab-formed g-rave or " cist " in which a 

 human body had evidently been interred, for some bones, and 

 particularly a thigh bone, was long possessed by the late Geo. 

 Graham Bell, Esq., of Castle O'er, but is now unhappily non est. 

 There was a further find in the shape of a tooth which a local bard, 

 William Park, at that time resident at Bridgend, has done his best 

 to immortalise in a poem, entitled "Verses addressed to a tooth 

 dug' out of the cairn on Airdswood Moss." 



" Tooth of the olden time, I'd wish to learn 



Thy living history ; what age and nation 

 Thou represented'st underneath the cairn, 



Fruitful of antiquarian speculation. 



What was thy owner, then ■? a warrior dire, 



Who liv'd and died amid the din of battle 1 

 Was he some consequential Feudal Squire, 



Who bouglit and sold his serfs like other cattle ? 

 'Twere an uncourteous question, did'st thou fare 



On luxuries which modern teeth disable 1 

 Thy hardy frame and healthy looks declare 



That no such trash e'er trifled on thy table, 

 Thine was the food of undegenerate ages, 



Else never had'st thou figured in my pages. 

 And here thou art, a prodigy — a wonder — 



A monument of undecaying earth. 

 Nor more of thee we'll know, till the last thunder 



Shall from his slumbers call thy master forth ; 

 These puzzles which I grapple with in vain 



Shall then be solved — and all thy case seem plain." 



To return to the subject of cist-burial, there were (as far as I 

 can make out) two kinds of it ; the one was simple cist-burial 

 underground, the other was cairn-burial above ground ; both kinds 

 seem to have been common enough ; the example I have just 

 described is clearly a cairn-burial ; that is to say, the body 

 discovered had been buried in a cist or stone coffin on the surface 



