28 Transactions. 



language, they are shut out, in great measure, from the 

 literature, and learning, and the civilization of England. 



We have some account of their condition at the Battle 

 of the Standard, in 1138. 



On this occasion the Galweygians claimed to lead the 

 front van of the Scottish army ; and, as Nicholson's " Gallo- 

 " way " expresses it, " dreading dissention or sedition, the 

 " King reluctantly complied with the request of the turbulent 

 " Galweygians." 



They were a fierce people, and were accused by the 

 English of all sorts of barbarity and impiety. They drove 

 people before them like herds of cattle — they tossed up little 

 children in the air and received them again on their spears 

 in frolic and diversion, — and were so utterly regardless of 

 the rites and ceremonies of the Church, that we must 

 conclude their religion, whatever it was, was not the religion 

 of Rome : caring nothing for the consecrated host, even 

 trampling it under their feet, as the English general said, 

 and eating flesh in Lent as at other times. 



They were perhaps Culdees ; and as to their barbarities, 

 which appear savage, something is perhaps due, both in the 

 facts and colouring, to the old enmity between Celt and 

 Saxon. 



If the view here taken of the Abbot Stone sculpture is 

 correct, this people were, however, at length brought under 

 monastic power and influence ; and the Abbot Stone may be 

 found to bear the very earliest pictorial representation of a 

 Galloway man. And, making allowance for the exaggeration 

 natural to a subduing over a subjugated people, the repre- 

 sentation may be taken as correct. 



This is the conclusion which, in a general way, we would 

 draw from the Abbot Stone sculpture. 



If a more special object of commemoration be supposed 

 to have been intended, it might be the conversion of the 

 Culdee population to Rome. That event was a great event. 

 Perhaps it was regarded as of more importance than the 

 original conversion of the Picts to Christianity. Their be- 



