TuE Scoto-NorsE PERIOD IN DUMFRIESSHIRE. 181 
the evidence of the presence of the Norse in Dumfriesshire and 
further south, so that we see that in the north, middle, and south 
the Norseman had laid his hand. ‘That occupation did not leave 
so many easily deciphered traces in the way of remains as the 
Roman occupation did, but it has left traces as well-defined for 
those who care to investigate them. The more the subject is 
looked into and analysed, the more it will be seen that there is no 
lack of evidence. The religion of the Norsemen has been de- 
scribed by Carlyle—full of his study of the early Norse Kings 
“a rude consecration of valour.’? They were a_ bold, fearless, 
daring race. ‘Trickery, cunning, deception were held as an 
abomination by them; the oath-breaker was regarded as a 
criminal. The strong man was their hero, and strength was their 
worship. Metzsche, the Sandow philosopher, so much heard of 
as 
once, would have assuredly found here his ideal over-man. In 
fact, it was that characteristic of theirs that kept them for long 
from being appealed to by Christianity. To the Norseman, as to 
the modern Metzsche, meekness was weakness, and the old 
chronicler’s satire is deliciously subtle: 
In their temples Thor and Odin 
Lay in dust and ashes trodden, 
And King Olaf sweeping southward 
Preached the gospel with his sword. 
That was an essentially Norse method of carrying forward the 
blessings of Christianity. You have in the strong, resolute atti- 
tude of the Lowlanders, as defined in their character as well as 
shown in their physical and mental characteristics, one of the not 
least important evidences of the Norse occupation—characteristics 
which were to give the associations of the Borders with thieving 
and marauding, and which were to mark out the Borderers as, 
above all things, first-class fighting men. All this may fairly be 
claimed part of the Norse heritage to the Lowlands of Scotland. 
A recent Border poet has pictured the warriors of the long- 
vanished centuries, men who knew the South, revisiting “the 
glimpses of the moon’’: 
Eerie tramp and horses’ tread 
Fill forgotten ways, 
Breezes whisper overhead 
Buried minstrels’ lays; 
