Mr Harvie-Brown on the Squirrel in Great Britain. 33 



" From Birkenhead to Hilbere 

 A squirrel could go from tree to tree ; " — 



SO related of the old Wirral Forest in Cheshire. 



The following question naturally arises, at least to me : Is 

 it not possible that the Euthwell Stone may have been the 

 cause of the introduction of the name Con from Scandinavia 

 into Cumberland, and from Cumberland into Scotland ? Cons 

 are depicted at Bewcastle, in Cumberland, and almost simi- 

 larly at Euthwell. The use of the name might become general 

 when understood, though the animal itself was not native to 

 the south of Scotland. The almost j)recisely similar repre- 

 sentations of it in the two stones clearly point to the same 

 origin. 



HERALDIC EVIDENCE IN SCOTLAND. 



Mr E. S. Ferguson also informs me that "there is a very old 

 painted glass at Bowness, on Windermere, in Westmoreland, 

 where a squirrel and a falcon are depicted one on either side of 

 the Virgin Mary;" but it may be foreign. It is glass of the 

 thirteenth century. Mr Ferguson, in his tract upon "Bowness 

 Church and its Old Glass," p. 22,* is of opinion that " they 

 are probably merely ornamental accessories, without mean- 

 ing ; but they may be heraldic." Hesitatingly I place this 

 representation in close relationshixD with the Eunic records 

 and the myth of the Edda. If heraldic, it is at least a 

 very early use of heraldic arms upon glass. The representa- 

 tion rather appears to me to be an idea borrowed from the 

 Eunic scrolls, in combination witli the symbolism of the yet 

 early Christianity. 



May not the Virgin Mary, supported on either side by a fal- 

 con (query — an eagle-like bird ?) and a squirrel, be held to sym- 

 bolise the triumph of Good over Evil — a curious mixture of 

 the myth of Ygdrasil and the Christianity of the early portion 

 of the Christian era, first also exhibited in the two-dated 

 Euthwell Stone, the serpent (or Evil Influence) being now 

 absent or laid aside ? 



Of the origin of the use of the squirrel in heraldry I have 



* Separate. Kendal, 1879. (Eeprint from Trans. Cumberland and West- 

 moreland Ant. and Archcc. Soc.) 



VOL. VI. C 



