Rev. John Walker on Greenlaw. 115 



quite distinctly, a protected road from the entrenchment, 

 which is destitute of water, down to the river. 



Of the age of this memorial of old struggles it is, of course, 

 impossible to speak with certainty. But the line of the 

 Whitadder presents appearances of having, at one time, been 

 fortified also. If we admit the remains on Cockburnlaw to 

 mark the site of a military station, then, there is a strongly 

 fortified camp at Priestlaw ; there is another, a small camp 

 above the defile at Crichness, and the top of the hill over 

 Penshiel appears to have been fortified, and may have been 

 used as a speculatorium, from which the whole course of the 

 va lley and all its approaches from the east, could be seen and 

 watched between the stations of Crichness and Cockburnlaw. 



The lines on the Whitadder and Blackadder, and the line 

 of the Catrail, thus probably all belong to one system, and 

 carry the mind back to the sixth century — to the Saxon Ida, 

 or Edwyn — and the resistance, on the Catrail, effectual, offered 

 by the Britons of the Romanised province of Bernicia to the 

 westward pressure of the invaders. 



There is a curious mound by the side of the Blackadder, on 

 the north of the stream, called " the King's Grave," which 

 may be a natural eminence, or may have been formed by the 

 debris of a rush of water through a ravine nearly opposite to 

 it, but which certainly has the appearance of having been 

 stirred — dug into — on a part of its extent, the tradition con- 

 nected with which, seems to carry the mind back to the same 

 stern times. 



The residence, according to this old tale, of a British Chief 

 was surprised by Saxon assailants in his absence, and all who 

 belonged to him were murdered or carried away, with the 

 exception of one infant child who was a twin, who happened 

 to have been carried out at the time in the arms of his nurse, 

 and was by her concealed and preserved. 



Many years afterwards this British Chief met a Saxon 

 army, and the place of meeting must have been some where 

 near to these lines. It was proposed by the Saxon leader and 

 agreed to, that the matter in dispute between them should be 

 decided by combat, one champion being chosen from each 

 army. The Saxon champion was the Briton's stolen son, 

 whose life had been spared by his enemies when they put to 

 death the other members of his family who were in their 

 power. It was his twin brother who represented the British 

 host — and the two kinsmen both fell — mutually slain, and 

 lie buried, as the tradition which I seek to give says, under 



