351 



Addition to Dr Stuart's Notice. 



In a letter, of date 20th Dec., 1872, Mr Wilson supplies 

 further information about the situation of the Cist with the 

 inscribed cover, and various particulars which connect it 

 with the burial ground of some ancient tribe ; although by a 

 popular myth, here as elsewhere, these relics are referred to 

 a battle. " In the autumn of 1858—9, I was engaged in 

 draining a field at Edington hill, which adjoins the Dunse 

 and Eyemouth turnpike road. At the very apex of a gentle 

 knoll, one of the drainers came upon this Cist. It was 

 covered by one large flag, which had some ten inches of 

 earth over it. The Cist was oval — about 3 feet by 2 — the 

 sides being formed of stones about twenty inches or so in 

 depth, set on end like the staves of a tub. The flag and side 

 stones were of the Old Red Sandstone, that is found here in 

 situ. They had received only such rough dressing as a dry 

 stone dyker uses ; but the Cist was more carefully and neatly 

 constructed than any other that I have happened to see. 

 There. was no urn, bones, nor flints; nothing but a slight 

 coating of soft dark coloured soil on the bottom. The field 

 immediately across the road is called Cairn dales, and some 

 sixty years ago contained several cairns, which my father 

 removed. I believe they covered cists, but I have no informa- 

 tion about them. It has been supposed that the name of our 

 parish (Chirnside) means cairnside, and that the ridge, of 

 which the field in question forms the eastern termination, 

 may have been the scene of a great battle. I preserved the 

 flag that covered the Cist, and used it to protect a well-hole, 

 where several drains converged, to admit of the mouths being 

 examined." Dr Stuart subsequently transmitted a sketch of 

 the cover, which is a parallelogram, 4 feet 2 inches long, by 

 3 feet broad. The marking is a single cup near one corner, 

 to which is attached, rather diagonally than lengthways, an 

 incised waving channel with three bends, two feet long : in 

 fact, so like a serpent or " worm," that believers in a certain 

 fanciful modern theory would rejoice in it as an illustration ; 

 but all that it wants to identify it with Northumbrian ex- 

 amples, are the circles which usually encompass the cups. 

 Mr Wilson goes on to state that this Cist, as well as another 

 which he found near the Whitadder banks, " had their 

 largest axes nearly due north and south ; shewing that they 

 were made before the Christian era." 



