130 Notice of Ancient Burial Urns, by Thomas Craig. 



the farm of Cliftoncote, in the parish of Hownam. Unfortu- 

 nately, however, the workman's pickaxe reduced it to small frag- 

 ments, before he was aware of the rare and valuable remains 

 upon which he had accidentally alighted. But some of the pieces 

 of the urn were of a size sufficient to give some indication of its 

 original dimensions and character. An examination of the frag- 

 ments led to the conclusion, that the urn was of about eight 

 inches in depth, and about twenty-four inches in diameter. At 

 the top was a rim about three inches broad, scored in such a way as 

 to make it difficult to say whether the marks shewed method or the 

 want of it. Lower down there was another band of nearly equal 

 breadth, upon which the marking was less elaborate ; and to- 

 ward the bottom there was no tracing or attempted ornament of 

 any kind. The upper edge was indented with small round holes, 

 for what purpose is unknown. The inside had similar indenta- 

 tions. The material used in its fabrication seems to have been 

 the clay of the district, and the vessel shewed little skill on the 

 part of the potter. It contained a quantity of bones, presumably 

 human, which were much decayed ; but whether they bore any 

 signs of the action of fire it is not possible now to say. The urn 

 was found in the solid rock scarcely covered by the soil, but a 

 cavity of about two feet had been scooped out for its reception. 

 The fragments of this curious cinerary urn, if it may be so called, 

 were presented to Kelso Museum. 



II. and III. 



These urns were discovered in the same district of country 



upwards of seventy years ago, and might have been entirely 



lost to history had the fact of their being found, with a 



description of them, not been communicated to the Kelso Mail at 



though in the lapse of time, many supposed it to mean the " lang gaunts" 

 (yawns) of an unusually sleepy hamlet population. [This proverb is one of 

 those applied to localities with similar names, on both sides of the Borders. 

 In the late Mr Denham's "Folk Lore of Northumberland," the version is, 

 ' ' The lang gaunts o' Elishaw were heard 'm't loans o' Blakelaw." It is now 

 spoken of in deriding lovers' sighs. Mr Arkle, of Highlaws, who communi- 

 cated it, notes a variation : "The lang guns o' Elishaw," &c. The country 

 opinion was, that it related to " some feud in which the people of Elishaw 

 took terrible vengeance on the folks o' Blakelaw." Elishaw, or shortly 

 'Lishaw, is in Bedesdale. Blake man's Law is a hill near Elishaw, on the 

 opposite' side of the Durtree Burn. Mr Arkle has also heard the same saying 

 about two places on the Tweed.- J. H.] 



