410 Notes on Yarroiu. By James Hardy. 



struck with dismay, lie threw down his spade and fled. Next morning, 

 however, he returned, and part of the skull is now (1847) in the possession 

 of a gentleman in Edinburgh. It was submitted to the inspection of a 

 distinguished anatomist, who reported : ' It is a portion of the inner table 

 of the two parietal bones of the skull in advanced life, and apparently of 

 the male sex. You will easily observe the serrated line of union of the two 

 bones.'" 



The writer was of tlie opinion that this bone was part of the 

 skull of the " redoubted Border Chief." The circumstance of 

 the desecration of the tomb quite recently came to Mr Currie's 

 notice, when he undertook a journey (Dec. 16th, 1883) to make 

 the outline drawing of the tomb for the accompanying plate. 

 (Plate XIII.) " That it was desecrated and the skull abstracted," 

 he writes, " I have on the authority of my own brother at pre- 

 sent from Australia, and to whom the thief confessed the foul 

 deed, and indicated the party to whom he had sold it. I am 

 glad to find now from my brother, that this same party had the 

 good taste to restore the skull to its tomb at Henderland." 



Mr Currie's report on the present state of the stone is that it is 

 ** in a very bad condition, being scrawled with names. One of 

 these has been recently/ cut along the sword, and so deeply cut the 

 whole length of it, that the only way to restore it to the original 

 state would be to fill the letters in with hard cement ; also to 

 clean the whole stone of its inoss, and enclose it by an iron 

 railing. If this is not done, it promises fair to be destroyed, and 

 unintelligible in a few years." Mr Currie had great difficulty in 

 deciphering the letters, what with the wretched state it is in, and 

 the dark day, and but for the assistance of his nephew, who 

 knew the inscription, he would have failed. The reading he 

 obtained is *' Heee lyes Piers de Cockburn," on the top, "and 

 HIS WIFE Margoey," or " Marjory "on the lateral margin. A 

 more correct version and account of the sculpturing on the stones 

 will be mentioned in the sequel. 



Although Sir Walter Scott in introducing the ballad of th© 

 Border Widow, "obtained from recitation in the Forest of 

 Ettrick," apparently gives credence to the tradition that Cock- 

 burn of Henderland was hanged over the gate of his own tower 

 by James V., he was well aware from Lesley's History, which he 

 quotes in the introduction to "Johnie Armstrong," that Cock- 

 burn and Scot " the king of the thieves " were beheaded and not 

 hanged. No one could mistake who had consulted Lesley, who 

 relates how these two offenders had a regular trial, and were 



