On Edin's Hall, by John Turnbull. 83 



surveyor, and the author of a map of the county. Dr Eobert 

 Chambers visited the remains in 1854, and gave a short notice 

 of them in Chambers' Journal for 10th June of that year, in an 

 article entitled "A Day on the Whitadder." The object of the 

 paper, however, is more philological than descriptive, and he 

 derives the name from " Etin," which, in old Scottish tradition, 

 is a giant. " Thus we hear in our early national literature of 

 the tale of the Eed Etin," Popular Ehymes of Scotland, 3rd 

 Ed., p. 243; and " Sir David Lindsay in his Dreme speaks of 

 having amused the infancy of King James V. with ' Tales of the 

 Eed Etin and Gyre Carling.'" Dr Beddoe, President of the 

 London Anthropological Society, when visiting Edin's Hall, 

 stated that the name " Etin's hald " reminded him of the Scan- 

 dinavian word for a giant " aetan." It is confirmation of this 

 derivation that there is a tradition of a giant connected with 

 Edin's Hall. 



On 25th July, 1861, the Club visited Edin's Hall, and in his 

 Anniversary Address, Mr Milne Home gives an account of the 

 visit, and makes some observations on the remains. Some years 

 afterwards, he suggested that the ruins might be cleared out ; 

 and Dr Stuart, the eminent antiquarian and secretary to the 

 Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, read to that Society, on 11th 

 January, 1869, a paper on Edin's Hall, in which he mentioned 

 Mr Milne Home's proposal ; and on his suggestion, " the Society 

 cordially approved of Mr Milne Home's plan for clearing out 

 and preserving the very curious remains in question, and voted a 

 sum of £5 towards the necessary expenses of doing so." In the 

 Transactions of the Archaeological Institute of London for 1870, 

 General Lefroy gives a short account of Edin's Hall (and of the 

 Picts house which was discovered at Broomhouse). He is of 

 opinion that the earth- works of Edin's Hall are on a scale be- 

 yond the efforts of a very primitive people ; and he refers to Mr 

 Skene's preface to the Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, p, cxv., 

 where is mentioned the defeat of a chieftain, Donald Brec, in the 

 year 638, at a place not identified, but certainly south of the 

 Forth, called Glenmairison, after which Etin was besieged (in 

 Tighernae, Chronicles, p. 70, the name is spelled Etain). Mr 

 Skene conjectures that this place may be Caer Edin now Carri- 

 den, in Linlithgowshire ; but it is quite possible that it may 

 have been Edin's Hall. If so, it must have been a place of some 



