Report of Meetings for 1881. By Jas. Hardy. 457 



burn in a paper which lie read. Another great accumulation of 

 bones under the floor of a church was mentioned by the Eev. Mr 

 Dobie, as having occurred at Ladj^kirk, of which he has sent me 

 a notice. We have also to bear in mind the case of Gordon as 

 narrated by the Eev. William Stobbs on the previous year, and 

 the zest for sepulture within the precincts of Newminster Abbey, 

 of which I by no means exhausted the list that might be gleaned 

 from the Chartulary (See the present vol. pp. 227, 257-9). It 

 was no common sight to gaze upon the remains of the warriors 

 who fell at Otterburn. The skeletons of three horses' heads, which 

 were discovered at the same period, built up, as if specially 

 sacred, in a chamber of the church tower, were shewn in a cellar 

 behind the church, and were placed in the same pyramidal form, 

 they were in when dicovered. Dr. Eobertson's learned paper 

 accounting for their presence will be read with much interest. 

 Some support may be given to the idea there hinted at, that they 

 were connected with offerings made at the dedication or erection 

 of the church, or it may be at the celebration of some festival of 

 the patron saint. Without forming any decided opinion I may cite 

 here three instances in which this kind of immolation is spoken 

 of. When Alexander I. of Scotland restored to the church of St. 

 Andrews, the lands called the Boar's Chase, with many privileges, 

 he accompanied this benefaction, ' * with the strange gift of a 

 royal Arabian Steed, with its trappings and silver shield and 

 spear, which the king led up to the altar, and a splendid suit of 

 Turkish armour."* The inference from Fordun's version is that 

 this was a token of investiture or taking seisin. f At the inter- 

 ment of one of the Nevilles, Lords of Eaby, in Durham Priory 

 Church, his war-horse, armed in battle array, preceded the body 

 of its master. The horse was given to the church as a portion of its 

 owner's mortuary payment.^ In 1164, St. Aeldred of Eievaux 

 during a journey into Pictland, happened to be at ' Cuthbrichtis 

 Kirche ' at Kirkcudbright, as it is now called, on the feast day 

 of its great patron. A bull, the marvel of the parish for its 

 strength and ferocity was dragged to the church, bound with 

 cords, to be offered as an alms and oblation to St. Cuthbert.§ 



* Skene's Celtic Scotland, i., p. 451. fGroodal's Fordun, i., p. 340. 



J Journal of Archasological Institute, vi., p. 436. 



§ Joseph Eobertson, Miscellany of Spalding Club, v. pp. 56, 57, from 

 Keginald of Durham's Miracles of St. Cuthbert, quoted in Dr. Mitchell's 

 Past in the Present, p. 275. 



