:*80 



Report of Meetings for 1886. By J. Hardy 



two waters at tin- spot in the least wonderful, as Merlin's grave is in the 

 haufjh or meadow close to the Tweed, which the river must of course 

 cover whenever it is in Hood. The greatest wonder, therefore, in the 

 case, is that a prophecy should' have pointed to such an event as extra- 

 ordinary." (Popular Rhymes of Scotland, pp. 228-220). 



Ruins of Tinnies Castle. 



There are some crofter plots on the banks of the Powsail as 

 it descends from Merlin's Glen. They are chiefly noticeable 

 from their impoverishment. We ought to have climbed the 

 hill of Tinnies to enjoy the prospect, but time hurried us on. It 

 is ascended by a winding roadway. There are the ruins of the 

 castle on the northern end ; a field once cultivated on a length- 

 ened platform at the top ; and a ruin, perhaps, of a stone wall, at 

 the upper end of the ridge. Its green, tall, conical height 

 scarped down on all sides, is a conspicuous object from the sur- 

 rounding country. The view in the cut is taken from the low 

 ground, from the Dawyck side, and is in some respects exagger- 

 ated, but furnishes a good diagram of its aspect as taken away 

 in the memory. Tinnies very likely was once a British fort. As 

 Professor Veitch remarks, the Alt-Teutha or Fort of Tweed 

 referred to in one of the oldest of the Ossianic poems, entitled 

 Calhon and Colvala, is probably Tinnies Castle, " at the opening 

 of the old highway down the strath of Biggar water to the 



