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Arthur Seat — its History and Nomenclature. By John 

 Geddie, Edinburgh. 



Arthur Seat, its name and its early history, furnish 

 almost as much matter of unsettled controversy as do the 

 origin and nomenclature of the neighbouring city. Ingenious 

 attempts have been made to trace the name of the hill to 

 a Celtic root. Maitland's suggestion that it is a corruption 

 of " Ard-na-Said " — the "Height of Arrows," ("for," observes 

 the eighteenth century historian, "no spot of ground is 

 fitter for the exercise of archery, either at butts or rovers, 

 than this ") — may be said still to hold the field as an 

 explanation of Arthur Seat, regarded as a Gaelic place- 

 name. It is possible that, as in the case of Edinburgh, 

 we have here an early descriptive name absorbed and modified 

 by a later piece of history or tradition. The tradition that 

 associates the hill with the legendary King of the Silures, 

 who, by what is probably a modern piece of embroidering, 

 is represented as watching from its crown one of his last 

 battles with "the heathen of the Northern Sea," is certainly 

 of respectable antiquity ; it is spoken of under the name of 

 " Arthuris Sete," as a place of public resort and for the 

 lighting of bonfires, in Kennedy's "Flyting with Dunbar," 

 published in 1508. It may at least be said that of this 

 couchant lion shape mounting guard over the Palace of the 

 ancient Kings — this outstanding feature of an "Arthurian" 

 region — that it well becomes its royal title. 



