342 ARTItUR SEAT— HISTORY AND NOMENCLATURE 



The name of the " Salisbury Crags " has also greatly 

 exercised the minds of the philologists. Hugo Arnot appears 

 to have been the first to offer the explanation that the 

 rocky wall that overhangs, like a breaking wave, the valley 

 of St. Leonard's and the houses of the Old Town, is called 

 after the second Earl of Salisbury — husband of the lady in 

 whose honour the Order of the Garter was instituted — who 

 accompanied Edward III. in his invasion of Scotland in 1336. 

 Although the derivation has been widely accepted, it does 

 not bear the mark of genuineness. This striking feature 

 in the Edinburgh landscape must have borne a name long 

 before the fourteenth century and the brief presence of a 

 stranger, who has otherwise left no memory of his visit 

 (beyond that of his siege of Black Agnes of Dunbar) behind 

 him. More acceptable sounds the interpretation given by 

 Lord Hailes, in his "Annals," that, like the more famous 

 Sarum or Salisbury of the South, the word is of Anglo- 

 Saxon origin; and that Saeris-beorg (" Sarisbury " is the 

 earliest recorded form) means the dry or "sere" rock. 



Around the shoulders, knees, and feet of Arthur Seat, as 

 well as on its crest and its great outlying buttress, has been 

 bestowed a "commodity of good names;" the "Lion's Haunch," 

 the "Whinny Hill," the "Crow Hill," "Samson's Ribs," 

 the "Eaven's Rock," the "Haggis" or "Fairy Knowe," the 

 " Girnal Crag," the "Echoing Rock," the "Scylvers," the 

 "Dasses," "Hunter's Bog," the "Hause," the "Punch Bowl," 

 the "Windy Gowl." the "Cat-nick," the " Guttit Haddie," 

 the "Giant's Grave," by no means exhaust the list. Duns- 

 appie Rock is the only name on the hill that points clearly 

 to a Celtic derivation, although this also is so corrupted that 

 no plausible signification has been suggested. The loch at 

 its feet, like that of St. Margaret's, and like the Queen's 

 Drive, which skirts these ornamental pieces of water, is of 

 recent formation ; whereas Duddingston Loch has from time 

 immemorial washed the base of Arthur Seat. The springs 

 of water on and around the hill have their own share of 

 story and romance, although some of them possess modern 

 or transferred names. Thus no genuine association with 

 the " Sair Sanct" is attached to "St. David's Well"; "St. 

 Margaret's Well" has only a shadowy connection with the 



