398 A Mid-Lothian Burn. [Sess. 



are to be found extensive earthworks which may have been 

 the Pictish " rath " that gives the modern parish its name. 

 And may not the Hanley graves betoken an ancient burial- 

 place of one of the tribes long ere the Roman eagles and the 

 Anglian sea-rovers drove the woad-stained people to the fast- 

 ness of the Pentlands or Pictlands ? 



Of Eoman occupation the immediate neighbourhood of the 

 burn preserves no remains, so far as we can learn, though it 

 must have time and again resounded to the tramp of the 

 legions in vain endeavour to bring under complete subjuga- 

 tion the country between the walls. 



In an Anglian connection, however, we are more fortunate 

 in having left to us the " Cat Stane," that solitary boulder of 

 greenstone trap which has been a source of interest and con- 

 jecture to antiquarians for over 200 years. The inscription 

 in the rude Roman characters of the fourth and fifth centuries 

 — with difficulty discernible on the screen — reads as follows : 

 " In (h)oc tumulo jacit vetta f (ilius) Yicti," — that is, " In this 

 mound or grave lies Vetta, son of Victus." For a full discus- 

 sion on the subject of the Cat Stane, we refer you to Sir J. Y. 

 Simpson's paper, read before the Society of Antiquaries on 

 11th February 1861. Suffice it to say, that here we have 

 the burial-place of Vetta, grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, 

 and, according to the Venerable Bede, grandson of Woden. 

 Who set up this memorial-stone will never be known; but 

 what more probable than that military legionaries of Teutonic 

 origin serving in the Roman army, and more or less versed in 

 the Latin tongue, had found and followed a leader like Vetta, 

 belonging to the royal stock of Woden, and on his death had 

 sought thus to pay respect to one of such an illustrious race. 

 It may be of interest to note that Miss Warrender, in her 

 delightful ' Walks around Edinburgh,' asks, " May not pos- 

 sibly Torphin, who gave his name to the neighbouring village 

 of Corstorphine, as^ well as to the hill to the south, have been 

 a leader in the same Saxon host ? " 



Besides this venerable monument how modern appears 

 everything else we have looked at! What changes it has 

 seen ! And yet here it stands, little altered by the centuries 

 that have passed over it. One deed of violence it was witness 



