715 
of Edinburgh, Session 1871 - 72 . 
have been made at boulders in many other districts, especially 
where they formed circles. 
If these great boulders were used as places of worship, it was 
natural that they should also be used for sepulture, on account ot 
the supposed sanctity of the place. Indeed, the fact of a place 
having been used for sepulture, creates of itself a presumption that 
it was used also for worship. 
(3.) Another important purpose for which the boulders were 
used, was for the trial of offenders and the issuing of judicial sen¬ 
tences. Thus, in Little Dnnkeld parish, there is a large boulder 
called “ Clack a mkoidf* or Stone of the place of Justice, where 
the baron of the district could try offenders , with right to hang or 
drown those convicted. In Ayrshire there is another large boulder 
called the Stone of Judgment , for the barony of Killochan. Several 
large rocking stones have been reported. In ancient times, when 
very rude tests of guilt or innocence were employed, the rocking 
stone was used in the trial of persons accused of crimes. 
“ It moves obsequious to tlie gentlest touch, 
Of him whose breast is pure. But to the traitor, 
Though even a giant’s prowess nerved him, 
It stands as fixed as Snowdon.” 
(4.) There are boulders which are known to have been used as 
trysting places for military gatherings; a large boulder on Cul- 
loden Moor is one example. It was on a whinstone boulder called 
The Bore Stone , that Bobert Bruce planted his standard before the 
Battle of Bannockburn. A sandstone boulder on the Borough 
Muir, near Edinburgh, was the gathering point for the army col¬ 
lected by James IV. before the Battle of Flodden. Both of these 
stones are in existence. The Bannockburn stone is protected by 
an iron grating. The other stone is also preserved, being fixed on 
a wall near Morningside parish church, having on it a brass plate, 
bearing an inscription, given bjr the late Sir John Forbes. 
(5.) Some boulders are said to have been used as trysting places 
for the contracting of engagements , such as matrimonial contracts, 
and others less important. There is a boulder in the parish of 
Coldstream (Berwickshire), called the Grey Stone from its colour, 
at which within the last hundred years marriages took place. The 
* New Stat. Acc. vol. x. p. 1007. 
