Alba Historical

The Lost Battle   Many theories exist over the venue for the Battle of Mons Graupius, but none is conclusive. More than a dozen places are rumoured to be the correct site—the more imaginative include the Gleneagles golf courses and the vicinity of Culloden. The name of the battle implies an isolated or at least distinctive hill, in other words, not the whole range of the Mounth. In the first printed edition of Tacitus's work, in 1480, a printer's error caused Graupius to appear as Grampius, which means the region Grampian took its name from a 15th-century spelling mistake.  Grampian Mountains link The very detailed description by Tacitus of the battle gives some clues regarding the lie of the land. The hill itself must have had a concave and rather steep slope. There was an open place for the Roman camp and a plain beside it, with wooded hills nearby and a Caledonian settlement within view.  Serious contenders for the site include: ● Duncrub near Dunning in Perthshire—may...

  The Blue Men The three Shiant Islands, where the amazing find of the priceless gold tore was made, lie in the waters of the Minch, east of Harris, and are known in Gaelic as the enchanted isles. Strong tidal currents are not the only hazard facing those who venture into these waters. Legend has it that the Blue Men of the Minch live in the Sound of Shiant, and that they are either fallen angels who landed in the sea after being ejected from Heaven, or storm kelpies, Sailors are advised to treat the Blue Men with great respect. They should speak to the Blue Ones in rhyming Gaelic couplets, or else be dragged to the bottom of the Minch. A minister in the late 19th century recorded his meeting with one of them. He said "a blue-covered man, with a long, grey face, and floating from the waist out of the water came, so close, I could almost touch him.'' The strikingly attractive Shiants are a cluster of three islands and several islets made of basalt, formed by the eruption of...

Towering Enigmas     For most of us, our home is a part refuge, part status symbol. That was just as true during the later Bronze and Iron Age, between 1,000 BC and 100 AD when Scotland was covered with the farms of settled and prosperous tribes. The centrepiece of these farms was a large roundhouse. In the south and east of the country, where timber was plentiful, these were usually massive wooden buildings with conical roofs rising up to 40ft above the ground. Unfortunately, centuries of intensive farming have wiped out all traces of them from the Lowlands. Further north, wood was less easily available, and so prehistoric farmers built their roundhouses from stone. These Atlantic roundhouses, so-called because they are most common around Scotland's Atlantic coasts, include the most imposing of all Iron Age buildings - the broch towers. Among the finest architectural achievements of prehistoric Europe, they are found only in Scotland. Some of the best examples are located in ...