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Dumbarrow Hill

Stone Fort / Dun

Folklore

Anyway, some threads are so bright that they have to be picked up. This is the case with King Nechtan, whose name is perhaps found in Dunnichen (‘the fort of Nechtan’) and the English name for the battle where the Northumbrians were defeated by the Picts nearby, Nechtansmere. Before we consider which Nechtan Dunnichen is named after, there is the matter of confirming this as the place of the battle in 685 AD. To the Northumbrians the site of their national disaster was called Nechtan’s Mere, signifying the swamp or shallow lake in the shadow of Dun Nechtan. But the Welsh, who spoke a very similar language to the Picts, called the body of water Llyn Garan, the Pool of Herons. Was this the original name of the place or did it somehow have two names? (The Irish, meanwhile called it the battle of Dun Nechtan.) It would seem to cast a fragment of doubt over the identification of Dunnichen as the battle site. In fact Dunnichen was not positively identified as the place of the conflict until the connection was made by George Chalmers in his Caledonia in 1807. Chalmers pointed out that the ‘eminence’ on the south side of Dunnichen Hill, still visible in his day and known as Cashili or Castle Hill, must be the ‘fortress of Nechtan’. Chalmers also speculated that the neighbouring hill of Dumbarrow, ‘the hill of the barrow’, signifying notable burials there (Caledonia, I, 155.)

[Note also the King's Well on the east side of Dumbarrow Hill.]

Angus Folklore : In Search of King Nechtan in Angus and Elsewhere
drewbhoy Posted by drewbhoy
30th December 2017ce

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