While the Picts, or Pechts, are remembered to a great extent as the builders of the subterranean and half-subterranean dwellings with which they are associated, these are far from being the only structures which popular tradition has stamped as the work of their hands. The architectural skill, of a kind, which they displayed in the construction of their own "Pechts' houses" may be seen from such a casual reference as this, gleaned from among certain specimens of Clydesdale folk-lore: "Our milkhouse," says a Clydesdale peasant, "whilk stude on the side of a dentie burn, and was ane o' thae auld vowts [vaults] whilk the Pechs biggit langsyne, had wa's sae doons strang that ane waud hae thocht it micht hae stude to the last day; but its found had been onnerminit by the last Lammas-spait."[102] If the "Pechts' houses" lacked, as they certainly did, evidences of high culture in the designers, or outward beauty of design in themselves, they were at least remarkable for their great strength and durability; so that, were it not for such accidents as a Lammas-flood, they might well have stood "to the last day." But the great bodily strength of this race, and their turn for masonry, were made use of in other ways than in the construction of the dwellings referred to; that is, if there is any truth in the popular ideas upon this subject.

The late Robert Chambers, in putting together the popular Scotch beliefs regarding these people,[103] not only states that they were "short, wee men," but he adds, still speaking as a Scottish peasant: "The Pechs were great builders; they built a' the auld castles in the kintry; and do ye ken the way they built them? I'll tell ye. They stood all in a row from the quarry to the place where they were building, and ilk ane handed forward the stanes to his neebor, till the hale was biggit." A special example of one of the buildings so reared is the Round Tower of Abernethy in Perthshire, well known as one of the two towers of this class still to be found in Scotland. "The story goes," says the Rev. Andrew Small, in his "Antiquities of Fife,"[104] "that it was built by the Pechts,... and that, while the work was going on, they stood in a row all the way from the Lomond Hill to the building, handing the stones from one to another.... That it has been built of freestone from the Lomond Hill is clear to a demonstration, as the grist or nature of the stone points out the very spot where it has been taken from, namely, a little west, and up from the ancient wood of Drumdriell, about a mile straight south from Meralsford." That Abernethy was long a seat of Pictish power is what no historian would deny, and the tower referred to is always denominated "Pictish." Of the way in which it was built we have just seen the local account.

Similar ideas are current in Northumberland. "The erection of several of these old castles [e.g., Dunstanborough Castle] is, by popular tradition, ascribed to the Picts.... The building of the Roman wall, which is by country people commonly called the Picts' wall, is also ascribed to them; and they are said to have formed the Catrail on the Scottish border, which is frequently called the Picts-work ditch. The Picts are described as men of low stature, but of superhuman strength; and on the moors of Northumberland the heaps of stone, which are supposed by antiquaries to mark the spot where 'bones of mighty chiefs lie hid,' are sometimes pointed out to the inquiring stranger as places where a Pict's apron-string had broken as he was carrying a load of stones to his work."[105]

Although the tower at Abernethy, and the "Pechts' houses" already spoken of, may be classed together as having been built for the use of the builders themselves, it is quite evident that if these people actually reared the many other structures attributed to them, in Scotland and in Northumberland, they did so in the character of serfs, working for people of other races. If Dunstanborough Castle, the Wall of Hadrian, and (perhaps also) the Catrail, not to speak of "a' the auld castles in the kintry," were built by the Pechts, the builders were evidently not working on their own behalf. This clearly must have been the case in the instance of the "Roman Wall," which was raised for the very purpose of checking the southward inroads of these fierce warriors. That it actually was a "Roman wall" is of course beyond question. But that fact does not interfere with the supposition that the drudgery was performed by captive Pechts, whose immense strength, and intimate acquaintance with the art of building such structures, would render them of the greatest use to their conquerors. That they, and not the Romans, were the actual builders of the wall, as Northumbrian tradition asserts, is therefore far from improbable. Indeed, there are one or two indications that the more northern "Wall of Antoninus" may also have been reared by kindred hands. And as with these early examples, so may the later buildings referred to have actually been unwillingly built by Pechts, at the command of other people.[106]

Not only walls and castles, or towers, but churches and cathedrals are also said to have been reared by the same dwarfish but powerful builders, as may be seen from the following instances.

One part of Scotland that continued to be a "reservation" of the Pechts, after that people had ceased to hold sway, is the hilly country lying to the south of Edinburgh, and known as "the Pentlands." Like the "Pentland Firth" on the north-east of Scotland, this district was so called because it was associated with the Pechts. We need not here concern ourselves as to the causes which made the name, in both instances, assume the modern form of "Pentland." But, in each case, the name was formerly "Pehtland," and it signified "the land of the Pehts, or Pechts." According to Dr. Skene, the Angles of Northumbria had, as early as the seventh century, established themselves pretty securely as the ruling caste throughout the south-east of what is now Scotland, then a part of "Northumbria." This territory seems to have reached as far on the north-west as the modern county of Linlithgow, and one of the chief Northumbrian strongholds in that neighbourhood has ever since been known by the name of the Northumbrian king, Edwin. Edinburgh, therefore, in the seventh century, appears as a seat of the Anglian race, which ruled from the Forth to the Humber. Three or four centuries later, the steadily growing power of "Scotia" annexed the whole of Northumbria lying north of the Borders. But the population, no doubt, remained little affected by this political change, and its speech and traditions continued the same.[107]

But, although those Angles were the rulers of south-eastern Scotland (in modern topography), there still remained a remnant of the Pechts in at least one part of that northern Northumbria.[108] And it was because of their residence there that the Angles spoke of the hilly region lying to the south and south-west of Edinburgh as "the Peht or Pecht land." How long the Pechts maintained some kind of individuality in that neighbourhood it is impossible to say. It is said that, after Kenneth's great victory over the Pechts at Forteviot or at Scone, in the middle of the ninth century, many of the fugitives sought refuge in England. And, as the Pentland Hills were then in "England," it is likely that they found shelter among their kindred there. In other parts of Scotland the Pechts are historically visible long after the seventh and ninth centuries. At the battle of the Standard, in 1138, the Galloway section formed one division of the Scottish army.[109] A popular tradition, to be presently referred to, also speaks of them as a distinct people in the Clyde valley, during the same century. It is therefore quite permissible to suppose that, once the people of the Midlothian "Pecht-lands" had realized that they were a conquered remnant, with no hope of ultimately recovering their lost power, they may have continued to live, if merely as serfs, not only to the twelfth century, but for several centuries longer.

That they did so is to be inferred from the following bit of "folk-lore," which relates to a locality that, though not strictly included in the district of the "Pecht-lands," is quite near enough to agree with this hypothesis.

The hill of Corstorphine, situated a little to the west of Edinburgh, is only about three miles north of the nearest point of the "Pecht-lands." Now, the village church of Corstorphine is one of the few churches in Scotland which are of interest to the antiquary. "Ancient it most unquestionably is," says a modern writer in the course of a description of the village and its church, and the foundation of the latter is placed in the year 1429. The fifteenth century is not very "ancient," as these things go, but perhaps the site has been occupied by a church from a much earlier period. At any rate, the writer just referred to, in visiting Corstorphine for the purpose of inspecting both church and village, obtained this piece of local tradition, believed to relate to the church of 1429. "Of this [church], in November 1881, an intelligent native assured the writer that it was 'wonderfully ancient, built by the Hottentots, who stood in a row and handed the stones on one to another from Ravelston quarry'"—on the adjacent hill of Corstorphine.[110]

Now, if one compares this account with the traditional description of the modus operandi of the Pechts, already instanced in the case of Abernethy, and generally accepted throughout Scotland, one hardly requires the historical testimony of the "Pecht-lands" to recognize in these "Hottentots" the Pechts of tradition. It is not necessary to take the expression here used by the Corstorphine villager as absolutely correct. His statement, it may be remarked, succeeded a conversation in which our various wars in South Africa had been discussed,[111] and it is not unlikely that this had suggested to the speaker the term "Hottentot" as aptly enough describing a race that to his ancestors, whose ideas he inherited, had seemed savage and inferior. That he absolutely believed the labourers who reared the walls of the church to be of a different race from his own is unquestionably indicated by the whole tenor of his remarks.[112]

This Corstorphine tradition points to a body of Pechts still surviving as a distinct type, in the Midlothian of 1429; and then regarded by the general population as a caste of drudges. This, too, is the position accorded to that race in one phase of Highland tradition. "I am informed," says Dr. Jamieson,[113] "that in Inverness-shire, the foundations of various houses have been discovered, of a round form,... and that when the Highlanders are asked to whom they belonged, they say that they were the houses of the Drinnich or Trinnich, i.e., of the labourers, a name which they give to the Picts." They may be seen in the Clyde valley, in the same position as those of Corstorphine, but three centuries earlier, on the testimony of tradition. "Throughout Scotland," says an antiquary previously quoted, "the vulgar account is, 'that the Pechs were unco wee bodies, but terrible strang'; that is, that they were of very small stature, but of prodigious strength. It is commonly added [he goes on] 'that the meal (oatmeal) was a penny the peck when they built the Hie Kirk [the Cathedral] of Glasgow;' for the building of all the cathedrals, and in general everything very ancient, is ascribed by the common people to the Pechs."[114] Now, the present Cathedral of Glasgow is said to have been built in the twelfth century, at which date the Pechts of Galloway formed a distinct and separate population in south-western Scotland. According to Reginald of Durham, as we have already seen, the town of Kirkcudbright was situated in the "Pecht-lands" (terra Pictorum), and the sermo Pictorum was still spoken there. In the same century the Galloway Pechts formed the van of the Scottish army at the battle of the Standard; and the Pechts of this period are remembered in the popular memory, assisted by a homely enough detail, as having been employed in the building of the "High Church" of Glasgow. Of course, the Clyde valley is not situated in Galloway; but the presence of Pechts in twelfth-century Glasgow may easily be explained by assuming that they belonged to another detachment of the race, or that it was worth while sending to Galloway for such famous builders. Belonging to a period less easily defined are the Pecht masons of the famous Round Tower at Brechin. Regarding this tower a local writer states: "Tradition, in Brechin, as well as at Abernethy, ascribes the erection to the Peghts," and he adds, that "it has stated they were only allowed a trifle for this work, and were cheated out of part of this trifle."[115] In this instance, also, the Pechts are remembered as working for people of another race; which is somewhat remarkable, as the tower itself is one of those which seem to have been built by the Pechts for their own purposes.

Without going much out of the way, it may be as well to point out that the popular idea of the Pechts being "men of low stature, but of superhuman strength," "unco wee bodies, but terrible strang," is not only supported by tradition on every side, but it is borne out by a consideration of the mementos they have left behind them. Much could be said on this subject; but it will perhaps be enough here to point to a hill-fortress in Forfarshire, which history and tradition agree in ascribing to these people. This is the stronghold known as the White Cater Thun, situated a few miles north-west of Brechin (which possesses the Pictish round-tower just referred to, and which was once a seat of Pictish monarchy). The fort crowns a hill which rises about 300 feet above the general level of the great valley of Strathmore, and is thus referred to:

"This is, perhaps, the strongest Pictish fortification extant. It is surrounded by a double rampart of an elliptical figure, being 436 feet long by about 200 broad, and containing about two imperial acres.... But the most wonderful thing that occurs in this Pictish fort is the extraordinary dimensions of the ramparts, composed entirely of large, loose stones, being 26 feet thick at the top, and upwards of 100 at the bottom, reckoning quite to the ditch, which, indeed, seems to be much filled up with the tumbling down of the walls. The vast labour that it must have cost to amass so enormous a quantity of large stones, and convey them to such a height, is astonishing.... In conveying the enormous quantity of large stones to the summit of White Cater Thun, the natives must doubtless have expended great labour, and much time. They seem, however, to have been familiar with a method of removing immense masses from considerable distances, and it is supposed they made use of hurdles on such occasions; it is not improbable they might have some kind of rude windlass for raising the larger stones from the bottom to the top of the hill."[116]

Whatever the method employed by the builders of this stronghold, the description just given will show the reader, what he cannot fail to be impressed with on a study of the Pechts, that these people and their buildings belonged to what is known as the "Cyclopean" type, and that they—the people—represented a race now quite extinct, in its purity, but which must undoubtedly have been remarkable for a prodigious strength of body, a strength that may well be spoken of as "superhuman," if it is to be compared with that of any existing race of men. It is this point that must always be borne in mind when one considers the traditions regarding the buildings of the Pechts, and this it is that justifies the very parts of those traditions which would otherwise appear utterly wild and incredible. Beyond question, there is much that demands criticism and inquiry in the traditional description of the way in which such edifices as Abernethy Tower and Corstorphine Church were reared. But two important points must not be overlooked. The one is that an immense number of people may have been simultaneously at work; the other is that the workers were of vast muscular strength.