th the armes of the Danes, as the
maner of burieng noble men still is, and hieretofore hath beene vsed.
A peace was also concluded at the same time betwixt the Danes and
Scotishmen, ratified (as some haue written) in this wise: that from
thencefoorth the Danes should neuer come into Scotland to make anie
warres against the Scots by anie maner of meanes. And these were the
warres that Duncane had with forren enimies, in the seuenth yiere of
his reigne."[36]

To this account of Holinshed, as bearing upon the question of the St.
Colme's Isle alluded to by Shakspeare, it is only necessary to add one
remark:--Certainly the western Iona, with its nine separate cemeteries,
could readily afford fit burial-space for the slain Danes; but it is
impossible to believe that the defeated and dejected Danish army would
or could carry the dead and decomposing bodies of their chiefs to that
remote place of sepulture. And, supposing that the dead bodies had been
embalmed, then it would have been easier to carry them back to the
Danish territories in England, or even across the German Ocean to
Denmark itself, than round by the Pentland Firth to the distant western
island of Icolmkill. On the other hand, that St. Colme's Inch, in the
Firth of Forth, is the island alluded to, is, as I have already said,
perfectly certain, from its propinquity to the seat of war, and the
point of landing of the new Scandinavian host, namely, Kinghorn; the old
town of Wester Kinghorn lying only about three or four miles below
Inchcolm, and the present town of the same name, or Eastern Kinghorn,
being placed about a couple of miles further down the coast.

We might here have adduced another incontrovertible argument in favour
of this view by appealing to the statement, given in the above
quotation, of the existence on Inchcolm, in Boece's time, of Danish
sepulchral monuments, provided we felt assured that this statement was
in itself perfectly correct. But before adopting it as such, it is
necessary to remember that Boece describes the sculptured crosses and
stones at Camustane and Aberlemno,[37] in Forfarshire, as monuments of a
Danish character also; and whatever may have been the origin and objects
of these mysteries in Scottish archaeology,--our old and numerous
Sculptured Stones, with their strange enigmatical symbols,--we are at
least certain that they are not Danish either in their source or
design, as no sculptured stones with thes