we shall find no incongruity, but the
reverse, in the idea that their grandfather Vetta was the leader of a
Saxon force thirty-six years previously. Hengist was in all probability
past the middle period of life when he came to the Court of Vortigern,
as he is generally represented as having then a daughter, Rowena,
already of a marriageable age.

On the cause or date of Vetta's death we have of course no historical
information; but the position of his monument renders it next to a
certainty that he fell in battle; for, as we have already seen, the
Cat-stane stands, in the words of Lhwyd, "situate on a river side,
remote enough from any church." The barrows and pillar stones placed for
miles along that river prove how frequently it had served as a strategic
point and boundary in ancient warfare.[201] The field in which the
Cat-stane itself stands was, as we have already found Dr. Wilson
stating, the site formerly of a large tumulus. In a field, on the
opposite bank of the Almond, my friend, Mr. Hutchison of Caerlowrie,
came lately, when prosecuting some draining operations on his estate,
upon numerous stone-kists, which had mutual gables of stone, and were
therefore, in all probability, the graves of those who had perished in
battle. Whether the death of Vetta occurred during the war with
Theodosius in A.D. 364, or, as possibly the appellation Vecturiones
tends to indicate, at a later date, we have no ground to determine.

The vulgar name of the monument, the Cat-stane, seems, as I have already
hinted, to be a name synonymous with Battle-stane, and hence, also, so
far implies the fall of Vetta in open fight. Maitland is the first
author, as far as I am aware, who suggests this view of the origin of
the word Cat-stane. According to him, "Catstean is a Gaelic and English
compound, the former part thereof (Cat) signifying a battle, and stean
or stan a stone; so it is the battlestane, in commemoration probably of
a battle being fought at or near this place, wherein Veta or Victi,
interred here, was slain."[202] I have already quoted Mr. Pennant, as
taking the same view of the origin and character of the name; and Mr.
George Chalmers, in his _Caledonia_, propounds the same explanation of
the word:--"In the parish of Liberton, Edinburghshire, there were (he
observes) several large cairns, wherein were found various stone chests,
including urns, which contained ashes and weapons; some of these cairns
which still remain are ca