ficance of the name of his farm as indicating an ancient ecclesiastical connection, and when the bell was subsequently

Fig. 61.—The Balnahanait Bell.

noticed by his nephew, its char

acter was recognised, and it was thus saved from the fate which would otherwise have befallen it, as an apparently worthless bit of old iron. Though much mutilated, it is still an interesting specimen of its class. The handle is almost gone, and a great part of the lower portion of the bell has disappeared through oxidation. What remains of it is quite thin, and partially eaten through by

rust, but the form is unmistakable, and slight traces of a coating of bronze are still visible upon it. In its present condition it measures 9 inches high, 7 inches broad at the

Ireland, the rules of succession to a vacant abbacy give the succession, in the church of the tribe of the patron saint, as follows:-"If a person fit to be an abbot has not come of the tribe of the patron saint, or of the tribe of the land, or of the manach class, the annoit-church shall receive it in the fourth place, a dalta-church shall receive it in the fifth place, a compairche-church shall obtain it in the sixth place, a neighbouring cill-church shall obtain it in the seventh place. If a person fit to be an abbot has not come in any of these seven places a deoraid dé (pilgrim) may assume it in the eighth place." The annoit-church is explained to mean the church in which the patron-saint was educated, or in which his relics were kept, and it ranked first among the various classes of churches.-(Senchus Mor, vol. iii. pp. 65, 75.) The name occurs occasionally in the topography of the north-western districts. There is an Annat in Appin (which is itself a name of ecclesiastical origin, being a corruption of abthane, or the lands of an abbacy); in the parish of Strath, in Skye, there is a stone termed Clach-na-h-annait, and a well named Tobar-nah-annait; there is also a place called Annait, near Dunvegan, in Skye; and in the island of Killigray, Harris, there is a ruined church called Teampullna-h-annait, and near it a well named Tobar-na-h-annait.-(Origines Parochiales, vol. ii. pp. 167, 344, 378.)

bottom, and 6 inches at the top, and is 3 inches in greatest width from side to side.

The bell of Struan, in Athole, locally known as the Buidhean (Fig. 62), which is now preserved in the House of Lude, is also of iron, coated with bronze and riveted. It measures 11 inches in height, exclusive of the handle, and 7 inches by 52 inches across the mouth. It has an iron tongue or clapper fastened into it by nuts and screws, and was actually used as the church bell till about 1828, when the late Mr. M'Inroy of Lude gave the congregation a new bell, and received the old one in exchange. The church seems to have been dedicated to St. Fillan of Strathfillan, as there was a fair held in the parish on his day, called Feile Fhaolain.1

In this series of iron bells we have a very strongly marked type. Its peculiar features are-(1) their material

1 The bell of Strowan, in Strathearn, now preserved in the house of Mr. J. G. Graham Stirling of Strowan, is attributed to St. Rowan or St. Ronan. It differs, however, in form and material from the bells of the early Celtic church, being of cast bell-metal, and having the common round shape of the bell now in use. It has a loop-handle inserted into the top of the bell, however, which is of a different metal, and seems older than the bell itself. This handle is ornamented with a species of fret which is often seen on the sculptured stones. The Rev. Mr. Porteous, author of an Account of the Parishes of Monivaird and Strowan, compiled in the end of last century, states that the bell had a Dewar, or hereditary keeper (like many others of the relics of the early Celtic Church), and that three acres of land were held by the tenure of the bell, free of all public burthens. A pool in the river Earn close by is called Pol Ronan, and the Feil Ronan, or St. Ronan's Fair, was held annually

they are of iron coated with bronze; (2) their manufacturethey are hammered and riveted like caldrons, and the exterior coating of bronze has been produced by a process similar to that now employed in tinning sheets of iron; (3) their formthey are tall, narrow, tapering, four-sided, the ends more or less flattened and the sides bulged; (4) their size-they are all portable bells, whose size and weight is such that the largest of them can be easily swung by hand, for which purpose they are always provided with a handle. They thus differ completely in all their features from the church bells of cast metal of the circular type which have been in use continuously from at least the twelfth century to the present day. No other type of bell is known to have existed, and as this quadrangular type plainly belongs to a period prior to the twelfth century it is the earliest type of bell in Scotland.

We have now to determine whether the group of bells which I have described is a principal group or a derived group, i.e. whether examples of the same type occur beyond the limits of our area, or in what numbers they are relatively found in Scotland and beyond it. As all those in Scotland whose associations have been preserved are attributed to Irish saints, we naturally turn to Ireland in search of the parent group. There we find that the type is well known, and examples, both in iron and bronze, are abundant. The exact number of those that are still extant in Ireland is not easily ascertained, but they can be enumerated up to between fifty and sixty.1

on a stance to the west of the old church, where there was an ancient stone There are other two small square iron bells in Scotland-one at Cawdor Castle, and another in the Kelso Museum.

cross.

1 The fullest account of these, and the most exhaustive treatment of the whole subject of "The Bells of the Church" will be found in an elaborate and copiously illustrated work on The Church Bells of Devon, by Rev. H. T. Ellacombe, M. A., to whom I am indebted for the illustrations of the Birnie, Cladh Bhrennu, and Eilean Finan Bells, the Bells of St. Patrick and St. Ruadhan, the Barnaan Cuilawn and Bell of Armagh, and the Bells of St. Meriadec and St. Gall,

To complete the localisation of the area of the type, we turn to England and Wales. There we find their distribution significant. In Wales, which had intimate relations with the early church in Ireland, some six or seven of these bells are known, but in England only two, in France two (see

Fig. 63.-The Bell of St. Meriadec at Stival, in Bretagne.

Fig. 63), and in Switzerland one. It follows from this that the type is Celtic, and that the principal group has its home in Ireland.

But we also meet occasionally in Scotland with another variety of bell of the same typical form as the iron bell, though differing in material and manufacture. This variety

1 The two in France are the bell of St. Meriadec at Stival in Brittany, and the bell of St. Godebert at Noyon. The one in Switzerland is where we should naturally expect to find it, in the monastery of St. Gall. A woodcut of this bell is given at p. 214.

is of bronze, cast in the same four-sided form, but with finer lines, and usually with a moulding round the lip and some artistic finish to the handle.

The bell of St Fillan (Fig. 64), now preserved with the crosier of St. Fillan in the Museum, belongs to this special

variety of the general type. It is an elegant casting of bronze, stands 12 inches high, and measures 9 by 6 inches wide at the mouth. The ends are flat, the sides bulging, the top rounded. In the middle of the top is the loop-like handle, terminating where it joins the bell in two dragonesque heads with open mouths. In this feature of its handle it resembles the bell of Langwynodl, in Carnarvonshire, and the bell of St. Ruadhan, of Lorrha in Tipperary (Fig. 65), which are both made of cast bronze, and have handles of the same character. A similar termination may be seen on the handle of the bell shrine of Kilmichael Glassary (Fig. 78), on the Barnaan Cuilawn from Tipperary, now in the British Museum