Such names are also found on the eastern coast
as far south as Dingwall, both in Ross and Cromarty. They were never
imposed on the Moray seaboard, which was not permanently held by the
Norse. Freskyn and his descendants saw to that. His fortress at Duffus
checked all raids from their fort at Burghead.
Of outward and visible monuments, save here and there a howe or
grave-mound, the Vikings, unlike their Pictish predecessors, have
left us little or nothing on the mainland. In Iceland the skali[7] or
farm-house of the Norseman was built with some stone and turf below,
and a superstructure of wood which has long ago perished,[8] and but
slight traces of foundations are visible on the surface there. From
the frequent burnings in the Saga we know that such houses were of
highly inflammable materials which would soon perish. The place-name,
"Skaill," remains both in Sutherland and Caithness. But no skilled
antiquary, has as yet laid bare by excavation the secrets of likely
sites of Norse dwellings in these counties, as Mr. A.W. Johnston has
done at The Jarls' Bu at Orphir, in Orkney.[9] And yet, if Drumrabyn
or Dunrabyn, Rafn's Ridge or Broch, be the true derivation of Dunrobin
(and the name is found at a time when as yet no Robin had inhabited
the place) possibly the Norse Lawman Rafn had a house of consequence
there like his Pictish predecessors, if, indeed, he did not inhabit
the Pictish broch whose foundations were found on or under the present
castle's site.
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