Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1912-05-09
STILL SEEK TREASURE
PEOPLE OF SCOTCH HIGHLANDS
FIRM IN FAITH.
Tradition OF Buried Wealth Lineerg
and Is Occasionally Made Stronger
by Flnds-Some Heavy Gold
Ornaments Unearthed.

For centuries the search for ancient
treasure has been pursued In the glens
and wild places Of the highlands OF
Scotland, and sometimes unexpected
finds" have been made, writes the
duke of Argyll in Youths Companion
For instance, a tradition that a treas
ure was hidden at Inverary had long
been handed down. According to the
legend, it would never be found except
by q stranger. Generation after gen
Grafton of children searched for it. If
a badger made hole in the hillside
the children believed that the bad
ger had the scent, and dug up his bur
row; but no young or old badger ever
came forth with bangles on its neck
or its nose. The children watched
every rabbit scrape or hen scrape to
see If animal or bird had been at
tracted by anything shining under the
sod or in the sand.
Then drainage was introduced. For
merly the glen was too wet to be cul-
tivated, except on dry slopes where
water could not gather, and a hand
pillow did all the necessary furrowing-
But now red tiled pipes were put down
to drain off water from fatter ground
and it was possible to SOW Il COM
paratively level places.
One pretty piece Of grass land un-
der a cliff was pointed out as good
bit for blowing From the precipice
above a great rock had fallen in long
past ages. This had to be removed
The man at the pillow tail was a
stranger, an Englishman-
He put a bag Of powder under the
rock to blow it up. The explosion
followed, the partly spHntered rock
heaved and fell on its side. Under
meath where it had been was a CLEAN
Of the lost treasure! There were three
bautiful, heavy gold bracelets. two Of
which had cups at their ends. The
treasure had been found, and by a
stranger" as prophesied.
Those bracelets were beautifully
wrought; one of them had plain ends
where the wrist was slipped through.
AS for the pair with the hollow cups,
an old tradition was recalled which
declared that no person who had COM
mitted fault could be forgiven unless
the cups of gold at the gap in the
bracelets were filed with his peniten-
tial tears. There is just room for the
nose, like the wrist to slip in between
the golden ends, and it is possible to
hold the cups under the two eyes.
Sometimes ignorant men who have
found such bracelets have looked on
the gold as mere brass. In one case
a number of bracelets found in an
island of the Hebrides were used as
drawer handles for an old pine chest
Of drawers. A peddler came to the
cottage, found that the old chest had
very heavy handles, and gave Is shil-
lings, or 1915, for it. He took it
away and sold the old handles for
EGO each.
Such heavy ornaments as the brace
let's must have been burden to a,
Celtic beauty. For a warrior the gold
was beaten out until it was thin, for
then it was more portable and easily
worked. Patterns of all kinds could
be punched in it, so as to give a good
effect in front. We can imagine how
grand an old chief from Brittany or
Wales or Ireland looked with a shin
ing yellow band on his conical helmet.
a broad plate Of gold on his right
shoulder and on his left a long Yellow
mantle girt in by the belt itself.