ARTHUR'S SEAT AND SALISBURY CRAGS

Evening Star, Issue 23113, 12 November 1938, Page 3

ARTHUR'S SEAT AND SALISBURY CRAGS

An interesting correspondence , baa appeared in the ‘ Scotsman’ in regard to Edinburgh’s -prominent hills— Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Crags. How the names, of these heights originated has not been established beyond disputation. ,It was stated by one correspondent that, Arthur’s Seat was s» called in the time of James IV. by] reason of the interest of that monarch! in the literature of the, Arthurian era,; and this view is supported by the firstknown mention of the name by the poet Dunbar. But Mr Lewis Spence point* out that in Arthurian romance French writers of the beginning of- the thir-teenth-century alluded to Edinburgh (Taneborc) as a place of Arthurian, tournaments, and Sir Thomas Malory,; in‘ a work published before James IV* was born, alludes to “ the Castle of th« Maidens,” the old name of Edinburgh Castle. . _ With to Salisbury Crags. * name which suggests a Wiltshire origin, “ D.J.M.” recalls that Dr Charles A. Malcolm, in his book on Hplyrood, spelts the name as “ Salisbrae,” and he has the footnote; “If salis can be identified with the French saule—willow—. Salisbrae means Willow brae. Curious!-/ the eastern side of these slopes is stilt named Willowbrae.”