Yarrow Stone

Submitted by Alan Marsden on Tue, 11/03/2025 - 00:00

On a hill overlooking Yarrow Water in Selkirkshire is a strange object, standing erect in the ground, called the Yarrow Stone. It is conveniently close to the A708, though it dates back to the Dark Ages, those years between the Roman withdrawal from Britain and the Anglo-Saxons’ ability to record events (I appreciate that this definition is unlikely to please a Scot in whose land this object is conserved). So from the late fifth to sixth-centuries, this monument has been in that field, though I suspect it had been buried at the time of Reformation, to be happily rediscovered by an early-nineteenth-century ploughman. I found its inscription difficult to perceive, but those with better eyes and deeper reserves of patience have observed the following Latin description:

Here, an everlasting memorial.

In this place here lie the most famous princes,

Nudus and Dumnogenus, in the tomb - two sons of Liberalis.

At that time, this land was part of the British kingdom of Strathclyde, which was more Welsh that Scottish. The Christian nature of the burial or inscription does not seem to be obvious, though Latin speakers of that period, especially of the higher, social echelons, would have likely identified with Christianity. Nudus and Dumnogenos were doubtless big wigs in their day, and Liberalis would have been a big shot, too, for fathering two princes, but today no-one has heard of any of them. Whether they fell at this quite remote spot in battle, or whether, as some have speculated, they were martyred for their faith, we cannot know. What we can know is that any who follow Christ will never be forgotten, at least not by Him. Those who lived and died without Him shall be eternally overlooked and disregarded.

Although the Yarrow Stone has afforded them an additional shot of fame, we still know nothing else about them. There are great ones today- princes and fathers of princes- who shall be forgotten in eternity, while there are millions of nonentities, nobodies and nothings who shall be celebrated by angels for the love Christ bore them. Do not fret if you are neglected or ignored by this world; its fame is little more than a worn inscription on a windy Scottish hillside.