The Brothers' Stones

By Rob Wilson from Northern Earth 61

Popular tradition asserts that these two stones were erected to perpetuate the memory of a regrettable incident which happened on the top of this hill. After having been brought up in the vicinity, two brothers according to one version of the story went to foreign lands in search of fame and fortune. Before they returned to their Border home, the tide of the Reformation had swept over the country, and capricious fate willed that one brother should become imbued with the principles of the Protestant religion as proclaimed by John Knox, while the other remained staunch to the Catholic faith. Simultaneously they arrived in the neighbourhood in which they had spent the happy days of their youth. Unknown the one to the other, the two brothers met and entered into conversation. Hot debate on the theological questions of the day ensued and at length, unable to arrive at a satisfactory termination of their discussion, they sought to find one by appeal to the sword. They fought; both were well skilled in the use of the blade, and eventually they fell, each transfixed by the other's weapon. On recognising the relationship of the two combatants - so runs the legend - the country people set up these two large monoliths to mark the place where the duellists fell and were buried.

The above scenario¹ is the unlikely explanation for the origin of the Brothers Stones, a site which appears to have escaped the notice of earth mysteries writers. The Brothers' Stones are situated at grid reference NT 619 360 on Brotherstone Hill in the Borders Region of Scotland, and mark the boundary between the old counties of Roxburghshire and Berwickshire.

The Brothers' Stones consist of two monoliths, 8 ft. and 51/4 ft. high. The distance between them, according to two separate sources, is 14 or 17 yards, this discrepancy possibly being explained by the collapse of one of the stones in 1906 ("early in the following year some stalwart yeoman went up to the summit and re-erected the prostrate mass").

Nearby, at NT 621 362 , stands the Cow Stone, over 6 ft. high and described as follows: "This large mass of rock, evidently split from an outcrop, stands on the northeast shoulder of Brotherstone Hill 380 yards downhill from the Brothers' Stones, which are in full view. It is of irregular shape ... and is set with its major axis pointing NNE and SSW"².

1. G. Watson, 'The Brotherstone Legend', The Border Magazine Vol. XV, No. 179, Nov. 1910.

2. Royal Commission on the Ancient Monuments of Scotland, An Inventory of the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Roxburghshire, Vol.II

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