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burn, and backward upon the Muir of Plean, in the neighbourhood of the ancient Roman Casway, pieces of broken pots, and other vessels, have been found; and upon rocks near the surface, marks of fire have been discovered, where it was supposed the soldiers had made ready their provisions. Barbour, the author of King Robert Bruce's life, speaks as if their camp had stretched so far northward as to occupy a part of carse-ground; and so vast a multitude must doubtless have covered a large tract of the country.
The Scottish army was posted about a mile to the northward, upon several small eminences, south from the present village of St. Ninians. Upon the summit of one of these eminencies, now called Brock's brae, is a stone sunk into the earth, with a round hole in it, near three inches in diameter, and much the same in depth, in which, according so tradition, King Robert's standard was fixed; the royal tent having been erected near it. This stone is well known in that neighbourhood by the name of the Bore-stone. The small river of Bannockburn, remarkable for its steep and rugged banks, ran in a narrow valley between the two camps.
The
