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Jul 25, 2022Liked by Fiona Campbell-Howes

If you want to pursue the bridge = causway idea, then have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarlabanke_Runestones

(From memory - Bridge-building is mentioned on runestones as a pious act as it enabled parishoners to traverse water/boggy ground to attend church)

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Hi Katherine, thank you very much indeed for this. I think there's a good chance this bridge might have been a causeway, especially as Hector MacQueen has offered 'causewayford' as the etymology of nearby Cassieford. I don't (yet) have evidence of a church anywhere in the vicinity, though.

Jarlabanke does sound like quite a character: "On this rune stone, Jarlabanke declared that he had the whole of Täby under his command and that he had made a bridge and raised several rune stones in honour of himself while he was alive." If only the 10th-century inhabitants of Moray had thought to put inscribed stones everywhere, telling us who they were and what they'd done!

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