Field Visit
Date 6 July 1925
Event ID 1098432
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1098432
‘Constantine's Cave’.
This is a cave in the north face of a rocky crag on the shore of Fife Ness, about 300 yards north-west of Craighead farm. Its mouth is 10 feet wide, its roof approximately 12 feet above floor level, and it extends to a total depth of about 24 feet. The walls are sculptured with a series of incised crosses and two crude figures of animals. An account of the excavations carried out a few years ago, as well as particulars of the relics recovered, was published in Proc. Soc. Ant .Scot., xlix (1914-15), pp. 237-244 and 251-255.
Stone coffins, which may or may not have been connected with the occupation, have been found in the immediate vicinity of the cave. The name attached to the cave is that of Constantine II, King of Alba (903-943), who is said to have spent the remaining years of his life as a ‘Culdee’ at St. Andrews, where he became Abbot and died in 947.- Fordun's Chronica Gen. Scot., lib. iv, cap. XXIII. Wyntoun's Orygynale Cronykil, bk. vi, chap. x.
RCAHMS 1933, visited 6 July 1925.
