THE DWARFIE STONE
The Dwarfie Stone is one of the strange relics of antiquity which abound in Orkney. It is a mass of sandstone about 30 feet in length, 14 feet in breadth, and from 2 to 6 feet in height, and lies in a lonely valley at the foot of Ward Hill. It has been hollowed out on either side of the entrance door shown in the photo into two chambers, each with a stone bed, with a hole in the roof to serve as a window or chimney. Nothing appears to be known of the origin or purpose of the stone, but a rather quaint theory is brought forward in an old book on Orkney (1701), as follows:
"Who hewed this stone, or for what use it was, we could not learn, the Common Tradition among the People is, That a giant with his wife lived in this Isle of Hoy, who had this stone for their Castle. But I would rather think, seeing it could not accommodate any of a Gigantick stature, that it might be for the use of some Dwarf, as the name seems to import, or it being remote from any House might be the retired Cell of some Melancholick Hermite. The stone also may be called the Dwarfie Stone, per Antiphrasin or by way of Opposition it being so very great."
The Dwarfie Stone.
Sir Walter Scott refers to the stone at some length in his novel "The Pirate," the scene of which is laid in the Orkneys and Shetlands, and which will be found of interest to the student of Orkney traditions and history.