CORONATION STONE.
A few years ago the following tradition was related to me by a friend, and I should be glad if any of your correspondents can inform me whether it is current in any part of Great Britain or Ireland, and whether there are any grounds for it. As it is connected with one of our most interesting national relics, the coronation stone, it may not prove beneath notice; and I here give it in full, shielding myself with the Last Minstrel's excuse:
"I know not how the truth may be,
But I tell the tale as 'twas told to me."
I must allow that its extreme vagueness, if not improbability, hardly warrants an inquiry; but having failed in obtaining any satisfactory proofs among my own friends, as a last resource I apply myself to the columns of your well-known and useful journal.
When Jacob awoke after his wonderful dream, as related in Genesis (chap. xxviii.), he said, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not;" and he was afraid, and said, "How dreadful is this place. This is none other but the house of God; and this is the gate of heaven." He "took the stone that he had put for his pillow and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall the Lord be my God: and this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house; and of all that Thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto Thee."
That stone (so runs the legend) is supposed to have been taken away from Bethel by the House of Joseph, when they destroyed the city and its inhabitants (Judges i.); and a tradition, that whosoever possessed that stone would be especially blessed, and be king or chief, was current among the Jews; the stone itself being guarded by them with jealous care.
On the first destruction of Jerusalem, some of the royal family of Judah are supposed to have escaped, and to have gone in search of an asylum beyond the sea, taking this precious stone with them. Their resting-place was Ireland, where they founded a kingdom. Many centuries afterwards, a brother of the king descended from these exiles, named Fergus, went, with his brother's permission, to found a kingdom in Scotland. He said, however, he would not go without the sacred stone. This his brother refused to give him; but Fergus stole it, and established a kingdom in Scotland. His descendants became kings of all Scotland, and were crowned sitting on that stone,
which was taken away by Edward I., and is now in Westminster Abbey.
These are the outlines of this tradition. My object now is to ask whether any of your correspondents can inform me, first, Whether the Jews had, or have, any like superstition concerning Jacob's pillar; and whether the royal family of Judah possessed such a stone among their treasures? Secondly, Whether any Jews are supposed to have settled in Ireland at so early a period; and whether (that being the case) there are now, or were once, proofs of their having done so, either in the Irish language or in any of the ancient laws, customs, buildings, &c. of the country? Thirdly, Whether the Scotch believe that stone to have come from Ireland; and whether that belief in the owner of it being king existed in Scotland? and, lastly, Can any of your correspondents, learned in geology, inform me whether the like kind of stone is to be met with in any part of the British Isles? or whether, as the legend runs, a similar kind of stone is found in the Arabian plains? The story has interested me greatly; and if I could gain any enlightenment on the subject, I should be much obliged for it.
An Indian Subscriber.
[Several of our historians, as Matthew of Westminster, Hector Boethius, Robert of Gloucester, the poet Harding, &c., have noticed this singular legend; but we believe the Rabbinical writers (as suggested by our Indian correspondent) have never been consulted respecting it. Sandford, in his valuable History of the Coronation of James II. (fol., 1687, p. 39.), has given some dates and names which will probably assist our correspondents in elucidating the origin of this far-famed relic. He says, "Jacob's stone, or The Fatal Marble Stone, is an oblong square, about twenty-two inches long, thirteen inches broad, and eleven inches deep, of a bluish steel-like colour, mixed with some veins of red; whereof history relates that it is the stone whereon the patriarch Jacob is said to have lain his head in the plain of Luza. That it was brought to Brigantia in the kingdom of Gallacia in Spain, in which place Gathal, King of Scots, sat on it as his throne. Thence it was brought into Ireland by Simon Brech, first King of Scots, about 700 years before Christ's time, and from thence into Scotland, by King Fergus, about 330 years before Christ. In the year 850 it was placed in the abbey of Scone in the sherifdom of Perth by King Kenneth, who caused it to be inclosed in a wooden chair (now called St. Edward's Chair), and this prophetical distich engraven on it:
'Ni fallat Fatum, Scoti hunc quocunque locatum
Inveniunt lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem.'
'If Fates go right, where'er this stone is found,
The Scots shall monarchs of that realm be crown'd.'
Which is the more remarkable by being fulfilled in the person of James I. of England." Calmet, however, states that the Mahometans profess to have this relic in their custody. He says, The Mahometans think that Jacob's stone was conveyed to the Temple of Jerusalem, and is still preserved in the mosque there, where the Temple formerly stood. They call it Al-sakra, or the stone of unction. The Cadi Gemaleddin, son of Vallel, writes, that passing through Jerusalem, in his way to Egypt, he saw Christian priests carrying glass phials full of wine over the Sakra, near which the Mussulmen had built their temple, which, for this reason, they call the Temple of the Stone. The wine which the Christian priests set upon the stone was no doubt designed for the celebration of mass there.">[