“On the first division, under the Gothic ornaments at the top, are nine horses with their riders, marching in order; in the next division is a line of warriors on foot, brandishing their weapons, and appear to be shouting for the battle. The import of the attitudes in the third division very dubious, their expression indefinite.
“The figures which form a square in the middle of the column are pretty complex, but distinct; four serjeants, with their halberts, guard a canopy, under which are placed several human heads, which have belonged to the dead bodies piled up at the left of the division: one appears in the character of executioner, severing the head from another body; behind him are three trumpeters sounding their trumpets; and before him two pair of combatants fighting with sword and target.
“A troop of horse next appears, put to flight by infantry, whose first line have bows and arrows; the three following, swords and targets. In the lowermost division now visible, the horses seem to be seized by the victorious party, their riders beheaded, and the head of their chief hung in chains, or placed in a frame: the others being thrown together beside the dead bodies, under an arched cover.”
With this compare the description given by Captain Head, of the devices sculptured upon one of the Egyptian antiquities.
“It would,” says he, “far exceed the limits of this work, to attempt a description of the ornaments of sculpture in this temple. The most interesting are on the north wall, where there are battle-scenes, with innumerable figures of military combatants, using their arms, consisting of bows and arrows, spears and bucklers—of prostrate enemies, of war-chariots and horses. The fiery action and elegant shape of the steeds are remarkable. It would require a first-rate living genius to rival the variety of position, the power of effect, and fidelity of execution, in which men and horses are exhibited in the dismay of the flight, the agony of the death-struggle, and the exultation of the triumph.”
Let us take a view, now, of the other side of this obelisk. “The greatest part of it,” says Cordiner, “is occupied by a sumptuous cross, and covered over with an uniform figure, elaborately raised, and interwoven with great mathematical exactness; of this, on account of its singularity, there is given a representation at the foot of the column. Under the cross are two august personages with some attendants, much obliterated, but evidently in an attitude of reconciliation; and if the monument was erected in memory of the peace concluded between Malcolm and Canute, upon the final retreat of the Danes, these larger figures may represent the reconciled monarchs.
“On the edge, below the fretwork, are some rows of figures, joined hand-in-hand, which may also imply the new degree of confidence and security which took place, after the feuds were composed, which are characterised on the front of the pillar. But to whatever particular transaction it may allude, it can hardly be imagined, that in so early an age of the arts in Scotland as it must have been raised, so elaborate a performance would have been undertaken but in consequence of an event of the most general importance: it is, therefore, surprising, that no distincter traditions of it arrived at the era when letters were known.”
As to “the era when letters were known,” I shall bestow upon that a sentence or two by and by. For the present I confine myself to the “surprise that no distincter traditions” of this monolith temple[376] has been handed down to us.
It was erected by the Tuath-de-danaans on their expulsion from Ireland. The inscriptions upon it are the irresistible evidence of their emblematic religion. After an interval of some centuries, the Picts poured in upon their quietude; and the barbarous habits of those marauders, being averse as much to the ritual as to the avocations of the Tuath-de-danaans, they effaced every vestige of the dominion of that people, and made them fly for shelter to the Highlands.