97. Cross in Isle of Man, bearing Runic Inscription.
98. Cross in Isle of Man, bearing Runic Inscription.
The other rude-stone monuments of Scotland are neither numerous nor important. Daniel Wilson enumerates some half-dozen of dolmens as still existing in the lowlands and in parts of Argyllshire, but none of them are important from their size, nor do they present any peculiarities to distinguish them from those of Wales or Ireland; while no tradition has attached itself to any of them in such a manner as to give a hint of their age or purpose. Besides these, there are a number of single stones scattered here and there over the country, but there is nothing to indicate whether they are cat stones or mark boundaries, or merely graves, so that to enumerate them would be as tedious as it would be uninstructive. What little interest may attach to them will be better appreciated when we have examined those of Scandinavia and France, which are more numerous, as well as more easily understood. When, too, we have mastered them in so far as the materials available enable us to do, we shall be able to appreciate the significance of much that has just been enunciated. Meanwhile it may be as well to remark that what we already seem to have gained is a knowledge that a circle-building race came from the north, touching first at the Orkneys, and, passing down through the Hebrides, divided themselves on the north of Ireland—one branch settling on the west coast of that island, the other landing in Cumberland, and penetrating into England in a south-easterly direction.
In like manner we seem to have a dolmen-building race who from the south first touched in Cornwall, and thence spread northwards, settling on both sides of St. George's Channel, and leaving traces of their existence on the south and both coasts of Ireland, as well as in Wales and the west of England generally. Whether these two opposite currents were or were not synchronous is a question that must be determined hereafter. We shall also be in a better position to ascertain what the races were who thus spread themselves along our coasts, when we have examined the only countries from which it is probable they could have issued.
Footnotes
[271] 'The Sculptured Stones of Scotland.' Two vols. quarto. Published by the Spalding Club. 1856 and 1867.
[272] A few years ago the late Mr. Rhind, of Sibster, left an estate worth more than 400l. per annum, to endow a Professorship of Archæology in Scotland, who was also to act as curator of the monuments themselves, but unfortunately left it encumbered by a life interest to a relative. Two years ago an attempt was made to get the Government to anticipate the falling in of the life interest, and appointing Mr. Stuart to the office at once. It was, perhaps, too much to expect so enlightened an act of liberality from a Government like ours. But their decision is to be regretted; not only because we may thereby lose altogether the services of the best qualified man in Scotland for the purpose, but more so because the monuments are themselves fast disappearing without any record of them being preserved. Agriculture is very merciless towards a big stone or a howe that stands in the way of the plough, and in so improving a country as Scotland, very little may remain for the next generation to record.
[273] The account of these monuments is abstracted from a paper by Lieutenant Thomas, of H. M.'s surveying vessel Woodlark. It is the most detailed and most correct survey we have of any British group. It was published in the 'Archæologia,' xxxiv. p. 88 et seq.
[274] Four stones are represented as standing when Barry's view of the monument was published in 1807, and four are represented as standing in a series of etchings made by the Duchess-Countess of Sutherland from her own drawings, in 1805. If the elbow in the bridge shown in the drawing in the frontispiece is not a licence permitted to himself by the artist, my drawing is earlier than either of these. When I first purchased it I believed it to be by Daniel. His tour, however, took place in 1815. From the internal evidence this drawing must be anterior to 1805.
[275] 'Archæologia,' xxxiv. p. 89.
[276] 'Archæologia,' xxxiv. p. 90.
[277] The greater part of this find, with all the coins, is in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries, Edinburgh. The dates on the coins were kindly copied for me by Mr. Stuart.
[278] 'Notice on the Runic Inscriptions discovered during Recent Excavations in the Orkneys.' By James Farrer, M.P. 1862.
[279] 'Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot.' v. p. 70.
[280] Olaus Wormius, 'Monumenta Danica,' p. 188, fig. 6.
[281] Barry's 'History of Orkney,' p. 399. See also 'Archæologia,' xxxiv. p. 89.
[282] Barry, 'History of the Orkneys,' p. 124.
[283] Mr. George Petrie has recently at my request made some excavations in these mounds, but the results have not been conclusive. He is of opinion that one of the mounds he explored may be the grave of Thorfin, but it is too much ruined to afford any certain indication.
[284] 'Mémoires des Ant. du Nord,' iii. p. 236.
[285] These dates are taken from Barry, p. 112 et seq., but they seem undisputed, and are found in all histories.
[286] 'History of Orkney.' p. 125.
[287] 'Prehistoric Annals of Scotland,' p. 112. 'Archæologia,' xxxiv. p. 89.
[288] 'Mémoires des Antiquaires du Nord,' iii. p. 250.
[289] Farrer, 'Inscriptions in the Orkneys,' p. 37.
[290] A few years ago such a question would have been considered answered as soon as stated; but, as Daniel Wilson writes in a despairing passage in his Introduction,* "This theory of the Danish origin of nearly all our native arts, though adopted without investigation, and fostered in defiance of evidence, has long ceased to be a mere popular error. It is, moreover," he adds, "a cumulative error; Pennant, Chambers, Barry, Mac Culloch, Scott, Hibbert, and a host of other writers might be quoted to show that theory, like a snow-ball, gathers as it rolls, taking up indiscriminately whatever chances to be in its erratic course." In spite of his indignation, however, I suspect it will be found to have gathered such force, that it will be found very difficult to discredit it. Since, too, Alexander Bertrand made his onslaught on the theory, that the Celts had anything to do with the megalithic monuments, the ground is fast being cut away from under their feet; and though the proofs are still far from complete, yet according to present appearances the Celts must resign their claims to any of the stone circles certainly, and to most of the other stone monuments we are acquainted with, if not to all.
*'Prehistoric Annals of Scotland,' p. xv.
[291] 'Annales Innisfal.' in O'Connor, 'Rerum. Hib. Scrip.' ii. p. 24. 'Annales Ulton.' Ibid. iv. p. 117.
[292] Duke of Argyll's 'Iona,' p. 100.
[293] On the left of the view in the Frontispiece.
[294] 'Archæologia Scot.' iii. p. 119.
[295] 'Archæologia,' xxxiv. p. 113.
[296] 'Proceedings Soc. Ant. of Scotland,' iii. p. 213.
[297] These dimensions and the plan are taken from Sir Henry James's work on 'Stonehenge, Turuschan,' &c.
[298] Anderson, on horned Tumuli in Caithness, 'Proc. Soc. Ant. of Scotland,' vi. p. 442 et seq., and vii. p. 480 et seq.
[299] 'Sculptured Stones of Scotland,' ii. p. xxv.
[300] Vol. iv. p. 499.
[301] Glasgow, 1865, p. 186 et seq.
[302] In the 'Archæologia,' vol. xxii. pp. 200 and 202, are plans and views of six Aberdeenshire circles, and two more are given in the same volume further on.
[303] 'Sculptured Stones of Scotland,' vol. i. p. xxi.
[304] In September, 1858, Mr. Dyce Nicol, with a party of experienced archæologists, excavated four circles situated in a row, and extending for nearly a mile, on the road from Aberdeen to Stonehaven, and about 1½ mile from the sea. The first and last had been disturbed before, but the second, at King Caussie, and the third, at Aquhorties, yielded undoubted evidences of their sepulchral origin. The conclusion these gentlemen arrived at was, that "whatever other purposes these circles may have served, one use of them was as a place of burial."—Proceedings Soc. Ant. Scot. v. p. 134.
[305] I regret much that I have been unable to visit this place myself. It was, however, carefully surveyed by Captain Charles Wilson, when he was attached to the Ordnance Survey at Inverness. He also made detailed plans and sketches of all the monuments, but, unfortunately, sent them to the Ordnance Office at Southampton, and they consequently are not accessible nor available for our present purposes.
[306] These dimensions are taken partly from the Ordnance Survey Sheet, 25-inch scale, and partly from Mr. Innes's paper in 'Proceedings Soc. Ant.' iii. p. 49 et seq.
[307] Ibid. Appendix, vi. pl. x.
[308] Reeves, 'Adamnan. Vita St. Columb.' p. 150.
[309] Wilson's 'Prehistoric Annals,' p. 332.
[310] An amusing controversy regarding the existence of this stone will be found in the 'Proceedings Scot. Ant.' iv. p. 524 et seq. It seems absolutely impossible that any man, even under the inspiration of some primordial whisky, to have drawn by accident a sculpture so like what his ancestors did fifteen centuries before his time.
[311] Gordon, 'Iter Septemtrionale,' p. 151.
[312] In my 'History of Architecture,' ii. p. 345, I ventured timidly to hint that this Armenian ornament would be found identical with that in the Irish and Pictish crosses. Since then I have seen a series of photographs of Armenian churches, which leave no doubt in my mind that this similarity is not accidental, but that the one country borrowed it from the other.
[313] See Stuart's 'Sculptured Stones,' and Colonel Forbes Leslie's 'Early Races of Scotland,' passim.
[314] Reeves, 'Adamnan. Vita St. Columb.' pp. 65 and 145.
[315] 'Proceedings Soc. Ant. Scot.' iv. p. 119 et seq.
[316] Ibid. iv. p. 524.
[317] Westwood, 'Facsimiles of Irish MSS.' plates 4-28.
[318] These two woodcuts are borrowed from Worsaae, 'The Danes and Northmen.' London, 1852.
[319] 'Sculptured Stones of Scotland,' ii. p. 70.
[320] Camden, 'Brit.' 1268.