84. Circle at Stennis. From Lieutenant Thomas's plan.
No excavations, so far as I know, have been attempted in the circle of Stennis, but its ruined dolmen is probably sufficient to attest its sepulchral character. Some attempts at exploration were made in the larger Ring at Brogar, but without success. This is hardly to be wondered at, for a man must feel very sure where to look, who expects to find a small deposit in an area of two acres. The diggings are understood to have been made in the centre. There, however, the ground looks very like the undisturbed surface of the original moor, and as if it had never been levelled or used either for interment or any other human purpose, and slopes away irregularly some 6 feet towards the loch. My impression is that the deposits, if any exist, will be found near the outer circumference of the circle, either at the foot of the stones as at Crichie, or outside the ditch as at Hakpen or Stonehenge. In the smaller circles the diameter of which does not exceed 100 feet, the deposit seems either to have been in the centre; or, if at the sides, the stones were so arranged as to mark its place. In the larger, or 100-metre circles, we have not yet ascertained where to look. Accident may some day reveal the proper spot, but till it is ascertained either scientifically or fortuitously, no argument can be based on the negative evidence which our ignorance affords.
In the neighbourhood of these stone circles are several bowl-shaped barrows similar to those in the neighbourhood of Stonehenge, not only externally but internally. When opened they were almost all found to contain interments by cremation and rude half-burnt pottery. It is not here, however, that these barrows are found in the greatest numbers. In the neighbouring parish of Sandwick they exist in hundreds, and scattered exactly as on the Wiltshire downs, here and there, singly or in pairs, without any apparent arrangement or grouping. It is said that there are at least 2000 of these mole-hill barrows in the islands.[276] Here, as there, it would seem, that where a man lived and died there he was buried, without any reference to anything existing, or that had existed. None of these barrows have stone circles of any sort attached to them. Indeed, the only rude stone monuments in Orkney of the class we are discussing are those just described, and they are all confined to one remote inhospitable-looking spot. Close to these, however, Lieutenant Thomas enumerates six or seven conoid barrows, whose form and contents are of a very different nature. The bodies in them had been buried entire without cremation, and with their remains were found silver torques and other ornaments, similar as far as can be made out—none are engraved—to those found in Skail Bay, along with coins of Athelstane, 925, and of the Caliphs of Bagdad, of dates from 887 to 945.[277] That these conoid graves here, as well as others found in the islands, are of Scandinavian origin, can hardly be doubted, and their juxtaposition to the circles is at least suggestive. If the circles were monuments of the Celts, whom they despised, and in fact had even then exterminated, they would hardly choose a burying-place so close to them.
The most important, however, of all the tumuli, not only in this neighbourhood, but in the islands, is known as the Maes-Howe. It was opened in 1861, in the presence of a select party of antiquaries from Edinburgh, who had hoped from its external appearance to find it intact: in this, however, they were disappointed. It would seem that men of the same race as those who erected it, but who in the meanwhile had been converted to Christianity, had apparently in the middle of the twelfth century broken into this sepulchre of their Pagan forefathers, and despoiled it of its contents. As some compensation for this, they have written their names in very legible Runes on the walls of the tomb, and recorded, in short sentences, what they knew and believed of its origin.[278]
From these Runes we learn, in the first place, that the robbers were Christian pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land—Iorsala Farer—from which Professor Munch infers that they must have formed part of the expedition organized for that purpose by Jarl Ragnvald, 1152. Beyond this it is not possible to lay much stress on what these Runes tell us. In the first place, because the learned men to whom they have been submitted differ considerably in their interpretation,[279] and the record, even in the best of them, is indistinct. In one or two respects the evidence of the inscriptions may be considered satisfactory. Their writers all seem to have known so perfectly what the tomb was, and to whom it belonged, that no one cared to record, except in the most poetic fashion, what every one on the spot probably knew perfectly well. At all events, there is no allusion in these inscriptions to any other or earlier race. Every expression, whether intelligible or not, bears a northern stamp. Lothbrok, Ingeborg, and all the other names introduced are Scandinavian, and all the allusions have a Northern twang. Though this is merely negative evidence, it certainly goes some way to show that the robbers were aware that the Howe was originally erected by people of their own race. If, however, the direct evidence of these inscriptions is inconclusive, there is one engraving on a pillar facing the entrance which looks as if it were original, both from its position and character. It represents a dragon ([woodcut No. 85]) of a peculiar Scandinavian type. A similar one is found on a stone attached to the tumulus under which King Gorm was buried, at Jellinge, in Denmark, in the middle of the tenth century. Making allowance for the difference in drawing, they are so like that they cannot be very distinct in date. A third animal of this species is found at Hunestadt, in Scania,[280] and dating about the year 1150, but very different, and very much more modern-looking than this one. Had the Jerusalem pilgrims drawn this dragon, it would probably have been much more like the Hunestadt example. On the other hand, if the one at Maes-Howe is original, the age of the tomb can hardly be half a century distant from that of King Gorm's Howe, which in other respects it very much resembles. It is, however, very unlikely that Christian pilgrims would draw a dragon like this, and still less that they would accompany it with a Wurm, or Serpent-Knot, like that found on the same pillar; both look like Pagan emblems, and seem to belong to the original decorations of the tomb.
