The most remarkable of the Hebridean groups is that of Classernish, near Loch Roag, in the island of Lewis. It consists of a circle sixty-three feet in diameter, with a column in the centre measuring thirteen feet in height, and an avenue of similar stones stretching to the north, while single rows placed towards the other cardinal points complete the cruciform arrangement of the whole. Its greatest length is stated by Logan as 558 feet, and by Macculloch as about 680 feet; but many of the stones are nearly buried in the moss, so that its extreme limits are very imperfectly defined. It appears to have consisted originally of about seventy columns, and smaller circles in the same neighbourhood attest the ancient presence of a numerous population on the long desolate waste, where the grey columns of Classernish are still imposing in their ruins. The magnitude and singularity of this monolithic group have excited the enthusiasm of Celtic antiquaries, some of whom have discovered in it the very hyperborean temple of the ancients, in which, according to Eratosthenes, Apollo hid his golden arrow![146] But perhaps the most interesting of all the temple groups of the Hebrides, is one which furnishes the same indisputable evidence of remote antiquity to which repeated reference has been made. It may perhaps be thought a more potent weapon even than the hammer of Thor, in demolishing the exclusively Scandinavian theory of their origin. In the same island of Lewis a large stone circle may be seen, which within memory of the present generation was so nearly buried in the moss that the surrounding heather and rushes sufficed to conceal the stones. It has now been cleared out to a depth of fifteen feet, by the annual operations of the islanders, in cutting peats for their winter fuel, and as yet without exposing the bases of any of the columns. My authority for this interesting fact is Dr. Macdonald, a gentleman who resided for some years as a medical practitioner on the island, during which time he was accustomed to watch the progressive exhumation of the long-buried Celtic temple with mingled feelings of interest and curiosity. But this is not a solitary example. On various parts of the mainland monolithic groups still remain partially entombed in the slowly accumulating mosses, the growth of unnumbered centuries. On one of the wildest moors in the parish of Tongland, Kirkcudbrightshire, a similar example may be seen, consisting of a circle of eleven stones, with a twelfth of larger dimensions in the centre, the summits of the whole just appearing above the moss. Adjoining the group there stands a large cairn with its base doubtless resting on the older soil beneath. With such evidence at command, it is manifest that however vague many of the speculations may be which have aimed at the elucidation of rites and opinions of the Celtic Druids, and have too often substituted mere theory for true archæological induction, we shall run to an opposite error in ascribing to a Scandinavian origin structures manifestly in existence long prior to the earliest Norwegian or Danish, or even perhaps Celtic, descent on our coasts.
The Scottish cromlech, which belongs to the same period as the standing stones and circular temples, has already been referred to under its true head of Sepulchral Memorials; it need only be added, that some at least of the smaller stone circles appear to belong to the same class, and to have been only the encircling monument that marked out the spot consecrated by the dust of some mighty chief, or formed subsidiary features of a group in which the ruined cromlech still forms the most prominent object. But the idea of a temple has become so indelibly associated even in the minds of intelligent antiquaries with the circle of standing stones, that even when such circles are found in groups, the convenient name is still retained. "Nearly in a line between East and West Law, Fifeshire," says Lieutenant-Colonel Miller, in his inquiry respecting the site of Mons Grampius, "there are no less than eight Druidical temples." To account for such a state of things we shall next be compelled to assume that old Scottish Druidism was split into even more rival sects than modern Scottish Presbytery, and perhaps be taught to decipher from the symbolism of the rude monoliths, their number, or their orientation, the degree of heresy that characterized each Druidical conventicle! Such speculations cannot, after all, surpass the extravagant and baseless theories of Sabaism, fire-worship, Druidism, astrology, &c., which have been already deduced from the number of stones, the direction of the entrance, or other equally slight and constantly varying elements of argument.
One other and still more remarkable, class of works remains to be noted: These are the Rocking Stones, which are found among the ancient monuments of England and Ireland, as well as on various parts of the Continent, and are no less frequent in Scotland. No evidences of ancient skill or of primitive superstitious rites are more calculated to awaken our astonishment and admiration of their singular constructors. There is so strange a mixture of extreme rudeness and great mechanical skill in these memorials of the remote past, that they excite greater wonder and awe in the thoughtful mind than even the imposing masses inclosing the sacred area of Stonehenge or the circle of Stennis. It would, I imagine, prove a much more complicated problem for the modern engineer to poise the irregular and amorphous mass on its point of equilibrium, than to rear the largest monolithic group that now stands to attest the mechanical power which the old builders could command.
It has indeed been supposed by some that the origin of Rocking Stones is traceable entirely to natural causes, and this opinion is now adopted by Worsaae and other Danish and Norwegian antiquaries.[147] Such a theory, however, seems to stand fully as much in need of proof as that which regards them as stones of ordeal, by which the Druid or Scandinavian priests were wont to test the guilt or innocence of the accused. Apollonius Rhodius speaks of rocking stones placed on the apex of tumuli, and Mr. Akerman refers, in his Archæological Index, to the famous Agglestone Barrow, in the island of Purbeck, as having been similarly surmounted.[148] One such undoubted example would abundantly suffice to overthrow this geological theory of natural formation. It is a less conclusive, though not altogether valueless argument, that some of the most remarkable logan stones of Scotland are found in the immediate vicinity of other undoubted primitive stone-works. The great rocking stone in the parish of Kirkmichael, Perthshire, for example, has already been referred to as one of a large group of stone circles, cairns, and other monuments of the same class. Its form is that of a rhombus, of which the greater diagonal is seven feet, and the less five feet, and its weight is calculated at about three tons and half a hundredweight. On pressing down either of the extreme corners, a rocking motion is produced, which increases until the arc through which its longest radius moves exceeds a foot. When the pressure has been continued so as to produce this effect, the stone makes from twenty-six to twenty-eight vibrations from side to side after it is withdrawn. A much larger rocking stone is situated on the Hill of Mealyea, in the parish of Kells, Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. Its weight is estimated at from eight to ten tons, and it is so nicely poised that it can be set in motion with the pressure of the finger. To this the name of the Logan Stone is popularly applied in the Stewartry, therein corresponding with the term used in Cornwall and other districts of England. A second rocking stone formerly existed on the same range of hills, but it was thrown down about thirty years since. Others remain in the parish of Dron, Perthshire, on a hill in the neighbourhood of the manse; in the parish of Abernethy, celebrated for its venerable ecclesiastical relics; and on the north side of the Cuff Hill, in the parish of Beith, Ayrshire; but none of them present any very special peculiarity worthy of note. It is not designed to offer a new theory here concerning the purpose of these singular "Stones of Ordeal;" nor even to pronounce on the certainty of their artificial origin; but I cannot help thinking it opposed to every doctrine of probabilities, that nature in the course of her ceaseless operations of denudation and attrition should in so many instances have chanced to wear away an amorphous rock so as to leave it poised in its centre of gravity on a single point. So numerous are the examples of rocking stones, that those who assign to them a natural origin would seem justified in anticipating the discovery of some unknown law of nature tending to such a result. But even if this extravagant doctrine of their origin is adopted, the rocking stones will still justly come within the range of archæological studies, as it can hardly admit of a doubt that they were objects of reverent estimation by the old monolithic builders. It is rare to find them far removed from a stone circle or other primitive structure, which may indeed have owed its erection to the prior existence of the rocking stone, but would more naturally suggest the old conclusion that also originated in the same laborious contrivance and skill which reared the ponderous dolmens, cromlechs, and monolithic groups already described.
FOOTNOTES:
[107] Sinclair's Statist. Acc. vol. iv. p. 546.
[108] Archæologia, vol. xxv. p. 24. References to such landmarks are not uncommon in ancient charters. Notice of certain bound stones, at Stansfield, Staffordshire, occurs in a deed dated 6 Henry VII., ibid. vol. ii. p. 359, and similar allusions are common in the Scottish chartularies.
[109] Joshua xv. 6; xviii. 17; Deut. xix. 14; Prov. xxii. 28, &c.
[110] Wyntoun's Cronyklis, book v. chap. vii. fol. 88.
[111] Gael. cam; Gr. καμψος; Lat. curvus; Gael. camus, a bay. The prefix cam, or crooked, enters into many Gaelic compounds and proper names.