The commonest form consists simply of two thin circular flat stones, the upper one of which is pierced in the centre, and revolves on a wooden or metal pin inserted in the under one. The upper stone is also occasionally decorated with various ornaments, incised or in relief. In using the querne the grinder dropped the grain into the central hole with one hand, while with the other he made the upper stone revolve by means of a stick inserted in a small hole near the edge. The extreme simplicity of this indispensable piece of household furniture justifies its reference to remote antiquity. It has been already observed that it frequently occurs among the contents of the Scottish weems, or cyclopean underground dwellings of a very primitive state of society. It has also been dug up under a variety of circumstances, all furnishing probable evidence of great antiquity. One upper stone of a querne, now preserved in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, was discovered in 1825, along with the remains of an iron sword, in digging on the summit of a hill called the Camp, near Pitlour House, Fifeshire. Another in the same collection, of still ruder form, was found built into the masonry of an ancient wall of Edinburgh Castle, demolished in 1828.
One type, in which the upper stone is funnel-shaped, with radiating grooves from the centre perforation, is believed to be the portable hand mill of the Roman soldier. It is engraved as such in Stuart's Caledonia Romana, Plate XIII.; and the only one of the same kind in the Scottish Museum seems to corroborate this, in so far as it was found to the south-west of Camelon, on the line of the great wall of Antoninus Pius. It exhibits, as might be expected, more regularity and method in its construction, and is surrounded with an iron band, now greatly corroded, with a loop or ear, to which the handle was attached for turning it.
We shall not, probably, greatly err in assuming as one of the earliest types of the Scottish hand-mill, the rudely fashioned oaken querne already referred to, which was dug up from a depth of nearly five feet in the Blair-Drummond Moss. It is simply the section of an oak tree, measuring nineteen inches in height by fourteen inches in diameter. The centre has been hollowed out to a depth of about a foot, so as to form a rude oaken mortar; and in this, with the help of a stone or wooden pestle, its primitive possessor was doubtless wont to bruise and pound the grain preparatory to its conversion into food. The circumstances under which the Blair-Drummond querne was found, when compared with the other discoveries in the same locality, scarcely permit us to escape the inference that in it we possess a domestic utensil contemporary with the ancient canoes of the Forth and Clyde, if not with the stranded whales, and the rude harpoons of the carse land from which it was disinterred.
A more artificial, though very ancient form of hand-mill, is what is called the Pot Querne, consisting of a hollowed stone basin, with an aperture through which the meal or flour escapes, and a smaller circular stone fitting into it, and pierced, as in the simpler topstones, with a hole in the centre, through which the grain was thrown into the mill. The woodcut represents one of unusually large size, found on the farm of Westbank, Gladsmuir parish, East-Lothian, and now in the Scottish Museum. It is made of coarse pudding-stone, and measures 17 inches in diameter, and 8½ inches high. It appears to have had two handles attached to it at opposite sides, as the holes in which they were inserted still remain. The iron ring now fastened to it is a modern addition of its last possessor, who used it for securing his horse at the farm-house door. Pot quernes are common in Ireland, though somewhat differing in form from the Scottish examples. They are generally much smaller and shallower than the one described above, and are made with three, or sometimes four feet. They have likewise a cavity in the centre of the under stone, into which the upper one fits by a corresponding projection, so as to preclude the necessity for a metal axis. They are called by the native Irish Cloch a vrone. It is from the word vro or bro, Gaelic bra, (the v and b in the Irish being commutable,) signifying grindings or bruised grain, that our Scottish word brose is derived, rather than from the French brouet, i.e., pottage or broth, though both are probably traceable to a common Celtic root.
Irish pot quernes have been frequently found at great depths in the bogs, under circumstances indicating a very remote antiquity, though they have scarcely yet fallen into total disuse in some of the remotest districts of the west. Dr. Petrie incidentally furnishes a curious evidence of the antiquity of the querne. He has in his possession the topstone of one of these primitive hand-mills, which appears to have been converted to the unlikely purpose of a tombstone after its original use had been lost sight of. It has been elaborately decorated with sculptured ornaments, part of which are effaced to make way for the name of Sechnasach, which its learned owner conceives is probably the "Priest of Durrow," whose death is recorded in Mageoghegan's translation of the Annals of Clonmacnoise at the year 928, and in the Annals of the Four Masters at the year 931.[190]
FOOTNOTES:
[184] Wallace's Orkney, p. 56.
[185] Hibbert's Shetland, p. 412.
[186] Sinclair's Statist. Acc. vol. xvii. p. 287.