Fig. 59.—Grain-rubber. About one-tenth the real size.
Querns, or hand-mills, both of ancient and modern type, either in a perfect state or else more or less broken, have been found in most crannogs. “Grain-rubbers, for triturating corn, are, perhaps, the most primitive implements used in the manufacture of cereal food. Each consisted of a flag or flat stone slightly hollowed upon the upper surface, so as to hold the parched grain, and a convex rubber, or mullet, which was passed backwards and forwards with the hand, and thus bruised the corn into meal. Querns are evidently the next step in food-making machinery.… Although there are several varieties, the most simple and natural division of them is twofold. The first is that in which the upper and lower stone are simply circular discs from twelve to twenty inches across, the upper rotating upon the lower by means of a wooden handle, or sometimes two, inserted into the top, and fed or supplied with corn by an aperture in the centre, analogous to the hopper, and which may be termed the ‘grain-hole’ or eye. In this quern the meal passed out between the margins of the stones. The upper stones are usually concave and the lower convex, so as to prevent their sliding off, and also to give a fall to the meal.” The second variety is usually styled a pot-quern, and has a lip or margin in the lower stone, which encircles or overlaps the upper, the meal passing down through a hole in the side of the former. Most of this variety are of smaller size than the foregoing, which is evidently the more ancient and simple form, as well as that which presents us with the greatest diversity. The upper stone in the pot-quern was turned, as in the first-named kind, either by one or sometimes by two wooden handles. This kind of quern was denominated “bró.” The word, used in the signification “to grind,” occurs in Proverbs, chap. xxvii., v. 22: “Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.”
Fig. 60.—Section of ordinary Quern. About one-fourteenth the usual size.
A gentleman in Ireland, who at the commencement of the present century saw a quern at work, describes it as having the upper stone ([fig. 60, A]) about twenty-two inches in diameter, its under surface considerably concaved; the lower stone ([B]) was convexed, so that an easy descent was afforded for the meal ([E]) when ground. In the centre of the upper stone was a circular hole nearly three inches in diameter, and through it the quern was “fed,” as it is called, i. e. supplied with fresh corn ([EEE]) as fast as the bran and flour fell from the sides of the machine. Within about two inches of the edge was set an upright wooden handle ([D]) for moving the upper stone, which rested in equilibrio on a strong peg or pivot ([C]) in the centre of the lower stone. There were generally two women employed in the operation. They sat on the ground facing each other, the quern between. One of them with her right hand pushed the handle to the woman opposite, who again sent it to her companion, and in this manner a rapid rotatory motion was communicated to the upper stone, whilst the left hand of the operator was engaged in the “feeding” process. The corn, previously dried over a slow fire, when arrived at a certain degree of crispness, was taken up to be ground. This preparation prevented the raw taste perceptible in meal from modern mills. Little cookery was required. The ordinary way of using it was to mix the meal in its raw state with milk, to the consistency of thick porridge, and it was then eaten without any other accompaniment, the simple mixture being called “a crowdie.” A quern is evidently the primitive kind of mill referred to in the Scriptures, where it is said “two women shall be grinding at the mill:” and Shakspeare makes Puck to “sometimes labour in the quern.”
Fig. 61.—Upper surface of Quern from the Crannog of Drumsloe. About one-ninth the real size.
In the centre of the crannog of Drumgay, county Fermanagh, there was a large block of stone punctured with a cross, and another resembling it was discovered many feet deep, in the centre of the pagan carn of “The Miracles,” in the same district. Similar figures are inscribed or punched upon rocks and upon the sides of natural, or partly artificial caves, as at Loch na Cloyduff, The Lake of the Dark Trench or Diggings, and the “Lettered Cave,” in the cliffs of Knockmore, “Great Knoll,” county Fermanagh. Within the precincts of well-authenticated pagan tumuli, as at Dowth, cross patterns have been found, accompanied in several instances by “scorings,” at present unintelligible. On the base of a sepulchral urn, preserved in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, the cross is displayed, and the figure of a cross within a circle occurs on an urn discovered at Broughderg, county Tyrone. Mr. Albert Wray has described some spoon-shaped objects of antique bronze, all decorated with the figure of a cross similar in design to the symbol as observable upon the earliest Irish quern-stones. The bronze articles in question exhibit a style of workmanship which has invariably been associated with pre-Christian times in both Britain and Ireland; whilst in the latter country discs and thin plates of gold belonging to the same period have been found presenting a cross-like ornamentation. At Drumgay, at Lough Eyes, at Roughan, and at Drumsloe, the Ridge of the Host, were cross-inscribed querns. Drumsloe lake, now almost drained, is situated within a short distance of Ballinamallard county Fermanagh. Interesting objects, now dispersed or lost, have been there from time to time turned up on the site of a crannog, the traces of which are now nearly obliterated, and the curious quern or bró, of which the accompanying cut is a facsimile, is one of the few remaining relics authentically connected with the locality. The quernstone measures one foot six inches in diameter.[110]