Some others of the Western Isles have preserved a few of their ancient
crosses. Boswell, in his "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides" in 1773,
speaks thus of the approach to Rasay: "Just as we landed I observed a
cross, or rather the ruins of one, upon a rock, which had to me a pleasing
vestige of religion." A few days later the traveller set out to explore
the island, and he made other discoveries of the same nature. "On one of
the rocks just where we landed," he tells us, "there is rudely carved a
square, with a crucifix in the middle: here, it is said, the Lairds of
Rasay, in old times, used to offer up their devotions; I could not
approach the spot without a grateful recollection of the event
commemorated by this symbol." A little further on he writes, "The eight
crosses, which Martin mentions as pyramids for deceased ladies, stood in a
semicircular line, which contained within it the chapel; they marked out
the boundaries of the sacred territory, within which an asylum was to be
had; one of them, which we observed upon our landing, made the first point
of the semicircle; there are few of them now remaining." On the islet of
Oronsay, immediately to the south of Colonsay, is a Celtic cross with a
Latin inscription, erected in memory of a Prior who died in 1510. Some of
the crosses from Iona are said to have been carried to the neighbouring
island of Mull, and to the mainland of Argyle. At Campbelltown in that
county is a handsome cross, carved from a monolith of blue granite, and
now serving as a Market Cross, which is alleged to be one of the spoils of
St. Columba's isle.
Argyleshire has also preserved some interesting sculptured tombstones. The
churchyard of Kilfinan has two such; one is adorned with a wheel-headed
cross, the shaft of which is covered with scrolls, a wicker-pattern design
running down either side of it; the other has a cross with deep hollows at
the intersection of the arms. At Nereabolls, in Islay, is the upper
portion of a crucifix, broken off beneath the arms of the figure; it is
roughly carved, but has nothing of the grotesqueness of some very early
attempts at the human form. All these stones date from the fourteenth or
following century.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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