It is much to be regretted that the inscriptions are so indefinite, and frequently so much defaced. Moreover, Nos. 19 and 20 alone make any allusion to the erection of Maes-Howe. Professor Rafn believes that it was a sorcery hall for Lodbrok,[2] a female magician, Professor Munch, that it was the burial-place of a woman of the same name, while Professor Stephens, who expresses no opinion as to the time when the building was raised, considers the writings which speak of Lodbrok's sons, as indicative of its having been used in early times by the celebrated Scandinavian Vikings of that name, as a fortress and place of retreat. The low and narrow cells, as well as the low passage leading to the interior, fully justify the opinion that it was undoubtedly at one time a place of burial. The massive stones forming the floor and side walls of the passage, and also those used in the inside to support the buttresses, are similar in character to the neighbouring circle of stones at Stennes. The architecture also is most primitive, and it is evident that the whole work must have been one requiring much time and labour. The present form of the mound does not favour the idea that it was _originally_ a platform, and used for the performance of religious rites, though this would not be inconsistent with the idea that it had been adopted to that purpose at some remote period, having been previously used as a place of interment. If we find difficulty in determining the period when the mound was first raised, almost equal difficulty arises in assigning to any fixed time the engraving of the numerous inscriptions. Many of them are no doubt to be attributed to the Crusaders, but there are others of probably far earlier date than the twelfth century, when, as stated by Professor Munch, the Orkney Jarl, Ragnvald, about the year 1152-3, organized his naval expedition to the Holy Land. That the writings have been engraved at intervals during a long period of time--perhaps, as suggested by Professor Stephens, during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, or even later--is sufficiently obvious. Some of the stones have the words very faintly and imperfectly engraved, while in others the lines are sharply and distinctly cut. The absence of division between the letters (for the _dots_ are very uncertain in their position, and are probably for the most part accidental) sufficiently accounts for the difference of reading, in several of the inscriptions. The variety of type--there being no fewer than 18 different forms of A, many of them it is true, _like_, but still _different_; to say nothing of Diphthongs, the Bind-runes, or consonants and vowels connected, as [rune] (ae) or [rune] (a) and [rune] (k) [rune] or (a) and ([rune]) forming AK, Ar, and others of a similar nature--necessarily renders the task of translation, more especially when the letters are indistinct and perhaps unfinished, one of difficulty and uncertainty.