Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries: Their Age and UsesFergusson, James
History
Rude Stone Monuments in All Countries: Their Age and Uses
Fergusson, James
Megalithic monuments
Assuming for the present that this is so, we naturally turn to the
Runic inscriptions on the walls of the tomb to see how far they
confirm or refute this view. Unfortunately there is nothing in them
very distinct either one way or the other. The only recognizable names
are those of Lothbrok and Ingiborg. The former, if the Lothbrok of
Northumbrian notoriety, is too early; the Ingiborg, if the wife of
Sigurd the Second, is too late, though, as the first Christian countess
of Orkney, her name may have got mixed up in some way with the tomb
of the last Pagan Jarl. But should we expect to find any sober record
of the date and purposes of the Howe in any of the scribblings on the
walls? The English barbarians who write their names and rhymes on the
walls of the tombs around Delhi and Agra do not say this is the tomb
of Humayoon, or Akbar, or of Etimad Doulah, or Seyed Ahmed. They write
some doggerel about Timour the Tartar, or the Great Mogul, or some
wretched jokes about their own people. The same feeling seems to have
guided the Christian Northmen in their treatment of the tomb of their
Pagan predecessor, and though, consequently, we find nothing that can
fairly be quoted as confirming the view that it is the tomb of Havard,
there is nothing that can be assumed as contradicting it.
One inscription may, however, be considered as throwing some light on
the subject. In XIX.XX. it is related, though in words so differently
translated by the various experts to whom it was submitted, that it
is difficult to quote them, that "much fee was found in the Orkhow,
and that this treasure was buried to the north west," adding, "happy
is he who may discover this great wealth."[289] A few years ago a
great treasure was found to the north-west of Maes-Howe, in Skail Bay,
just in such a position as a pirate on his way to the Holy Land would
hide it, in the hope, on his return, to dig it up and take it home;
but shipwreck or fever may have prevented his doing this. With this
treasure were found, as mentioned above, coins of Athelstane of the
date of 925, and of the Caliphs of Bagdad, extending to 945, just such
dates as we should expect in a tomb of 970, recent, but not the most
recent coins. Connecting these with the silver torques found in the
conoid barrows around the Ring of Brogar, we seem to have exactly such
a group of monuments as the histories above quoted would lead us to
expect, and which with their contents belong almost certainly to the
age above assigned to them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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