[Footnote 277: The greater part of this find, with all the coins, is in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries, Edinburgh. The dates on the coins were kindly copied for me by Mr. Stuart.] [Footnote 278: 'Notice on the Runic Inscriptions discovered during Recent Excavations in the Orkneys.' By James Farrer, M.P. 1862.] [Footnote 279: 'Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot.' v. p. 70.] [Footnote 280: Olaus Wormius, 'Monumenta Danica,' p. 188, fig. 6.] [Footnote 281: Barry's 'History of Orkney,' p. 399. See also 'Archæologia,' xxxiv. p. 89.] [Footnote 282: Barry, 'History of the Orkneys,' p. 124.] [Footnote 283: Mr. George Petrie has recently at my request made some excavations in these mounds, but the results have not been conclusive. He is of opinion that one of the mounds he explored may be the grave of Thorfin, but it is too much ruined to afford any certain indication.] [Footnote 284: 'Mémoires des Ant. du Nord,' iii. p. 236.] [Footnote 285: These dates are taken from Barry, p. 112 _et seq._, but they seem undisputed, and are found in all histories.] [Footnote 286: 'History of Orkney.' p. 125.] [Footnote 287: 'Prehistoric Annals of Scotland,' p. 112. 'Archæologia,' xxxiv. p. 89.] [Footnote 288: 'Mémoires des Antiquaires du Nord,' iii. p. 250.] [Footnote 289: Farrer, 'Inscriptions in the Orkneys,' p. 37]. [Footnote 290: A few years ago such a question would have been considered answered as soon as stated; but, as Daniel Wilson writes in a despairing passage in his Introduction,* "This theory of the Danish origin of nearly all our native arts, though adopted without investigation, and fostered in defiance of evidence, has long ceased to be a mere popular error. It is, moreover," he adds, "a cumulative error; Pennant, Chambers, Barry, Mac Culloch, Scott, Hibbert, and a host of other writers might be quoted to show that theory, like a snow-ball, gathers as it rolls, taking up indiscriminately whatever chances to be in its erratic course." In spite of his indignation, however, I suspect it will be found to have gathered such force, that it will be found very difficult to discredit it. Since, too, Alexander Bertrand made his onslaught on the theory, that the Celts had anything to do with the megalithic monuments, the ground is fast being cut away from under their feet; and though the proofs are still far from complete, yet according to present appearances the Celts must resign their claims to any of the stone circles certainly, and to most of the other stone monuments we are acquainted with, if not to all. *'Prehistoric Annals of Scotland,' p. xv.] [Footnote 291: 'Annales Innisfal.' in O'Connor, 'Rerum. Hib. Scrip.' ii. p. 24. 'Annales Ulton.' _Ibid._ iv. p. 117.] [Footnote 292: Duke of Argyll's 'Iona,' p. 100.]