to investigate the traces of Norwegian intercourse with Scotland, was gratified by the discovery that the name of Havardsteigr, which was conferred on the scene of Earl Havard's slaughter by his nephew, about the year 970, is still applied among the peasantry to the promontory of Stennis; the Stones of which we may well believe were grey with the moss of centuries ere the first Norwegian prow touched the shores of Pomona.[139] No direct reference to Stennis occurs in the Orkneyinga Saga, but the remarkable passage referred to is to be found in that of Olaf Trygvesson, where it is said:--"Havard was then at Steinsnes, in Rossey. There was meeting and battle about Havard, and it was not long ere the Jarl fell. The place is now called Havardsteigr." So was it called in the tenth century, and so, Mr. George Petrie writes me, it is still occasionally named by the peasantry at the present day. A few examples of the most remarkable monolithic structures of the Scottish mainland may be noted here. Careful and minute accounts have already been furnished of those of Inverness-shire by Mr. George Anderson in the Archæologia Scotica;[140] and of those of Aberdeenshire, Argyleshire, and various other Scottish districts, in a series of illustrated papers in the Archæologia.[141] The varieties apparent in their grouping and structure are such as may well justify the conclusion that instead of being the temples of a common faith, they are more probably the ruins of a variety of edifices designed for diverse purposes, and it may be even for the rites of rival creeds. This at least is certain, that the latest if not the only unquestionable evidence of their use which we possess is not as religious temples but as courts of law and battle-rings, wherein the duel or judicial combat was fought, though this doubtless had its origin in the invariable union of the priestly and judicial offices in a primitive state of society. The several concentric circles so frequently characterizing them, add to the probability of their adaptation to the purpose of judicial or deliberative assemblies. Such is one of the most common marks of the Law Tings of Orkney and Shetland, and of the Isle of Man. "Not unfrequently the fences of a ting were concentric; the intent of which was to preserve among the different personages of the ting a proper distinction of rank. The central area was always occupied by the laugman, and 'those who stood with him;' and the outer spaces by the laugrettmen, out of whom the duradom was selected, the contending parties, and the compurgators."[142] Mr. George Petrie has called my attention to several evidences of this in relation to the Orkney circles, and no less remarkable proofs appear in various chartularies and other authentic records, showing at how early a period all ideas of association with the rites of Pagan superstition had been lost. Thus in the Aberdeen Chartulary a notice occurs of a court held "apud stantes