cepting in the case of the conoid barrows, we can find no sound evidence whatever and such light as the written records afford seems to lead to a very different conclusion. Stenness is not mentioned at all in the Orkneyinga Saga;' but in the Saga of Olaf Tryggvi's son it is recorded as the place where Havard, son of Earl Thorfinn Hansakliuf, was killed in battle with his nephew Einar. Havard, it is said, 'was then at Stainsnes, in Hrossey. There it was that they met, and there was a hard battle, and it was not long till the earl fell. The place is now called Havard's teigr.' This was about the year 970. The word 'teigr' means a single share or allotment of the tun or town land, and there is still a place at Stenness known as Havard's teigr. Mr. Fergusson decides that Havard was buried in Maeshow; that the great circle of Brogar was the monument of other chiefs who fell in the battle, and that the conoid tumuli are also relics of this time. The Stenness circle he believes to have been erected as the monument of some chief who fell here in an earlier fight.' The stone of Odin, and the superstitions connected with it, are proofs, in his judgment, that this circle, like the other, was raised by the Northmen.

To this we answer, that the name of 'Stæinsnes' (the 'ness or headland of the 'stones'), given to the place in the Saga, is a proof, so far as any such written statement can be a proof, that it was so called by the Northmen from the stone circles which they found there, and that they were altogether ignorant of their history. The name of Havard has never been connected with Brogar or with Maeshow; and it is especially to be noted that while Havard's teigr is on one side of the loch of Stenness, Maeshow is on the other, and nearly a mile distant. Mr. Fergusson insists very strongly on the fact that Cæsar makes no mention whatever of the great stones at Carnac, although he waged war against the Veneti in that quarter, and concludes that those wonderful monuments cannot have existed in pre-Roman times. But the silence of Cæsar on that subject is not half so remarkable as the silence of the Saga about Stenness and Maeshow, supposing those monuments to be of the age to which Mr. Fergusson assigns them. No one, we believe, who is familiar with the Orkneyinga Saga' and its brethren, can doubt that the raising of the circle and of the great tomb-chamber would have been duly recorded, if they had really been connected with Havard's battle, or with the Northmen at all. This, indeed, is an objection which applies to many of Mr. Fergusson's theories; and it is certainly unfortunate for them that neither the Northern Saga in this case, nor, in others of similar character, the Saxon Chronicle,' Early Welsh Poems,' or indeed any ancient authority Vol. 142.-No. 283. -have

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—have a word to say about the rude stone memorials, which, as he believes, were so often raised, and in such startling proportions, as the records of a battle-field. No such tradition even, relating to them, has been handed down in popular ballad, in mediæval lay, or in existing folk-lore. But the Sagas are minute in their recollections; the tombs and the memorials of their heroes are frequently noticed; and these Orkney relics are unclaimed by them. The Saga must, therefore, be regarded as either implying, by its silence, that the monuments are not Norwegian, or as altogether neutral and conveying no information whatever. We believe that the silence is significative, and that the scanty evidence to be gathered from the remains themselves tends also to the conclusion that they belong to an earlier race. There is, moreover, one great fact which ought surely to make us pause before we venture to assign Maeshow to the Norwegian period. Nothing like such a sepulchral chamber has as yet been found in Iceland, where chiefs more powerful and wealthy than Havard died and were buried before Christianity approached them; in East Anglia or in Northumbria, both partly colonised by Northmen, and those mighty men of renown;' or, lastly, in Norway itself. The wooden tomb-chamber of Queen Thyra, the companion of that, as yet unopened, of Gorm the Old, must be allowed its due weight; but although it is distinctly asserted that some of the first earls of Orkney were 'hauglaid'—that is, buried in a 'haug' or how-those hows which have been opened in the islands, and are allowed to be Scandinavian, contain nothing at all resembling Maeshow. On the other hand, other monuments of a very similar class do exist in different parts of the Orkneys-the 'Picts' houses,' which have already been mentioned. These are, as has been clearly ascertained, chambered cairns or barrows, like Maeshow, and consist invariably of a central chamber or passage, round which smaller cells are arranged with more or less regularity.* A section of any one of them shows that Maeshow was not only roofed in a similar manner, but that it possesses all the usual characteristics of a 'Pict's house.' It has been built with more than ordinary care, and the

*The 'Picts' houses of Orkney' have been described by Mr. George Petrie in the Archeological Journal,' vol. xx.; and in 'Memoirs of the Anthropological Society,' vol. ii. Some of the most important are figured, and sections of them are given, in Lieut. Thomas's paper on the Celtic Antiquities of Orkney,' 'Archæologia,' vol. xxxiv. The Pict's house in Papa Westray is not less remarkable than Maeshow, and is even more impressive. The group of chambered cairns on the mainland of Caithness (described by Mr. Anderson- Anthrop. Soc. Memoirs,' vol. ii.-and in the Proceedings of the 'Soc. Antiq. Scot.') are somewhat different in arrangement, and seem more to resemble the subterranean gallery and chambers at Trelowarren, in Cornwall.

side cells or 'loculi' are on a higher level than the floor of the central chamber. In these respects it differs from the others; but a due comparison will show that Maeshow and the Picts' houses must have been built by the same people. We may be told that this people cannot have been the Picts, because similar constructions are not found in those parts of Scotland where the power of the Picts-(remembering the dire conflict in the diningroom at Monkbarns, we write the word in fear and trembling)— was most developed. But neither do we find there the stone 'borgs' or towers of defence, the remains of which are so numerous in Orkney and Shetland, and which are admitted on all hands to be pre-Norwegian. The race which could raise such towers does not deserve to be called 'wretched,' and must have been quite equal to constructing a great tomb-chamber.

We would gladly have lingered still among these remote islands

'Where Orcas howls, his wolfish mountains rounding.'

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There is something strangely attractive about their rocky shelves, their tumbling seas, and the wild story of their earlier days, which so well harmonises with the landscape. But Mr. Fergusson's remarkable book claims the rest of our space; and its subject is, as we have seen, so closely connected with some of the most interesting questions relating to the history and antiquities of Orkney, that it may not unfairly be considered in the same article. The volume has long demanded attention at our hands; none the less, because some portions of the theory which it contains had already been set forth by the author in papers contributed to this 'Review.' Mr. Fergusson finds himself much in the position of Athanasius contra mundum.' He is on one side; the historians and antiquaries of Europe-we believe without exception are on the other; and yet, unable as we are to accept the curious series of propositions advanced by him, we believe that his book is a most valuable one, and that it has already done good service. He would himself be among the first to admit that the questions he has started require for their full elucidation infinitely more light than we can as yet bring to bear on them; but when any branch of knowledge has reached a certain point, the study of it may derive no small stimulus and advantage from a summary of what is really known about it, even when such a summary is accompanied by theories which are at least strange and novel. Attention is strongly called to the subject-at any rate, when the skill of the theorist is so marked as in the present case ;discussion is awakened; and much new information is quickly

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added to the store. This is exactly what Mr. Fergusson has done for Rude Stone Monuments' in his remarkable work, which entitles him to the gratitude of all archæologists. His is, we believe, the first book in this or in any other country which has treated the subject as a whole, and which, not content with a dissertation on Stonehenge or an essay on Carnac and 'dracontia,' has extended its observation not only throughout Europe, but to the shores of Africa, to Syria and India, wherever, in short, any remains of this class are known to be in existence. The one path, he says, that can lead to an explanation of these megalithic antiquities,

' is a careful examination of each individual monument, accompanied by a judicial sifting of all or any traditions that may attach to it, and aided by a comparison with similar monuments in other countries. By this means we have a chance of arriving at a fair proximate degree of certainty; for though no one monument will tell its own tale directly, a multitude of whispers from a great number may swell into a voice that is clear and distinct, and be audible to every one; while no system yet invented, and no à priori reasoning, can lead to anything. but deepening the ignorance that now prevails on the subject.'

Such an examination affords, beyond all doubt, the only chance of plucking out the heart of this ancient mystery. But whether, when all is done, the whispers will ever swell into an audible voice is by no means so certain. As yet, however, we do not know what rude stone monuments may exist over whole surfaces of the globe, often perhaps where a whisper' might be expected of especial value and distinctness. Central Asia, for instance, is almost a blank in this respect; and although Mr. Fergusson has gathered much valuable illustration from India, our curiosity is rather excited than satisfied by such notices of stone monuments as have reached us from that quarter. There must be much more to be sought out and described. We receive most gladly, however, the information which Mr. Fergusson has here given us. He has been blamed for admitting

into his volume such an illustration as that of the Dolmen of San Miguel,' at Arrichinaga in Biscay, and certainly the enormous stones in the midst of the hermitage look as if they might have received some exaggeration at the hands of the French artist; or as that of the wonderful dolmen at Confolens in Poitou, where a rude cap-stone is supported on four Gothic pillars. Such startling examples, it has been said, should have been illustrated by drawings made at first-hand, and thus supported by safe authority, or not at all. It is true that we cannot but look on them with great distrust, and should like to know more about them than we get from the French descriptions; but the

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fact of their republication here has necessarily brought them into notice, and will soon give us accurate information, if it has not already done so.* We are told whence the drawings come and can judge for ourselves. In some of the African examples, where Mr. Fergusson admits that he has brought a little more into harmony plans and elevations so entirely discrepant that one or both must be wrong,' the treatment is far more doubtful. They should have been given precisely as in the original drawings. But the long series of illustrations with which the volume is enriched, gathered as they are from all manner of sources, and ranging over such various countries, is alone a contribution of infinite value toward the study of the monuments. It is impossible but that many facts, overlooked or imperfectly understood, should be rendered clear by such a comparison as is here made easy for us. Many remains, too, hitherto little known, are carefully described; and the grouping of the monuments throughout those countries of Europe where their extent and distribution have been tolerably well ascertained, has been recorded in a manner hitherto, we believe, unattempted. The map of the distribution of dolmens-by which name foreign antiquaries, and Mr. Fergusson, call those monuments which are generally known in this country as cromlechs-shows clearly the districts to which they are confined, and suggests at a glance many questions about them, far more easily asked than answered. It is when Mr. Fergusson discusses historical questions, and brings theory to bear on his facts, or on what he supposes to be facts, that we part company with him. It is not easy to bring under one view the special theory which the book is designed to maintain; for Mr. Fergusson nowhere draws it out clearly, and we are left to

*In the case of the Confolens dolmen this result has happily been attained. This very remarkable monument has been carefully planned by the Rev. W. C. Lukis and by Sir Henry Dryden; and those who are acquainted with the minute accuracy which distinguishes all the work of the latter most zealous and laborious antiquary will know at once that in his hands we are safe. The capstone is certainly supported on shafts, which must date from the end of the twelfth, or beginning of the thirteenth, century. But there is more than this to be noticed. A rude Christian altar remains under the great capstone; and persons are yet living who recollect that the whole structure was enclosed by a wall, which was the relic of a chapel like that at Arrichinaga. Moreover, the supporting shafts are of different lengths: and it is impossible to suppose that the dolmen would have been so constructed if it had been altogether a work of the twelfth or thirteenth century. The conclusion at which Mr. Lukis and Sir Henry Dryden have arrived is, that the dolmen had been, from heathen times, an object of superstition; and that the clergy, at the later period, in order to Christianise and utilise this superstition, took away one by one the original rude-stone supports, inserted the present shafts, and then enclosed the whole in a chapel, making the dolmen serve as a baldacchino to the altar. It is not necessary here to state the various points of evidence on which this conclusion is founded.

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