the Northmen ravaged the western islands in the enrly part of the ninth century, it is most improbable that they would have neglected to break into the "Orkhow." The treasures which Amlaff and his Danes found in the mounds on the banks of the Boyne would certainly have stimulated these explorers to see what was contained in the Orcadian tumulus. Had they done this, the Jerusalem pilgrims would not, three centuries later, have been able to record that "much fee" was found in the tomb, and was buried to the north-west, apparently in Skail Bay. The whole evidence of the inscriptions, in so far as it goes, tends to prove that the tomb was intact when broken into in the twelfth century. If this is so, nothing is so unlikely as that it could have remained unrifled if existing before the year 861, as a Celtic sepulchre. On the other hand, nothing seems more probable than that Christian Northmen would have plundered the grave of one of their Pagan ancestors, whom they knew had been buried "with much fee " in this tumulus two centuries before their time. Two hundred years, it must be recollected, is a very iong time among an illiterate people. A long time, indeed, among ourselves, with all our literary aids; and when we add to this the change of religion that had taken place among the Northmen in the interval, we need not be surprised at any amount of ignorance of history or contempt for the customs of their Pagan forefathers on the part of the Jerusalem pilgrims. The time, at all events, was sufficiently long fully to justify Christian robbers in helping themselves to the treasures of their Pagan forefathers.
Even assuming, however, that Maes-Howe is the tomb of Havard, or of some other of the Pagan Norwegian Jarls of Orkney, the question still remains whether it has any, and, if any, what connexion with the two circles in the immediate neighbourhood?[1]
- ↑ 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,[1] "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."
↑ 'Pre-Historic Annals of Scotland.' p. xv.
