Sir Daniel Wilson

“ No people, however rude or debased be their state, have yet been met with so degraded to the level of the brutes as to entertain no notion of a Supreme Being, or no anticipation of a future state. Some more or less defined idea of a retributive future is found in the wildest savage creed, developing itself in accordance with the rude virtues to which the barbarian aspires. While the luxurious Asiatic dreams of the sensual joys of his Mohammedan elysium, the Red Indian warrior looks forward to the range of ampler hunting-grounds, and the enjoyment of unfailing victory on the war-path. ”

“ Among the old Scandinavian nations, and in Iceland, where the language of their runic literature is still a living tongue, as well as in France, and throughout the whole Germanic races of the Continent, all memory of the restoration of this divine gift of the metals has utterly passed away. In England only—towards which we see the galleys of the elder inheritors of civilisation winging their way in quest of its metallic treasures with the first glimpse we catch of it as it emerges out of the night of time—the mythic legend has retained vitality till now. ”

“ Viewed in this light the frequent occurrence of such relics in the cist, or under the memorial cairn, may be pregnant with a far higher meaning than the mere ornamental fibula or amulet. When found with the spear and sword, the ring may indicate the grave of the warrior-priest or lawgiver,—a union of offices so consistent with society in a primitive state; while, in the female barrow, amid the bracelets and necklaces which once adorned the primitive British matron, the curious relic may, with no undue indulgence of fancy, be looked upon as the spousal pledge, and the literal wedding-ring. ”

“ It were vain to speculate on the origin or owners of these homely relics of obsolete pastimes; yet to the curious fancy, indulging in the reanimation of such long-silent scenes, they seem suggestive of the sudden intrusion, it may be, of invaders, the hasty call to arms, the utter desolation of the scene, and then the slow lapse of unnumbered centuries, during which the moss accumulated above them so gently that it seems as if the old revellers were to return and play out their unfinished game. ”

“ The war-songs of the Northmen shew that such expeditions were the paths to honour as well as to wealth; nor was it till the milder tenets of Christianity had superseded the warrior-creed of Thor, that their plundering voyages came to an end. But unlike the British and Irish, the Scandinavians have a Pagan literature, contemporary with those scenes of adventure and bold deeds of arms: and so much the more valuable that it preserves a picture of the period uninfluenced by that corporate spirit which detracts so much from the contemporary monkish annals of our own and other countries. ”

“ We see that an intimate intercourse was carried on between Britain and Gaul at the very period when the transition to the fully developed Iron age was progressing in the former country: it is easy, therefore, to understand how similar arts would reach the Danish Peninsula and the Scandinavian countries beyond the Baltic. But Scandinavia had long passed her Bronze Period, and succeeding transition era, when she sent forth her hardy Vikings to plunder the British coasts. It was with other weapons than the small leaf-shaped bronze sword that the Norse rovers came to spoil and desolate our shores. ”

“ It is not unworthy of note, in the exhibition of a more advanced stage of the same development of features pertaining to the human mind in its progressive civilisation, that there seems also to have been an epoch in the early history of man, when what may be styled the monolithic era of art has been developed under the utmost variety of circumstances. In Egypt it was carried out, with peculiar refinement, by a people whose knowledge of sculpture and the decorative arts proves that it had its origin in a far deeper source than the mere barbarous love of vast and imposing masses. ”

“ It is therefore a legitimate source of interest to the archæologist, to observe the mingling of extinct and familiar species among the fossil mammals found in the superficial deposits, wherein so much of the evidence of his own science must be sought. It discovers to him the precise link by which his pursuits take hold of the great chain of truth, and in a new sense shews man, not as an isolated creation, but as the last and best of an order of animated beings, whose line sweeps back into the far removed shadow of an unmeasured past. ”

“ Thus we learn that from the remotest times even to our own day, the northern warrior has esteemed his sword the most sacred emblem of military honour. In later ages the leaders of medieval chivalry gave names to their favoured weapons, the Trobadours celebrated their virtues with all the extravagance of Romaunt fable, and still the soldier's favourite sword is laid on his bier when his comrades bear him to his rest. ”

“ Man, in such a primitive state as we have abundant grounds for believing the Caledonian aborigines of the Stone Period to have been, delights in assuming to himself the personal ornaments with which, in a more advanced stage of social life, he finds a higher gratification in adorning woman. It should not, therefore, excite surprise when we find ornaments which modern civilisation resigns entirely to the fair sex, such as bracelets, hair-pins, neck ornaments, and the like, mingling with the sword and the spear of the rude barbarian chief. ”

“ Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, Roman, and medieval manufactures, have all been patiently and enthusiastically traced back to their first rude efforts. It is to the study of the infancy of medieval art especially that the sculptors and painters of Germany, France, and England, have now turned in their enthusiastic anticipations of a new revival. Why should the infantile efforts of our own national ancestry be alone deemed unworthy of regard, rude though they be, and little akin to the favourite models of modern schools? ”

“ Here, too, where for nine centuries at least, we can find authentic records of builders, sculptors, ecclesiastical architects, and military engineers, fashioning rude materials into goodly fabrics, of which traces are still discernible: we also can discover the wrecks of older structures reared in those dim and remote eras, into the secrets of which we long to penetrate. "How cold is all history, how lifeless all imagery, compared to that which the living nation writes, and the uncorrupted marble bears! ”

“ When the flood-tide of the legionary invaders had given back, and left the scenes of their brief occupation like the waste lands of a forsaken shore, the Scandinavians were the first to step into their deserted conquests. Fearlessly navigating seas where no Roman galley dared to have sailed, the Scandinavian warriors conquered the coasts of the Baltic and the German Ocean, occupied many parts of the British Isles, and especially established permanent settlements in the north of Scotland, and the isles on its northern and western coasts. ”

“ In no country of Europe was architecture more zealously encouraged than in Scotland during his reign. Our Scottish poet Drummond somewhat quaintly sums up his character in terms more censorious than might have been expected from his own dalliance with the muses: "He was much given to buildings and trimming up of chapels, halls, and gardens, as usually are the lovers of idleness; and the rarest frames of churches and palaces in Scotland were mostly raised about his time: an humour, which though it be allowable in men which have not much to do, yet it is harmful in princes." ”

“ Everything betokens the close of the long Pagan era which we have followed down from that remote dawn of archæological annals in which we catch the first dim traces of the aboriginal Briton mingled among alluvial relics of strange animal life, to the commencement of authentic written history and inscriptions, preparatory to a new period of which our own century forms a part. ”

“ The Roman mansion, with its hypocaust and sudatorium, its mosaic paving and painted walls, its sculptures, bronzes, and furnishings of all sorts, introduced the refinements of classic Italy into the social life of England; while the disciplined hardiness of legionary colonists tempered the excesses of Roman luxury. New wants were speedily created, and many dormant faculties excited into action among the intelligent native tribes. The older British pottery entirely disappeared, superseded by the skilful products of the Anglo-Roman kiln, or the more beautiful imported Samian ware. ”

“ A no less unquestionable proof of the unchanging character of the Celtic arts is to be found in the fact that the ornamentation, not only on many of the old Highland brooches and drinking horns, but invariably employed in decorating the handle of the Highland dirk and knife, down to the last fatal struggle of the clans on Culloden Moor which abruptly closed the tradition of many centuries, is exactly the same interlaced knotwork which we are familiar with on the most ancient class of sculptured standing stones in Scotland. ”

“ In truth, these dwellings, constructed with such laborious ingenuity in every district of Scotland, seem to throw a strange light upon that dim and remote era to which they belong, giving us some insight into the domestic habits and social comforts of a period heretofore dark as their own unillumined vaults. ”

“ We may fairly presume, therefore, that we have left the monolithic era behind us, not by the oblivion of former knowledge, but by the progress of the human mind beyond that stage of development when it finds its highest gratification in such displays of rude magnificence and vast physical power.
The Stones of Stennis, already referred to as the Orcadian Stonehenge, are unquestionably the most remarkable monolithic group in Scotland, and, indeed, if we except the great temple of Salisbury Plain, in the British Isles. ”

“ The ambition of the old Babel-builders was well directed for this world. There are but two strong conquerors of the forgetfulness of men, Poetry and Architecture; and the latter in some sort includes the former, and is mightier in its reality. It is well to have not only what men have thought and felt, but what their hands have handled, and their strength wrought, and their eyes beheld all the days of their life. ”

“ No evidences of ancient skill or of primitive superstitious rites are more calculated to awaken our astonishment and admiration of their singular constructors. There is so strange a mixture of extreme rudeness and great mechanical skill in these memorials of the remote past, that they excite greater wonder and awe in the thoughtful mind than even the imposing masses inclosing the sacred area of Stonehenge or the circle of Stennis. ”

“ When the distinctive characteristics of Roman and primitive art have been so satisfactorily established as to admit of their separate classification without risk of error or confusion, the British collections, with their ample store of Anglo-Roman relics, will furnish a far more comprehensive demonstration of national history than those northern galleries, which must remain destitute of any native examples of an influence no less abundantly visible in their literature and arts, than in that of nations which received it directly from the source. ”

“ In nothing is the practical character of modern scientific discovery and mechanical skill—the steam-engine, the railway, the electric telegraph—more apparent than in its antagonism to this antiquated isolation of the nations. Between the modern and the primeval periods, the medieval era interposes as the long stage of transition in which the transforming influences of the new faith were changing the whole social fabric, and moulding it into higher forms. ”

“ The very opposite conclusion would seem unavoidable, were it not that this idea of the supremacy of Scandinavian art in Scotland has superseded reasoning, and maintains its ground in defiance of evidence. History leaves no room to doubt that the Scandinavian invaders devastated and destroyed many native works, and greatly retarded the full development of the arts of civilisation of the Scottish Christian era. Scottish antiquaries certainly display a truly forgiving spirit in crediting them with the invention of what little escaped their sacrilegious ravages. ”

“ This first era of civilisation, which succeeded the introduction of metals and is known as the Bronze or Archaic Period, manifestly differs, in many essential points, from that primeval period previously considered. It is the birth-time of native arts wherein we discern the possibility of still better things. There pertains to it an interest altogether peculiar. Its acquired knowledge probably long exceeded its means. Copper and bronze could at no time be so plentifully supplied as to admit of the facilities to which the abundance and cheapness of iron have for so many centuries accustomed us. ”

“ Such a superior Celtic race were no less fitted to become the colonists and chiefs of Caledonia; and to this consanguinity between the Irish Scoti and the Scottish Picts, which rests more on philological evidence than on any theory of the direct origin of the former, we must look for one of the most important elements in that remarkable revolution of the ninth century known as the Scottish Conquest. The subdivisions of the great Celtic family are of much more importance in relation to the early history of the British islands, and especially of Scotland, than the later Teutonic migrations. ”

“ Great pains were spent in collecting all sorts of objects illustrating the changes of the globe upon which we live, and the distribution and habits of animals and plants—in short, all the departments of Natural History; whilst, strange to say, people for the most part neglected traces of men, the remains not only of their own ancestors, but also of all the different races who have been spread over the world. The antiquities, with the exception of those of Roman and Greek origin, were regarded as mere curiosities, without any scientific value. ”

“ It can hardly fail to impress the thoughtful mind, as a singular link between eras so widely severed, not by time only but by every social and political change, that the rude Tanist Stone belonging to a period dimly cognizable in the remotest past, still forms a part of the coronation chair of the British sovereign in Westminster Abbey. The use of the Tanist Stone is, like so many other primitive customs, of Eastern origin, and traceable to a very remote era. ”