HAVING taken a view of the country in general, and the several isles in particular, I shall now divert my reader with some things remarkable, not altogether unworthy of our observation, such as some ancient monuments, strange accidents, and some other things, not only curious and delectable, but also profitable to the judicious ; affording matter "of meditation to the wise observers of these things, who regard the works of the Lord, and duly ponder the operations of his hands, in the years of ancient and latter times."
The first we take notice of is the stone called the Dwarfie Stone, lying in a valley between two hills, to the north of the Hill of Hoy, it is about thirty-four feet long, six-teen or seventeen broad, and eight thick, hollowed by the hand of some mason, as the print of the mason-irons do yet shew ; it hath a square hole for the entry, looking to the east, two feet high, with a stone proportionable standing before this entry at two feet distance ; within at one end is hewn out a bed with a pillow, wherein two persons may lie almost at their full length ; opposite to this, at the other end, is something also hewn out like a couch, between which bed and couch there is a large hole above, about the bigness of the entry, through which a person may come up to the top of the stone, and might serve for a vent to the smoke, if so be they had put any fire upon a hearth between the two beds. Beneath this stone runs to the south a cold and pleasant spring, which might afford drink to the inhabitants. Who hewed this stone, or for what use it was, we could not learn ; the common tradition among the people is, that a giant with his wife lived in this isle of Hoy, who had this stone for their castle. But I would rather think, seeing it could not accommodate any of a gigantic stature, that it might be for the use of some dwarf, as the name seems to import, or, it being remote from any house, might be the retired cell of some melancholy hermit. The stone also may be called the Dwarfie Stone, per antiphrasin, or by way of opposition, it being so very great.
To the north-west of this stone is a high mountain of a steep ascent, called the Warthill of Hoy, looking to the north ; nigh to the top of which hill, about mid-day, is seen something, and that at a good distance, which glitters and shines wonderfully, and {hough some have climbed up and searched for it, yet could find nothing ; it shines most in the summer time : the people talk of it as some enchanted carbuncle ; others take it to be a water that reflecteth the sun's rays, and so causeth such a sparkling and splendor ; but a gentleman who liveth nigh to this rock told us, that it shines most in the greatest drought, when no water is near it.
At the west end of the mainland, about a mile and a half to the west of the house of Skael, on the top of high rocks, there is something like a Street, near to a quarter of a mile in length, and between twenty and thirty feet in breadth, ail laid with stones of different figures and magnitudes, of a reddish colour: some of which stones bear the image and representation of a heart, others of a crown, others of a shoe, a leg, a last, a weaver's shuttle, &c. And that which renders it yet the more strange is, when these stones are raised, many of them have the same figure and shape below on the one side, that they have above on the other ; which Street all beholders look on as very wonderful I saw a part of the garden wall of the house of Skael, decored in the forepart thereof with these stones ; we intended to have sent a parcel of them south to our friends as a rarity, if they had not been forgot at our return from Zetland. Whether these stones be so laid and figured by art or by nature will be hard to determine. Few there is no house nigh to this Street, neither are the ruins of any which formerly have been there to be seen. So puzzling are the works of God to the most ingenious and accurate observers of Providence.
At the lock of Stennis in the mainland, in that part thereof where the loch is narrowest, both on the west and east side of the loch, there is a ditch, within which there is a circle of large and high stones erected : the larger round is on the west side, above one hundred paces diameter ; the stones, set about in form of a circle within a large ditch, are not all of a like quantity and size, though some of them, I think, are upwards of twenty feet high above ground, four or five feet broad, and a foot or two thick, some of which stones are fallen, but many of them are yet standing, between which there is not an equal distance, but many of them are about ten or twelve feet distant from each other. On the other side of the loch, over which we pass by a bridge laid with stones after the manner of a street, the loch there being shallow, are two stones standing, of a like bigness with the rest, whereof one hath a round hole in the midst of it, at a little distance from which stones there is another ditch, about half a mile from the former, but of a far less circumference, within which also there are some stones standing, something bigger than the other stones on the west side of the loch in form of a semicircle, I think, rather than of a circle, opening to the east, for I see no stones that have fallen there save one, which when standing did complete but the semicircle. Both at the east and west end of the bigger round are two green mounts, which appear to be artificial ; in one of which mounts were found, saith Mr. Wallace, nine fibulae of silver, round, but opening in one place like to a horse-shoe.
It is most probably thought that these were the high-places in times of pagan idolatry, whereon sacrifices were offered, and that the two artificial mounts of earth served for the same purpose, or were the places where the ashes of the sacrifices were cast, as some will have it. Boethius, in the life of Mainus king of Scots, observeth, that the people called these huge stones drawn together in the form of a circle, the ancient temple of the gods : Ut populus ad religionem moverentur, priscis sacris novas quasdam et solennes ceremonias superaddidit (Rex nimirum Mainus) diis immortalibus peragendas, ut immensis saxis variis in regionum locis (ut res exposcebat) in coronidem admotis, eoruraque máximo ad meridiem porrecto, cujus pro ara foret usus : victimae ibi diis ini-mortalibus sacrificium cremarentur. Extant in rei fidem, vel hoc nostro aevo ingentia ea saxa ducta in circos, prisca deorum phana vulgus appellai. Many of the country do say, that in the larger round the sun, and in the lesser the moon, was worshipped by the old pagan inhabitants of these isles.
And indeed to build their altars of earth or unpolished stones seems to have been the custom of ancient times, and even of the first ages of the Roman empire, as the learned. Spencer endeavours to prove from Tertullian, Etsi a Numa concepta est curiositas supersticiosa, nondum tamen aut simulacris aut templis res divina apud Romanos constabat. Frugi religio et pauperes ritus et nulla capitolia certantia coslo ; sed temeraria de cespite altaria, et vasa adhuc Samia, et nidor ex illis, et Deus ipse nusquam. And further confirming the same from Cluverius writing of the German antiquities. And concludes with giving the reason why the Gentiles of old were so taken with rude, undigested, artless, and unpolished altars and places of worship, because they judged them more holy and more acceptable to the Gods : Gentes antiquae, saith he, natura vel traditione doctae, naturalia omnia rudia licet et impolita, sanctionaet diis suis gratiora crediderunt. And here in these monuments nothing like art or form: the stones are not polished, nor all of a like thickness, height or breadth nor of an equal distance front each other.
In the isle of Sanda there is a chapel called the chapel of Clet, wherein there is a grave nineteen feet long, which when opened some years ago, there was nothing found in it save the piece of a back-bone of a man, greater than the back-bone of any horse. This the minister of the place declared unto me, who saw the grave opened, and measured it from the head to the foot stone thereof ; who also for some time had the bone in his custody. The vulgar tradition is, that there was a giant there, who was of so tall a stature that he could have stood upon the ground and put the copstone upon the chapel, which no man now living by far could do.
There are also bones found in Westra, between Tukey and the West Church, as great as horse bones, as the minister of Westra informed me. And some there have been lately of a gigantic stature in these isles ; as that man who died not long since, whom for his height they commonly call the Meikle Man of Waes.
Through this country we find several obelisks, or very high and great stones set up, as one in the isle of Eda, another on the mainland, within a mile of Birsa, &c. they appear to be much worn, by the washing of wind and rain, which shews they are of a long standing, and it is very strange to think how in these places and times they got such large stones carried and erected. Mirabile prefecto quisquis ea spectaverit qua arte quibus corporis viribus lapides tanta mole in unum locum fuerint congesti. The reason and end of dieir setting up cannot be certainly known ; however we may conjecture, that probably it was in remembrance of some famous battle, or hath been the ancient funeral monuments of some renowned persons, who have fallen in battle or been buried there. Several of which stones and monuments are to be seen in many places through Scotland, and in Norway they are very common, as our travellers who have seen them inform me., And it is like these stones have been set up by the Norwegians, when they possessed this country.
In Scapha about a mile from Kirkwall to south-west it is said there was kept a large and ancient cup, which they say belonged to St. Magnus king of Norway, who first instructed them in the principles of the Christian religion and founded the church of Kirkwall, with which full of some strong drink their bishops at their first landing were presented ; which, if he drank out, they highly praised him, and made themselves to believe, that they should have many and fruitful years in his time. This Buchanan relates, and as Mr. Wallace observeth, is still believed there, and talked of as a truth. Scyphum habent antiquum, saith Buchanan, quetn divi Magni, qui primus ad eos Christi doctrinam attulit, fuisse prsedicant ; is cum itasuperet communium poculorum amplitude nem, ut e Lapitharum convivio reservatus videri possit, eo suos episcopos initio ad se adventantes explorant : qui plenum uno haustu ebiberit (quod admodum raro evenit) miris eum laudibus prosequuntur, atque bine velut lasto augurio sequentium annorum proventum animis prascipiunt. The country to this day have the tradition of this, but we did not see the cup, nor could we learn where it was. And indeed that which renders this the more credible is, that the Norwegians at present, as merchants and mariners informs us, have a custom like unto this, that if any come to pay them a visit, especially if they be strangers, they use to present them with a large cup full of drink, which they take not well if their guests drink not out They say, some of these cups will contain three mutchins, others a pint, and some a quart, of our measure.
The wind, and sea, in any storm, beats most tempestuously and vehemently here upon the rocks : a little to the west of Kereton in the mainland, there is a rock called the Black Craig of Stromness, about seventy fathom high; upon which in a storm the sea from the Deucaledonian ocean doth beat with such violence and force, that the waves, breaking thereupon, cause the water to rise to the top of the rock like snow, and fly like a white sheet before the wind, blasting the corns for three or four miles behind the rock, if it fall out in or a little before harvest ; and this it doth likewise in several other places of the country, as some gentlemen, who knew it to their experience, did declare. Yea, so great is the violence of these tempestuous seas, that thereby some great stones are cast out and others are worn, so that large caves in some places run from the sea within the rock, beneath the ground for some considerable way. I saw one of these at the east end of the mainland in the parish of Holm, it is all covered above with the rock and earth, save that within these few years some of the rock and earth fell in, or was blown up (as they call it) in one night, by a violent storm blowing from south-east; hence now there is a hole in the hill above, like the eye of a coal-pit, which is terrible to look down into : there is another, something like this, in South-Ronaldsha. In these caves, doves and sea-fowls in great numbers use to nestle.
Several strange fishes are here taken, or cast ashore sometimes, which are, they say, very beautiful to look upon, but we never had occasion to see any of them. There are likewise a great number of little whales, which swim through these isles, which they call spout-whales or pellacks, some of which I have seen ; and they tell us it is dangerous for boats to fall among them, lest they be overturned by them : the former year, anno 1699, there were thirteen of these whales driven on shore upon Gairsay's Land, and eleven upon Eglesha's, about one time, as the gentlemen themselves did inform me, of which oil is made, very beneficial to the masters of the ground. The otters also, seals or selchs, and other such sea-creatures, are very numerous, but now their number is so much diminished, that not one of twenty is to be seen, and they have found several of them lying dead upon the shore ; some hence observing that the judgments of God, as to scarcity of suitable provisions to these creatures, are upon the waters also.
The tides here are so rapid that they will carry a ship along with them, though the wind be contrary, if not very strong, and in going among these isles scarce are they out of one tide when they are engaged in another ; and in going from place to place they will find sometimes the same flood for them, and at other times against them, and so with the ebb, especially there are some impetuous tides, which they call rousts, caused by the strong current of a tide meeting with a narrow passage ; the quickness and rapidity of the tide compensing the narrowness of the passage, as it is in lanes, which straitens the blowing wind, and makes the wind to blow so much the harder, in a proportion to the pressure it suffers by the straits of the lane ; so may we reason concerning the rousts which run among the isles. I have seen some of these rousts boil like unto a seething pot, with their high, white, and broken waves, in a calm summer day, when there was no wind blowing. At one time sailing by the side of Lasha Roust, between Sanda and the Calf of Elda, the roust getting some hold of us, turned about the head of our boat very quickly, and though there were four able young men rowing, beside the help we had by the sail, we could not without great difficulty make our way through it : they tell us, that if the greatest ship in Britain fell into this roust, where it is strongest, it would turn her a-bout at pleasure, and detain her till the tide fell weak, even though she had a right favourable gale. These rousts are more dangerous in an ebb than in a flood, the ebb being observed still, caeteris paribus, to make the foulest and most tempestuous sea, and especially they will foam and rage, if the tide be running in the wind's eye : and when there is any storm, they will cause any ship or boat to stand on end, and be ready to sink her in the fall. Several of which rousts we had occasion to meet with, but the Lord brought us safe through.
Though the general current of the tide be still the same, from west to east in a flood, and from east to west in an ebb, yet running with violence upon the land they cause a contrary motion in the sea next to it, which they call Easter or Wester Birth, according to its course. And there are some things which have been observed as very strange in the running of the tides, as that it flows two hours sooner on the west side of Sanda than it doth on the east : and at Hammoness in the same isle both ebb and flood runs one way, except at the beginning of a quick stream when for two or three hours the flood runs south : in North Faira the sea ebbs nine hours, and flows but three, but the reasons of these phenomena will not be so intricate or hard to resolve, if we consider the situation of these isles, where the tide seems to alter his course ; for the flood coming from the west to the west side of Sanda, it takes some time before it can get about the points of the isle to the south side thereof ; so in North Faira, the sea is more open whence the flood cometh, but the ebb runneth through several isles, turning many points of land before it come to North Faira, which cannot but retard its motion : so at Hammoness in Sanda, the situation of the place much determineth the running of the tide.
The rapid motion of these tides among the isles, and their meeting with one another, makes it very dangerous, and sometimes more especially in a cairn ; so a minister there told us, that he was never nearer death in his life than in a dead cairn when nigh to Westra, for they saw the sea coming, which they thought would swallow them up, and there being no wind they could not get out of the way, but God so ordered it in his wise providence, that the sea, or swell of the sea, which they feared, broke on the fore part of the boat, and so they escaped.
There are frequently Finmen seen here upon the coasts, as one about a year ago on Stronsa, and another within these few months on Westra, a gentleman with many others in the isle looking on him nigh to the shore, but when any endeavour to apprehend them, they flee away most swiftly ; which is very strange, that one man, sitting in his little boat, should come some hundred of leagues from their own coasts, as they reckon Finland to be from Orkney ; it may be thought wonderful how they live all that time, and are able to keep the sea so long. His boat is made of seal-skins, or some kind of leather, he also hath a coat of leather upon him, and he sitteth in the middle of his boat, with a little oar in his hand, fishing with his lines : and when in a storm he sees the high surge of a wave approaching, he hath a way of sinking his boat, till the wave pass over, least thereby he should be overturned. The fishers here observe that these Finmen or Finland-men by their coming drive away the fishes from the coasts. One of their boats is kept as a rarity in the Physicians Hall at Edinburgh.
On the west side of Papa-Westra, between it and Westra, there is an Holm, whereiti once there was a little chapel, whereof some of the side-walls are now only standing, in which they say there were seven sisters buried, who were nuns, and desired to lie in this holm, about whose graves this chapel was built : about a year ago, there were seen several times, at mid-day, about twenty men Walking on that holm, among whom there was one' higher and greater than the rest, who sometimes stood and looked unto the chapel ; this my informer with a hundred people in the isle of Papa saw, who could attest the same : after which appearance there was a boat cast away on that holm with four men in her, who were all lost.
In the links of Tranaby in Westra, and of Skeal in the mainland, washed from the west by the Deucaledonian Ocean, some places are discovered when the sea washeth away the sand, which shews that such places have been cemeteries or burying places for their dead of old, of a square figure, and the stones are joined together by some cement ; when opened, earth and sometimes bones are found in them ; the reason some do give of this is because the way of interring dead bodies among many of the ancients, (as among the Saxons in the isle of Britain) was not in deep graves, but under clods or turfs of earth made into hillocks. But none of these we had occasion to see. Concerning that rock called Less, surrounded with the sea, nigh to the Noup-head in Westra, upon which some say, if any man go, having iron on him, the sea will instantly rage, so that no boat can come nigh to take him off, nor the sea be settled, till the peice of iron be cast into it ; when in Westra we enquired about it, but found no ground for the truth thereof.
Mr. Wallace narrates a remarkable providence, which the ministers here confirmed to us as a truth ; concerning four men in Stronsa who used to fish together in one boat, among whom there was one John Smith, whose wife being desirous he should intermit his fishing for a time, he having purchased a great plenty of fish, which he not being so willing to do, on a day she rising before him stopped the windows, and other places in the house, whereby light was let in, and so went to the fields ; the other three men after their usual manner went to sea, whose boat she saw overturned and themselves perish ; upon which she returned home to her husband : and no doubt would have given the sad news of his neighbours perishing, not without joy congratulating that he was not this day in company with them: but upon her coming into her house she had yet a more melancholy sight ; her husband lying dead, choaked in that vessel, wherein they used to make urine.
An honest man in Orkney told me that some years ago, when he was coming home with timber and some other things in his boat, from Innerness, and was almost the length of the isle of Eda, where he lived, the boat turned and lay upon her side, but the sails being spread in the water hindered the mast to go down, and her altogether to overturn, much of what they had in went to the sea, and he with the other seamen in company sat upon the side of the boat, and were so for some hours tossed up and down, whither the tide did drive them, they in the mean time comforting and refreshing one another with places of scripture and notes of sermons, which lately they had heard, and sometimes putting up earnest prayers to God, whom the wind and seas do obey ; at length God, not turning away his mercy from them, nor their prayer from him, graciously gave ear unto their cry, and brought them ail safe ashore together with the boat on the west side of Sanda, much of the timber and what they had in being driven ashore to the very place before them. A great mercy, when not only they, but their boat, and most of their loadening, were saved. Some of those men whom 1 am acquainted with, and do judge godly, can-not speak of this deliverance but with great concernedness and affection, which makes me to think this mercy not to have been cast of common providence, but a gracious return of their prayer.
The effects of thunder in this country are very surprizing; 1670 the steeple of Kirk-Wall was burnt with lightning : and anno 1680, there was a gentleman in Stromness in the west end of the mainland had a stall, wherein there were twelve kine ; the thunder killed every other one, kiliing one and passing another, so that there were six killed, and six alive ; this the ministers confirmed as a certain truth to their knowledge.
There was a man that died not many years ago, who when a child, being left in the field, (the mother, as some say, shearing at a little distance from him) was taken up by an eagle, and carried from the parish of Orphir, in the mainland, to the isle of Waes, over three or four miles of sea, but in God's good providence, the eagle being quickly pursued to his nest, whither the child was taken, he was recovered without any hurt. . It was observed that in these isles, before the late dearth, there were several strange birds seen, such as they have not seen formerly nor since. One of the ministers told me, that one bird frequented his house about that time for a quarter of a year, which was of a black, white, red and green colour : as also he saw another, all striped or sprainged on the back, which birds were beautiful to behold.
There was a monster about seven years ago born of one Helen Thomson, spouse to David Martin, weaver, in North Ronaldsha, having his neck between head and shoulders a quarter and an half of a yard long, with a face, nose, eyes, mouth &c. to the back, as well as before, so that it was two faced, which monster came living into the world : this the minister declared unto us, having taken the attestation of the women present at the birth, he not being on the place at the time : and it is said that a certain woman should have wished this upon the mother, whom she alledged had lyed upon her, in her wrath wishing, that if she spoke a lie she might bring forth a monster, which accordingly came to pass in God's holy and wise providence.
Some say there are several mines of silver, tin, lead, &c. Also some veins of marble and alabaster ; Buchanan commends this country for white and black lead, of which there is to be had as good as in Britain. Sex diversis in locis hujus insulse, metallas sunt plumbli albi & nigri tam probi quam usquam in Britannia reperiatur. As also several of fine shells to be found on the shore and rocks, but we had occasion to see none of them, save some of these nuts, whereof they make snuff-boxes.
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