Fians, Fairies and Picts Part 7

Mr. Christian Jensen, Oevenum, Fohr, to whom I am indebted for these three views, has favoured me with the following information:--

"The sketches of the Denhoog which I enclose [viz., the Ground Plan and Sectional View] are from the drawings of Professor Wibel, who conducted the excavation of it in 1868. From his and C.P. Hansen's observations I contribute the following statements: Originally, the mound was higher, but in 1868 it had the form of a truncated cone, 4 _metres_ [say 14 feet 9 inches] in height. As may be seen from the picture, it slopes away to the south above the original pa.s.sage into the mound, which the dweller made use of as his entrance; so that the extent is very considerable. The present entrance, as may be seen from the view of the interior, was made from above, at the north side, directly opposite the original entrance.... Dr. Wibel says: 'At the south side of the chamber is the doorway for ingress and egress, with the pa.s.sage itself leading from it. This pa.s.sage, which was 6 _metres_ [19 feet 8 inches] in length, was lined with upright blocks of granite and gneiss, with a roofing and floor made of flagstones of the same kinds of stone. It was opened up all the way to the mouth of the pa.s.sage. This [the outer orifice] lay close to the extremity of the earth and near the floor of the mound, was closed with earth only, not with a stone, and measured about 1 _metre_ [3 feet 3.4 inches] in height, and 1? _metre_ in breadth.

On account of these dimensions ... one can only creep through with difficulty, and for that reason the plan does not show with accuracy the position of the wall-slabs, and their number is merely conjectured to be nine.'

"Immediately after this excavation of 17-19 September, 1868, C.P.

Hansen writes as follows:--

"'There are in the island of Sylt hillocks of ancient origin, for the most part pagan burying-places, but some of which may have served as the dwelling-places of a primitive people. One such hillock has just been opened at Wenningstedt. The interior was found to be a chamber, 17 feet long, 10 feet in breadth, and from 5 to 6 feet in height, with a covered pa.s.sage about 22 feet long, trending southward. The walls of this underground room were composed of twelve large granite blocks, regularly arranged; the roof consisted of three still larger slabs of the same kind of rock; the stones which formed the pa.s.sage were smaller. At one corner of the floor of the cellar there was a well-defined fireplace, and near it were urns and flint implements; in the opposite corner there were many bones lying, apparently unburned, probably those of the last dweller in the cavern.'"

Mr. Christian Jensen gives an account of "Der Denghoog bei Wenningstedt"

in the "Beilage zu Nr. 146 der Flensburger Nachrichten" of 25th June 1893, in which he says:

"... On the floor of the chamber, three separate divisions were distinctly visible, of which one, situated on the east side, showed traces of having been a fireplace. Professor Wibel found several fragments of human bones, which evidently belonged only to _one_ individual, as no portion was duplicated; also a few animals'

bones. There was an extraordinary number of fragments of pottery, belonging to about 24 different urns, of which 11 could be put together. Their form and ornamentation were both fine and varied, an interesting witness to the ceramics of the grey past.... Among the stone implements found were a great many flint-knives; two stone hatchets, two chisels, and a gouge, all of flint, and a disc of porphyry were also obtained. Several mineral substances, quartzite, rubble-stones, gravel, ochre, a sinter-heap--these are less interesting than the seven amber beads which, with some charcoal, completes the list of objects found. Referring to former investigations of galleried mounds [_gangbauten_], which seem to have been used in some cases as burying-places, in others as dwellings, Dr. Wibel observes, in answer to the question resulting from his discovery, as to whether the Denghoog ought to be regarded as a sepulchre or as a dwelling, that, as Nilsson has already said, all gallery-mounds were originally dwellings, and occasionally became utilised as tombs. In the case of the Denghoog, this fact is demonstrated by the fireplace, the scattered potsherds, the amber beads, &c."

[Footnote 93: _Heligoland_, Edin. and Lond., 1888, pp. 84-85.]

Of the little woodcut which forms the Tailpiece of this volume, it is hardly necessary to say that it represents some popular ideas regarding "the little people." The woodcut of which this is a facsimile is one of those contained in the eighteenth-century chap-book, "_Round about our Coal Fire_; or, Christmas Entertainments," and it heads the chapter "_Of Fairies, their Use and Dignity_." "They generally came out of a Mole-hill," it is said; "they had fine Musick always among themselves, and Danced in a Moons.h.i.+ny Night around, or in a Ring as one may see at this Day upon every Common in _England_, where Mushroones [_sic_] grow,"

The size of the mushroom, so elegantly depicted in the foreground, is quite on a scale suitable to the stature ultimately accorded to the little people in many districts; so also is the mole-hill. But the tree, and the Satanic head in the foliage, are curiously out of proportion.

An examination of these various diagrams will show that the more primitive of those structures were obviously built by a small-sized race; some of the pa.s.sages being quite impa.s.sable to large men of the present day. This peculiarity was noticed by Scott when visiting the "brochs" of Shetland, a kindred cla.s.s of structures (none of which are here shown). "These Duns or Picts' Castles are so small," he says, writing in his Diary in August 1814, "it is impossible to conceive what effectual purpose they could serve excepting a temporary refuge for the chief." This reflection was suggested to him by the Broch of Cleik-him-in (now usually written Clickemin), near Lerwick; and in describing it he says: "The interior gallery, with its apertures, is so extremely low and narrow, being only about three feet square, that it is difficult to conceive how it could serve the purpose of communication.

At any rate, the size fully justifies the tradition prevalent here, as well as in the south of Scotland, that the Picts were a diminutive race." Of the Broch of Mousa he says: "The uppermost gallery is so narrow and low that it was with great difficulty I crept through it,"--a feat which baffled the present writer.[94] In all those cases, of course, it is understood one has to crawl. As with the Lapps and the Eskimos, creeping was much more a matter of course with the builders of those places than it is with us. After getting through such pa.s.sages it happens that, in several instances, the roof is higher than is required for the tallest living man. An admirable example of such a place is the underground "Picts' House" at Pitcur, in Forfars.h.i.+re, which would be quite a palace to people of a small race, and very likely figures as such in some popular tale; its dimensions and appearance considerably magnified with every century.[95] But even this "fairy palace" was entered by narrow, downward-sloping pa.s.sages, similar to that seen in the Frontispiece, down and up which the dwellers had to crawl. An underground gallery such as that of Ardtole (near Ardgla.s.s, County Down), is somewhat puzzling, because, while one chamber off it rises to a height of 5 feet 3 inches, another is only 3 feet high; and the main gallery, for 70 feet of its length, is 4 feet high, with a width of 3 feet 4 inches. The inference from this seems to be that the occupants were under 4 feet in height. If they had intended to crawl along the 70 feet, they did not require so high a roof; whereas, if they walked, and if they were more than 4 feet in height, they would need to walk the 70 feet in a stooping posture, a constraint which they could easily have avoided by raising the roof a foot or two. The highest roof in all this souterrain being 5 feet 3, it does not seem likely that the builders were taller than that; and there seems more reason to believe that they were much smaller. Another such gallery in Sutherlands.h.i.+re is "nowhere more than 4 feet in height, and for the greater part of its length only 2 feet wide, expanding to 3, for about 3 feet only from the inner end."

Still more restricted is the "rath-cave" of Ballyknock, in the parish of Ballynoe, barony of Kinnatalloon, County Cork. "The cave is a mere cutting in the clayey subsoil, and is roofed with flags resting on the clayey banks of the cutting, of which the length is about 100 feet, and the height and width from 3 to 3 feet, except that the width to a height of 2 feet is hardly a foot at the N.W. turn, 23 feet from the N.E. end, and at a point 27 feet from the S.E. end.... Right below the aperture ... was a short pillar-stone, deeply scored with Oghams ...

[and] many of the roofing slabs were seen ... to be inscribed with Oghams, some large and others minute."[96]

"This cla.s.s of structures deserves a careful study," observes Captain Thomas, referring to the souterrains of the north-west of Scotland;[97]

"for the room or accommodation afforded by this mode of building is exceedingly small when compared with the labour expended in procuring it; besides, the doorway or entry is often so contracted that no bulky object, not even a very stout man, could get in ... But what are we to think when the single pa.s.sage is so small that only a child could crawl through it?"

[Footnote 94: On the very topmost course of all, the gallery dwindles into such insignificant dimensions that not even a dwarf (as one would naturally understand that term) could creep along it. Scott cannot have meant this very extremity. With regard to it, I should be inclined to say that it was merely the necessary finish of the gallery, not intended to be used any more than the s.p.a.ces beside the eaves of a house.]

[Footnote 95: The tendency to "idealisation on the part of the narrator"

is referred to, in this connection, by Mr. Joseph Jacobs, at p. 242 of his "English Fairy Tales" (London, D. Nutt, 1890).]

[Footnote 96: _Jour. Roy. Soc. Antiq. Ireland_, 1891 (Third Quarter), p.

517. It is not inappropriate to add that one of these inscriptions reads: "Branan, son of Ochal," and that the decipherer (the Rev. Edmond Barry, M.R.I.A.) identifies this latter name with "the name of a King of the Fairies of Connaught (_Ri Side Connacht_)": _op. cit._, pp. 524-525.

The Ardtole souterrain is described in the Journal of the same Society (July-October, 1889, p. 245), by Mr. Seaton F. Milligan, M.R.I.A.; and the one in Sutherlands.h.i.+re is referred to by Dr. Joseph Anderson (at p.

289 of "Scotland in Pagan Times: The Iron Age," Edinburgh, 1883).]

[Footnote 97: _Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot._ (First Series), vol. vii. pp.

185-6.]

[Ill.u.s.tration]