The Testimony of Tradition

A race which was in its prime two thousand years ago may have many points in common with one or another of the modern races (presumably its own descendants, in some measure); but absolute identity of type can hardly be expected, if one considers the crossing, re-crossing, and in some cases almost the extermination of the various races of Europe during that period. At any rate, this marked hairiness of skin, attributed to the Pict, or Pecht, or dwarf, is not a Mongoloid characteristic. It is certainly not Mongolian; and although some divisions of the Mongoloid group—such as the Eskimos of Labrador—are described as wearing moustaches and beards, this fact, even if it be not exceptional, goes a very little way towards suggesting an actually hirsute ancestor. Had there been less doubt about the matter, one might have supposed that the hairy skin-garments of those Northern races had been erroneously assumed in the traditional tales to be the natural skin of their owners; and, indeed, the pictures of the modern Eskimos in their winter dress of skins with the hair outside, gives quite the appearance of a race of hairy little men. But the nudity of the historical Picts, and certain sections of the traditional dwarfs, or brownies, is beyond all doubt. To the Latin writers, as to the housewives of legendary history, this was equally an unmistakable and objectionable fact.

There is, however, an existing race that offers itself as akin to those traditional dwarfs in this respect, as well as in some others; although the modern Lapps, in several of their characteristics, also suggest that a not insignificant line of their ancestry is traceable to the same origin. The race referred to is that of the "hairy Kuriles," or Ainos of Japan; included by ethnologists among the modern dwarf races.

"Twelve hundred years ago," says Mr. E. B. Tylor, "a Chinese historian stated that 'on the eastern frontiers of the land of Japan there is a barrier of great mountains, beyond which is the land of the Hairy Men.' These were the Aino, so named from the word in their own language signifying 'man.' Over most of the country of these rude and helpless indigenes the Japanese have long since spread, only a dwindling remnant of them still inhabiting the island of Yezo. Since the early days when a couple of them were sent as curiosities to the Emperor of China, their uncouth looks and habits have made them objects of interest to more civilized nations."[295]

Of their own traditions, another writer states:—"To them the past is dead, yet, like other conquered and despised races, they cling to the idea that in some far-off age they were a great nation. They have no traditions of internecine strife, and the art of war seems to have been lost long ago. I asked Benri [a chief] about this matter, and he says that formerly Ainos fought with spears and knives, as well as with bows and arrows, but that Yoshitsuné, their hero god, forbade war for ever, and since then the two-edged spear, with a shaft nine feet long, has only been used in hunting bears."[296] Yoshitsuné, it may be explained, is stated (op. cit. infra, II. 94, note) to have been the brother of a Japanese general of the twelfth century, famous for his victories over "barbarians." This tradition, therefore, if accepted without reserve, would place the conquest of the Ainos by the Japanese, with the consequent disarming of the former, somewhere about the twelfth century. And the scene of this struggle may be placed south and west of their present home. "The inference from records and local names, worked out with great care by Professor Chamberlain, is 'that the Ainos were truly the predecessors of the Japanese all over the Archipelago. The dawn of history shows them to us living far to the south and west of their present haunts; and ever since then, century by century, we see them retreating eastwards and northwards, as steadily as the American Indian has retreated westwards under the pressure of the colonists from Europe.'"[297]

"As is well known, the hairiness of the Ainos marks them sharply off from the smooth-faced Japanese. No one can look at photographs of Ainos without admitting that the often-repeated comparison of them to bearded Russian peasants is much to the purpose. The likeness is much strengthened by the bold quasi-European features of the Aino contrasting extremely with the Japanese type of face."[298] "The expression of the face and the manner of showing courtesy are European rather than Asiatic," says Miss Bird, who has lived among these people; and she again remarks, on a later page, "I am more and more convinced that the expression of their faces is European."[299]

"The men are about the middle height,[300] broad-chested, broad-shouldered, 'thick-set,' very strongly built, the arms and legs short, thick, and muscular, the hands and feet large. The bodies, and specially the limbs, of many are covered with short bristly hair. I have seen two boys whose backs are covered with fur as fine and soft as that of a cat." "The 'ferocious savagery' of the appearance of the men is produced by a profusion of thick, soft, black hair, divided in the middle, and falling in heavy masses nearly to the shoulders. Out of doors it is kept from falling over the face by a fillet round the brow. The beards are equally profuse, quite magnificent, and generally wavy, and in the case of the old men they give a truly patriarchal and venerable aspect, in spite of the yellow tinge produced by smoke and want of cleanliness." "The beard, moustache, and eyebrows are very thick and full." "At a deep river called the Nopkobets," says the same writer, "we were ferried by an Aino completely covered with hair, which on his shoulders was wavy like that of a retriever, and rendered clothing quite needless either for covering or warmth. A wavy, black beard rippled nearly to his waist over his furry chest, and, with his black locks hanging in masses over his shoulders, he would have looked a thorough savage had it not been for the exceeding sweetness of his smile and eyes. The Volcano Bay Ainos are far more hairy than the mountain Ainos." Again—"These Lebungé Ainos differ considerably from those of the eastern villages, and I have again to notice the decided sound or click of the ts at the beginning of many words. Their skins are as swarthy as those of Bedaween, their foreheads comparatively low [the Aino forehead being in general remarkably high], their eyes far more deeply set, their stature lower, their hair yet more abundant, the look of wistful melancholy more marked, and two, who were unclothed for hard work in fashioning a canoe, were almost entirely covered with short, black hair, specially thick on the shoulders and back, and so completely concealing the skin as to reconcile one to the lack of clothing. I noticed an enormous breadth of chest, and a great development of the muscles of the arms and legs. All these Ainos shave their hair off for two inches above their brows, only allowing it there to attain the length of an inch." "Their voices were the lowest and most musical that I have heard, incongruous sounds to proceed from such hairy, powerful-looking men.... These, like other Ainos, utter a short, screeching sound when they are not pleased, and then one recognizes the savage."[301]

The picture of "An Aino Patriarch," which is here reproduced from Miss Bird's book,[302] does not enable one to fully realize the purest type of Aino; partly owing to the fact that the figure is clothed, and partly because this man appears to have belonged to one of the more modified sections of the race. However, as he is, he is not a very bad representative of the bearded dwarf, with disproportionately large head, so familiar in tradition; and that he is one of the race of "shaggy men," we know without fuller evidence. His beard does not fall down to his waist, like that of his kinsman who figures as a ferryman in the foregoing quotation; but the heavy moustache and beard, and the shaggy eyebrows, strongly characterize this living race as well as the legendary dwarfs. The latter are again and again referred to as "little old[303] men, with long beards"; and, indeed, in one of Grimm's tales ("Snow-White and Rosy-Red"), a dwarf has a beard so long that it gets caught in the trunk of a tree that has been felled. The artist who drew the picture of Barbarossa's dwarfs has not forgotten this marked traditional feature.[304] Such dwarfs are all remembered as possessed of supernatural powers, enchanters, magicians, etc.; and, conversely, the magicians (Gaelic druidhean) of early Britain are famous for their flowing beards.

An earlier Aino than those pictured by Miss Bird is that which Baron Nordenskiöld gives in his "Voyage of the Vega." With regard to it he says:—"The drawing is taken from a Japanese work, whose title, when translated, runs thus—'A Journey to the North Part of Japan (Yezo), 1804.'"

In this picture, which is here annexed, there are several notable features. Not only has this Aino of 1804 the short, thick-set figure, heavy beard, and "bull-necked" appearance of the traditional dwarf, but he is represented as driving a reindeer. Now, this seems at once to connect the Aino with the Samoyed and the Lapp. For, although the reindeer is hunted by the Eskimos of North America, these people have never domesticated it. Moreover, the Aino is standing on runners, which appear to be very similar to the "skies" of the Lapps. Both of these details are distinctive of the Aino and the Lapp (for although the "skies" are used to the south of Finmark, they are peculiarly associated with the Lapps, who excel all other Norwegians in this accomplishment). "The deer-hide moccasins which they wear for winter hunting"[305] form another link of custom uniting the Aino to the Lapp and the Eskimo. So also does the harpoon and line which the Ainos use, or used, in seal-hunting, as is evidenced by two of Professor Chamberlain's tales.[306] Thus, although the Aino differs very much, in some respects, from the Eskimo type of man, he cannot be regarded as wholly different from him.[307] As regards stature, the two are much alike; and several usages have just been cited that distinctly unite the two. If one might discriminate, it might be said that the relationship extends westward from the Kurile Islands, rather than eastward into North America. That the Aino should remind travellers so strongly of certain European types, is very suggestive of a line of ancestry which is shared by Europeans. Indeed, those hirsute qualities which distinguish the Aino exist, though in much more modified forms (even in the instance of Russian peasants) among the people of Europe; sufficiently to mark off the average European from the races of other continents. That one line of European ancestry should lead back to a race strongly resembling the modern Ainos is therefore a belief that the outward appearance of the modern European rather tends to strengthen.

In speculating upon the appearance of the European "cave-man" of the past, a writer in the "Cornhill"[308] (? Mr. Grant Allen) states as his opinion that "at any rate, he was distinctly hairy, like the Ainos, or aborigines of Japan, in our own day, of whom Miss Isabella Bird has drawn so startling and sensational a picture." Again, after remarking that those cave-men "seem to have been in most essential particulars almost as advanced as the modern Eskimo, with whom Professor Dawkins conjecturally identifies them," Mr. Grant Allen goes on to say[309]—"But if Professor Dawkins means us to understand that the cave-men were physically developed to the same extent as the Eskimo, it is necessary to accept his conclusion with great caution. It does not follow because the Eskimo are the nearest modern parallels of the cave-men, that the cave-men therefore resembled them closely in appearance. Several of the sketches of cave-men, cut by themselves on horn and bone, certainly show (it seems to me) that they were covered with hair over the whole body: and the hunter in the antler from the Duruthy cave has a long pointed beard and high crest of hair on the poll utterly unlike the Eskimo type." And although Mr. Allen admits, on a later page, that "it is possible enough that the cave-man was the direct ancestor of the Eskimo," yet he qualifies this admission by observing that "it does not at all follow that in physical appearance the earlier cave-men were the equals of the Eskimo, or, indeed, that the Eskimo are any more nearly related to them than ourselves."[310]

Of course, it is understood by the writer of these lines that the remarks upon "cave-men" just quoted, were made in the belief that all those cave-men lived at a period immensely removed from the present time. But the classification of man's history into so many "periods" and "ages" is admittedly vague. And the recognition of a visible relationship between certain races of living men, and those others who are called "pre-historic," is practically a recognition of the possibility that the not very remote ancestors of such races may be remembered with comparative clearness in the popular memory of those who are mainly descended from races of a higher type.

That this is really the case is what all the evidence adduced in these pages tends to show. And, indeed, the actual picture of a living Aino of about ninety years ago, reproduced above, is by no means remarkably different from the traditional figure given below, which represents the magician, or "good fairy," as he appears in the popular memory, when arriving from the far North, on Yule Eve, laden with gifts for his vassals. The annexed woodcut gives the idea of "Santa Claus," as he figures in the American fancy, and that, as the title given to him indicates, is really the German idea. The German idea, then, of this good magician is that he is a thick-set, bearded, little man, whose heavy furs denote that his home lies in the North, and whose reindeer team, harnessed to the sledge in which he has travelled, indicates that, like the Lapp and the Aino, he not only lives in a country where reindeer abound, but he has learned to tame them and make them serve his purposes. In this traditional figure one seems to see the type of a race that was even more like the Aino than the Lapp, or the Eskimo, although closely connected in various ways with all of these. Neither this figure, nor those of Barbarossa's dwarfs, need be regarded as absolutely correct; but in both we see that the popular memory is wonderfully faithful to what appears to be the actual truth.

The existence in Europe of such a race, neither Lapp nor Aino, though akin to both, seems indicated by as recent a geographer as Olaus Magnus. In his map of Northern Europe,[311] the extreme north of Norway is neither "Lappia" nor "Finmarchia" (although both of these are shown), but a country which borders them on the north, and which he calls "Scricfinnia." This name appears to have been otherwise spelt "Scritfinnia" or "Scridfinnia," and one writer states that its people, the "Scridfinni," "derived their name from the word skrida, which in the Danish and Swedish languages means to slide."[312] This refers to the snow-skates, or "skies," which they are described as using, but as Olaus Magnus pictures the people of "Lappia" as also using "skies," it does not seem that that usage was distinctive of the "Scridfinni." But what appears to be of much more importance than this etymological point is the fact that the gloss which Olaus Magnus places opposite "Scricfinnia" is to this effect:—"Hic habitant Pÿgmei Vulgo Screlinger dicti." The earliest cited mention of the Screlinger, or Skrælings, occurs in the accounts of the Norse visits to North America, at the end of the tenth century; and the people thus referred to are generally identified with the Esquimaux. "The Northmen were used to call the Esquimaux Skrælings, a term of contempt, meaning, says Crantz, 'chips, parings, i.e., dwarfs.'" And the North American Skrælings of the tenth century, who are described as paddling about in skin-canoes, "skimming the surface of the water in their swift flight," are quite obviously either of the same race as the modern Eskimos, or else closely allied to them.[313] In the course of eight or nine centuries, the "Skrælings" may have become modified to some extent; and, indeed, modern travellers[314] are wonderfully unanimous in remarking upon the effect that nineteenth-century intermixture has had upon Asiatic and Greenland Eskimos, and upon the Ainos. But whatever the exact appearance of the tenth-century "Skræling," the map of Olaus Magnus denotes that, five or six centuries later, the extreme north of Norway was inhabited by a race of "Skrælings"; and that these people were the same as the "pygmies" of classical writers. It has already been pointed out[315] that the Greenland "Skrælings" were also spoken of as "goblins," and this again shows that that American type, whether most akin to the modern Eskimo or to the Aino, was not a new type to those European explorers,—whose legendary history was already teeming with stories of encounters with "goblins."[316]

Whatever may have been the ethnical position of the tenth-century "Skræling" of America, this sixteenth-century map of North Europe certainly signifies that the "pigmies," "Screlings," or "Scric-Finns" of the extreme north of Scandinavia were neither "Finns" nor "Lapps," but a race that ultimately yielded place to these. There are similar indications in the extreme north of Asia. The Chukches of Siberia undoubtedly connect the Lapp in the west with the Eskimo in the east. But these Chukches have traditions of a race called Onkilon, i.e., "sea-folk," whom the Chukches, moving northward, displaced or annihilated. "Tradition relates that upwards of two hundred years ago these Onkilon occupied the whole of the Chukch coast, from Cape Chelagskoj to Behring's Straits; and indeed we still find along the whole of this stretch remains of their earth-huts, which must have been very unlike the present dwellings of the Chukches; they have the form of small mounds, are half sunk in the ground and closed above with whale ribs, which are covered with a thick layer of earth." Baron Nordenskiöld, who is here quoting Wrangel's "Reise" (1825), gives himself a representation of one of those Onkilon earth-dwellings, seen by him at Cape North.[317] In these now-extinct "Onkilon," then, we have a race of people who, like the Finns and sea-trows of Shetland, were famed as "sea-folk," and who at the same time were underground-people or mound-dwellers.

CHAPTER XVII.

There is yet another characteristic of the modern Aino which suggests the dwarf of the British Isles. "Mention must also be made of an anatomical peculiarity of the Aino skeleton, consisting of a remarkable flattening of the arm- and leg-bones."[318] This peculiarity, which is known scientifically as "platycnemism," forms a part of Herr von Siebold's "Ethnologische Studien über die Aino, auf der Insel Yesso."[319] Much may be learned with regard to platycnemism in a paper "On the Discovery of Platycnemic Men in Denbighshire,"[320] by Professors Busk and Boyd Dawkins; and the subject of platycnemism generally has been very fully discussed in Dr. L. Manouvrier's "Mémoire sur la Platycnémie."[321] The question is full of interest; but what we are here concerned with is the fact that, characterizing the dwarfish, hairy Ainos of the nineteenth century, this flattening of the leg-bones is also associated with the dwarfs of Britain. Those cave-dwelling, "platycnemic men" of Denbighshire, though not actually dwarfs, were of no greater height on an average than five feet, or a trifle over. Again, the skeletons found in the underground dwellings of Wiltshire, which have been so closely studied by General Pitt-Rivers, exhibit marked platycnemism in several instances, and of these the average height was 5 ft., 1^.3 (among eleven males), and (among three females) 4 ft., 10.[322] In Wigtownshire, also, the bones of certain cave-men have yielded at least one tibia which has been pronounced to be "highly platycnemic." The locality where these remains were found has been spoken of on a previous page,[323] as a locality famed as the last refuge of the "Pechts," and, at the same time, as a home of the "fairies." These are a few special instances; but if once we recognize the probability that platycnemism was specially a characteristic of "the little people," then there will be small difficulty in accepting as true the forecast with which Mr. Boyd Dawkins concludes his remarks in the paper above mentioned:—"I have not the slightest doubt that platycnemism will be recognized in remains from chambered tombs in many parts of Britain, and that eventually the men found in Denbighshire will be proved to belong to a race that spread over Britain and Ireland, and a large area on the Continent."

The effect of this flattened tibia or leg-bone is to give to the "platycnemic man" an unusual degree of agility. Thus one reads that the Ainos who drew Miss Bird's kuruma raced "for a considerable distance" with some mounted Japanese, drawing the kuruma, of course, at the same time. Similarly, the mountain-ponies of the Picts "could hardly excel the speed of the troops on foot."[324] The traditional accounts of the "Fians" have much to say of their marvellous swiftness of foot. The same thing is noted of the Dartmoor gubbins of the sixteenth century: "Such their fleetness, they will outrun many horses."[325] And the earth-dwelling "Red Fairies" of Merionethshire "were also remarkable for their swiftness and agility."[326] There is a Scotch story of a brownie who successfully "herded" a hare; and the lightness of foot of the fairy in general is proverbial. From all these references, then, there is every reason for believing that the little people were "platycnemic men."

This identification of the traditional dwarfs with the Ainos on the one hand and the Eskimos on the other, amounts to an assumption that the dwarfs were not only hirsute like the first of these, and mound-dwellers like the second, but also that, like the extinct Onkilon of Siberia, they were in a distinct sense "sea-folk." In other words, that, while showing a strong affinity with the two modern types chiefly referred to in these pages, they were nevertheless not identical with either. That they were the ancestors of both seems probable, bequeathing to each division some of the qualities and customs of the original stock; which might be described as Aino-Eskimo.

So far as tradition goes, there is every indication that the hairy dwarf was of a sea-faring race. The Gaelic ur-uisg was rightly called a "wild or shaggy man" by Sir Walter Scott, but literally he was a "water-man"; which term has many equivalents, such as wasser-man, mer-man, and others. The Guernsey "King of the Auxcriniers" previously mentioned,[327] may also denote this identification of the zee-woner with the "shaggy man"; unless the name auxcriniers bears a less obvious meaning than it appears to do. But no better illustration of this union can be found than the historical Picts. Tradition has told us of their shaggy skins, and the "small boats" which they used. And both of these are indicated by the sixth-century Gildas, in his account of the inroads of the Picts and Scots, after the withdrawal of the Romans, where he says:—"Itaque illis ad sua revertentibus, emergunt certatim de curicis, quibus sunt trans Cichicam[328] vallem vecti, quasi in alto Titane incalescenteque caumate de arctissimis foraminum cavernulis fusci vermiculorum cunei, tetri Scotorum Pictorumque greges, moribus ex parte dissidentes, sed una eademque sanguinis fundendi aviditate concordes, furci-ferosque magis vultus pilis, quam corporum pudenda, pudendisque proxima, vestibus tegentes."[329]

There is complete agreement among the commentators of Gildas that the word "curicis" is a Latinized form of the Celtic curach, a skin-boat. And the expression "de arctissimis foraminum cavernulis" is singularly confirmative of the assumption that the variety of skin-boat denoted was the narrow kayak with its small round man-hole, and covered "hold," out of which the invading Pict "eagerly emerged" in his haste to attack the Romanized and civilized people in the neighbourhood of the Wall. The reference to their appearance generally is, moreover, very much like the terms used by the Norse writers in speaking of the tenth-century "Skrælings."

That the historical Picts were as "amphibious" as any other "sea-folk" of the kind here discussed, is further testified by such a statement as this:—"They passed their days in the water, swimming in the northern estuaries, or wading with the stream as high as the waist. Dion Cassius adds, with his characteristic vivacity, that they would hide in the mud for days together, with nothing but their heads out of the water."[330] Although the custom of hiding from an enemy in the fashion just described was practised quite recently by the "bog-trotters" in Ireland (see Rokeby, Note 2 R), it is doubtful how far these statements ought to be accepted literally. But at least they point to the Picts as a race as much at home on sea as on land; and the reference to their "wading" in the water waist-high is again suggestive of the traditional mer-man or Triton, and the actual Eskimo (as he appears at a distance).

Thus, although the dwarfs of Shetland tradition are separately remembered as "sea-trows" and "hill-trows" (otherwise "hill-people," or "högfolk"), it seems quite evident that these two names simply refer to two different aspects of one race. The memory of them, in connection with their homes in chambered mounds ("hows," "högs," or "pechts' houses"), has gradually become dissociated from the memory of them in their character of sea-rovers, when in their swift "sea-skins" they darted after and easily overtook the heavy wooden boats used by the rival race. Nevertheless, although popular tradition, in thus remembering them, has almost transformed them into an actually amphibious race, it yet asserts that these seafaring "Finns" "are reckoned among the Trows."

Such are some of the deductions to be drawn from a comparison of traditional accounts with those of history, taken in connection with the ethnical features and the customs of certain races of people. There are many more inferences which could be made, but these may reasonably be deferred until the true value of tradition has been tested. The way in which this can be done has been pointed out in the foregoing pages. Should tradition prove itself reliable as a guide to the dwellings of "the little people," then all its statements regarding them will merit the closest consideration.

APPENDIX A.

"An Account of a large Cave nigh Drogheda, by Mr. Edward Llhwyd."[331]

"The most remarkable curiosity we saw by the way, was a stately mount at a place called New Grange near Drogheda; having a number of huge stones pitch'd on end round about it, and a single one on the top. The gentleman of the village (one Mr. Charles Campbel) observing that under the green turf this mount was wholly composed of stones, and having occasion for some, employ'd his servants to carry off a considerable parcel of them; till they came at last to a very broad flat stone, rudely carv'd, and placed edgewise at the bottom of the mount. This they discovered to be the door of the cave,[332] which had a long entry leading into it. At the first entering, we were forced to creep; but still as we went on, the pillars on each side of us were higher and higher; and coming into the cave, we found it about twenty foot high. In this cave, on each hand of us, was a cell or apartment, and another went on straight forward opposite to the entry. In those on each hand was a very broad, shallow bason of stone, situated at the edge. The bason in the right hand apartment stood in another; that on the left hand was single; and in the apartment straight forward there was none at all. We observed that water dropt into the right hand bason, tho' it had rain'd but little in many days; and suspected that the lower bason was intended to preserve the superfluous liquor of the upper, (whether this water were sacred, or whether it was for blood in sacrifice) that none might come to the ground. The great pillars round this cave, supporting the mount, were not at all hewn or wrought; but were such rude stones as those of Abury in Wiltshire, and rather more rude than those of Stonehenge: but those about the basons, and some elsewhere, had such barbarous sculpture (viz., spiral like a snake, but without distinction of head and tail) as the forementioned stone at the entry of the cave. There was no flagging nor floor to this entry nor cave; but any sort of loose stones everywhere under feet. They found several bones in the cave, and part of a stag's (or else elk's) head, and some other things, which I omit, because the labourers differed in their account of them. A gold coin of the emperor Valentinian, being found near the top of this mount, might bespeak it Roman; but that the rude carving at the entry and in the cave seems to denote it a barbarous monument. So, the coin proving it ancienter than any invasion of the Ostmens (sic) or Danes, and the carving and rude sculpture, barbarous; it should follow, that it was some place of sacrifice or burial of the ancient Irish."

From the account given by Dr. Thomas Molyneux,[333] the following extracts may be taken:—

"'Tis situated in the county of Meath and barony of Slaine, within four miles of the town of Drogheda; from its largeness and make, from the time and labour it must needs have cost to erect so great a pile, we may easily gather 'twas raised in honour of some mighty prince, or person of the greatest power and dignity in his time. I have not heard of any thing of this kind that equals it in Ireland: 'tis a thousand foot in the circumference at the bottom, and round the flat surface at the top measures three hundred foot, it rises in the perpendicular about a hundred and fifty foot; and is seated so advantageously upon a rising ground, that it is seen from all parts round at a vast distance, and from its top yields a delightful prospect of all the adjacent country.

Round the bottom of the mount, at some distance from it, are raised in a circular order, huge unwrought stones, rudely expressing pyramids, fixt with their basis in the ground, now at unequal distances, because some I suppose have been removed in length of time, and others faln down; neither do they answer one another in height, some being eleven, others not four foot high;...

The mount it self is composed of small round paving stones, heapt together so as to form a pyramid, within whose center lies a cave that's somewhat round in figure: to this you can only pass through a narrow hole placed on the north[334] side of the mount, so strait, it does allow an entrance but to one man, and that when on his hands and feet: it seems they industriously contrived this hole should lye concealed, for 'twas but lately discovered, and that by accident in removing part of the stones to make a pavement in the neighbourhood.

This strait entrance leads into a narrow gallery of 80 foot in length, 3 foot wide, gradually rising in height, still the further it advances from the narrow passage where you enter, there 'tis about 4 foot high, and from thence rises slowly till it is 10 foot in height: the differing heights in this gallery at several distances from the first entrance, must be occasioned by the passage suiting its figure to the outward conical shape of the mount, which obliged the contriver to make the gallery lower as it was nearer the outside of the pyramid, but the farther it advanced from thence allowed him still to raise its height more, and most of all about the middle of the mount.[335] The walls or sides of this strait gallery are made of large flag stones set broad-ways with their edges close to one another, not hewn or shaped by any tool, but rude and natural, as when they were at first dug from the quarry; they differ in their sizes as the several heights of the gallery require, the top of which is covered over with the same flag stones laid along; some of those in the covering measure full nineteen foot in length.

The furthest end of this long narrow passage lets you into the dark hollow cave, of an irregular figure, nineteen or twenty foot high, and in the middle about ten foot broad. As you enter the vault, on each hand you have a hollow cell or nich, taken out of the sides of the cave, and a third straight before you, these three cells each are about five foot every way, and ten in height: the walls round the circumference of the cave, and of these side apartments are composed like those of the long gallery, of huge, mighty flag stones set end-ways in the ground, of seven or eight foot high; these upright stones support other broad stones that lay along or horizontally, jetting their ends beyond the upright stones; and over these again are placed another order of flat stones in the same level posture, advancing still their edges towards the center of the cave, further than those they rest upon, and so one course above another approaching nearer towards the middle, form all together a rude kind of arch, by way of roof, over the vault below; this arch is closed at top by one large stone that covers the center, and keeps all fixt and compact together: for through the whole work appears no sign of morter, clay, or other cement, to join or make its parts lye firm and close, but where a crevise happens, or an interstice, they are filled up with thin flat stones, split and wedged in, on purpose with that design.

The bottom of the cave and entry is a rude sort of pavement, made of the same stones of which the mount is composed, not beaten or joined together, but loosely cast upon the ground only to cover it. Along the middle of the cave, a slender quarrey-stone, five or six foot long, lies on the floor, shaped like a pyramid, that once, as I imagine, stood upright, perhaps a central stone to those placed round the outside of the mount; but now 'tis fallen down....

When first the cave was opened, the bones of two dead bodies entire, not burnt, were found upon the floor....

In each of the three cells was placed upon the ground a broad and shallow cistern, somewhat round, but rudely formed out of a kind of free-stone; they all were rounded a little at the bottom so as to be convex, and at the top were slightly hollowed, but their cavities contained but little; some of their brims or edges were sinuated or scolopt, the diameter of these cisterns was more than two foot wide, and in their height they measured about eighteen inches from the floor.

The cell that lay upon the right hand was larger, and seemed more regular and finish'd than the rest; for rude as it was, it shewed the workman had spent more of his wild art and pains upon it, than the other two: the cistern it contained was better shaped, and in the middle of it was placed another smaller cistern, better wrought, and of a more curious make; and still, for greater ornament, the stone that lay along as lintal, o'er the entrance of this cell, was cut with many spiral, circular, and waved lines, that with their rude and shallow traces, covered the surface of the stone. This barbarous kind of carving I observed in many other places of this cave, promiscuously disposed of here and there, without the least rule or order; but it was exprest no where with so much industry and profuseness, as on the stones belonging to this cell: yet tho' they were so lavish of their art, not the least footsteps of writing, or any thing like characters were found in the whole work....

But the true genuine figure of the cave, and the description of the niches in its sides, and the long entry leading to it, will be far better understood by a plan which Mr. Samuel Molyneux, a young gentleman of the college of Dublin, delineated with care and accuracy, upon the place, last summer.[336]

A is the entrance, from A to B the long narrow gallery or passage, eighty foot in length, leading to the cave C. D D D D D the great flag-stones that make the sides or wall both of the cave and entrance. E E E the three cells or apartments let into the sides of the cave, for the convenient reception of the three altars or shallow cisterns, F F F. G a second altar, raised upon the lower altar in the right hand cell. H a pyramid stone now fallen, but formerly set up erect in the middle of the cave. The situation of the cave, as to its length, stands north and south, its entrance lies directly south; but whether this position may be observed in laying out the caves, and passages that lead to them, in other Danish[337] mounts, and so may be some mark or direction to find out the hidden entrance, to other sepulchres of this kind, further enquiry may inform us.

Figure the 7th [reproduced p. 126, ante] shows more particularly the manner and contrivance of the altar in the right hand cell, ... expressing all the rudeness of its work, a a a a the upright flag-stones that compose the side-walls. b b b the lintal-stone that's laid a-cross over the entrance of the cell; upon the surface of this stone, the artist has exprest abundance of rude barbarous sort of sculpture, c c a lower altar serving as a basis to d, another lesser altar raised upon it."

Dr. Molyneux also describes "two Roman golden coins" (Llhwyd only mentions one) which "about ten or twelve years since" were found "near the surface," on the exterior of the mound; but these have practically as little to do with the structure itself as if they had been found in the neighbouring meadow.

In comparing these two eighteenth-century accounts, one observes a few points calling for observation. But, before referring particularly to these, it may be convenient to add some of the statements made by Col. Forbes-Leslie with regard to the same mound. This writer, in his "Early Races of Scotland" (Edin., 1866, Vol. II., pp. 331-341), makes several interesting remarks upon the mound of New Grange, and others of a similar nature, and among his illustrations are two of New Grange, drawn by himself. These, however, do not supply any additional information. On the subject of this and similar mounds, Colonel Leslie remarks thus:—

"Neither historical evidence, nor that derived from an examination of these monuments, appears sufficient warrant for the decision that all these chambers were exclusively intended for places of sepulture. Certainly in some of these chambers the massive materials used in their construction have apparently been designed and employed for other purposes. The following questions are suggested by peculiarities in these specimens of chambered tumuli—Were they intended to be occupied by the living, or as sepulchres for the dead? Were they originally used as temples, and afterwards turned into tombs? Or, on the contrary, although raised for tombs, were they afterwards used as habitations?...

"An examination of the remarkable tumuli above mentioned gives rise to the above questions, and they are not answered by any theories or explanations regarding these monuments which have yet been offered to the public. It may be admitted, although it cannot be proved, that all or most of these monuments have at some period been used as sepulchres, and that the mound of stones or earth in which they are enveloped is sepulchral." But, in a foot-note, Col. Leslie adds: "There is no authentic record of human remains having been discovered either in New Grange, in the tumulus of Gavr-Innis [Brittany], or in that of Maeshow."

"What are usually called sarcophagi in the chamber at New Grange may more correctly be designated as very shallow trays of a circular or rather oval form. In the eastern recess there are two—one placed above another of somewhat larger dimensions, the uppermost being 3 feet long. The position and appearance of all of them are very unlike anything intended for the reception of sepulchral deposits."

... "New Grange cairn is about 70 feet in height, and is said to cover an area nearly two acres in extent. Composed of loose stones, slightly covered with earth and partly overgrown with trees, this mound formerly had little appearance of being artificial, except that at a few yards' distance it was encircled by a line of single stones of great size fixed upright in the ground. The entrance to the chamber in this mound was accidentally discovered in 1699 by labourers who were removing stones to repair a neighbouring road."...

"In each of the three recesses of the chamber were the shallow trays already mentioned, which by different writers have been variously designated as 'basins,' 'rude bowls,' 'urns,' 'typical urns,' 'sarcophagi.'[338] There was one in the northern and one in the western recess, but the most remarkable are two in the eastern recess. The uppermost of these is somewhat oval in shape, slightly concave on its surface, and 3 feet in length: in it are two small artificial cavities. This tray lies on another, which is rather larger and less concave than that which rests on it. The tray in the western recess, although but slightly hollowed, has a well-defined rim on the edge of the upper surface....

"New Grange was first described by Edward Llhuyd the antiquary, who, writing in 1699, makes no mention of any human remains being found in it, but notes 'a great many bones of beasts and some pieces of deers' horns' lying under foot."

It will be seen that these accounts vary in several respects. One curious discrepancy is that relating to the shallow stone "trays" in the recesses of the central chamber. Dr. Molyneux states that the northern recess contained one of these, and his young namesake shows such a "tray" in his plan; and yet Llhwyd, writing twenty-five years earlier, distinctly says that "in the apartment straight forward there was none at all." That this is the case at the present day will be seen from the plan by Mr. W. F. Wakeman. It is noteworthy that Colonel Leslie also gives the number as three; but he speaks in the past tense when referring to the north recess, and he probably only echoes Molyneux. But Llhwyd's statement is so distinct that, considering his priority of date, his version must be accepted as the true one, in spite of the fact that young Molyneux (who, although he is stated to have drawn his plan "on the place," may have supplemented it from memory) represents the inner "apartment" as occupied by one of those "trays."

As for the theories of the two earlier writers, on the subject of the origin and purpose of this "mount," it will be observed they differ widely. Molyneux has no doubt about its being the work of the ninth-century Danes, while Llhwyd, arguing from the discovery of Roman coins on the outer crust, infers that it was erected by "the ancient Irish." Although the coins cannot be held to constitute a strong reason for accepting Llhwyd's conclusions, other good grounds for doing so are obvious to every reader of the foregoing pages.

Again, while Molyneux states very definitely that "when first the cave was opened, the bones of two dead bodies entire, not burnt, were found upon the floor," Llhwyd merely remarks that "they found several bones in the cave, and part of a stag's (or else elk's) head, and some other things," and Forbes-Leslie asserts that "there is no authentic record of human remains having been discovered" in this chambered mound.

All of the writers quoted differ also as to the uses to which this structure was put. It was "some place of sacrifice or burial," according to Llhwyd; Molyneux is sure that it was a "sepulchre"; and Forbes-Leslie regards the whole matter as undecided. But, although the last-named writer is of opinion that this, and similar mounds, may have been dwellings, he nevertheless admits that undoubtedly many of them, if not all, have also been used as places of burial. And these two beliefs are quite reconcilable, if one accepts what Professor Boyd Dawkins refers to as "the hypothesis of the origin of chambered tombs invented by Prof. Nilsson." "Chambered tombs, according to that great authority, were originally the subterranean houses in which the deceased lived, and there the dead were laid literally each 'in his own house.'" Whether human skeletons were really found in "the Brugh of the Boyne" or not, it seems clear that the mound at Dowth was ultimately, at any rate, a place of sepulture. "The most remarkable difference" between it and its more famous neighbour was, says Colonel Leslie, "that in Dowth fragments of burned human bones were discovered." And it is to be noted that tradition speaks of this place as "the cave (or 'weem') of the grave of Bodan, above Dowth:" (Uaimh Feirt Bodan os Dubath). Dowth, or Dubath, may have denoted the mound itself; in which case the word signifying "above" or "upon" might refer to an exterior burial, in the "crust" of the mound, of which there are many examples. For instance, although tradition speaks of the Inverness Tomnahurich as an inhabited "brugh," yet its exterior was used as a place of burial at a very early date, as is testified by the discovery, a few years ago, of a stone "kist," containing a human skeleton, buried some feet below the surface of the mound.[339] However, the word Dubath (conjectured on a previous page to have signified dubh-ath, "the black ford") probably did not originally denote the mound itself, and it therefore was "above Dubath," and the central chamber of the mound constituted "the weem of the grave of Bodan," who was presumably the owner of the "burned human bones" referred to by Colonel Leslie.

But, while a description of the "Brugh of the Boyne" would be very imperfect without a reference to the subject of burial in chambered mounds, the various traditions which have been collected in these pages (themselves a minute fraction of the whole) show that such mounds, whatever their secondary use, are pre-eminently distinguished in the memory of the people as the dwelling-places of a certain peculiar "underground" race.

APPENDIX B.

That the term by which they are chiefly known to modern writers was not the only one given to them by the Northmen is seen from a remark made by one of the chroniclers of Thorfinn Karlsefne, who states that "these people are called Lapps in some books (thær thjódhir kalla sumir bækr Lappa)."[340] On the other hand, the map of Olaus Magnus, referred to in the foregoing pages, shows that the northern corner of Norway was then inhabited by a race of Scric-Finni, "commonly called 'Screlings,'" who at least were the neighbours of Lapps.

In connection with the North American "Lapps" or "Skrælings," the editor of Antiquitates Americanæ supplies the following note (p. 45):—"Skrælingos appellatos autumat Bussæus ob humilem staturam; quam ob rem et interdum ab Islandis Smælíngjar (homunculi) audiunt. Hæc vero communis appellationis ratio vix esse potest. Arnas Magnæus in collectaneis ad novam editionem Schedarum Arii polyhistoris, vocem Skrælíngjar interpretatur errones, incertum qua ratione, cum ipse nullam attulerit. Suhmius (Kjöbenhavnske Selskabs Skrifter, VIII., pag. 81) eos ita propter vilem armaturam appellatos putat. Nonne potius nomen istud ob ora macilenta adepti sunt, ab at skræla, arefacere? Nota, Petrum Clausenium Undalinum, in descriptione Norvegiæ, ed. Hafn. 1632, pag. 375-6, hoc nomen scribere Skregklinge et Skreglinge, qs. a skrækja, clamare, ejulare, cfr. Partic. de Karlsefnio, cap. 10 infra."

Whatever may be the etymology of this word (which in some of its forms approaches the "Scric-Finni" of Norway), it is quite clear from the Antiquitates Americanæ that those tenth-century natives of what is now New England and New Brunswick strongly resembled the modern Eskimos. "Hæc descriptio Skrælingorum accurate quadrat in hodiernos Grænlandos sive Eskimoos," is the observation made by the editor (p. 149, n.) on a description of some of those people encountered by the Northmen. And, similarly, the note relative to their skin-canoes, or kayaks, is as follows:[341]—"húdhkeipr, species navigii, acatium coriaceum vel corio contextum, quo usi sunt indigenæ, ut etiamnunc Grænlandi ex genere Eskimoorum; itaque per carabum redditum, qui secundum Isidorum Hispal. in Orig. Libr. 19, cap. 1. est 'parva scapha ex vimine facta, qui contexta crudo corio genus navigii præbet.'—Vocem illustrat vir doctissimus Gunnar Pauli, f. in annotationibus, insertis indici vocum Orkneyinga sagæ: 'Húdhkeipr, navis sutilis, vel, si mavis, corio obducta vel circumdata. Nam phocarum ad hunc usum pelles adhibere Grænlandos notum est, quorum naves húdhkeipar nostratibus olim sunt appellatæ.'"

In these references there is much that is suggestive. One would like to know the occasions on which the Latin term "acatium" was used; and also the circumstances which induced an editor of the Orkneyinga Saga to enlarge upon the appearance of the húdhkeipr. Taken in connection with the existence of kayak-using Finnmen, in the Orkney Isles, less than two centuries ago, this latter allusion is very striking. Similarly, an explanation of the term "Skregklinge" or "Skreglinge," occurring in a description of Norway, of the year 1632 (above referred to), arouses equal interest in that work.

That the Skrælings, wherever situated, were "pigmies," is evident from the testimony of Olaus Magnus,—and the accounts of the eleventh-century Northmen fully corroborate this. One of their references is as follows: "They were small, ugly men, with horrible heads of hair, great eyes, and broad cheek-bones: (Their voru smáir menn ok illiligir, ok íllt höfdhu their hár á höfdhi, eygdhir voru their mjök ok breidhir í kinnunum)."[342] Another description occurs in the Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne which relates how, in the year 1011 A.D. (three years after his first encounter with the American Skrælings), he and his people arrived at Markland,—a country identified with the modern New Brunswick and other lands lying round the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Here they encountered five Skrælings, one man, two women and two boys: ("... ok funnu thar Skrælingja 5, ok var einn skeggiadhr; konur voru 2, ok börn tvö;" in which passage it may be noted that the man was distinguished by the term "bearded,"—skeggjadhr). They captured the two boys, "but the others escaped, and sank beneath the ground:" ("Verosimile est, Skrælingos in cavernas subterraneas se abdidisse," is the explanation given by the commentator in Antiquitates Americanæ).[343] Karlsefne's people took the boys away with them, had them baptized, and taught them Icelandic. These stated that their father and mother (no doubt, the "bearded one" and one of the two women, then lamenting them in their underground dwelling) were respectively named Uvæge and Vethillde;[344] and that their people had no houses, but lived in dens and caves: ("í hellum edha holum"). The country of the Skrælings, they said, was governed by two kings or chiefs, one named Avalldamon (or Avalldumon) and the other Valldidida."

It will be seen from these references that although those Skrælings of nine centuries ago are rightly regarded as probable progenitors of modern Eskimos, there were some differences between the two. The term "shaggy" or "bearded," used to distinguish the man from his two female companions, certainly does not indicate that the latter were themselves hirsute. But the previous reference to the "ugly" or "horrible" heads of hair, and the description of their eyes as very large, are two points that seem to denote a race not wholly identical with modern Eskimos. Moreover, the rapid disappearance of the adults underground, on the occasion when the two boys were captured, is more suggestive of the dwarfs of tradition (such as those who similarly escaped from Suafurlami when he attempted to smite them with his magic sword) than of the Greenlanders of to-day.

Although the accounts of the two boy prisoners might be held to denote that the manners they described were new to the Northmen, yet an incident of earlier date shows clearly that the latter quite understood the subterranean ideas of those North American "Lapps." The incident referred to is this: In the year 1004, Thorwald Ericson and his followers had surprised a small party of nine Skrælings at the entrance to Plymouth Harbour, on the coast of Massachusetts,[345] and of these they killed eight. The ninth sped away in his skin-canoe to the inner end of the bay, out of which there presently emerged an infuriated swarm of kayakkers. But before they appeared, the Northmen had had time to note a group of "hillocks" on the beach (apparently on the interior curve of the promontory terminating in the modern "Gurnet Point,") and these "hillocks" they assumed to be the abodes of the Skrælings.[346] This was seven years before the capture of the boys by Karlsefne's party, and the inference clearly is that they were accustomed to regard kayak-using dwarfs as mound-dwellers. Indeed, the very fact that they styled the natives "Lapps" and "goblins,"[347] as well as Skrælings, shows that they regarded them as belonging to the same race as similar people well known to them in Europe.