LECTURE V.

(28TH OCTOBER 1879.)

EXISTING RELICS OF THE EARLY CELTIC CHURCH-BELLS.

IN 1862 Mr. Farrer of Ingleborough, an Honorary Fellow of the Society, excavated a sand-hill called the Knowe of Saverough, situated on the sea-shore about half-a-mile from the hamlet of Birsay in Orkney.1 The diameter of the mound was 168 feet, its height 14 to 16 feet. Many burials were met with at depths varying from 2 to 8 or 10 feet from the surface. All the bodies had been laid in rude cists made of flat stones taken from the neighbouring beach. These cists were full length, and in some instances flat stones were laid under as well as over the stones forming the sides, but most of them had no stones in the bottom. The human remains they enclosed were those of persons of all ages— men, women, and children. The skulls were submitted to

Dr. Thurnam, one of the authors of the Crania Britannica, who had no hesitation in referring them to the ancient Celtic inhabitants of Orkney, and as little doubt that they were of a period prior to the Norwegian invasion and settlement of the islands in the ninth century. Nothing whatever was found with the skeletons, except in one instance in which there was a clay jar (Fig. 52) 5 inches high placed in the cist at the right side of the head. It is of peculiar form and perfectly plain. It differs in form as well as in the texture of the clay from the sepulchral urns of the early Pagan times 1 Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. v. p. 10.

with which we shall by and by become acquainted. At a little distance from these interments

were the remains of a building. In connection with it there were found several quern-stones and bone implements (Fig. 53), a double-edged comb, the handle in deer-horn of a knifelike implement of iron, a number of bone pins and other relics of human occupation, such as ashes and the refuse of food. A few feet from the site of the building two small cists containing bones were found placed one above the other at a depth of 7 feet below the surface. Close to these was a cist formed of large stones, which, when opened, disclosed a curious

object. It was of iron, and as it stood in the cist with the open end uppermost and covered with a flat stone, it looked somewhat like an ill-made pitcher. But when extracted and placed with its mouth downwards there could no longer be any doubt as to its real character. It had a handle at the top,

its narrow sides were flat, its wider sides bulged, it tapered towards the top, and was formed of sheets of hammered iron riveted together down the sides. Its shape and character were manifestly the shape and character that were peculiar to the iron and bronze bells of the early Celtic Church, which

are still occasionally found in association with the churches that stand on the sites of early Celtic foundations. The bell, which is now in the Museum (Fig. 54), measures 9 inches by 7 inches across the mouth, and stands 12 inches high exclusive of the handle, which was broken off in the lifting. It stood mouth upwards in the cist, the mouth covered with a flat stone, and it had been so long in that position that one of its sides adhered so firmly to the stone of the cist against which it rested as to be incapable of being detached without breaking it.

Clearly this bell was buried. It was placed in a cist like a human being, but not in company with a human body. There were no bones in the cist, and no indication of its

having ever contained anything but the bell. It was buried alone, but buried in a graveyard in the midst of a group of interments of men, women, and children, and close by a building which contained evidences of having been inhabited -querns and combs and pins, and other waifs and strays of domestic life. That it was buried for protection and concealment is highly probable. That it was greatly venerated we may be certain from all that is known of all similar bells, even if that might not have been inferred from the care manifested in its interment. We have the testimony of Dr. Thurnam that it was a Celtic community whose bones were laid in the graveyard around it. At what time then was there occasion for such a community thus burying their bell? It was a strange thing for any community to do. The sanctity attaching itself to such relics has been sufficient in other quarters to preserve them unguarded and unconcealed, in some instances resting on tombstones in open graveyards where no church has existed to shelter them for centuries.1 But in the case of this Orkney bell there were special reasons for the exceptional expedient of burial. It is known historically that in the end of the ninth century these islands became a station of the Northern Vikings,2 and the Christian institutions, existing among their Celtic inhabitants, were overwhelmed in the rising tide of heathenism thus thrown upon their shores from Norway. It will be my duty to deal with the relics of this intruded paganism in a future lecture. Meanwhile we have to do with the fact merely as supplying the occasion for such a remarkable phenomenon as the burial of a bell. If I have rightly interpreted the motive that led to its interment-viz. that it was resorted to in order to pro1 As at Cladh Bhrennu in Glenlyon, and Eilan Finan in Loch Shiel, Ardnamurchan.

The Orkney Islands were subdued and colonised by Harald the Fairhaired in 875, but "previously they were a station for Vikings.”—Orkneyinga Saga, Translation, Edinb. 1873, p. 1.

tect a highly venerated relic from violence or violation by heathen hands-the time of its concealment must be placed within the period of the early Norse invasion, that is about the close of the ninth century, and its resurrection after an interment of a thousand years invests it with an interest unsurpassed by that of any other relic of a similar kind now

extant.

There is no direct record of a Celtic church at Birsay, but there are two circumstances which, taken independently, both lead to this conclusion. When the Norsemen became Christians, Earl Thorfinn selected Birsay as the site of the first church erected by the Northmen in Orkney. In all probability he did this because the site was already sacred, and the legends of a powerful saint still lingered around it. Such legends had a peculiar hold on the northern imagination, accustomed to be swayed by the influence of a legendary literature. But whoever the saint may have been, whose memory lingered around the site of his early church, it was natural that the Northmen should not revive the dedication, even if they knew it. Earl Thorfinn's church was simply known as Christ's Kirk in Birsay. It was erected before 1064, the date of Thorfinn's death, and it became the church of William the Old, the first Bishop of the Norse Church in the Orkneys. The remains of a church, built after a Norwegian type, with nave, chancel, and apse, are still visible on a little holm called the Brough of Birsay. This may have

2

1 Munch says that the cathedral churches in Norway (or the churches of the early Bishops) were always styled Christ's Kirk.—The Cathedral Church of Throndheim; Christiania, 1859, p. 11.

2 The Brough of Birsay is a small island about 40 acres in extent, separated from the mainland by a narrow channel, which is dry at low water. On the edge of the cliff next the mainland are traces of a wall. The church stands about 50 yards back from the cliff. It stands within an oblong enclosure measuring about 100 feet by 80, the outline of which is still clearly visible. The extreme length of the building is 57 feet, and the width about 21 feet. It consists of nave, chancel, and apse, apparently all of the same age, and all