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The Clyde Mystery, a Study in Forgeries and Folklore, a non-fiction book by Andrew Lang |
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XX - UNMARKED CHARM STONES |
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_ XX - UNMARKED CHARM STONES It must be kept in mind that churinga, "witch stones," "charm stones," or whatever the smaller stones may be styled, are not necessarily marked with any pattern. In Australia, in Portugal, in Russia, in France, in North America, in Scotland, as we shall see, such stones may be unmarked, may bear no inscription or pattern. {81} These are plain magic stones, such as survive in English peasant superstition. In Dr. Munro's Ancient Lake Dwellings of Europe , plain stone discs, perforated, do occur, but rarely, and there are few examples of pendants with cupped marks. Of these two, as being cupped pendants, might look like analogues of the disputed Clyde stones, but Dr. Munro, owing to the subsequent exposure of the "Horn Age" forgeries, now has "a strong suspicion that he was taken in" by the things. {82a} To return to Scottish stones. In Mr. Graham Callander's essay on perforated stones, {82b} he publishes an uninscribed triangular stone, with a perforation, apparently for suspension. This is one of several such Scottish stones, and though we cannot prove it, may have had a superstitious purpose. Happily Sir Walter Scott discovered and describes the magical use to which this kind of charm stone was put in 1814. When a person was unwell, in the Orkney Isles, the people, like many savages, supposed that a wizard had stolen his heart. "The parties' friends resort to a cunning man or woman, who hangs about the [patient's] neck a triangular stone in the shape of a heart." {82c} This is a thoroughly well-known savage superstition, the stealing of the heart, or vital spirit, and its restoration by magic. This use of triangular or heart-shaped perforated stones was not inconsistent with the civilisation of the nineteenth century, and, of course, was not inconsistent with the civilisation of the Picts. A stone may have magical purpose, though it bears no markings. Meanwhile most churinga, and many of the disputed objects, have archaic markings, which also occur on rock faces.
{82a} Munro, p. 55, referring to Ancient Lake Dwellings , fig. 13, nos. 17, 18, 19. {82b} Proceedings Scot. Soc. Ant. 1902, p. 168, fig. 4, 1903. {82c} Lockhart, iv. 208. _ |
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