ART, XIV.—Memoir on the Tings of Orkney and Shetland

10S ART, XIV.—Memoir on the Tings of Orkney and Shetland. BY SAMUEL HIBBERT, M.D. F.R.S.E. AND SECRETARY TO THE SOCIETY OF SCOTISH ANTIQUARIES. Read A. D. 1823. THE present memoir may be prefaced by a brief statement of the early annals of the two groupes of islands named Orkney and Shetland. Near the close of the first century, when Agricola sailed round Britain, Orkney was inhabited by a people of whose race, whether Celtic or Gothic, not the least light is to be elicited from the pages of history. In about a century and a half afterwards, this country was described by Solinus as a perfect desert. Orkney and, probably, Shetland were next the lurking places of Saxon rovers, who were routed, A. IX 368, by Theodosius. The Scandinavian Vikingr then gradually succeeded in the posses- sion of these islands. They were the progenitors of the present race of inhabitants in Orkney and Shetland. Three or four cen- turies afterwards, these tribes were subdued by Harold Harfagre, who annexed them, under the form of a colony, to the government of Norway. This is the earliest history of Orkney and Shetland, which it is necessary to keep in view while I explain the origin and practice of the Scandinavian thing, named by us a Ting, or court of justice, as it formerly existed in these Norwegian colonies. It will be shewn, first, that the ting was, by our Gothic ancestors, either held on the site, or was made an appendage of the hof or temple, which was dedicated to the rites of the Edda. In the second place, an. inquiry will be instituted into the 104 DR HIBBERT ON THE TINGS OF ORKNEY AND SHETLAND. DR HIBBERT ON THE TINGS OF ORKNEV AND SHETLAND. 105 general forms and customs of the ting, prior to the introduction the Celtae. The religion attributed to the latter was named of Christianity into Scandinavia and her colonies. Druidic, the chief principle of which was that the soul never Next will be noticed the changes which took place in the forms dies, but transmigrates—a doctrine said to have inspired them and customs of the ting, after Christian churches had been esta- with courage and a contempt of death. The Druidic religion is blished. supposed by Caesar to have originated in Britain; but as it is far And, fourthly, will be described the latest practice of the tings superior to any thing which can be expected from Celtic tribes of Orkney and Shetland ; under which head will be explained, in in so savage a state as the Britons then were, a suspicion has due order, the three species of tings which formerly existed long since arisen that it was derived from some more refined in these islands, namely, the tings held for the preservation of people; and while some antiquaries have even attempted to de- good neighbourhood, the circuit tings, and the al-ting. duce its tenets from the Brahmins of the East, with whom they have supposed that a communication was held so far SECT. I.—Evidence that the Ting was, by our Gothic ancestors, either remote as the patriarchal ages ; others have, with more plau- held on the site, or was made an appendage of the hof or temple, sibility, attributed the system to some refined nation, who which had been dedicated to the rites of the Edda. had actually visited and formed a settlement in the British islands ; and no people has answered this requisition so well as In this division of the memoir, it will be expedient previously the Phoenicians, who had long been in the habit of resorting to to advert to the different religious tenets of the Celtic and Gothic Britain for the sake of the metals which it contained. This by. tribes, who in succession possessed the west of Europe. pothesis, which a century ago was a favourite one of archaeologists, The Celtse were the first inhabitants of the west of Europe. has been recently revived by Mr Sharon Turner. " Of the Drui- A Gothic or Teutonic people, issuing from the vicinity of the " dical monuments," he observes, " we have no monuments re- Euxine and Danube, next succeeded in establishing themselves " maining, unless the circles of stones which are to be seen in in the regions possessed by the Celtae, speaking a very different " some parts of the island are deemed their temples. Of all the language, such as is perpetuated in the Scandinavian dialects of « suppositions concerning Stonehenge and Avebury, it seems the Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and Ferro, or in the Teu- « most rational to ascribe them to the Druidical order ; and of tonic dialects, of which the German, Dutch, English, and Lowland « this system, we may remark that, if it was the creation of a Scotch, are varieties. It was not, however, until the third or « more civilized people, none of the colonisers of Britain are so fourth century, that they became formidable to Europe, when « likely to have been its parents as the Phoenicians and the Car they extended their encroachments to the Roman boundaries. « thaginians. The fact so explicitly asserted by Caesar, that the The Celtse, already limited in their territories, then became lost « Druidical system began in Britain, and was thence introduced as a distinct people, or were compelled to retire to such fastnes- « into Gaul, increases our tendency to refer it to these nations. ses as the Highlands of Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, and Ihe state of Britain was inferior in civilization to that of Gaul « and, therefore, it seems more reasonable to refer the intellectual Armorica afforded. VOL. 111.—PART I. O The Scythian or Gothic tribes of the North-west of Europe embraced a religion very different from that of their predecessors 106 DR HIBBERT ON THE TINGS OF ORKNEY AND SHETLAND. DR HIBBERT ON THE TINGS OF ORKNEY AND SHETLAND. 107 « parts of Druidism to the foreign visitors, who are known to and were open to the sky. Of this description was the very an- '' have cultivated such subjects, than to suppose them to have ori- cient circular range of upright stones at Stennis, in the island of " ginated from the rude unassisted natives' '(a). Pomona, in Orkney, which was reared in honour of the sun ; I shall now glance at the very different tenets which were en- while a contiguous semicircular pile was dedicated to the moon. tertained by the Gothic tribes. In that most curious record of These monuments of a remote era display a rude magnificence their doctrines, the Edda, several subordinate tenets appear rela- little inferior to that of many similarly planned structures which tive to the origin of giants, of dwarfs, of the proper human race, are to be found in the south of England. A brief account of and of the family of the Asse, of whom Odin was the most power- them may now be given. ful, while Thor was most renowned for strength and valour. But The site of these remarkable piles of stones is on the banks of the leading feature of their religion consisted in the personifica- the Loch of Steinhouse, which extends for several miles through tion of an evil principle, under the name of Sertur, who, at the the country in a direction from south-east to north-west, and end of the world, would doom the whole universe to flames, when falls into the sea at Stromness. The temple dedicated to the Odin, with the gods, giants, and dwarfs, would be consumed. An moon is situated on a tolerably level piece of ground on the east universal and beneficent father (Alfader) would then come from of the lake. Its semicircular form is indicated by an investing his lofty abode to render divine justice, and to prepare a new place mound of earth; on the margin lofty stones were placed erect, of punishment for perjurers, assassins, and seducers, as well as a which were from fourteen to eighteen feet high, and about five new earth, lovely and delightful, for good and just men. " Thus," broad (b). They were originally about seven in number; four as Dr Percy has remarked, in the distinction he has so ably remain. The semicircle opens to the south. The diameter of the drawn between the Teutones and the Celtse, " while the Druids range, if the circle were completed, would be about one hundred " taught the transmigration of souls, the Edda of the Teuto- feet. A large horizontal slab, supposed to have been an altar, is in " nic nations had a fixed elysium, and a hell." the centre. At a little distance from the temple is a solitary stone In the Edda of the Northmen, two systems of religious belief, about eight feet high, with a perforation through which contract- each referable to very different dates, have been evidently incor- ing parties joined hands when they entered into any solemn en- porated. The more ancient of these involves the worship of the gagement, which Odin was invoked to testify (c). If we pro- sun, the moon, and the stars. The later system has been found- ceed in a westerly direction from the temple of the moon to- ed on the deification of heroes, as of Odin, who was the conduc- wards the edge of the lake, following the line which is described tor of the Gothic tribes of the west of Europe in their emigra- (b) " A stone lately pulled down,11 says Dr Traill, " had two feet only buried in the tion from the city of Asgard, of Thor, and of the rest of the " earth; but it had been firmly wedged by several blocks of stone fixed around its family of the Asse.

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