The Hall of Waltheof/Chapter VII


 * Tingstad, locus judicii, qui sub dio fere erat in loco erectis aliquot lapidibus finito.—Ihre's Glossarium Suiogothicum, ii, 902.

N a perambulation of the boundaries of Hallamshire made in 1574 mention is made of "a place where certeine stones are sett upon the ends and having markes upon them called the Seavenstones; which ould and antient men say that the same is the meere betweene my lord and the lord of Hathersedge." These stones still remain and still bear the name of Seven Stones. They are situate about half a mile from Lady Bower in Ashopton. They form one of those mysterious circles which antiquaries used to call "Druidical circles" in the days when people attributed all prehistoric remains to the Druids. There are ten stones altogether, but only seven of them are standing upright. Mr. Winterbottom has happily pictured them at the time when the afterglow of the setting sun and the light of the rising moon are contending for mastery.

The diameter of the circle is fifty-four feet. The marks upon the stones are not runes, as I once guessed, not knowing that they still existed. The illustration which gives details of these stones will show the appearance of the marks. The marks are nearly all longitudinal, and I think they have been caused by the action of the wind and rain in a way which has lately been very ingeniously explained by Mr. Baring-Gould. About twelve years ago Mr. Baring-Gould dug up and re-erected "a menhir that had lain for certainly three centuries under ground." This stone was of fine-grained granite. Mr. Baring -Gould says:—

"At the summit, which measures fifteen inches by twelve inches, is a small cup three inches deep sunk in the stone, four-and-a-half inches in diameter, and distinctly artificial. Now, that the monolith had been standing upright for a vast number of years, was shown by this fact, that the rain water, accumulating in the artificial cup, driven by the prevailing S.W. wind, had worn for itself a lip, and in its flow had cut itself a channel down the side of the stone opposite to the direction of the wind to the distance of one foot six inches.

What can this cup have been intended for ? It is probable that it was a receptacle for rain water, which was to serve for the drink of the dead man above whom the monolith was erected. The Rev. W. C. Lukis, one of the highest authorities on such matters, was with me at the time of the re-erection of this monolith, and it then occurred to him that the holes at the top of so many of the Brittany menhirs, in which now crosses are planted, were not made for the reception of the bases of these crosses, but already existed in the menhirs, and were utilized in Christian times for the erection therein of crosses which sanctified the old heathen monuments."

Now the tops of the Seven Stones contain cup-like hollows, and the channels or "marks" down their sides are probably due to the overflow of water from such hollows. It is possible then, if Mr. Baring- Gould's conjecture be right, that these basins or cups on the tops of the Seven Stones were intended to contain drink for the dead, it having been supposed that the dead, as well as the living, required food and drink. In later times such offerings of food and drink took the form of libations offered to the gods, who represent the spirits of the dead. There is, says Mr. Baring-Gould, "a custom very general in Roman Catholic countries which must have struck travellers: it is that of placing cups, basins, or other concave vessels on graves. The purpose is that they may be filled with holy water—or if not with that, then with the dew of heaven. The friends, kindred, or charitable as they pass dip a little brush in the basin and sprinkle the grave with the water. . . . . The original signification of the basin or cup on the tomb was that of a vessel to contain the drink supplied to the dead. The dead man continued to eat and drink in his cairn or dolmen, and the relatives supplied him with what he required."

All this tends to show that the Seven Stones are monuments erected in memory of the dead, like the monoliths in our modern churchyards. But on the other hand it is equally possible that they mark the seat of justice, the place of judicature. "The Court of the hundred of Stone in Somersetshire," says Mr. Gomme, "is held very early in the morning, at a standing stone on a hill within the hundred. In the stone is a hollow, into which it is customary on opening the court to pour a bottle of port wine." Here, surely, the wine poured into the stone is a libation, just as the rain which fell into the hollow cups was, if I may so call it, a natural libation.

The name of this circle supplies proof that it was formerly a place of justice, or the site of an open-air court. In open-air courts, according to Grimm, whether held near stones or trees, the numbers three, seven, and twelve prevail. Proof of this statement may be seen in such names as Sevenoaks in Kent, and in the German Siebeneichen, though Fcirstemann doubts whether this marks a place of judgment or a place of burial. Grimm also shows that in many old German courts seven judges (schöffen), who were popularly elected, sat. It may be remarked that in the folk-lore of Hallamshire seven is still known as "the magical number."