You know I love a good medieval skeleton news story. But I think I may like a cursing stone story better.
The stone was found on the Isle of Canna in the Inner Hebrides, inner islands of Scotland. Believed to be dated from 800 AD, the nearly ten inch diameter stone is etched with a simple cross. The story from The Press Association, keeps calling it the first known bullaun stone to be found in Scotland (they are better known in Ireland), but as I read the definition of of bullaun stones, they would seem to be the stones (possibly Neolithic in origin) with carved depressions in them that would hold rainwater. Natural or carved, they had mystical properties attributed to them by the ancients (wells and water courses seemed to be sacred to the Celtic peoples. God knows why. It rains all the time. Things are bound to get wet. Dry things, now those would be miracles!) What they mean is that it is the first "top" stone to be found that fits into a depression in a specific bullaun stone.
Anyway, whatever you wish to call it,the story goes on to say:
National Trust for Scotland head of archaeology Derek Alexander said: "This is an amazing find. Bullaun stones tend to be found close to early Christian crosses in Ireland, but this is the first find in Scotland...adding more to our knowledge of this distant period in our nation's past. It will be interesting to see if more bullaun stones emerge around Scotland."
Dr Katherine Forsyth, an expert in the history and culture of the Celtic-speaking peoples in the first millennium AD based at the University of Glasgow said: "This exciting find provides important new insight into religious art and practice in early Scotland and demonstrates just how much there is still to be discovered out there."
Discovered in an old graveyard, it was later found to fit exactly into a large rectangular stone with a worn hole which was located at the base of the Canna cross.
From the BBC, the story continues:
"Stones like this are found in Ireland, where they are known as 'cursing stones', but this is the first to be discovered in Scotland," said Forsyth. "They date from the early Christian period but have continued to be used by pilgrims up to modern times. "Traditionally, the pilgrim would recite a prayer while turning the stone clockwise, wearing a depression or hole in the stone underneath."
Dr Forsyth said bowl-shaped lower stones had been found elsewhere in Scotland, including on Canna, but this was the first discovery of a top stone.
A cursing stone, as I understand it, is the same thing, only you curse someone as you turn it anti-clockwise, as they say in England, or for us Yanks, counterclockwise. Personally, I think we need more cursing stones in our lives. I suppose you could just throw them. Then you'd hear some cursing.
