HEATHEN FANES CHRISTIAN CHURCHES.

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of our country. This opinion will now be supported by a few out of many facts and corroborative circumstances that might be adduced.

That the areas or immediate vicinity of the circular fanes were selected by the first Christian missionaries and teachers as their places of worship, might be inferred, even without the direct testimony which will be afterwards quoted, from the remains that still exist, and other portions that have been removed in modern times from the consecrated precincts of early Christian churches. In illustration of this assertion, it is not necessary to extend the examples beyond the limits of the county of Aberdeen. It is a part of Scotland in which primitive monuments are abundant; and its antiquities have been collected and described with great ability and research by Mr. Joseph Robertson.1

With these records, and the valuable notices of the Sculptured Stones of Scotland by Mr. John Stuart, it is considered unnecessary farther to extend inquiries or multiply examples of heathen fanes and sculptured stones in connection with Christian churches. In the parish of Culsalmond several of the most remarkable sculptured stones of Scotland have been discovered, one of them bearing, in an unique form of character, an alphabetical inscription. In the churchyard of this parish stood a circular fane of unhewn stones; one also existed in the end of the seventeenth century near the church of Keig.3

1 Four volumes are already published by the Spalding Club, and a fifth is forthcoming.

* More particularly described under the head of " Inscriptions."

3 Letter of Dr. Garden to John Aubrey, 15th June 1692.

Another stood in the churchyard of the parish of Daviot, and near it was found a stone with Caledonian hieroglyphics. In the churchyard of Kinellar once stood a circular fane and a stone on which is graven the crescent emblem. It was discovered in the foundation of the old church of that parish. In the foundation of the old church of Tyrie, in or near the churchyard walls of Dyce, Inverury, Kintore, and the ancient abbey of Deer were found stones sculptured with hieroglyphics. In the parish of Deer there were many circular fanes, the most entire of which is described in the last century as "having the altar-stone placed as usual on the south side, and lying east and west. It is fourteen and a half feet long, five and a half broad, and four and a half deep. The gross weight would exceed twenty-one tons." In some of these, as in many other cases, the connection of the sculptured stones with the circular fanes and other primitive monuments is conspicuous; and the examples are too numerous to warrant any doubt of their contiguity being intentional.

The next argument in proof that the circular areas were anciently occupied, if not originally formed, as places of worship, is derived from the names of places and expressions, both in the Celtic and in the Anglo-Saxon languages. For the purpose of making more intelligible the following remarks it is necessary to premise that in the Gaelic language Clach signifies a stone, and Clachan, stones, a church—as Clachan-Michel, formerly other primitive monuments, of which only a few monoliths now remain.

1 On a rising ground near the church of Daviot are the remains of a cromlech, in the circumference of which lies the stone presumed to have been for sacrifice. At this place there were

2 Shaw's History of Moray, p. 230.

THE STONES THE CHURCH.

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Michael's church; Clachan-Muire, Mary's church. It also signifies a village, a circle of stones, a churchyard, a monument.1 As a kirk-town or parish village clachan has been adopted into the modern or medieval Scottish dialect.2

In many parts of Scotland in which the Gaelic language was spoken-from the Highlands of Perthshire to the island of Harris-the Gaelic expression signifying "the stones," was used as synonymous with "the church," and the Highlanders there more frequently say "Will you go to the stones?" or "Have you been at the stones?" than "Will you go to the church?" or "Have you been at the church ?”3 Glenorchy was formerly called "Clachan Dysart," and the place where the parish church now stands was probably the

1

Armstrong's Gaelic Dictionary, and Highland Society's Dictionary. 2 Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary. See Statistical Account of Scotland, parishes of Callander, Perthshire; Aberfoyle, Perthshire; island of Harris, vol. xi. p. 581; vol. x. p. 129; vol. x. p. 374. "The Clachan or Kirkton of Rasay."-Old Statistical Account of Scotland, island of Rasay, parish of Portree, Inverness-shire, vol. xvi. p. 159.

The same term for going to worship seems also to be used in Ireland, for the Rev. R. H. Ryland, in speaking of a Druid's altar in the county of Waterford, says we have indisputable evidence that those who introduced Christianity into this country endeavoured to engraft the pure religion upon the heathen superstition which preceded it; and he adds, The Irish

expression for going to worship literally signifies going to a stone.'Ryland's History of County Waterford, p. 263, London, 1824.

The site of the ancient church of Kilcholm-Kill in North Uist is at a place called Clachan.-Origines Parochiales Scotia, vol. ii. p. 376.

At Clachan the clergyman in the last century was in the practice of officiating every third Sunday.—Old Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. xiii. p. 314.

In the Old Statistical Account of Scotland, Campsie, Stirlingshire, vol. xv. p. 315-" Of course the clachan is the place of worship."

There is a village, with vestiges of a church, called St. John's Clachan, in the parish of Dalry in Kirkcudbrightshire.-Old Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. xiii. p. 58.