. The ancient stone implements, weapons, and ornaments, of Great Britain. l incommon use, and yet the original intention of the stone spindle-whorls, which occur there as elsewhere, appears to be are called clach-nathrach, adder-stones or snake-stones, andhave an origin assigned them much like the ovum anguinum ofPliny. When cattle are bitten by snakes, the snake-stone isput into water, with which the affected part is washed, and it iscured forthwith. This is the less miraculous from there beingno venomous snakes in the islands. Glass beads H with spirals onthem seem to have been
. The ancient stone implements, weapons, and ornaments, of Great Britain. l incommon use, and yet the original intention of the stone spindle-whorls, which occur there as elsewhere, appears to be are called clach-nathrach, adder-stones or snake-stones, andhave an origin assigned them much like the ovum anguinum ofPliny. When cattle are bitten by snakes, the snake-stone isput into water, with which the affected part is washed, and it iscured forthwith. This is the less miraculous from there beingno venomous snakes in the islands. Glass beads H with spirals onthem seem to have been regarded as even more efficacious. Spindle-whorls vary considerably in size and weight, beingusually from an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, butoccasionally as much as from two to three inches. They are some- * Arch. Journ., vol. xxii. p. 253. f lb., xxvi. p. 184. J lb., xxvi. p. 184. § Wilde, Cat. Mus. R. I. A., p. 11G. || Proc. S. A. Scot., vol. iv. pp. 72, 119— Proc. S. A. Scot., vol. v. p. 313. 392 SPINDLE-WHORLS, DISCS, SLICKSTONES, ETC. [CHAP. times flat at the edge or cylindrical, but more frequently differ much in the degree of finish, some appearing tohave been turned in a lathe, while others are very rough andnot truly circular. The specimen I have selected for engraving as Fig. 357 is one of themore highly finished class, and rather flatter than wasfound in draining, at Scampston, Yorkshire, andis formed of a hard slaty stone. It has been turnedin a lathe on one face, and at the edge; the otherW lace is irregular, and seems to have been polished byhand. What was evidently the upper face is orna-mented with two parallel incised circles, and there arevjg. % two more round the edge. The hole seems to havebeen drilled, and is quite parallel. One of the cheese-like spindle-whorls,of red sandstone, and another, rounded at the rim, shown in Figs. 358 and 359, found in hut-circles in*Holyhead and Anglesea,* are engra
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookidancientstone, bookyear1872
