he
southern promontory of the lake formed but a half-circle, and it was a
half-circle dedicated to the moon. To the circular sun the great rude
children of an immature age of the world had laid down a circle of
stones on the one promontory; to the moon, in her half-orbed state, they
had laid down a half-circle on the other; and in propitiating these
material deities, to whose standing in the old Scandinavian worship the
names of our _Sun_day and _Mon_day still testify, they employed in their
respective inclosures, in the exercise of a wild unregulated fancy,
uncouth irrational rites, the extremeness of whose folly was in some
measure concealed by the horrid exquisiteness of their cruelty. We are
still in the nonage of the species, and see human society sowing its
wild oats in a thousand various ways, very absurdly often, and often
very wickedly; but matters seem to have been greatly worse when, in an
age still more immature, the grimly-bearded, six-feet children of Orkney
were laying down their stone-circles on the green. Sir Walter, in the
parting scene between Cleveland and Minna Troil, which he describes as
having taken place amid the lesser group of stones, refers to an immense
slab "lying flat and prostrate in the middle of the others, supported
by short pillars, of which some relics are still visible," and which is
regarded as the sacrificial stone of the erection. "It is a current
belief," says Dr. Hibbert, in an elaborate paper in the "Transactions of
the Scottish Antiquaries," that upon this stone a victim of royal birth
was immolated. Halfdan the Long-legged, the son of Harold the
Fair-haired, in punishment for the aggressions of Orkney, had made an
unexpected descent upon its coasts, and acquired possession of the
Jarldom. In the autumn succeeding Halfdan was retorted upon, and, after
an inglorious contest, betook himself to a place of concealment, from
which he was the following morning unlodged, and instantly doomed to the
Asae. Einar, the Jarl of Orkney, with his sword carved the captive's back
into the form of an eagle, the spine being longitudinally divided, and
the ribs being separated by a transverse cut as far as the loins. He
then extracted the lungs, and dedicated them to Odin for a perpetuity of
victory, singing a wild song,--'I am revenged for the slaughter of
Rognvalld: this have the Nornae decreed. In my fiording the pillar of the
people has fallen. Build up the cairn, ye active youths, for victor