29'3 (intiqaities in Scotland. April 25. 



From all these descriptions the reader may easilj 

 perceive that the spirit of Loda was worllupped in 

 Scandinavia, as a powerful deity, by magical songs and 

 incantations, and that sometimes he appearedin streams 

 offire,or in other forms, and sometimes uttered voices, or 

 sounds of thunder. " Far from his friends, it is said, 

 they placed him within the horrid circle of Brumo,- 

 where often it is said, the ghosts of the dead howled 

 round the stone of their fear." With these ideas in 

 our mind, let us take a view of the particular struc- 

 tures of which I now treat, and consider how proper- 

 ly they v/ere calculated for producing the effects here 

 'described, . 



In the centre of the circular area we may suppose 

 the stoue of power, as it is generally called, though 

 sometimes the stone of their fear, was placed. The 

 great height of the walls, (some of those remaining 

 being still forty-five feet high,) would occasion a 

 gloomy fliade, well calculated to imprefs the mind 

 with a reverential awe. At night the meteors of 

 heaven, seen obscurely through the aperture at 

 top, aided by a powerful imagination, might occasion- 

 ally represent frightful forms and living objects. 

 The numerous holes, too, opening from the galleries 

 inward, all round, and the many divisions between 

 the top and bottom, might be so employed as greatly 

 to heighten these imprefsions. When dark, persons 

 concealed in these, by means of lights flafliing occa- 

 sionally athwart in diffiirent directions, — by figures 

 moving with dim lights, forming eyes in their dark 

 face, — by groans, bowlings, and noises, adapted to the 

 ••ccasion, and accompanied by such appearances as an 



