17^3. antiquities in ScotlamL ' ' 291: 



artful priesthood might invent, and such as could be 

 casilj played ofF by means of this peculiar kind of ap- 

 paratus, the mind of an ignorant worfliipper, prepof- 

 sefsed with false notions, might be imprefsed with what 

 ideas they pleased. Half formed words might be heard, 

 and all the dreadful apparatus, calculated for im- 

 prefsing the minds of ignorant men, might be display- 

 ed with irresistible power. The oracles of Greece, 

 by arts of deception, which, when compared with this 

 grand apparatus of power, seem only calculated to 

 impose upon children, kept the most enlightened na- 

 tion of antiquity in blind thraldom for ages. How 

 great, then, must have been the fascinating power 

 of these more artful northern sages. 



That these circles of religious worfaip, among the 

 Scandinavians, were not open on all sides, but consist- 

 ing of close walls, like the buildings we now treat of, 

 and were occasionally employed as a prison, may be 

 learnt from a pafsage already quoted, where Ofsian,. 

 speaking of Grumal, (Fingal b. vi.) who was over- 

 come by the king of Craca, one of the Zetland isles^ 

 adds, " Far from his friends, they placed him in the 

 horrid circle of Brumo, -vhere often they said the 

 ghosts of the dead howled round the stone of their 

 fear." Here it would seem they left the prisoner 

 alone, without so much as a guaid to secure him, 

 without any intimation of his being even bound. 

 " They placed him there," and left him alone in thr.t 

 frightful solitude, which tlie poet describes with so 

 much energy. 



When all these circumstances are adverted to toge- 

 ther, I think there is as"f'.ill proof as can be expected 



