INTRODUCTION. xxv 



types in the island, two of which are easily recognisable as, 

 respectively, Celtic and Scandinavian. Beddoe (The Races 

 of Britain, page 240) describes the third type as a "short, 

 thick-set, snub-nosed, dark-haired, often even dark-eyed, 

 race, probably aboriginal, possibly Finnish, whose centre 

 seems to be at Barvas." This ethnologist also discovered 

 traces of an Iberian type, which suggested to him that the 

 view held by Professor Rhys, that the Picts were Iberians, 

 was probably correct. Whether Finnic or Iberic, the 

 aborigines of the Long Island probably spoke a Turanian 

 tongue. Tradition supports the view that a race of low 

 stature so-called fairies and pigmies inhabited Lewis in 

 pre-historic times, and the underground Weems of the 

 Long Island, like the "Picts' Houses" of Orkney, which 

 bear a curious resemblance to the Lapp huts of which 

 travellers tell us, may conceivably have been their dwel- 

 lings.* The "bee-hive" houses are probably of a later 

 date. 



Stone circles are found in various parts of the world : 

 Scandinavia, India, and even Australia, all furnishing 

 examples. In this country, to take the most notable 

 instances, there are Stonehenge and, coming nearer home, 

 Stennis in Orkney. The Lewis tradition about enchanted 

 men finds its counter-part in similar stories about Carnac 

 in France, the Rollrich stones in Oxfordshire, and the 

 Dance Maine in Cornwall. But observation of the customs 

 prevailing at the present day in India, leads to the 

 irresistible conclusion that the main purpose of all these 

 circles was inhumation, combined with religious rites, the 

 latter being a corollary of the former. Ancestor-worship, 

 in its different phases, is practically universal. 



It has been suggested that the Callernish Stones do not 

 date further back than the Norse occupation of Lewis. 

 When the excavations were made, it was observed that the 

 growth of peat-moss over the grave averaged about six 



* Train, the Manx historian, states that when Magnus Bareleg invaded 

 Man in 1098, he found the people living in underground huts ' ' like the 

 Firbolgs " of Ireland. These " burrows " were obviously hiding-places. 



