Archaic Sci'i.nrRiNGs. M'J 



llie pagan coiiceplion, absorbed into the early Christian ideas, 

 was that the bird represented the disembodied spirit whirh 

 was reputed to \ oyage here and there with a hghtning 

 celerity, like the Hash of a swallow on the wing". 



The pincers or tongs and anvil on the other side of the 

 lower human figure at Corsewall House have also a recondite 

 svmbolism. These tools apparently represent the labour 

 necessarv to induce a gradual transformation from raw or 

 crude nialerial condition to the spiritual one. These emblems 

 occur with the same meaning on the back of the Dunfallandy 

 stone, near Pitlochry. 



The symbolic group on the lower portion of the front 

 of the Corsewall House stone is therefore to be read as 

 follows — that humanity with spiritual help and heroic effort 

 can improve its position. 



On the back of the same cross-slab is also cut a cross, 

 on the shaft of which are two hunting horns placed vis-a-vis 

 and mouth upwards. The rest of the panel is occupied by 

 serpents coiled up. 



Now the hunting horns are apparently an abstract and 

 shorthand portrayal of the chase, which is a common picture 

 on the Scottish stones before the tenth century. It also 

 occurs in many other areas of the British Islands and 

 throughout Europe. It seems to have had its origin in pagan 

 times, and might briefly be defined as representing the 

 struggle between good and evil. On the Scottish Christian 

 monuments it is often given in elaborate fashion as in the 

 Shandwick stone, where the scene of the chase involves some 

 26 different figures, everyone having a separate meaning, yet 

 all connected. The Christians are usually shown as mounted 

 horsemen or men on foot with hunting horns and spears, 

 and thev are seen chasing deer and other animals, which 

 represent the unregenerate. 



The rest of the slab is filled with serpents (representing 

 wisdom) coiled up and with intertwisted bodies, and thus the 

 reading of this panel is that humanity, exercising wisdom 

 and fighting evil, will reach the sublime heights. Thus the 

 storv to be read from the carving on either face of the stone 

 is almost the same. 



