1907-1908.] Clava : ' ' The Stonehenge of Scotland!' 6 1 



site the chapel was built ? Mr James Ferguson " thinks it 

 not improbable that the small enclosure marks the spot where 

 King Brude and his successors were laid, after the race had 

 been weaned from the more noble burial of their forefathers"; 

 and he says that the whole of Clava is " evidently a cemetery," 

 and assigns it to the dynasty represented by King Brude, 

 meaning, apparently, that the circles were the monumental 

 burial-places of the kings of that dynasty prior to Brude. 

 I have often thought of the Clava circles as resembling in 

 some measure the Pyramids of Egypt (excepting the " Great " 

 one). Another writer, Mr Llewellen Jewitt, thinks these 

 larger circles may have been intended for a different purpose 

 from those of the grave- mounds which are surrounded by 

 smaller circles. That goes almost without saying, when we 

 think of the small ring near the three great circles. Mr 

 H. M. Westropp concludes that all megalithic monuments 

 were exclusively sepulchral. Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, in his 

 work on the Moray floods of 1829 (which is now before 

 me), says, " The plain of Clava may be almost denominated 

 the Scottish Stonehenge, being covered with Druidical circles 

 of great magnitude." • Speaking of the opening of 'No. 10 

 (a year or so before the floods), he says, " This cell (the 

 chamber) distinguishes the cairn dedicated to religious pur- 

 poses from that which was monumental or sepulchral." This 

 was written before he received from Miss Campbell (daughter 

 of the lady who caused the cairn to be opened) a com- 

 munication informing him of the finding of the fragments 

 of two vases, accompanied by drawings of same. This he 

 refers to in an appendix, and says, " At first sight this might 

 seem to be at variance with the opinion hazarded before. . . . 

 But we know that the Britons of the north usually buried 

 their dead, whilst the Druids seem to have followed the 

 practice of cremation chiefly used by the Britons of the south. 

 These vases, therefore, probably contained the ashes of arch- 

 Druidical priests, thus interred within the sanctum sanctorum 

 of their mysterious worship, as a bishop might be interred 

 under the high altar of his cathedral." 



The three leading theories of the circles are, then, that 

 they were places of worship ; burial - places ; monuments. 

 That some at least were burial - places is proved by the 



