By the Bev. J. L. Boss. 



235 



sion of these Islands. The principal question for us at present to 

 consider is, what connexion they had with the Phoenicians or Cel- 

 tic race, to whom have been ascribed the erection of Stonehenge 

 and Abury, and other supposed monuments of Druidism ? Though 

 the Celtic and Cymbric races had no connexion for many ages, there 

 is little doubt that they retained many of the original religious cus- 

 toms and rites which were probably, nay must have been, univer- 

 sal in a very early age. As Stukeley and other writers have shewn 

 there are numerous similar customs, religious and others, of a kindred 

 sort, which have been discovered among nations distant in time and 

 locality, and among others the worship of the serpent and the same 

 deities under different names, representations of the Deity (as in 

 Persia of a figure in a circle with wings), of circles and monumental 

 pillars or stones, as in Egypt and other parts of the East. If then 

 the original inhabitants of the Orkneys came over from the North- 

 ern Coasts at a very remote period, they would naturally bring 

 with them this kind of structure or circle, whether for religious or 

 civil uses. A more simple description of building whether for 

 religious, judicial, or other civil objects could not certainly have been 

 adopted ; and its form representing the Sun or the first visible deity 

 worshipped on the declension of mankind into idolatry, was the 

 most obvious form these Aborigines would employ. Besides we are 

 informed in Barry's history of these Islands that certain of them 

 have received and still retain the name of Papse or Papley, from, 

 he conjectures, a priestly or Sacred Order who had either been in- 

 vited from, or had voluntarily or accidentally come over from Ire- 

 land and settled in the Orkneys. Now as Ireland was the principal 

 seat or stronghold of the Phoenicians or Celts, it is by no means 

 improbable that these Papse or Papley belonged to their Sacred 

 Order of Priests the Druids, and if so it is not unreasonable to pre- 

 sume that they would erect structures in a circular form, as are 

 found at Stanhouse and elsewhere in Orkney. The following is 

 Barry's account of these Papae or Priests : — 



"The Orkneys were first invaded by Harold Harfayer, King of 

 Norway, a.d. 870, who discovered on landing, besides their own 

 countrymen, two distinct people, named Peti, and Papae, whom 



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