Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

238 USE OF THE CROSS.
within the periods in which they became inhabitants of
Britain, and of which the evidence remains in their sculp-
tured stones. Thus also, where it has been found on mo-
numents of decidedly higher antiquity than the introduc-
tion of Christianity among* them, it may sometimes, in-
stead of being an ancient usage, have arisen from their
desire of converting these to their new worship ; although
that combination has also been attributed to their reluc-
tance to part entirely with their former and hereditary
monuments and superstitions. This at least is the opinion
of Procopius, as it is of Gregory Nazianzen ; and it is
well known that the effect of that opinion was to lead to
councils and anathemas against the practice. Hence also
seem to have originated the chapels and subterraneous
crypts in form of crosses, which bear the marks of a dis-
tant Norwegian antiquity. One of these has been de-
scribed at New Grange, in Ireland, and they have also
been found in Jutland.
If the subterranean crypt of this nature is held to be
necessarily Norwegian, it may assist in proving that this
circle is a Norwegian or Danish work ; because there is
one in this very spot, as there are some in Cornwall, con-
nected with circles and cromlechs, apparently of the same
origin. Whatever may be judged of that opinion, and
though the figure of the cross is here an apparently es-
sential part of the building, it is far from impossible that
it may have been superadded to the original simple circle.
It is equally probable, however, that the whole work is
not of higher antiquity than the ninth or tenth centuries,
when the Danes and Norwegians had occupied the Wes-
tern islands, and when they had received the Christian
religion ; and that, as its date is similar to that of the
sculptured stones which so generally bear the figure of
the cross, so its figure may be explained on the same
principles.