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SCANDINAVIAN ANTIQUITIES OF DUBLIN. 157
The publications of Wallace, Brand, 1
Barry,'
and BOOK IIT -
Hibbert inform us that in Romona, the chief island _ Pillar Stones in
of the Orkneys, 8 there is a parish called Steinnis 4 the Orkneys,
bordering a lake of the same name into which the
sea flows from Steinness. On a point of land jutting
into this lake is a pillar Stone standing nearly six-
teen feet above ground, 5 from which stone the dis-
trict attained the name of Steinness, compounded of
the Icelandic or old Norse words Steinn a stone, and
" ness " a tongue (or nose 6
) of land.
This pillar, probably a stone of memorial, or mark Pillar stones
and temples to
of possession taken by the first settlers, was, accord- Thor and
inof to Hibbert, a stone raised to Thor the Scandina- Scandinavian
^j 1 *i* i
vian Deity, the custom of these Northmen being to
set up a Stone, and to erect temples to Thor and
Freyja at their landing place. 7 Olaus Magnus, how-
ever, mentions another purpose, thus, he says, there
are high stones without writing, set up by the in-
dustry of the ancients to inform mariners that they
may avoid shipwreck, 8 and we find that the custom
of placing pillar stones at the landing place, for
whatever object or design was not peculiar to the
1 A new description of Orkney,
4 Memoir on the Tings of Ork-
Zetland, Pightland firth, and Caith- ney and Shetland, by S. Hibbert,
ness, by John Brand, Edinburgh, M.D., Archaeologia Scotica, vol.
1700, 8vo. iii., p. 118, Edinburgh, 1828.
1
*
Icelandic and English Die-
History of the Orkney Islands,
by the Rev. George Barry, D.D., tionary, 'by II. Cleasby and Gud-
Ministerof Shapinshay, 4to, kdin- brand Vigfusson, M.A., 4to, Ox-
burgh, 1805. ford, Clarendon Press, 1874.
3
Heimskringla edr Noregs Kon-
7
Description of the Shetland
inga Saga, vol. ii., p. 147, Hafniae, Isles, by Samuel Hibbert, M.D.,
1777. In Nial's Saga it is called p. 109, 4to, Edinburgh, 1822.
Rossy. pp. 267-587. Compendious History
of th.-
4 In the Sagas called " Steins- Goths, Swedes, and Vandals, t ran- -
nessi." lated, Book I. chap, xviii., p. 12.