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SCANDINAVIAN ANTIQUITIES OF DUBLIN. 159
they belonged. It has been observed already that
J "
near to the Lawhill in Iceland there yet remains a
circular range of stones which is unmistakably des-
cribed in the Eyrbyggia Saga as the Temple of Thor,
this circle having within it one larger stone than the
rest which was the Thor Stein, and our chief object
here is to show that some place for religious cere-
monies was an inseparable adjunct to the place of
legislative and judicial assembly, and either that the
Thing itself, with its circular enclosure was used as
a temple, or that a temple was erected near it. 1
BOOK m
CUAP. II.
If this description of the monuments at Steinness Black stone of
were not sufficient for our purpose we might refer Orkneys.
to the standing stone and tumuli of the Island of
Shapinshay, another of the Orkneys, to its wait or
watch hill and adjoining church, and to the " Black-
stoneof Odin," atthe landing placeon its sandy beach, 1
but the similarity is so apparent, and the evidence
so strong in favour of the Scandinavian origin of
our mount, that we may proceed
to describe the
Thinormount on the Stein of Dublin, which like the
o
mount at Steinness we find in proximity to the
pillar
stone and tumuli.
It is scarcely necessary to state that every act of Scandinavian
the Northmen from the election of a king and the pro- Tt
mulgation of a law to the trial of a criminal, or the
decision of a title to land, was governed by the
judgment of the people assembled at a Thing.
Hence we read in the Sagas of Court Things, House
1 Hibbert's Memoir on the Tings vol. xvii., pp. 234, 235. Descrip-
of Orkney and Shetland, Archaeo- tion of the Orkney Isles, by tin-
logical Scotica, voL iii. p. 143. Rev. George Bam-, D.D., p. 51,
* Statistical account of Scotland, 4to, Edinburgh, 1805.