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SCANDINAVIAN ANTIQUITIES OF DUBLIN. 161
was another hill used as a place of execution, for
when these Things were used for criminal trials, and
that "capital punishments were doomed it was
ordered that the criminals should be conveyed for
this purpose to a stony hill, where there should be
neither arable land nor green fields. In Unst, one
of the Shetland Islands, such a place is still seen near
the site of " three Things." It is a barren serpentine
rock where scarcely a blade of grass will grow, and is
named the Hanger Hoeg. 1 To the south of the island
is a similar place of execution, with the more modern
name of the Gallows Hill. In another of the Shet-
land Isles, on a tongue of land at Loch Tingwall, is
the "Law ting" from which it is stated that ac-
to the "custom of the Northmen it was
cording
allowed to the condemned criminal to endeavour
to make his escape to the kirk of Tingwall ; in
attempting this his way led through the crowd of
spectators, and if he effected his escape, either by
their favouring him or by superior swiftness or
strength, and reached the kirk he was freed from
punishment, this was a kind of appeal to the people
from the sentence of the judge." 8
BOOK m
CHAP. IL
Of these Thingmounts or places of judicature on Thing voiir in
the sands of rivers or lakes, or near the sea-shore,
we have many examples in Scandinavian settlements
connected with Dublin, besides that already described
at Steinness, such as the Logbergit or Law
mount of Thing vollr in Iceland. 3 The Law mount
1
Hibbert's Memoir on the Tings
of Orkney and Shetland. Archae- dence in that Island during 1814-
> Iceland, or a Journal of a Ke?i-
logia Scotica, Vol. iii., p. 195. J815. Vol. i., p. 86 ; 8vo, 3 vols.
1 Statistical account of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1818.
Vol. xxi., pp. 274 and '284.
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