Note 290 — Chapter VI · SCOTLAND.

A few years ago such a question would have been considered answered as soon as stated; but, as Daniel Wilson writes in a despairing passage in his Introduction,* "This theory of the Danish origin of nearly all our native arts, though adopted without investigation, and fostered in defiance of evidence, has long ceased to be a mere popular error. It is, moreover," he adds, "a cumulative error; Pennant, Chambers, Barry, Mac Culloch, Scott, Hibbert, and a host of other writers might be quoted to show that theory, like a snow-ball, gathers as it rolls, taking up indiscriminately whatever chances to be in its erratic course." In spite of his indignation, however, I suspect it will be found to have gathered such force, that it will be found very difficult to discredit it. Since, too, Alexander Bertrand made his onslaught on the theory, that the Celts had anything to do with the megalithic monuments, the ground is fast being cut away from under their feet; and though the proofs are still far from complete, yet according to present appearances the Celts must resign their claims to any of the stone circles certainly, and to most of the other stone monuments we are acquainted with, if not to all.

*'Prehistoric Annals of Scotland,' p. xv.