Note 594 — Chapter V · AMUSEMENTS.

The account in the text differs as to the number of pieces, as well as in some other and more important points, from that given in the Archæologia, (vol. xxiv. p. 212.) Sir F. Madden, however, only describes those which were acquired by the Trustees of the British Museum. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharp, Esq., to whom I owe these particulars, possesses eleven pieces, consisting of two kings, three queens, three bishops, one knight, and two warders. Ten of these he selected from the whole, previous to their possessor, Mr. Roderick Ririe, offering them to the Trustees. The remaining one was afterwards obtained from a person residing in Lewis. Sir F. Madden is also mistaken in speaking of their having been long subject to the action of salt-water. They were found at some distance from the shore; a sudden and very considerable inroad having been made by the sea. A minute of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries, referring to the exhibition of these chessmen, 11th April 1831, describes them as "found buried fifteen feet under a bank of sand." Mr. Sharp has in his possession the original receipt given to Mr. Ririe by the jeweller in Edinburgh, with whom they were deposited, which describes them as "fifty-eight figures, thirty-four pieces, and a buckle of ivory or bone."