THE STONE OF DESTINY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 30 August 1924, Page 15

THE STONE OF DESTINY.

ARE SCOTS ALBANIANS?

REFUSAL TO BANG A SAXPENCE

LONDON, July 16. Stands Scotland where it did? David Kirkwood at least will know, for though ha be Uammunist M.P., and one of the wild men frae Giesca, he is a loyalist —to Scotia —to his very core. So to the number of 201 to 171 the House of Commons supports his impassioned speech demanding the return to Scotland of the Stone of Destiny torn from them by Edward I. It all happened because Davie, puir man, had to pay saxpence. He went into Westminster Abbey and asked if he might see the stone which these si\x hundred years or so has been embedded in the English Coronation Chair. He indignantly refused to pay the sixpence demanded as a fee for seeing the chair and stone forming a part of it. Hence the Removal Bill to demand that it be removed to Edinburgh. Mr. Kirkwood, to the joy of the House, recalled the tradition that the stone is the one which Jacob used as a pillow at Bethel “when lie was fleeing before his brother Esau as a result of his having stole,n Esau’s birthright.” According to this tradition, went on Mr. Kirkwood, the stone was taken by Jacob’s family into Egypt, and theu, about 700 8.C., to Ireland. Mr. Kirkwood, with true native caution, would not vouch for the truth of the tradition, but he said that he did know that the stone was Scottish sandstone, and that it lay at Scone for 500 years. He recited in his own inimitable vernacular. the., story of Bruce of Bannockburn , and demanded the stone as “a symbol of our nationhood.” Here is self-determination! And in his peroration we see Kirkwood the idealist. His friends and he were accused of being materialist, he declared. The charge was false. Whilst they sought bread and shelter for their people they also demanded roses. They cherished the great spiritual, historical, and sentimental bonds that bound the race together, for the mere material things of life were alone but as bread that turned to dust and ashos in the mouth. Those were the materialists who jeered and sneered at the demand of a nation for the ownership and custody of the symbol of its nationhood.

Lord Apsley took up the gauntlet thrown down by the Scottish member. He warned Mr. Kirkwood of the consequences of his action, for did not the inscription of tile stone run—lie gave the translation—■

Unless the fates are faithless found and vision merely dream, Where’er this stone be on the ground the Scots shall reign supreme.

Much hilarity was caused by Air. Pringle’s interpolation when Lord Apsley was reciting his version of the stone’s legendary origin. The ecclesiastical and monastic tradition, said the noble lord, said the stone was brought to Scone by Kenneth McAlpine.—“No relation to the contractor,” ejaculated Mr. Pringle, with a sly dig at the British Empire Exhibition contractor, who, by the way, is related by marriage to Air. Lloyd George. Lord Apsley gave an entertaining account of the traditions attached to this legendary relic. Both in Scotland and Ireland local traditions', said Lord Apsley, stated that the stone was in possession of Scots long before their conversion to Christianity, and a pagan account of the origin of the stone was that the god Odin, being vexed with a fellow deity who had been making eyes at his wife, threw the stone at his head, but fortunately for him it missed him, and it fell among the Scots, who reverenced it ever after as a symbol of what might possibly happen to a mere mortal who might be guilty of a similar offence. Perhaps that was the reason uhy they used always to crown theii kings on it. By a curious similarity, a Greek myth substituted Zeus for Odin. He only mentioned that in case it interested those who followed the legend that the Scots came with, a colony under the son of Pyrrhus from the northern parts of Greece, which was now modern Albania. He believed there was red sandstone in Albania, too. Perhaps a committee of experts might inquire into tTie geological origin of the stone and find really valuable evidence as to the origin of the race. What happens next? We must even wait and see whether the Removal Bill becomes an Act!