SCOTLAND'S STONE OF DESTINY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22628, 16 January 1937, Page 1 (Supplement)

SCOTLAND'S STONE OF DESTINY

By KOTARE

A Legend's GrowtK

SCOTLAND'S Stone of Destiny has for six hundred years occupied a place of honour underneath the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey, and prospective great events in 1937 will once again bring this ancient relic into the foreground of British people's thoughts* Its actual history has been sensational enough, but in addition it has accumulated a vast incrustation of fabulous renown that makes it one of the most famous stones in human record. Almost certainly it is a survival into the modern world of one of the shrines of that curious litholatry which was a well-marked phase of the development of early religion. But all memory of the faith it embodied and symbolised has long passed from the earth. When first it appears on this side of the mists that envelop the dawn of history it is set up in the base of the Cross in the churchyard of the August.in.'an Abbey at bconc, the traditional crowning-place of the ancient Scottish kmgs, Seated upon this sacred stone the kings of Scotland were consecrated to their high duty amid elaborate and picturesque ceremonial. There is little doubt that from the day when Scotland north of the 1' orth and Clyde became a united kingdom all her kings were crowned on the stone at Scone.

The Picts and the Scots, the two Celtic nations who had long struggled for the mastery of the north, and who were at last united under a Scots king in 844, accepted Scone, the capital of the Picts, as the Capital of the united kingdom. From the Picts the newnation took over the coronation stone with its traditional glories.

The Celtic peoples laid great stress on sacred stones. No doubt a stone became a symbol of permanency. Man was passing and the houses he built soon crumbled to ruin. But amid this flux of human things the stone remained steadfast, unchangeable from one generation to another. So the Celts seem to have associated stones with the crowning of their king from the earliest times. Rival Nations

The legends that in later years clustered around the Scottish coronation stone had their origin in the lons struggle between Scotland and England, -which reached a decisive issue in favour of Scottish independence at the battle of Bannockburn. England was determined to swallow Scotland. It resented the presence of an independent kingdom in the north. "When conquest of the north by force was proved. impossible, the English imagination got to work to demonstrate that the southern kingdom could claim the whole island by priority of occupation and by superior nobility of descent. The Middle Ages placed a supreme value on antiquity. Men and institutions traced their origin back to the remotest past. The absence of evidence did not worry them. The mind worked on these lines* Here are we, the most notable people in the world to-day. Obviously so wonderful a nation must have had an equally remarkable ancestry. Therefore the greatest race of antiquity must have handed on its blood to us. Yon will find the results of England's, national pride in the fantastic romances of the type of Layamon's Brut, which were accepted as exact history for no better reason than that they ministered to England's vanity. This is how they outlined the origins of the English race. After the fall of Troy, Aenaas journeyed to Italy and laid the foundations of Rome. Brutus, the great-grandson of Aeneas, unfortunately slew his father on a hunting expedition, mistaking him in his youthful enthusiasm for an exceptionally fine stag. This led to a coolness in the family circle and Brutus was told he had better transfer his exuberance elsewhere.

English Origins

The Trojans that had been taken prisoners by the Greeks -were living in a state of slavery in the territory of their captors, broken-spirited, disunited, hopeless. Brutus sought his kinsmen, organised them into a formidable fighting force, conquered the Greeks, married the Greek King's daughter, demanded large gifts of money and a fleet of ships. Thev then embarked to seek a new home in the west. At last they reached the land which they called Britain after their leader. The English race then descended directly front the Trojans with a judicious mixture of Greek blood. Scotland could not be expected to sib down meekly under this declaration of English racial superiority. The Scottish imagination was stimulated to fever heat, and this is what it produced. A young Greek of highest rank, Gathelus 'his name, courted and won for his wife Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh. Gathelus was twenty-second in direct descent from Noah through Japhet. Pharaoh was much troubled by his Hebrew slaves. In the end he let them go, but later decided to pursue them. He met a dismal end in the Red Sea. Gathelus and his sons were now. practically rulers in Egypt, but the Egyptians objected to them as foreigners and they had. to leave. Ho took the familiar Mediterranean seaway, and at last made a landfall on the coast of the country that was named Scotland in honour of his Egyptian wife. Now Pharaoh had a inagio stone of incredible sanctity and potency. He had inexcusably left it behind when he set off after the Jews, and Gathelus thought he might as well smuggle it out of Egypt when he set sail into the west. After many vicissitudes this stone reached Scone. If the unbelieving English did not accept this story they could see the stone for themselves. Transfer to England An the long struggle for independence this stone at Scone became a symbol of Scottish nationality. Around it rallied the fervours of Scottish patriotism. When Edward the First marched north and scattered the Scottish armies it seemed to him that if he was to kill the patriotism of the north he must take possession of the famous stone.

South marched Edward with hia notable capture. The Stone of Destiny came to London, and there it has remained ever since. The Scots tried to get it back; but, as an ancient propliecv declared that wherever the stone was * placed there Scots would rule, they were content to wait until the magic'did its work. In due course the Scottish line came to the throne of England in 1603. Now England began a further work of embellishment. How did Pharaoh get the stone? It had been brought down to Egypt by Jacob waen he visited Joseph. It was the stone of which he had made a pillow when the vision came to him at Bethel. So English imagination completed the cyclo of legend to make still more glorious its stolen relic. And the truth of the matter? The Stone of Destiny is a piece of good old red sandstone of the tvpe verv common throughout Scotland and in full supply in the neighbourhood of Scone.