DOLMEN FROM UTERSUM, ISLAND OF FÖHR

Within the general dolmen category there are also some sites where the ingenuity and skill of the builders, in combination with boulders of particular shapes, has occasionally led to construction of chambers that stand out from the general pattern. They cannot be ‘fitted’ into any of our typological standards but, at the same time, they offer exciting insight into the ingenuity and skill of the builders. A unique example comes from Utersum, on the north Friesian island of Föhr. The chamber, 1.8 m high and constructed of eight orthostats and three capstones, was entirely subterranean and had two passages (3.5 m and 7 m long) running in roughly opposite directions to one another, rising to the surface. The passages’ capstones were later used in the construction of a Bronze Age stone cist that overlay the earlier structure (Kersten and La Baume 1958, 320; Hoika 1990, 60).

Although architecturally simple, the south Scandinavian dolmens were nevertheless very sophisticated constructions, employing elements that would continue to be used throughout the time of megalithic building, culminating in the elaborate passage graves. Dry-stone walling filled the gaps between the orthostats of all forms of dolmen chambers; sometimes the chambers were additionally protected. A good example is offered by the two stone chambers at the long dolmen at Grøfte; these demonstrate most eloquently that the builders were concerned to keep the chambers dry, since both were surrounded by flat split slabs angled around each chamber to divert the rainwater to the outside, away from the chambers and into the mound (Ebbesen 1990, Figures 5 and 10–12).

DOLMEN AS A SYMBOLIC STRUCTURE

Carreg Samson (also known as Longhouse Cromlech), a Neolithic burial chamber built 5,000 years ago.

Ancient Ireland, indeed! I was reared by her bedside

The rune and the chant, evil eye and averted head

Fomorian fierceness of family and local feud.

Gaunt figures of fear and of friendliness,

For years they trespassed on my dreams,

Until once, in a standing circle of stones,

I felt their shadows pass

Into that dark permanence of ancient forms.

John Montague,

‘Like dolmens round my childhood…’

Doorways of stone leading nowhere stand in fields and pastures, on rocky hills and in verdant valleys, throughout Celtic lands. The Breton word for these structures is dolmen, meaning “table of stone,” although one would have to be a GIANT to eat off most dolmens; contemporary archaeologists prefer the term portal tomb, while in Wales the same structures are called cromlechs (from words meaning “bent” and “flat stone”). These distinctive and memorable structures are also called DRUID altars, but they were built thousands of years before the Celts and their priests arrived in the land.

Perhaps as many as 6,000 years have passed since the stone uprights were capped with their huge crossbeams, yet the engineering of these mysterious prehistoric people was so exact that hundreds of these structures are still standing today. Indications of burials have been found in recesses under dolmens, leading archaeologists to call them tombs, but burials were few in comparison to the population. Those whose remains (sometimes cremated elsewhere) rest beneath the dolmens may have been victims of HUMAN SACRIFICE, or they may have been people of high status who were considered worthy of a distinguished burial. But this does not mean that the placement and building of dolmens may not have had purposes other than the funereal; similar structures found in the Canadian arctic serve both as geographical markers and as shamanic doorways to another world.

The Celts, arriving long after the dolmens were built, created many tales about them. In Ireland the stone structures are called “beds of DIARMAIT and GRÁINNE,” for the eloping couple were said to have slept together on a different one each night, as they fled her furious intended husband, FIONN MAC CUMHAILL. This legend connects the dolmens to FERTILITY and sexuality, as does the frequent folklore that claims the stones either cause sterility and barrenness, or that they increase the likelihood of conception. Such lore may encode pre-Celtic understandings of these pre-Celtic monuments, may be Celtic in origin, or may represent Christian interpolations into Celtic legend.

HELL STONE

Hell Stone
(Portesham)

See how the tall stones lean together,
how each one kisses the capstone,
how the glorious body is laid within
accoutred and accompanied by wealth.

Watch how the boulders and flat stones
are heaped up, how earth is tamped down
to make the hollow hill where a king sleeps.
When I see the green mound I will recall this.

But I dreamt it naked, saw it stripped bare,
the kissing stones a sieve for the wind,
the hill’s womb empty; and in the dream
I knew myself too to be unremembered.

Paul Hyland

from Art of the Impossible (Bloodaxe Books, 2004)

The Hellstone on Portesham Hill is an impressive dolmen, restored in 1866 after the capstone had fallen some six years earlier. The Dorset historian, Rev. John Hutchins writes in his ‘History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset’, “The common people call it Hell stone, and have a tradition that the devil flung it from Portland Pike, a north point of that island full in view, as he was diverting himself at quoits.”

Easily reached along either of 2 permissive paths both leading off from the right of way footpath which runs from the minor road running between Portesham and Winterbourne Steepleton (at about half a mile north of Portesham - park in layby) and the Hardy Monument. The first is near the road and signposted, the second is 400 yards further on and easily missed!

The massive stones of this inaccurately rebuilt monument make it no less impressive. It consists of 9 uprights up to 6' high and 2' thick supporting a 20 ton, 10' x 8' x 2' thick capstone forming a 9' x 5' x 5' chamber. This stands at the SE end of a mound formerly 88' long and up to 40' wide more or less aligned along the directions of the mid-winter solstice sunrise and summer solstice sunset.

LINK

Hell Stone BBC Video

DOLMEN

"Dolmen" originates from the expression taol maen, which means "stone table" in Breton, and was first used archaeologically by Théophile Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne. The etymology of the German Hünenbett or Hünengrab and Dutch Hunebed all evoke the image of giants building the structures. Of other Celtic languages, "cromlech" derives from Welsh and "quoit" is commonly used in Cornwall. Anta is the term used in Portugal, and dös in Sweden.