T.C. Lethbridge and the Lough Erne Figures19th Dec 2003 By welbourn TEKH  A Stone Circle on The Plain of Slecht Whilst recently reading T.D. Kendrick’s ‘The Druids’ (1), I encountered a section where Kendrick discusses the problem of Druids and stone circles (2). Quoting from the ‘Tripartite Life of St. Patrick’ (3) he describes an event that is alleged to have taken place in the year 435(CE), when St. Patrick arrived in the Plain of Slecht, near the modern Ballymagauran in County Cavan. Here once stood the chief idol of Ireland known as Cromm Cruaich, which was adorned with gold and silver and surrounded by a ring of twelve smaller idols covered in bronze. It is obvious, as Kendrick assumes, that what is being described here, is a stone circle with a centre stone, not unlike the Boscawen-un ring in Cornwall. It appears that the later Druids had modified or ‘customised’ the Bronze Age ring for their own purposes. In early mediaeval times, this site was known as a place of pagan worship and the scene of a mighty conflict between St. Patrick and the heathendom. It is told that Patrick struck and marked the main idol with his stave and caused the twelve lesser idols to be swallowed up in the earth as far as their heads. What appears to have happened on the Plain of Slecht is a similar occurrence to the fate of the stones at Avebury. The missionaries of the new religion considered the complete destruction of the stones far too dangerous. By burying the stones in the earth, a subduing effect was achieved. Deconstructing The Lough Erne Figures In 1953, Mrs E. Ettlinger published a theory on the Lough Erne Figures (4), suggesting that they did not represent the Seven Deadly Sins as originally suggested, but represented St. Patrick and some of his early converts. It was this ‘alternative’ theory that provoked a further, more radical response in the 'Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquities Society' from the archaeologist T.C. Lethbridge. In his own inimical style, Lethbridge set about deconstructing the Christian interpretations credited to the stones and submitted alternative explanations for each of the figures. The bell and the short sword known as a ‘crozier’ in the hand of the statue accredited to St. Patrick were reinterpreted by Lethbridge as an Irish short-sword and a sceptre respectively. He suggested that there was nothing to imply the figure was a saint but concluded that the statue may well be a king or chieftain meditating before giving judgement. Because of the apparent uniqueness of the carvings, Lethbridge didn’t believe that they stood alone in the archaeological field and began suggesting parallels for the figures. Lethbridge likens a cloaked female carving that accompanies the ‘St. Patrick’ statue with the Sheila-na-gig carvings of the 11th-16th centuries, although the Lough Erne figure is not so aggressively indecent! He likens her to the Baubo figures described by Dr Margaret Murray (5) and further suggests that these figures, although well know in the mediaeval period, may have evolved from earlier roots, progressing from the suggestive to the emphatic. A Stone Circle? Lethbridge analysed the figures and concluded that they were ‘stand alone’ statues and were never intended as part of a building or structure and because of their weathering, their position appears to have been out-of-doors and not within a roofed building, such as a church. Although incomplete, he believed that the existing set of statues were part of a larger group. Although no comparisons could be made, Lethbridge believed that the stones once formed part of some kind of ‘modified’ stone ring or circle. He suggested that a stone circle once stood on White Island and it was this ring that was, at some point in history, transformed into the statues we now know as the Lough Erne Figures. We have previously mentioned, how St. Patrick had already destroyed the most famous circle of Cromm Cruaich, an incident that took place in the year 435(CE) in County Cavan. In fact the next county to where the Lough Erne Figures were discovered. Lethbridge therefore suggested; that it was these stones that replaced the idols destroyed by St. Patrick, leaving us with the intriguing possibility, that the remaining stones await to be discovered. Lethbridge poses another possibility that he describes as, “altogether too fantastic”; could the Lough Erne Figures be the actual deities cursed by St. Patrick? He suggests that they could have been dug up and from their distressful position on the Plain of Slecht and removed to a safer position some distance away. At first glance, the Lough Erne figures appear crude when observed through Greek or Roman eyes, but in their crudeness, they are masterpieces of expression and Lethbridge believed that no Christian craftsman could have carved them. He suggests that the figures were probably carved, perhaps 200 years before the arrival of St. Patrick and although they could be copies, he truly believed that the Lough Erne Figures were the originals. “Even St. Patrick couldn’t destroy them and no one else ever dared to make the attempt. The most that could be done, as with the giant at Cerne, was to build a church close to them and hope that their influence would slowly decline. It needed a man with the fervour of St. Patrick or St. Coloma to dare to destroy such potent figures.” T.C. Lethbridge welbourn TEKH – Lincoln - 19 December 2003 1. T,D. Kendrick wrote the Foreword to T.C. Lethbridge’s ‘Herdsmen and Hermits - Celtic Seafarers in the Northern Seas’ Bowes and Bowes - Cambridge 1950 2. Kendrick, T.D. ‘The Druids’ Methuen & Co. (1927) p. 191 3. Whitley Stokes, ‘Tripartite Life of St. Patrick’ London (1887) p. 91 4. Ettlinger, Ellen, ‘The Stone Sculptures on White Island, Lower Lough Erne, Co. Fermanagh. Man, 53, Art. 53. 5. Murray, M.A., ‘Female Fertility Figures’ J.R. Anthrop. Inst., No. 7. 16pp |
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