THE STONE OF DESTINY
by Shaun Ivory
From the earliest times Humankind has needed something to believe in, turning instinctively to those elements in their world that seemed more durable than life itself. Nature in its cycles brought constant change but the stones were always there, so they revered those that appeared to be imbued with mystical qualities – by virtue of shape, size or location. They were incorporated into the sounds that became a burgeoning language, giving us words such as touchstone, lodestone, runestone. From there it was a simple step to invest them with mystical qualities where tribal custom, royalty and even religion were determined by a stone's presence.
The stone of Arthurian legend and the more immediate reality of Islamic Mecca's Black Stone are two obvious examples. But it was a long-established practice in both Gothic and Celtic races to place their kings upon a huge local stone, to be there installed with majesty and sanctity. On such a stone – the Morasten – were inaugurated the Kings of Sweden; so too the Dukes of Carinthia at Zollfell. Seven stone seats for the Emperor and his Electors mark the spot where the river Lahn joins the Rhine at Lahnstein. On such a regal rock the King of Hungary appears, sword in hand, at Pesht. Similar stones supported decrees issued to usher in the republican states of Torcello, Venice and Verona. In early Britain the Lord of the Isles was so enthroned.
But perhaps the most famous – and oldest – stone links the kings of Ireland, England and Scotland in such an inextricable way that it can truly be called 'The Stone of Destiny'.
It currently resides in the Crown Room at Edinburgh Castle. A roughly rectangular sandstone block measuring some 66 cms by 41 cms by 28 cms and weighing in at 152 kilograms, it has two iron rings, one fixed at either end for transporting and a Latin cross incised off centre. Nothing amazing to commend it to a casual viewer but to some Scottish patriots it seems more precious than life itself.
The Encyclopaedia Brittanica refers to it as Lia-fail or Stone of Destiny. It has been said that for centuries it was used in celebrating an Irish legend as being the stone on which the biblical patriarch Jacob rested his head as he slept when he dreamt of the Heavenly Ladder – hence Jacob’s Ladder. '...Inishfail...' the account goes on, 'was the Island of Fail, the island whose monarchs were crowned at Tara on the sacred inauguration stone.'
The stones' pedigree is well documented. During the period covering the north-western migration of the early Irish (the Tuatha de Danann) up through Europe from the Mediterranean, we find recorded the passage to Ireland in 576 BC of an elderly, white-haired scholar named Jeremiah. He had with him his constant companion, Simon Brech (sometimes Brach), son of Milo the Scot. The other travellers in the party were of royal blood; no less a personage than Erimon, future King of Ireland, his Hebrew princess Tea-Tephi and their 12-years-old son. The couple had met and married in Jerusalem but had been forced to flee when the Assyrians laid siege and then sacked the city.
No less remarkable were some of the items of cargo that Jeremiah had on board, including a harp, an ark (chest) ...and a wonderful stone called Lia-fail or Stone of Destiny. As the Hebrew language scans from right to left it is interesting to note that Lia-fail reads the same both ways.
When Erimon finally succeeded to the Irish throne – the first to be so honored above the Lia-fail at Tara – the Stone of Destiny went into Irish legend. As The Great Fail it became a talisman of the Tuatha de Danann, imbued with the power to shriek only when the rightful King of Ireland sat upon it. If a pretender then it groaned aloud 'as with thunder'.
But the stone was destined to influence the fortunes of more than one nation and leave the Hill of Tara (or Torah, according to Judaic texts). Fergus, the founder of the Scottish monarchy, had long coveted its mysterious properties and eventually succeeded in carrying it away, across the Celtic Sea to Dunstaffnage. From there it went on to become the Stone of Scone Abbey at Perth, which many regarded as Scotland’s first capital rather than Edinburgh.
The Scots retained it over several reigns of their own kings, using it as their coronation stone until 1296, when Edward the First captured it in his turn and took it to Westminster Abbey. There it remained, except for one relatively brief period when Scottish Nationalists stole it on the Christmas morning of 1950, until its return in 1996. All but two of the English monarchs have been crowned or anointed while sitting upon it.
A stone of destiny indeed, and if there is any substance in the latest scientific claims that even stone has the ability to absorb and subsequently release its ambient data then the Lia-fail must sure qualify as a suitable case for treatment!
Accept that and you simply have to ask the question: Given its alleged mystical qualities and its historical position at the very seat of power for so long, just how much has this most potent of Irish relics influenced the course of British history? Was the journey worth it, and perhaps more importantly... will Edinburgh Castle yet prove to be its final resting place?
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