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Shapinsay, 'odin's Stone'
Boundary Stone (Period Unassigned)
Site Name Shapinsay, 'odin's Stone'
Classification Boundary Stone (Period Unassigned)
Canmore ID 3076
Site Number HY51NW 2
NGR HY 5064 1914
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/3076
- Council Orkney Islands
- Parish Shapinsay
- Former Region Orkney Islands Area
- Former District Orkney
- Former County Orkney
HY51NW 2 5064 1914.
(HY 5064 1914) Odin's Stone (NR)
OS 6" map, Orkney, 2nd ed.,(1900).
An erratic boulder of irregular form 6ft 6in by 4ft 6in and having a thickness of about 21in. According to tradition it was used as a sacrificial altar dedicted to Odin (Name Book 1880). In 1796 it was serving as a march stone (Statistical Account [OSA] 1796).
RCAHMS 1946, visited 1928
Now lying split into three pieces on a shingle beach.
Visited by OS (AA) 1 October 1972
The flat-topped erratic boulder (measuring 2m by 1.4m and 0.5m in height), which lies just below high water mark on the beach below the croft of Odin, served in 1796 as a march-stone delimiting foreshore rights, but even then there was no tradition to explain its name. The Ordnance Survey Name Book records the tradition that it had served as a sacrificial altar to the Norse god.
Statistical Account (OSA) 1796; Name Book 1880; RCAHMS 1946; RCAHMS 1987, visited July 1984.
