These Stones Bear Witness

Book excerpt: Columbus discovered America. So they say. But what of Leif Ericsson? What of St. Brendan? Who inscribed that anguished message on the Kensington Rune Stone? And who was The Westford Knight? We are sure that Columbus made it to San Salvador – and back. And the Icelandic Saga shores up faith in Leif Ericsson’s voyage to North America, although scholarly opinion of the Vinland map seems to change every 10 years or so. St. Brendan’s adventure has been pretty generally dismissed as mere myth- as if myth could not be rooted in truth. And the case of the Kensington Rune Stone continues to generate controversy, despite an impressive accumulation of evidence, both environmental and linguistic. And then there is the Westford Knight. In 1954, the late Frank Glynn uncovered the figure of a knight in full armor incised on a slab of glacial rock along a roadside in Westford, Massachusetts. The Knight’s helmet, sword and shield all date to a specific decade in the evolution of armor and arms. And the emblem on the shield represents the armorial bearings of Clan Gunn, a noble family based in Scotland’s County Caithness. The figure is, in fact, a classic military effigy, a type of monument commonly found in ancient gravesites in Scotland and in the north of England. So what was the Knight doing here? Facts cited in this little book suggest that The Westford Knight sailed westward with his high-born kinsman, Henry Sinclair, baron of Rosslyn and Earl of Orkney, in the service of The Lady King. The author presents the evidence: THESE STONES BEAR WITNESS. The verdict is for the reader to decide.