THE LEWIS CHESSMEN



The king of Norway was feeling generous:
'Take these to the McLeod!' he said to his courtier,
'A game of chess from his friend Harald.'

The courtier sailed the next morning.
The sea was calm but then a storm gathered
The ship was sunk just off the Scottish shore.
All the sailors were drowned, but the courtier swam ashore
With his gift for the McLeod.

A hawk-eyed figure watched him
Watched his collapse on the sand.
He came down from the high ground
And killed the courtier with a blow from his spade.
He found nothing worth keeping,
Just a chequered board
And a collection of little stone men.
Eight hundred years went by
Before the Lewis chessmen saw another human eye.

John McLeod was digging the laird’s land
When he discovered the wee men in the sand.
He must have seemed like a giant troll
Holding the small Norsemen in his hand.
Back home, they sat on the table and glowered -
Fierce Vikings, carrying sword and shield,
Ready to jump off the table and into the field.
One was bald and read from a Book of Hours,
The rest were grim followers of Odin and Thor.

John’s wife, Morag, suggested an evaluation.
On Rent Day he took dutifully took them to the laird.
He gave Johnny a wee dram and asked him
How he fared?
“No bad. Yourself?’
“Oh, in quite good health.’
The laird was a famous antiquarian no less.
John asked him to make an educated guess.
“Very old in fact. The work of a craftsman
lang since deid.”
Finally, enough to say, money changed hands.
John went back to the croft
And told Morag the good news.
The island talked about nothing else for a week.

Today, the chessmen are in a Glasgow museum
Where curious folk can see them,
And what their next move will be
I cannot say.