Is there any tradition regarding the Stone of Scone that involved rival claimants to the Scottish throne having to race each other to be first to sit on the Stone of Destiny to be considered the rightful king of Scotland? I remember seeing a video a long time ago but I may be misremembering it.
No. If there is some legend about this it is one that is so obscure most people in Scotland will never have heard it.
I dunno, but I just perused the Wikipedia article about it and saw this awesome line:
“On 11 June 1914, suffragettes protesting for women’s rights placed a small explosive device nearby the Coronation Chair and Stone and the explosion caused visible damage to the chair.”
Thanks The_Stafford_Cripps.I couldn’t find any reference to it anywhere.
There is this story about Ulster set in a time when Gaelic links between Ulster and western Scotland were strong, could this be what you’re thinking of?
“In another legend which has become widespread, the first man to lay his hand on the province of Ulster would have claim to it.[26] As a result the warriors rushed towards land with one chopping off his hand and throwing it over his comrades and thus winning the land.[26] In some versions of the tale, the person who cuts off his hand belongs to the O’Neills, or is Niall of the Nine Hostages himself.[ citation needed ] In other versions, the person is the mythical Érimón.[27]”
I learned about the Stone of Scone from Reading the Outlander series by DianaGabaldon. The mentions of it in the books lead to further research:
Centered around the Jacobite rebellion lead by Charles Stuart. The rebellion was ended by the British at Culloden Moor, April, 1746AD.
Edited to correct: The rebellion was ended by the English at the Battle of Culloden, 1746AD.
No, you were right the first time. It was the British Army, with many Scottish soldiers, that won the battle of Culloden.
Edited to add, Culloden is completely irrelevant to this thread.
The first I heard of the Stone of Scone was in a 2008 movie, about when, seventy years ago, some Scottish nationalist college students stole (or perhaps repatriated) it.
[quote=“The_Stafford_Cripps, post:2, topic:921007, full:true”]
No. If there is some legend about this it is one that is so obscure most people in Scotland will never have heard it.
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Not so fast @The_Stafford_Cripps
There were three posts about the Stone of Scone upthread, one of them asking is there any tradition re: the Stone of Scone? I answered with a brief cite about it and related one of the main themes of the book series that stirred my interest in the Stone. I always enjoy it when someone recommends good books and so I connected that to the Stone of Scone since the English monarchs have been crowned in a throne incorporating the Stone for many, many generations. It has since been returned to Scotland with the agreement that the Scots will return it to London, for the next monarch is not considered duly crowned unless the Stone is present.
So my post was indeed relevant since I answered a query posted. Fighting ignorance and all…
No. The OP did not ask “is there any tradition re: the Stone of Scone?”.
The OP asked “Is there any tradition regarding the Stone of Scone that involved rival claimants to the Scottish throne having to race each other to be first to sit on the Stone of Destiny to be considered the rightful king of Scotland?”, a specific question relating to the time before Edward I took the stone from Scone. Do you seriously think I meant that Scottish people have not heard of the Stone of Destiny at all?
Aside from that I still don’t see why you mentioned Culloden above. I don’t want to sound patronising but Outlander is a fantasy series and probably not the place to learn actual history.
This might be unfair but I also wouldn’t trust any production like Outlander to accurately describe traditional Scottish myths and legends.
The actual answer to the OP is that there is almost no evidence at all for the Stone before its theft in 1296. The only certain written reference to it before then is an account of the coronation of Alexander III in 1249, athough that account probably wasn’t written until several decades later. (And that account survives only as part of a later, fourteenth-century work.) The visual evidence, such as some of the portraits on the Great Seals, while difficult to interpret, is actually rather stronger. Also, there is the fact that the coronations had certainly been held at Scone long before the thirteenth century, although how far that really had been a continuous tradition since the ninth century or more a retrospective invention isn’t entirely clear.
There is no real doubt that the Stone had been a ritual object used in the inauguration ceremonies at Scone. But almost everything else is just speculation. Which is one reason why the scholarly debates about it since 1996 have all been rather bad-tempered.