Welsh Journals

INTERESTING FIND OF AN ANCIENT GAME STONE NEAR OSWESTRY. MR. A. C. Nicholson, F.G.S., in a recent issue of the Saga Book of the Viking Club, writes :­-" Early in 1901 a stone was found near Oswestry with a device cut upon it which has given rise to some local discussion. The place of find was the Old Oswestry gravel pit, very near Old Oswestry itself, which is said to be a British camp. It was found on the line of Watt's Dyke, and from what the workman says, it is probable that it formed part of the structure of the dyke. I may explain that in working the gravel the man brings the stuff all down, and then sorts it up, and in sorting he found this stone. The incisions on the stone are clean cut and sharp, and weathered inside just as the surface of the stone is. It is apparently quite genuine. Some persons have thought it is a plan of a castrum, others a game stone. A Polish Jew, to whom I showed it, said it is the same device as a game they call in Poland Siegen Wulf Myll (She-goat Wolf Mill = fight). In Fig, 5 in Mr. Goddard's article (vol. ii., part iii.) on 'Nine Men's Morris,' the board from the Viking ship has practically the same device as is on the stone. The stone is not flat, but has a fairly even surface. Its size is about 11 inches by 8 inches by, say, 1 inch thick. I enclose a rough rubbing of the device, which will give you an idea of it, but I may say it looks better on the stone than in the rubbing. If you think it of any interest, would you draw Mr. Goddard's attention to it?" Agreeably with Mr. Nicholson's suggestions, his notes and the rubbings were forwarded to Mr. Goddard,