FOR many, Lewis is a remote part of the British Isles, off the beaten track and with a landscape of moors and bogs that does not support a large population. Uig Strand, a desolate, wind-swept area of sand dunes, is just the place that a treasure would be buried, especially if it had come by sea. It is perhaps not surprising that those art historians who have studied the chessmen have assumed that their Lewis provenance was largely accidental. How else could the presence of such fine works of art be explained in such a place? The story of the run-away sailor murdered by the Red Gillie was difficult to swallow. It was much more likely that the hoard belonged to a merchant who was sailing from Scandinavia to markets further south in Ireland or England. Perhaps he was shipwrecked and had to bury his stock as best he could until he could come back and recover it. He may also have hoped to hide the fact that he had landed goods so that he could escape paying hefty tolls to local officials of the King of the Isles. This is what happened to another merchant ship, blown off-course in 1202 and forced to land on Sanday, next to Canna in the Inner Hebrides, as reported by a passenger, Gudmund, bishop-elect of Holar. Whatever the particular circumstances, the person who buried the hoard must have intended rescuing it again and taking it off to somewhere where fine chessmen could be appreciated. Some other disaster must have prevented this happening.
While this reconstruction of events is plausible, it is by no means the only one. It also pays scant regard to Lewis and what sort of place it was at the time the chessmen were made. In many ways that is the key to gaining a fuller understanding of the hoard.
