Kintraw

The Danish King's Grave    Kilmartin, Argyll

Kintraw is a couple of miles north of Kilmartin, where the road heads down towards Loch Craignish.

In a field by the road stands a thirteen-foot tall monolith with three cairns around it.

Local folklore says that the stone was erected to mark the burial place of a Norse prince and is known as The Danish King's Grave. The large cairn also goes by that name.

The monolith fell during the winter of 1978/79. It was re-errected and set in a concrete plinth, but has been twisted from its original alignment.

The large cairn was excavated in 1959-60 and then rebuilt. A single burial was found in a cist only a short distance within the kerb. An eight-foot monolith was found lying within the cairn, and there was a gap in the centre where a wooden post had stood and later disintegrated. Six ornamented jet beads, a bronze buckle and shells and animal teeth were found amongst the stones, but there is no particular reason to believe that these were contemporary with the contstruction of the cairn.

The remains of two other cairns are close by.