Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

As far as speculation on use goes, if you were to make an assumption that knowledge of what they were survived in folklore, even in changed and newer forms, you'de be looking for some custom that was also unique, or nearly so, to SCotland. Then you would come across things like the Clach Dearg, the Clach na Bratach/Clach Bhuai, Leug/Leighegan (precious stone/beautiful woman) and suchlike. http://www.electricscotland.com/history/images/cyristals.jpg
These were stones with magical properties to cure, or to ensure victory in battle. The clan chiefs had nice ones held in lovely ornamented mounts. They were often assosciated with certain pools in rivers or wells or springs (weren't a lot of the neolithic balls found near water?) and part of their ritual use was to dip them in the water which could then be sprinkled like holy water as a cure, or be drunk, or be used to wash the sick person.

Before battle these modern stones would be "consulted" though most people aren't sure how they were read exactly (neolithic balls lend themselves to dice type use, no?).

The sceptre of the Scottish Regalia is surmounted by a globe of rock-crystal, and the mace of the Lord High Treasurer is similarly sur-mounted by a ball. The pendant portion of the crosier of StFillan, now in the National Museum, is surmounted on the front by an oval-shaped.pebble of rock-crystal too.

Maybe it's a stretch to think later cultures had rock crystal balls to take the place that had previously been filled by carved stone balls. The common person didn't have rock crystal cure stones, though, more usually they just had common stones found in rivers or by springs, occassionally with a rune carved on them or a natural hole. The principal is the same, and the poor man's version is even more alike in looks to the qualities of the old carved stone balls.

One type is described as "merely small boulders of quartzite taken from the bed of the river, but marked by small, shallow, rounded cavities on their faces". Another plainer one is described as "a valuable Curiosity in this Isle, which they call Baul Muluy i.e. Molingus Ms Stone Globe: this Saint was Chaplain to Mack-Donald of the Isles; his Name is celebrated here on the account of this Globe, so much esteem'd by the Inhabitants. This Stone for its intrinsick value has been carefully transmitted to Posterity for several Ages. It is a green Stone much like a Globe in Figure, about the bigness of a Goose-Egg". They used to swear oaths on that one too, something I could see being done ceremonially on the neolithic balls.

The one that tickled me the most was the following, because of Tiompan's comment about needing a stone to propagate the species:-

Stone for Cure of Sterility.

Through the kindness of Mr James Shand of the Union Bank of Scotland, Edinburgh, I am enabled to exhibit an egg-shaped pebble of quartz, 2 inches in length by 1 inch in greatest diameter, which was formerly used in Shetland as a cure for sterility. In a letter to me, Mr Shand gives the following account of the method of using the stone: " The charm-stone which I handed to you was for many years used in the west division of Sandsting parish, Shetland, as a cure for sterility in women. It was given to the lady from whom I received it by an old woman who had actually known it in use. The modus operandi was for the would-be mother to wash her feet in burn (i.e., 'running') water, in which the stone was laid. Although not mentioned, the water was probably "south running," as water which flowed in that direction was believed to be endowed with extraordinary pro-perties (See Dalyell, Darker Superstitions). In other instances ordinary rain-water which had accumulated in the hollows of cup-marked stones was believed to be equally efficacious for the cure of barrenness in women. Thus a cupped stone containing" cloud-drawn" water, at Arpafeelie, near Inverness, was until lately visited by'childless women, who bathed in its water before sunrise (Proceed. Soc. Ant. Scot., vol.xvi. p. 387).