Their arrangement will be understood from the annexed woodcut (No. 37). The group consists of one first-class circle or oval, 378 feet (?) by 345 feet—100 metres; and two of the second class, one 96 feet, the other 129; and a dolmen near the church, at a distance of 157 yards from the last-named.[178] Attached to the two principal circles are short straight avenues, pointing apparently to two stones very near to one another—the one at a distance of 300 feet from the large circle, the other at the distance of about 100 from the smaller one, or at distances relative to their diameters. There is also a very large stone, called the King Stone, by the roadside, but beyond the limits of the plan. This, with the stones to which the avenues point, are probably the analogues of the detached stone, known as Long Meg, at Salkeld, or the Ring Stone, which stands 180 feet from one of the circles at Avebury; perhaps also of the two which are assumed to be the commencement of the Beckhampton avenue at that place, or of the Friar's heel at Stonehenge, or of the King Stone at Stanton Moor. In fact, all these circles seem to have detached stones standing at some little distance from them outside. It is there that I would look for the principal interments, rather than in the circles themselves; but this is one of the questions that the spade, and the spade only, can decide. There is, however, also attached to the smaller of the two circles at Stanton Drew a heap of stones which is apparently the ruins of a dolmen, and these may mark the real place of interment, as does the tumulus attached to Arbor Low, which corresponds with them in position.
The only recorded tradition with regard to this monument at Stanton Drew represents Keyna, a holy virgin in the fifth century, the daughter apparently of a Welsh prince, obtaining a grant of the land on which the village of Keynsham now stands from the prince of the country. She was warned, however, of the insecurity of the gift, in consequence of the serpents of a deadly species that infested the place. She accepted the gift notwithstanding, and by her prayers converted the serpents into the stones we now see there,[179] so at least Stukeley and Bathurst Dean assure us.
Such a tradition is only valuable as indicating the date that is popularly ascribed to the monument. In this instance the fifth century is suggested, which may be 50 or even 100 years earlier than I would be inclined to assign it to, but such data are of little consequence. The date is also shadowed forth in the incident related; for not only in Ireland, but in France, and frequently also in England, the early struggles of the first Christian missionaries are represented as victories over the snakes or snake worshippers. St. Hilda, for instance, at Whitby signalized the establishment of Christianity in the seventh century by converting the Yorkshire snakes into Ammonites, which are still found there in quantities, which in the eyes of the peasantry are much more like stone snakes than the stones into which St. Keyna transformed her Somersetshire enemies.
Whatever the value of these and such like traditions, one thing seems quite certain, that every local tradition which has yet been quoted represents these monuments as erected subsequently to Roman times, and generally as belonging to that transitional age when Christianity was struggling with Paganism for the mastery. The common people are generally willing enough to amuse themselves with fables about giants and demigods, and to wander back into prehistoric times; but with regard to these monuments they do not seem to have done so. I do not recollect a single tradition that ascribes any stone circle to the pre-Roman period.
If, however, I am correct in assuming that these great groups of circles belong to the Arthurian age, we have no difficulty in assigning to this one its proper place in the series of his battles. The ninth, as we have seen above, was probably fought at Caerleon on the Usk; which would seem to indicate that, at a certain point in his career, Arthur was forced back quite out of England into South Wales; but his return on that hypothesis is easily traced. The tenth battle was on the shore of some large river, which ought in consequence to be the Severn, though the name given in the text lends no countenance to this supposition; the eleventh was "In monte quod dicitur Agned in Somersetshire," which would answer perfectly, except in name; for Stanton Drew, in that case, would be in the direct line of advance to Badon Hill, where the twelfth and crowning victory was fought.
The name here, as throughout, creates the difficulty, but Stanton on the Stones, or Stone Town, is simply an epithet applied to all these groups by the Saxons at some period subsequent to that of which we are speaking, when the memory of their purpose was lost, or little cared for by those of a different race, and speaking a different language, who had succeeded to the Bryts, who had erected them. Unless we assume that Stonehenge, Stanton Drew, the circles on Stanton Moor, and the stones at Stennis, and others, were erected by the Saxons themselves, they must originally have borne Celtic names, and it would be these names that Nennius would quote, and which consequently could not be those by which they are now known.
The expression "in monte" is singularly confirmatory of this determination, inasmuch as one of the remarkable features of the locality is the fortified hill known as Maes[180] Knoll, which literally looks into Stanton Drew, and is the most remarkable feature seen from it, and a fight on its ridge is as probable an operation as any likely to be undertaken in this quarter.
If the above were all the evidence that could be produced in support of the hypothesis that all these great circles belonged to the Arthurian age, it might be admitted to be sufficient to establish not a conclusion but a fair prima facie case. The reasonableness, however, of what has been here advanced will, it is hoped, become more and more apparent as we proceed. Absolute mathematical or logical proof it is to be feared, in the present state of the evidence, is not available. Till attention is fairly turned to a certain definite line of argument, the experiments are not made, and the authorities are not read, which bear upon it, or if made or read are not understood; but when the arguments are examined with the earnest desire to prove or disprove them, new light springs up from every quarter, and before long there may be grounds for a positive answer.
Meanwhile it may be well to point out, before going further, that this class of circles is peculiar to England. They do not exist in France or in Algeria. The Scandinavian circles are all very different, so too are the Irish. The one circle out of England that at all resembles them is that at Stennis, or rather Brogar, in the Orkneys, which will be described in detail further on. There we have a great 100-metre circle, with a ditch (but no rampart), a smaller 100-foot circle, with a ruined dolmen in its stone circle, as at Stanton Drew, and we have the Maes Knoll for the Maes How. The Stennis group has also the detached stones, though it wants the rudimentary avenues, and some minor peculiarities, and it may be more modern, but it is very similar; whereas those in Cornwall and elsewhere are small and irregular, and totally wanting in the dignity belonging to those which we have ventured to call Arthurian.