I by no means despair of being able eventually to construct such a scheme of classification, and, even before this Work is concluded, to make it tolerably clear that the thing is possible, and then it will only remain, if one or two fixed or probable dates can be ascertained, to bring the whole within the range of historical investigation.
Footnotes
[134] 'Iter Curiosum,' pl. xxxiii.
[135] 'Iter Curiosum,' p. xxxii.
[136] When I was there four years ago I was fortunate enough to find an old man, a stonemason, who had been employed in his youth in utilizing these stones. He went over the ground with me, and pointed out the position of those he remembered.
[137] It is extremely difficult to be precise about the dimensions. One is almost wholly buried in the earth, and its dimensions can only be obtained by probing; the other is half buried.
[138] 'Archæologia,' ii. 1773, p. 107.
[139] 'Wanderings of an Antiquary;' London, 1854, p. 175 et seq.
[140] loc. cit. 175.
[141] 'Mon. Hist. Brit.' p. 299.
[142] 'Beowulf: an Anglo-Saxon Poem,' translated by J. W. Kemble, 1835, preface, p. xix.
[143] 'Mon. Hist. Brit.' p. 121.
[144] This woodcut is copied literally from one by Mr. Lewis published in the 'Norwich Volume of the International Prehistoric Congress,' and the figures and facts I am about to quote are mostly taken from the paper that accompanied it. The inferences, however, are widely different.
[145] 'Norwich Volume of the International Prehistoric Congress,' p. 37.
[146] Asser, in 'Mon. Hist. Brit.' p. 476.
[147] Stukeley, 'Avebury,' p. 12; Borlase, p. 210.
[148] Camden, 'Britannia,' i. p. 285. See also Charleton's 'Stonehenge restored to the Danes,' p. 36.
[149] On this stone Sir Gardiner Wilkinson traced one of those circles of concentric rings which are so common on stones in the north of England. I did not see it myself, but assuming it to be true—which I have no doubt it is—it will not help us much till we know when and by whom these circles were engraved.
[150] 'Brit.' p. 1021.
[151] Pennant in his text calls the diameter 88 yards, but the scale attached to his plan makes it 110 yards nearly.
[152] 'Tour in Scotland, 1772,' pl. xxxvii. p. 276.
[153] Near Lochmaben, in Annandale, a circle exists, or existed, called Wood Castle, which, in so far as the plan and dimensions are concerned, is identical with this. It is figured in General Roy's 'Military Antiquities of the Romans,' pl. viii. I would not hesitate in quoting it as a monument of this class, but for the view which I distrust excessively, but which makes it look like a fortification. As I have no means of verifying the facts, I can only draw attention to them.
[154] 'Iter Boreale,' p. 42.
[155] 'Brit.,' Gough edit. iii. p. 401.
[156] 'Archæological Journal,' xviii. p. 29.
[157] Ibid., xviii. p. 37.
[158] I am not aware that any account of these diggings has been published. The facts I ascertained on the spot.
[159] Here, again, I quote from the copy in the 'Mon. Hist. Brit.' p. 47 et seq., to which it will not be necessary to refer every time the name is mentioned.
[160] Stuart Glennie, 'King Arthur.' 1867. L. W. Skene. 'Ancient Books of Wales,' i. 52 et seq.
[161] 'Mon. Hist. Brit.' p. 73.
[162] General Roy's 'Mil. Ant. of the Romans,' pl. viii.
[163] Bateman, 'Ten Years' Diggings,' p. 87.
[164] I have not seen this circle myself, though I made a long journey on purpose. It is said to consist of eighty-eight stones, and one larger than the rest, standing outside the circle, at a distance of about five yards, or exactly as Long Meg stands with reference to her daughters.
[165] First described in the 'Archæologia,' vol. viii. p. 131 et seq., by the Rev. S. Pegge, in 1783.
[166] These dimensions, as well as the plan, are taken from Sir Gardner Wilkinson's paper in the 'Journal of the Archæological Association,' xvi. p. 116, and may consequently be thoroughly depended upon.
[167] Bateman, 'Vestiges,' p. 65.
[168] These dimensions are taken from Sir Gardner Wilkinson's plan. The Batemans, with all their merits, are singularly careless in quoting dimensions.
[169] Ante, p. 11.
[170] Douglas, 'Nenia Brittanica,' p. 168, pl. xxxv.
[171] If we knew its height we might guess its age. If it was 65 feet high, its angle must be 30 degrees, and its age probably the same as that of Silbury Hill. If 100 feet, and its angle above 40 degrees, it must have been older.
[172] 'Ten Years' Diggings,' p. 82.
[173] 'Petrie's Life,' by Stokes, p. 234.
[174] The complete disappearance of the body of this undoubted Saxon chief ought to make us cautious in ascribing remote antiquity to many comparatively fresh bodies we find elsewhere.
[175] Bateman, 'Ten Years' Diggings,' p. 21.
[176] "In 1723 the workmen dug up the body of a great king buried there in the centre, a very little below the surface. The bones were extremely rotten, and, six weeks after, I came luckily to rescue a great curiosity which they took out there—an iron chain, as they called it. It was the bridle buried along with the monarch. There were deer horns and an iron knife, with a bone handle, too, all excessively rotten, taken up along with it."—Stukeley's 'Stonehenge and Avebury,' pp. 41-12. The bridle is figured, pl. xxxvi.
[177] Douglas, 'Nenia Brit.' p. 168.
[178] Nothing can exceed the effrontery with which Stukeley inserted curved avenues between these circles, so as to make the whole into a serpent form. Nothing of the kind exists, nor existed in 1826, when Mr. Croker made, for Sir R. C. Hoare, the survey from which the woodcut is copied, with Sir Gardner Wilkinson's corrections.
[179] 'Archæologia,' xxv. p. 189.
[180] What is the meaning of the word "Maes"? It is singular that the Maes How, in Orkney, should bear the same relative position to the Standing Stones of Stennis, in Orkney, that Maes Knoll does to the group of circles. I do not know of the name occurring anywhere else. According to the dictionaries, it merely means "plain" or "field." In Irish "Magh" pronounced "Moy;" but that can hardly be the meaning here.
[181] 'Archæologia,' x. pl. xi. p. 106.
[182] It probably may have been a piece of iron pyrites, and may have been used for striking a light.
[183] 'Archæologia Cambriensis,' third series, vol. xii. p. 54. A fancy plan of the same circle appears in the same volume, but is utterly untrustworthy. It is reproduced by Waring, 'Mon.' &c. pl. xli.
[184] 'Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries,' iii. p. 225.
[185] The Hon. W. C. Stanley enumerates by name twenty-four in Anglesea.—'Archæologia Cambrensis,' fourth series, vol. i. p. 58.
[186] Tacitus, 'Vita Agricolæ,' chap. v.
[187] 'Somerset Archæo. Soc. Proceedings,' viii. p. 51.
[188] 'Archæologia,' xix. p. 43 et seq.
[189] 'Journal of the Ethnological Society,' January, 1871, p. 416.
[190] Vol. xi. p. 315 et seq.
[191] 'Pro. Soc. Ant.,' second series, ii. 275. Thurnam, 'Archæologia,' xlii. 217.
[192] 'Archæologia,' xix. p. 43.
[193] 'Archæologia Cambrensis,' fourth series vol. i. p. 51 et seq.
[194] For Rodmarton, see 'Proceedings Soc. Ant.' l. s. c.; for Cornish, see paper by M. Brash, 'Gent. Mag.,' 1864.
[195] 'Archæologia Cambrensis,' third series, xi. p. 284.
[196] The following particulars are taken from a paper by Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, in the first volume, fourth series, of the 'Archæologia Cambrensis,' 1870. It is not only the last, but the best description which I know, and, being from the pen of so accurate an observer, I have relied on it exclusively.
[197] 'Ten Years' Diggings,' p. 87.
[198] Dare one suggest Gower?
[199] Is this the same word as "Cotty," as applied to Kit's Cotty-house, in Kent? It looks very like it.—Coity?
[200] Herbert, 'Cyclops Christianus,' p. 35.
[CHAPTER V.]
IRELAND.
Moytura.
It is probable, after all, that it is from the Irish annals that the greatest amount of light will be thrown on the history and uses of the Megalithic monuments. Indeed, had not Lord Melbourne's Ministry in 1839, in a fit of ill-timed parsimony, abolished the Historical Commission attached to the Irish Ordnance Survey, we should not now be groping in the dark. Had they even retained the services of Dr. Petrie till the time of his death, he would have left very little to be desired in this respect. But nothing of the sort was done. The fiat went forth. All the documents and information collected during fourteen years' labour by a most competent staff of explorers were cast aside—all the members dismissed on the shortest possible notice, and our knowledge of the ancient history and antiquities of Ireland thrown back half a century, at least.[201]
Meanwhile, however, a certain number of the best works of the Irish annalists have been carefully translated and edited by John O'Donovan and others, and are sufficient to enable any one not acquainted with Irish to check the wild speculations of antiquaries of the Vallancy and O'Brien class, and also to form an opinion on the value of the annals themselves, though hardly yet sufficient to enable a stranger to construct a reliable scheme of chronology or history out of the heterogeneous materials presented to him. We must wait till some second Petrie shall arise, who shall possess a sufficient knowledge of the Irish language and literature, without losing his Saxon coolness of judgment, before we can hope to possess a reliable and consecutive account of ancient Ireland.