The wonders of the world

by John Loraine Abbott

STONEHENGE.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his history of the Britons, written in the reign of King Stephen, represents this monument as having been erected at the command of Aurelius Ambrosius, the last British king, in memory of four hundred and sixty Britons who were murdered by Hengist the Saxon. Polydore Virgil says that it was erected by the Britons as the sepulchral monument of Aurelius Ambrosius, and other writers consider it to have been that of the famous British queen Boadicea. Inigo Jones is of opinion that it was a Roman temple; and this conclusion he draws from a stone sixteen feet in length, and four in breadth, placed in an exact position to the eastward, altar-fashion. By Charlton it is ascribed to the Danes, who were two years masters of Wiltshire; a tin tablet, on which were some unknown characters, having been dug up in the vicinity, in the reign of Henry VIII. This tablet, which is lost, might have given some information respecting its founders. Its common name, Stonehenge, is Saxon, and signifies a “stone gallows,” to which the stones, having transverse imposts, bear some resemblance. It is also called in Welch, choir gour, or the giants’ dance. Mr. Grose, the antiquary, is of opinion that Doctor Stukely has completely proved this structure to have been a British temple, in which the Druids officiated. He supposes it to have been the metropolitan temple of Great Britain, and translates the words choir gour, “the great choir or temple.” It was customary with the Druids to place one large stone on another for a religious memorial; and these they often placed so equably, that even a breath of wind would sometimes make them vibrate. Of such stones one remains at this day in the pile of Stonehenge. The ancients distinguished stones erected with a religious view, by the name of ambrosiæ petræ, amber stones, the word amber implying whatever is solar and divine. According to Bryant, Stonehenge is composed of these amber stones; and hence the next town is denominated Ambresbury.

ROCKING STONES.

The rocking stone, or logan, is a stone of a prodigious size, so nicely poised, that it rocks or shakes with the smallest force. Several of the consecrated stones mentioned above, were rocking stones; and there was a wonderful monument of this kind near Penzance in Cornwall, which still retains the name of main-amber, or the sacred stones. With these stones the ancients were not unacquainted. Pliny relates that at Harpasa, a town of Asia, there was a rock of such a wonderful nature, that, if touched with the finger, it would shake, but could not be moved from its place with the whole force of the body. Ptolemy Hephistion mentions a stone of this description near the ocean, which was agitated when struck by the stalk of the plant asphodel, or day-lily, but could not be removed by a great exertion of force. Another is cited by Apollonius Rhodius, supposed to have been raised in the time of the Argonauts, in the island Tenos, as the monument of the two-winged sons of Boreas, slain by Hercules; and there are others in China, and in other countries.

Many rocking stones are to be found in different parts of Great Britain; some natural, and others artificial, or placed in their position by human art. That the latter are monuments erected by the Druids, many suppose can not be doubted; but tradition has not handed down the precise purpose for which they were intended. In the parish of St. Leven, Cornwall, there is a promontory called Castle Treryn. On the western side of the middle group, near the top, lies a very large stone, so evenly poised, that a hand may move it from one side to the other; yet so fixed on its base, that no lever, or other mechanical force, can remove it from its present situation. It is called the logan-stone, and is at such a hight from the ground as to render it incredible that it was raised to its present position by art. There are, however, other rocking stones, so shaped and situated, that there can not be any doubt of their having been erected by human strength. Of this kind the great quoit, or karn-le hau, in the parish of Tywidnek, in Wales, is considered. It is thirty-nine feet in circumference, and four feet thick at a medium, and stands on a single pedestal. In the island of St. Agnes, Scilly, is a remarkable stone of the same kind. The under rock is ten and a half feet high, forty-seven feet round the middle, and touches the ground with not more than half its base. The upper rock rests on one point only, and is so nicely balanced, that two or three men with a pole can move it. It is eight and a half feet high, and forty-seven in circumference. On the top is a basin[basin] hollowed out, three feet and eleven inches in diameter at a medium, but wider at the brim, and three feet in depth. From the globular shape of the upper stone, it is highly probable that it was rounded by human art, and perhaps even placed on its pedestal by human strength. In Sithney parish, near Helston, in Cornwall, stood the famous logan, or rocking stone, commonly called Men Amber, that is, Men an Bar, or the top stone. It was eleven feet by six, and four high, and so nicely poised on another stone, that a little child could move it. It was much visited by travelers; but Shrubsall, the governor of Pendennis castle, under Cromwell, caused it to be undermined, by dint of much labor, to the great grief of the country. There are some marks of the tool on it; and it seems probable, by its triangular shape, that it was dedicated to Mercury.

THE ROUND TOWERS OF IRELAND.

Every one, almost, has heard of the round towers of Ireland; and yet, who has been able to explain their origin, or solve the mystery that hangs over the history of their builders, and the purposes for which they were erected?

Of these towers, one hundred and seven are known to have existed; but probably there were many more. Some are still perfect, others are in ruins. They bear a general resemblance to each other, seeming, therefore, to have had the same object in view; yet there were many minute points of difference. Some were but forty feet high; others sixty, eighty, and one a hundred and twenty feet. The common hight is about eighty or ninety feet. Most of them were of a cylindrical form, and were covered with a conical roof. They were generally divided into three stories, with a window to each. The door of entrance was from six to twenty-four feet from the ground; but how this was reached is not known. In some cases, they were built of hewn stone, nicely laid in mortar; in others, the stones are merely hammered; in others still, they are small and of all shapes, but always firmly cemented by mortar, nearly as hard as the rock itself.

That these towers are very ancient, is clear from the fact that when Ireland was first invaded by the English, in the twelfth century, they were then deemed antiquities, and no one was able to tell their origin or design. Some have been used as towers and belfries of churches; but these churches were built in later times, and this use of the towers was, evidently, but an adaptation of old structures to new purposes. The fact that near them, in most cases, ancient churches, or their remains, are found, has led to the belief that they were ecclesiastical structures, erected by the early Christians of Ireland. This idea is exploded by the circumstance that no such buildings have ever been known to be erected in any other part of the world, in connection with the Christian religion; nor is it possible to conjecture for what object, as part of Christian worship, they could have been designed.

The more prevalent and probable opinion, on the subject, seems to be this: that they were erected by the Phœnicians or Carthaginians, who are known to have had settlements in Ireland before the Christian era; or that they were built by the remote Irish, who bore the name of Scoti, and who were of Asiatic origin. The object of these buildings, on this supposition, was the preservation of the sacred fire, kindled in honor of Bel, or Baal, a heathen divinity of the east, and who is known to have been worshiped in Ireland. Indeed, to the present day, some of the religious rites of the Irish are evidently but the perpetuation of the ceremonies of their ancestors, turned from their pagan origin and blended with Catholic observances. This view of the origin and object of the round towers is strongly confirmed by the fact that in their vicinity are still to be found the well known relics of ancient paganism, such as the sun-stone, the cromlech, the fire-house, the spring of sacred water, necessary in mystic rites, &c. To this it may be added, that in Persia and India, where fire-worship originated, and has had its most extensive and enduring seat, there are towers of various forms and sizes, ascribed, in their origin, to this species of idolatry. It is probable, therefore, that the early settlers of Ireland brought from Asia, their original country, ideas of religion, which became modified in the course of ages, but which, still remaining essentially the same, displayed themselves in the structures which we have described. The fact that Christian churches, or their remains, are found near these towers in Ireland, does not controvert the opinion we express, as, in the first place, they are evidently more modern than the towers themselves, and are of a different style of architecture; and, moreover, we know that the early Christians often chose, as the seat of their churches, the very sites on which paganism had reared its structures, and not unfrequently adapted the structures themselves to the purposes of Christian worship; a fact which rather confirms than opposes the common theory as to these towers.