The passing of the finger through a ring is probably a survival of the practice of passing the entire body through a ring as a symbol of covenant, of entering on new relations, a sort of regeneration into a new family or fraternity. A great number of holed stones remain among pre-historic monuments that were probably so used, for there remained a reminiscence of such usage in tradition. Wherever megalithic remains are found, there also these holed stones are found large enough for the passage of a body; sometimes only of sufficient size for the hand to be passed through.
At Boleit in Cornwall in tolerably close juxtaposition is a circle of 19 upright stones, 75 feet in diameter, “The Merry Maidens;” two menhirs, “The Pipers,” respectively 15 feet and 13½ feet high; another upright stone 11 feet high, 5 barrows, and 3 holed stones.
Fig. 52.—MENANTOL, MADRON.
At Tregaseal, in the same county, are four holed stones in a line, the hole in each 3¼ to 3¾ inches in diameter. At St. Buryan, near a sacred circle, is an upright slab with a hole in it 5¼ inches in diameter. Another holed stone is at Trelew in St. Buryan, the hole 5 inches in diameter. Another at St. Just, 6 inches in diameter. Another upright stone 3 feet 3 inches high at Sancreed has in it a hole 3¼ inches in diameter. But there are others far larger. The Tolven near Gweep Constantine has in it a hole 1 foot 4½ inches in diameter, and the Men-an-tol at Madron, which is near Lanyon Cromlech and Boskedrian Circle, and is itself apparently one stone in a ruined circle, has in it a hole measuring 1 foot 6 inches to 1 foot 9 inches in diameter. St. Wilfred’s needle in the crypt of Ripon Minster is a hole bored in the natural rock, and girls were wont to be passed through it to prove their virtue. If they stuck in the eye of the needle they were held to be dishonest.
At Chagford in Devon again we find in connection a sacred circle, avenues, and a tolmen, or holed stone 3 feet in diameter. So also on Brimham Moor in Yorkshire; there within the memory of old men, holed stones have been used for passing children through to remove disorders. But the original purpose for which the tolmens were set up is almost certainly to furnish a means for making a covenant, for taking an oath. The woman was passed through the perforated stone before she married, as an assurance to the bridegroom that she was a pure virgin. Those entering on a covenant crawled through the hole one after another, in pledge of their having no arrière pensée, that they took the pledge to each other in full faith. There are several curious passages in the Icelandic sagas that illustrate this custom. The Icelanders were a very different race from the men who erected the megalithic monuments, but their Scandinavian ancestors came on the traces of the neolithic men, subdued them, and adopted many of their usages. In Iceland there are no holed stones, but the principle of passing through a hole was followed, and it assumed this curious form. A turf was cut so that it held in the ground at both ends, then it was raised in the midst, and those who entered on a covenant of brotherhood with each other crawled under the turf.
A ballad sung by the peasantry in the West of England relates how a gay trooper loved a fair damsel, and married her in military fashion:—
“My sword it is a Damask blade,
I bend it in a bow.
No golden ring may here be got,