About twelve years ago I dug up a menhir that had lain for certainly three centuries under ground, and had served on one side as a wall for the “leat” or conduit of water to the manorial mill. There was no mistaking the character of the stone. It was of fine grained granite, and had been brought from a distance of some eight miles. It was unshaped at the base, and marked exactly how much of it had been sunk in the ground. It stood when re-erected 10 feet 10 inches above the surface. The singular feature in it is this. At the summit, which measures 15 inches by 12 inches, is a small cup 3 inches deep sunk in the stone, 4½ inches in diameter, and distinctly artificial. Now, that the monolith had been standing upright for a vast number of years, was shown by this fact, that the rain water, accumulating in the artificial cup, driven by the prevailing S.W. wind, had worn for itself a lip, and in its flow had cut itself a channel down the side of the stone opposite to the direction of the wind to the distance of 1 foot 6 inches.

Fig. 56.—THE CUP ON THE TOP.

Fig. 57.—SECTION OF THE CUP.

What can this cup have been intended for? It is probable that it was a receptacle for rain water, which was to serve for the drink of the dead man above whom the monolith was erected. The Rev. W. C. Lukis, one of the highest authorities on such matters, was with me at the time of the re-erection of this monolith, and it then occurred to him that the holes at the top of so many of the Brittany menhirs, in which now crosses are planted, were not made for the reception of the bases of these crosses, but already existed in the menhirs, and were utilised in Christian times for the erection therein of crosses which sanctified the old heathen monuments. Some upright stones have the cup-hollows cut in their sides, so that nothing could rest in them; but I venture to suggest that these may be symbolic cups, carved after their use, as food and drink receptacles, had been abandoned.

Fig. 58.—THE FURROW DOWN THE SIDE.

Mr. Romilly Allen, in a paper on some sculptured rocks near Ilkley in Yorkshire,[50] that have these cup-hollows, says, “The classes of monuments on which they are found are as follows:—

1.Natural rock surfaces.
2.Isolated boulders.
3.Near ancient British (?) fortified towns and camps.
4.In connection with the lake-dwellings, undergroundhouses, and Pictish towers.
5.On single standing stones.Sepulchral remains.
6.On groups of standing stones.
7.On stone circles.
8.On cromlechs (dolmens).
9.In chambered cairns.
10.On cist-covers.
11.On urn-covers.
12.On gravestones in Christian churchyards.
13.On the walls of churches themselves.