It is again imperative that I should point out that if the basis of this worship was not utility it must have been started by men sufficiently skilled to indicate by their astronomical knowledge the proper times for the various operations to which I have referred. In this we see the reason for the local combination of the worship in the neighbourhood of the stones, for the stones were really the instruments which enabled the astronomer-priest to be useful to the community; that he in process of time became powerful and sacred because he was wise, and added medicine and magic to his other qualifications, was only what was to be expected.
I am not the first to have been driven by the facts to note the close association to which I have referred, that the cults were not separate but were parts of one whole.
Wood-Martin speaks with the most certain sound on this point. “It will be seen that, from a review of the whole subject, stone, water, tree, and animal-worship are intimately connected.”[83]
What the analysis in the recent chapters, taken in connection with the astronomical results previously stated, has done is perhaps to give a clear reason for the connection. Not only were the cults started together, but they remained together for a long time; it is only in quite late years that the traditions have become so dim that practices once closely connected are now dealt with apart from the rest.
Hope points out (p. xxii) that the 16th of the canons of the reign of Edgar, A.D. 963, which enjoins the clergy to be diligent, advance Christianity, and extinguish heathenism, mentions especially the worship of stones, trees, and fountains. The laws of Knut (A.D. 1018) specify the worship “of heathen gods, the sun, moon, fire, rivers, fountains, rocks, or trees.”
Now, although the folklore evidence I have brought together has been gathered for the most part from the British Isles, my inquiries have not been limited to that area.
It was natural that when the study of folklore had suggested that there was a close connection between the worship carried on in Britain at stone monuments, sacred trees, and sacred wells an attempt should have been made to see whether these three cults had been associated out of Britain with the ceremonials of any of the early peoples for which complete and trustworthy information is available.
On this point the traditions of widely sundered countries is amazingly strong.
The folklore of the Pyrenees, France, Spain and Portugal regarding sacred wells is very similar to that of Ireland. Borlase writes:[84]
“It is interesting to notice that the pre-Christian custom called dessil, or circuit around a venerated spot, which is practised in Ireland in the case of one dolmen at least, as well as at wells and Churches innumerable, is found also in Portugal.”