I am inclined to take the former view. It is quite certain that for the clock-stars other observations besides those on the horizon would soon have suggested themselves for determining the lapse of time during the night. The old, high, bleak, treeless moorlands might then in process of time have been gradually forsaken, and life may have gone on in valleys and even in sheltered woods, except on the chief festivals. When this was so astronomy and superstition would give way to politics and other new human interests, and the priests would become in a wider sense the leaders and the teachers of the more highly organised community.
It is clear that in later days as at the commencement they were still ahead in the knowledge of the time. “Hi terrae mundique magnitudinem et formam, motus coeli ac siderum, ac quod dii velunt sciere profitentur” is Pomponius Mela’s statement concerning them.[130] From 1500 B.C. to Cæsar’s time is a long interval, and yet the astronomical skill of the so-called Druids, who beyond all question were the descendants of our astronomical-priests, was then a matter of common repute. Cæsar’s account of the Druids in Gaul (Bello Gallico, vi. c. 13, 14, 15) is extremely interesting because it indicates, I think, that the Druid culture had not passed through Gaul and had therefore been waterborne to Britain, whither the Gauls therefore went to study it.[131]
Simultaneously with the non-use of the ancient stones, we may imagine that the priests—of ever-increasing importance—no longer dwelt in their cromlechs, but, rather, occupied such buildings as those which remain at Chysoister, and from this date it is possible that burials may have taken place in some of the mounds then given up as dwelling places. As sacred places they were subsequently used for burials, as Westminster Abbey has been; but burials were not the object of their erection.[132] This new habit may have started the practice of cist burial by later people in barrows thrown up for that special purpose.
I cannot close this Chapter without expressing my admiration of the learning and acumen displayed by Dr. Borlase in his treatment of the subject of the Druids in his History of Cornwall, published in 1769; I find he has anticipated me in suggesting that the hollowed stones were used for fires. It is clear, now that the monuments have been dated, that the astronomical knowledge referred to by Cæsar and Pomponius Mela was no new importation; if, therefore, the present view of ethnologists that the Celtic intrusion took place about 1000 B.C. is correct, it is certain the Celts brought no higher intelligence with them than was possessed by those whom they found here; nor is this to be expected if, as the inquiry has suggested, the latter were the representatives of the highest civilisation of the East with which possibly the former had never been brought into contact.
[127] The Testimony of Tradition.
[128] History of Human Marriage, Chapter II.
[129] Celtic Folklore, ii., 654.
[130] Pomp. Mela, Lib. II. c. 2. I have already ([p. 52]) quoted Cæsar’s testimony to the same effect.
[131] “Disciplina in Britannia reperta, atque in Galliam translata esse existimatur.”—C. Bell. Gall. lib. vi. c. 13. This “discipline” also included magic according to Pliny. “Britannia hodie eam (i.e. Magiam) attonite celebrat tantis ceremoniis, ut eam Persis dedisse videri possit” (lib. xxx. c. 1.)