"Did people offer human sacrifices on all of them?"
"I fancy not. But I believe it is tolerably uncertain. Did you never see a picture of Stonehenge?"
Maggie knew nothing about Stonehenge. Meredith went to the bookcases again and got another volume. This contained many illustrations of old stone monuments of various kinds, and he and Maggie were soon absorbed in studying them.
"There!" cried Maggie, as he opened at one of the earliest illustrations, "there, Ditto! that is very like—very like—what you read of the stone-houses. Isn't it?"
"Fearfully like," said Meredith. "This is in Ireland. I dare say some of those old Druids sacrificed men on it."
"How could they set it up so? Look, Ditto—the top stone rests just on one point at the lowest end. I should think it would topple down."
"It has stood hundreds of years, Maggie, and will stand for all time—unless an earthquake shakes it down. This dolmen is made of four stones."
"What is a dolmen?"
"This is one. It says here in a note, that the name comes 'from the Celtic word Daul, a table, and Chen or Chaen, a stone.' A stone table. And it says here that there are probably a hundred of such dolmens in Great Britain and Ireland. How ever did the builders get that enormous block poised on the tips of the other three?"
Slowly and absorbedly the two went on exploring the pages of the book; stopping to read, stopping to talk and discuss the questions of tumuli and stone circles, dolmens and menhirs. The opinion of the author, that the great circles commemorated great battles, and were raised in honour of the dead buried within them, and that many dolmens had a sepulchral character, was somewhat confusing to the Druidical and tragical impressions left from the Saxon chronicle; which, however, at last got an undeniable support. In the stones of Stennis, over which Maggie and Meredith pondered with intense interest, one of the enormous up-standing masses has a hole through it. And this stone, there is no doubt, was dedicated to Woden. And so long had the superstition of Woden's worship clung to it, that until very lately an oath sworn by persons joining their hands through this hole, was reckoned especially sacred; even the courts of law so recognising it. After that, Woden seemed to Maggie to have strong claim to all the upright stones and altar-looking dolmens that are found where the worship of Woden has once prevailed. Leaving Stennis they went on to Runic crosses, German dolmens, and French dolmens, and on and on, from country to country. When at last they lifted up their heads and looked around them, they were alone. The girls had gone off to bed; the worsted work lay, left on the table; the fire was out; the minute-hand pointed to ten o'clock. Meredith and Maggie glanced at each other and smiled.