[873] A. Lang, Magic and Religion, pp. 245-6, 253-4. Mr. Lang (The Clyde Mystery, pp. 66, 79) observes that similar markings on rocks, &c., in different countries may have different meanings.
[874] Rectilinear figures like those which are common on pottery of the Bronze Age have also been found on these stones (Archaeol. Cambr., 6th ser., ii, 1902, pp. 209, 226-7). It seems probable that the famous ‘Cerne Giant’—a colossal human figure wielding a club—which is cut in the chalk on the hill-side east of Cerne Abbas in Dorsetshire, may belong to the Bronze Age and be connected with phallus-worship. See Vict. Hist. of ... Buckingham, i, 189. It has been pointed out (Proc. Dorset Nat. Hist. and Ant. Field Club, xxii, 1901, pp. 107-9) that it is petrographic, colossal, nude, ithyphallic, and clavigerous; and that ‘forms which possess these five characteristics have been found in the rock carvings of Scandinavia ... and belong only to the Bronze Age and to its overlap with the Early Age of Iron’. See J. J. Worsaee, Industrial Arts of Denmark, 1883, pp. 112-3.
[875] Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd ser., xx, part i, 1903-4, pp. 6-13, part ii, 1904-5, pp. 254-5; Guide to the Ant. of the Bronze Age (Brit. Museum), pp. 151-2.
[876] L’Anthr., iv, 1893, pp. 564, 721; Report of ... the Brit. Association, 1904 (1905), p. 723. Cf. Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., xix, 1885, p. 391.
[877] See p. 105, supra.
[878] J. Anderson, Scotland in Pagan Times,—the Bronze and Stone Ages, pp. 122-3.
[879] J. Anderson, Scotland in Pagan Times,—the Bronze and Stone Ages, pp. 122-3; Archaeol. Cambr., 5th ser., xvii, 1900, p. 224.
[880] I do not mean to suggest that all stone circles were derived from peristaliths; but I do not think that we should be justified in differentiating from the peristaliths by a hard and fast line those larger circles in which no traces of interment have been found. Mr. John Ward (Vict. Hist. of ... Derby, i, 169), remarking that most of the round barrows, or rather cairns, of Derbyshire consist merely of stones ‘thrown together anyhow’, says that ‘a slight advance is the introduction of a kerb of larger stones laid upon the ground to confine the proposed mound’; and he goes on to observe that in those cases in which the stones of the mound itself have been removed, the kerb ‘may remain as a ring of stones easily mistaken for a circle’. He evidently believes that the kerb was merely a structural improvement. Perhaps in Derbyshire, though even this is not certain. The object of the stone rings which have been found within cairns, and of those which stood upon barrows in Northern Germany, was certainly not utilitarian; and the kerb may have had a religious or mystical meaning. Nor is there any evidence that it was an ‘advance’ upon the structureless cairn.
[881] Archaeologia, xxxv, 1853, pp. 232-58; lii, 1890, p. 39; W. Greenwell, Brit. Barrows, p. 402; J. Anderson, Scotland in Pagan Times,—the Bronze and Stone Ages, pp. 111, 113-4, 119-23, 300-1; Journ. Brit. Archaeol. Association, N. S., vi, 1900, pp. 11-2; Journ. Anthr. Inst., xxx, 1900, pp. 57, 60, 67, 70; B. C. A. Windle, Remains of the Prehist. Age, pp. 197-204; Vict. Hist. of ... Derby, i, 181-4; Archaeol. Cambr., 6th ser., vi, 1906, p. 282.
[882] Journ. Brit. Archaeol. Association, xviii, 1862, p. 50; W. Greenwell, Brit. Barrows, p. 402; W. C. Lukis, Prehist. Stone Monuments of the Brit. Isles,—Cornwall, p. 16. The extreme rarity of stone rows in Cornwall, contrasted with their abundance on Dartmoor, suggests to Mr. G. F. Tregelles (Vict. Hist. of ... Cornwall, i, 402) ‘a difference in cult’.