“Seeing this they all with one accord, along with the aforementioned chief, prostrated themselves at St. Sampson’s feet and utterly destroyed the idol.”
It will have been noticed that the writer does not state whether the idol was of stone or of wood; nor is it quite clear whether it was itself the object of worship or the representation or symbol of a god. Probably it was the latter.
Whatever its nature and character the saint decided upon its destruction and marked the sign of the cross not upon it but upon a stone standing in its vicinity. It does not seem likely that the word abominable (simulacrum abominabile) would have been employed to describe a wheel-headed stone. The idol was probably a fetich pure and simple or possibly a symbol of nature worship.
Whatever may have been the purposes for which menhirs were erected during the neolithic period and whatever adoration may have been paid them by succeeding races—we have no evidence that such adoration was paid—it appears certain that they had nothing to do with sun worship. The Minoan symbolism, as such, which included the cross or rather the wheel with four spokes (in this connection a better and more accurate description because it explains the most beautiful form which it assumed as the swastika), is entirely absent from the prehistoric monuments of Western Europe.[[31]] The stone crosses of Cornwall are not of an earlier date than the sixth or seventh century of our era, and by that time not only was the county actively Christian but the Minoan symbolism was dead, buried and forgotten.
Stones may be, and in many ages and in many lands have been, venerated for their supposed powers and virtues. Such stones, especially in Brittany, have received Christianisation, that is, have been marked with or surmounted by a cross within comparatively modern times. There is no reason why some such course may not have suggested itself to the Cornish Christians of the seventh and succeeding centuries. But the golden age of Celtic Christianity was during the latter half of the seventh and first half of the eighth century, and at that time Cornwall was in constant communication with Ireland, the centre of Christian learning.[[32]]
About 270 stone crosses are to be found in Cornwall. They are mostly of granite and have been fashioned by means of iron implements, in some instances with considerable taste and skill.
They are too well known to require description. To suppose them to have been erected by sun worshippers in the sixth and succeeding centuries is to suppose the prevalence of a religion in Cornwall which at that time prevailed nowhere else in Europe and concerning which history is silent. On the other hand, to suppose them to have been originally connected with nature worship of a peculiarly revolting character and to have been Christianised by signing them with the sign of the cross is highly improbable if, as the maintainers of this hypothesis assert, that sign was regarded as pagan.
A much simpler and more convincing explanation is that the stone crosses were erected in order to disaffect and sanctify places which from time immemorial had been devoted to old pagan superstitions.[[33]] This at any rate has the merit of being in accordance with the facts disclosed by the Sampson episode. Moreover, it avoids the anachronism which connects them with sun worship, while at the same time it disallows the charge of incredible folly which must otherwise be imputed to the founders of Cornish Christianity if we suppose those earnest men to have retained a degrading symbol of nature worship with little or no modification of its structural features.