Borlase, Antiquities of Cornwall, book iii. c. 2.
I fancy the word which Martin rendered a bowing stone, is cromlech, or crom liagh.
As regards the ancient monuments of stone worship in Cornwall, the most learned and the most ample information is contained in Borlase's Antiquities of that county; but there their worship ceased, though not till several centuries after the introduction of Christianity. Borlase says:
"After Christianity took place, many continued to worship these stones; coming thither with lighted torches, and praying for safety and success: and this custom we can trace through the fifth and sixth centuries; and even into the seventh, as will appear from the prohibitions of several Councils."
Borlase, Antiq. Corn., b. iii. c. ii. p. 162.
In all parts of Ireland these stone pillars are to be found in comparative frequency. Accounts of them will be found in The Ancient and Present State of the County Down, A.D./sc> 1744; in Wakeman's Handbook of Irish Antiquities, and in various similar authorities. A writer in the Archæologia for A.D. 1800 says that many of the stone crosses which form so interesting and beautiful a feature in Irish antiquities were originally pagan pillar-stones, on which the cross was sculptured subsequent to the introduction of Christianity, in order that—
"The common people, who were not easily to be diverted from their superstitious reverence for these stones, might pay a kind of justifiable adoration to them when thus appropriated to the use of Christian memorials by the sign of the cross."
Archæol. vol. xiii. p. 208.
The tenacity of the Irish people to this ancient superstition is established by the fact of its continuance to the present day in the sequestered island of Inniskea. And it seems to me that it would be an object of curious inquiry, if your correspondents could ascertain whether this be the last remnant of pillar worship now remaining in Europe; and especially whether any further trace of it is to be found in any other portion of the British dominions.
J. EMERSON TENNENT.